THE ROOKERY, by Kurt Newton

“How’s your fingers, son?”

Poppa made sure to wear his gloves. I left mine at home.

“Fine, sir, I guess.”

My teeth chattered. The gun felt like ice in my hands. I slid my grip and held it by the wood stock.

Poppa didn’t have much patience with forgetting things. Poppa had been in the wars. In the wars if you forgot something it could be your death. Poppa called it a life lesson. I didn’t understand how dying could be a life lesson.

Poppa stopped ahead of me. I was watching the leaves and sticks blur under my feet and nearly walked into him.

“Do you hear that, son?”

I turned my ear to the cold air. All I heard was the rustle of my jacket and my breathing. But then I heard something else. A strange kind of noise like a hundred different murmurs sounding at once.

“That’s them. We’re close,” Poppa said. The look in his eyes told me to keep quiet. He led the way.

We moved slow from tree to tree. The noises grew louder but all I saw ahead was bare woods. It all looked the same until Poppa pointed. And there they were, just as he’d said. The ones that had been eating all the crops and carrying all that disease. Poppa said why wait to kill them when they’re grown. It was best to kill them before they left the nest. Or better yet before they were even born.

Poppa got as close as he could without being seen. We didn’t worry about being heard because the noise was so loud. It was the strangest noise, all high and low and swirling around. There were all kinds of movements too, as if they were one beast churning like a storm cloud inside their house of sticks.

Poppa cocked his gun. He nodded for me to do the same. My fingers were so cold they hurt. On the count of three we moved in.

Poppa fired first. It was loud and shook the trees. The sound must have made me jump because my gun went off. I saw a puff of sticks and what looked like feathers. Poppa fired again. Sticks splintered everywhere and what was behind them made a horrible sound. They raced round and round but there was nowhere for them to go. Poppa and I just kept firing until their movements stopped and there was nothing left but a strange gurgling noise and something between a whistle and a whisper.

Poppa put his gun aside and tore through the wall of sticks. He stood in the opening and pulled out his hunting knife. “Let’s finish ’em off, son.”

I stood outside looking in as Poppa poked his knife into each one that was still moving. I didn’t have the nerve to tell Poppa that I’d forgotten my knife too. But he figured it out soon enough. This time though he wasn’t mad.

He handed me his knife and said, “Go on, son.” He’d left a few still alive. The knife stuck to my fingers.

I stepped inside the house of sticks and made Poppa proud.