97. The Sign

When we make the corner to turn onto the road that winds back and forth up the steep mountain toward Iris and her mountain inn, I can almost feel the change that we drive through. Like a car wash in the middle of the North Pole. The temperature drops, and the car seems to slow down.

Then the birds start to attack.

I’m shivering as I hold the steering wheel and begin the ascent when a blanket of squirming, scratching beasts seem to cover our car. It’s not like a few suddenly peck away at the window. It’s more like a battalion of soldiers all attacking at the same time.

Jared curses and ducks as I pound on the brake and jerk the car to a halt.

“Keep going, man, keep going.”

Jagged itching frantic obsessed crazed birds. That’s what they are.

The bluebird has sent its troops down.

I can’t tell what kind of birds because there are too many. Big and small and all of them one massive cluster of madness.

Jared rips at my sleeve and forces me to look at him. “Go. Get up that mountain. Now.”

I get the car moving, and for a while I’m driving in blindness. It takes me a while to find the windshield wipers, and they don’t do much good. Jared tries to open his window to get them away, but then he howls and shuts the window and holds his hand.

For a second the noise is unbearable and the frenetic motion is crazy.

Get out of here back up and back away.

“Keep driving, Chris!”

I jerk to a halt again, then accelerate, then shift a couple of times to try and get the birds off.

A sliver in the throbbing black mess on the windshield shows the road curving to the right, so I turn and keep going.

And then, like a blurry dream, the birds are gone. Again I stop the car and listen to my breathing.

“Keep going, Chris.”

“What was that?”

He curses and says he has no idea but this isn’t the place to stop.

I’m still cold and I suddenly feel scared.

You shouldn’t be here. Not like this. Not with him.

“You need me to drive?” he asks.

“No.”

A small shape flickers in the air above us. Then it suddenly bolts away like all the other birds did.

Whatever kind of sign that was, I know that it wasn’t a good one.