THE BIRDS - Out...For now.
By The Aspergian Mind
A/N: Writing project after watching "The Birds" in the fall of 2008. Since it ended at a cliffhanger my Advance Writing class was assigned to write what would happen next. One day I just remembered and decided to post it, just to fill in between my long secessions of not posting anything.
Let's get out while we still have the chance.
Mitch Brenner gradually puts more pressure on the gas pedal. The birds are stirring again. From behind he hears them shrieking, whistling, cawing, cooing, screeching, flapping, they sound like they were getting hysterical again. He overlooks the left shoulder; the birds are still lounging on the ground for now, but worse can still come to worse.
They are hundreds of them surrounding their house, but they seem merely like a small attack squad to the thousands in Bodega Bay. He takes the road around and out of town. A brief nearing of the town before putting it behind them. Out of all events for the extraordinary, he'd least expected or wanted it to be in his beautiful town.
He looks over his right shoulder to check everyone in the car. Melanie Daniels, is resting on his mother Lydia's chest, her eyes were fixed wide open like being zoned out remembering that ill-considerate trip to the attic.
"I could still see them flying all around me, towards me, pecking me to bits." Melanie says blankly, numbed with absent feeling.
Lydia tries to focus their worries elsewhere. "What did the radio say?"
"Bodega Bay has been evacuated, still some pockets left though." Mitch recollects. "They've been attacks in the surrounding towns, roads are blocked, and it's being debated whether the Military should be involve."
Cathy becomes anxious. "Why would they block the roads?"
That was the biggest question he thought of when hearing that announced. "Likely to prevent people from going in to see it for themselves, don't want to gather a crowd to be victimized. Or could be outposts for the authorities to check the progress from a safe perimeter." That's got to be the rightful answer.
"No matter what you can do, they always aim for the face." Melanie speaks.
None of the birds were on the hills, and going over them, the besieged town was out of sight. These rolling hills seem normal and at peace, it's perplexed to see the exact opposite immediately after one frightful day. He felt relieved of the tension having lost sight of them. A glimpse back even sees Melanie shutting her eyes, resting. People who came to Bodega Bay would come for that same thing.
They are to keep following the road and it'll get to the freeway, fastest route to relieve and from danger. The radio said they were road blocks around the area; military hasn't been called in yet so maybe it's the police doing it. Well not to worry, they wouldn't block it to keep people from getting out.
Around the next hill, there is what they were warned of, a road block just a mile from the freeway. They were a couple dozen police officers, a few news reporters, and a couple dozen of what looks to be birdwatchers, or ornithologists to be more professional. There are even a couple cars placed down the line of hills one by one. Mitch slowed down up to the block just as one of the officers approaches.
"I'm Lieutenant Langdon, are you from the Bodega Bay area?"
Mitch might as well answer his questions quick and straight forward to get moving to the nearest hospital. "Yes."
"What's been going on?" Was the next question.
"The birds have stopped attacking; we all took the initiative to get out by car when we have the chance. I've heard that some surrounding towns have also experienced attacks as well."
"Yes. It appears that birds have been gathering within a radius of quite some miles. Haven't seen any for the past 30 miles from where I went from my station to here." The Lieutenant answers.
Mitch needs one more question before moving on. "What news has there been of a possible military response?" Lieutenant gathers his thoughts. "Nope, nothing military involved in this situation, just some rescue teams on convoys to aid the evacuees and to reach those stranded."
"What about the assurance of an attack?"
"So far I've heard reports of them gathering in key locations and attacking the citizens there, and then nothing. Just up and at it move there."
A couple of "birdwatchers" come down to the car. "We heard the news. Frankly I would have never believed it. What was the primary force?"
Mitch didn't want to get stuck with more questions that time would allow him. "Gulls, since this is the coast, crows, and just about every bird I could tell."
The next asked his question. "Were the flocks a coalition or were each a single species."
Melanie eyes start to glisten with reminisce of a fresh and horrible experience and hides her teary face in Lydia's chest. Mitch needs to help Melanie by getting her far from the paranormal as possible. "Yes. Now please let us by so we can get to her to a hospital."
The Lieutenant looks into the back at Melanie, seeing her current condition. "Okay. Go ahead."
Lieutenant signals the officers to move the barricade. Mitch gets the car moving, but the bird fanatics are still reluctant to get answers from them, first hand witnesses. "Sir, has there been any strange occurrences in the region that could theorize this…?" The voiced faded as they drove off, leaving pass the road block.
