Little Birds: A "Creeperz" Short Story

Little Birds:

  A “Creeperz” Short Story

  By Rusty Fischer, author of Creeperz

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  Little Birds

  Rusty Fischer

  Copyright 2014 by Rusty Fischer

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  This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, places and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

  Cover credit: © Jag_cz – Fotolia.com

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  Author’s Note:

  The following is a short Halloween story. Any errors, typos, grammar or spelling issues are completely the fault of the witches, ghouls, werewolves, vampires and zombies. (They’re not very patient with the editorial process!)

  Anyway, I hope you can overlook any minor errors you may find. Enjoy and… Happy Halloween!

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  Little Birds:

  A “Creeperz” Short Story

  I meet Nathan around the corner from his house, like every year.

  He’s standing there, in the little park at the end of Mott Street, wearing a ghost costume.

  I frown and tug on his sheet. He turns around, and I chuckle. He must be wearing a mask under his ghost sheet because his nose is really big.

  “What gives?” I ask, straightening the jack o’ lantern cinch sack on the shoulders of my pirate vest. “I thought you were going as Spiderman this year?”

  He shrugs his ghost shoulders and shakes his head. “Changed my mind,” he croaks in a super creepy ghost voice that literally gives me the shivers.

  “Okayyyyyy,” I say, rolling my eyes even though one is hidden by a scratchy plastic eye patch. “Well, are you going to use that voice all night, or just when we trick or treat? Cuz… it’s kinda creeping me out.”

  He shrugs again but if I know Nathan like I know Nathan, he’ll do it all night just to bug the crap out of me. We head off down Mott Street and I wave my little flashlight with the pumpkin head over the light. Every time I see a little rock on the sidewalk, I pick it up and put it in the pocket of my black pirate pants with the hems cut into little points.

  “For later,” I chuckle, elbowing Nathan in the middle of his ghost sheet. I feel my elbow against his bony rib cage but he doesn’t make an “ouch” or “oomph” sound like he normally does, so I shrug and keep going.

  The streets are alive with trick or treaters, most of them little kids wearing store bought costumes that rip about halfway through the night. Their cheeks are all sweaty and they scream and giggle, running away from every house and comparing the goodies just dropped in their trick or treat bags.

  Yeah, I remember all that… back in second grade or whatever. But now we’re in 5th grade, Nathan and I, and we’re only out tonight for two things: candy and what comes after!

  Only, Nathan’s forgotten his trick or treat sack, so at every door I have to say, “Trick or treat… can I have some for my ghost buddy, here? He forgot his treat sack.”

  “It’s lame,” I grumble after about two streets worth of double begging. “I’ve never known you to forget your treat sack before.”

  “Sorry,” he croaks in that creepy voice he won’t quit using, even when nobody else is listening.

  I shiver and say, “And we’re alone now, you don’t have to talk like that!”

  A dry little chuckle makes the mouth of his ghost sheet flutter. “Sorry,” he croaks. “I can’t help it. Too much screaming today in PE.”

  I shake my head, muttering as we move down the street to the next house. “Must have been while I was in the bathroom,” I grumble under my breath, “because you barely said anything all period.”

  He does his little shrug thing and we hit up a few more houses but with double the candy, my pumpkin cinch sack is getting heavy and my pirate makeup is sweating off and the eye patch is scratchy and I say, “Ready to hang it up for the night?”

  Nathan nods, his big mask nose scratching against the white face of his ghost costume. I sigh and rip off my eye patch and red and white striped pirate bandana and shove them in my trick or treat sack, snagging a candy bar while I’m rooting around in there.

  “Here,” I say, handing it to him. “You must be starving.”

  Nathan and I have been best friends since he moved onto Mott Street just before kindergarten. He eats about fifteen times a day, no lie. But now he shakes his head. “I’ll eat later,” he says, the sheet scratching against his big mask nose as he looks right at me. At least, I think he’s looking right at me.

  I shrug and dig into the candy bar, savoring the chocolate and almonds and nougat and coconut inside.

  We walk on auto-pilot down to Coffin Lake, where every fall the crows gather on the dead, crooked tree branches that line the shore. My pockets are full of rocks, overflowing with perfectly round pebbles – which are just the best for pegging dumb old crows on the noggin’ and watching them fall, lifeless, into the flat, dull water below.

  Most years, Nathan and I bag a dozen or more each, until the glassy, flat water is filled with floating crows, bobbing, dead and already cold.

  But I can tell something’s wrong as we climb down the riverbank. Usually I can hear the crows cackling and cawing from two blocks away, but this year… nothing.

  The whole shoreline is quiet as a church on Monday night.

  I shine my pumpkin flashlight along the dead, scraggly trees and… they’re all bare. “What gives?” I ask as Nathan shuffles up next to me. “Where have all the crows gone?”

  “The bottom of the stream,” he croaks, voice as cold as the chill October air. “Probably.”

  I chuckle, to think our handiwork has killed off every crow that used to flock to Coffin Lake. I stare at the water, so cold and black, and picture a graveyard full of crow’s bones just beneath the surface. Wing bones and gray, leathery claws and dead beaks as white as snow.

  “What am I going to do with all these rocks then?” I ask, turning back to Nathan.

  He doesn’t answer. Instead, he starts tugging at the ghost costume, the sheet sliding down farther and farther along his head. Only, it’s not his head. The sheet falls away, pooling on the ground at his feet. Only, they’re not his feet.

  There is no Nathan. There was no Nathan, this whole time. Beneath the sheet is a giant bird skeleton, made of hundreds of tiny little bird skeletons. The skull is round and the long nose wasn’t a mask under there; it was a beak, made out of dozens of little bird beaks.

  It’s like a giant bird built out of millions of little birds; bird rib cage built out of little tiny bird rib cages, bird arms built out of little tiny bird wings, hiding there beneath that sheet, all that time.

  The skull is bone white and creepy, with big, round black eye sockets that stare down at me, empty, deep and cold. The mouth clatters when it speaks. “Why don’t you try throwing them at me, Bobby?” it croaks but I stand there, helpless, the rocks falling between my trembling fingers.

  “Where… where’s Nathan?”

  The bird skull chuckles, broken, rattling jaw rasping as it croaks, “You’ll find out soon enough, Bobby. You’ll find out soon enough where little boys who throw rocks at crows wind up… when the crows have their revenge!”

  I turn, running, but the crow skeleton is fast; too fast. It blocks me at every turn, giant bird arms blocking my progress and tearing at my costume and slicing at my skin.

  I try to run left, then right, then back up the river bank, but the beak clatters and tears, the claws rip and scratch until I stand, heaving, on the river bank.

  The mud is wet beneath my feet, the water lapping against my pirate
sandals. “Let me go!” I shout. “Help! Someone help me!”

  But Coffin Lake is far from the happy, safe, flickering houses of Mott Street, where the children are probably heading home now, patting jack o’ lanterns on the porch as they climb up and into their houses, there to crumble to the floor and count up all the loot.

  And here I am, crouching on a muddy bank, being terrorized by a giant bird skeleton thing ghost guy!

  “Please,” I pant, “I’m sorry. I never… I never meant to hurt the crows. Just scare them.”

  “Liar!” it shrieks, and for once its voice sounds like a crow’s “caw,” cold and high and fierce. “You could have waved your arms and scared us, Bobby! Caw! You could have stepped on a dried twig and scared us. Caw, caw! You threw those rocks to hurt us, Bobby! Caw! You threw those rocks to kill”

  It slashes out with one bony talon, slashing at my fake leather pirate vest. It tatters and tears and I feel the sting of sliced skin beneath. “I’ll give you a choice, Bobby,” says the Bird Skeleton, inching forward on bony bird feet. “You can stand here and let me tear you to pieces, or you can swim away, swim as far as you can, where my bony body can’t follow…”

  I turn, excited, and splash into the water. “Ha!” I shout, turning to see the Bird Skeleton standing on the banks, bony beak open, as if disappointed. “Ha! Ha! Ha!”

  I turn back around, scanning the far side of the lake, dead white trees ringing it like bones sticking out of the cold, wet ground. I’m trudging along, trudging, when suddenly the bottom of the bank falls off and I’m drifting, down, down, struggling to stay afloat as I splash against the water’s surface.

  But I can’t, no matter how hard I try. I splash and gulp, wishing I’d taken those swimming lessons Mom was always after me about every summer.

  I turn back, somehow struggling to the safety of the shallows when Skeleton Bird creaks into the water, crawling forward, hunched over, beak clattering as he swipes his fused bird talons through the air. They slice through the water, closer, closer, until they swipe at my knuckles, turning the clear surface of Coffin Lake bloody red as I wince and roll away.

  I gasp and swim away, dipping down again, down, splattering, coughing, choking, hoping to follow the shallows but he follows, step for step, splash for splash, slicing and biting and nipping at the water every time I draw near.

  My arms grow tired and the cold water has made my cuts numb, but I begin sinking down, down, deeper and deeper, struggling to stay above the surface. But it’s such a struggle!

  Suddenly I remember all the rocks in my pocket! I reach for them, digging them out in great, big handfuls, but I’m falling, fast, to the bottom of the stream.

  Too late I find Nathan, floating at the bottom of the lake, eyes wide in horror, face pecked to slashes, mouth open in a silent, frozen scream.

  Like mine will be, I guess.

  Forever…

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  About the Author

  Rusty Fischer specializes in writing seasonal short stories for the YA paranormal audience. Read more of Rusty’s FREE stories at www.rushingtheseason.com. Happy Reading and, as always, Happy Holidays… whatever time of year it might be!!!