They got to the freeway, and they haven't seen a single bird in the sky or trees or a car on the road all the way into driving until they did see some large green trucks filled with men, pyrotechnics, and gas canisters. Circumstances must of changed, hopefully our men could combat any situation that would be a domestic threat.
Forty-five minutes later they arrive at the hospital, and still not a single bird has been spotted. All the windows are boarded up in the hospital and all buildings. Mitch leaves the car and helps Lydia bring in Melanie and Cathy comes in last bringing in the love birds. Those two birds haven't done any harm while all the world's other feathered inhabitants suddenly decide to wage war on the bare-skinned ones.
But then the nurse at the front desk says, "Sorry, no pets allowed." Cathy was disappointed. "Wait outside, it's alright. There are no birds around." It was all Mitch could offer.
Cathy waited on a bench seated between the double-door entrances, not quite considered inside. Mitch turns his focus on Melanie, she needs the attention now. "We need a doctor for her, she's been brutally attacked by birds." Mitch would expect a brief response of disbelief that they received from everyone when the attacks were starting, but not from her.
"Alright, we have one available. Are you from the Bodega Bay?" Mitch feels this has to do with the birds, but answers and asks to be sure.
"Yes. Why?"
"We have received a lot of patients who left Bodega Bay, and we are the closest hospital so why not?"
A doctor came in and took Melanie. "Don't worry; you're not where the birds are." Melanie gave her one normal response she hasn't given in a long time. "Birds" She scoffs "Might as well have created a new phobia for myself." Humorous sarcasm is something she finally manages to say that sounded coherent. He hopes that she'll forget the whole thing and go back to the woman he enjoyed, and started to love, that weekend.
Mitch holds on to Lydia's shoulder and she walks down to sit next to Cathy. What a tense morning it's been and there's the whole day ahead still.
"How are you doing?" The nurse asked. What kind of question is that? Probably has to do with how they've coped with it, Mitch thought. Some talk could ease him. "Better now than what I was before."
The nurse isn't much of talker, but knows it'll help to talk to them. "Who's the family we have here."
Mitch was in thought when realizing he was asked into a conversation. "That was Melanie. We were barely acquainted with each other till she came over from San Francisco to give my sister a birthday present." Mitch answers.
The nurse is getting interested. "Why would she?"
Mitch continues. "We meet occasionally meet. I am a lawyer and her father was in charge of a newspaper company in Francisco."
"Oh, that Melanie, Melanie Brenner, right?" The nurse is getting intrigued now and then asks. "Wasn't she that woman in that "Nude at the Fountain" Incident in Rome?"
Mitch fondly remembers that exact conversation he had with Melanie and takes her word in defense of that. "Another newspaper company of her father published that, alternating details to get the competitor."
The Nurse heard all she could ask about the Melanie Brenner, she likes to know the others. "Who are the other two?"
Mitch feels good to be relieved from the stress of bad things in this conversation, so he goes on some more. "She's my sister, Cathy." He points to Cathy. "And that's my Mom, Lydia." He points to her.
"I'm sorry to have her wait outside with those lovebirds, just policy." The Nurse says apologetically.
Mitch doesn't mind. "Don't worry."
"It's also has to do with all that's going around with the birds. Have they done anything peculiar?"
"No, they haven't done a thing." Mitch doesn't know why. "What do you think?"
The Nurse can't think of anything, just this theory. "Maybe they've been under our care in domestication so much, they don't see any reason to be angry at us."
"You know, I haven't spotted any chickens being apart of it any. None from which I could tell from those swarms." That's about all they can think of in a wide epidemic. Not all are effected and they just don't know why.
"You need a doctor to look at that?" Mitch studies his pecked up arm, it was quite a nasty job those beaks did. "No, I'm fine, your staff's attention should focus on those who need it the most. How many patients they got here?"
The nurse answers. "Seventy-five. Most are from Bodega Bay."
"Where is everyone? If there are so many patients, where are others?"
The nurse isn't sure. "All at the motels waiting, I guess. Many said they'll be back after going to the hardware store and a couple even said about getting guns." Mitch sees the seriousness of the situation has only increased just as they were settling down here. "Something as ludicrous as birds ambushing people, whatever gave them the idea so inclusive of an impulse isn't going to be a problem in just one area I fear."
All was calm when a group of a dozen doctors, one of them the same doctor who they Melanie to, came rushing to the front desk. Mitch walks up to them. The doctors seem to share a same objective, but he hopes that this doctor would be the contrary an give an answer about Melanie.
"Is she alright?" The doctor didn't listen, just walked by to get to the nurse. He was wrong.
"Turn on the television. They've just announced it on the radio, but I need to see it myself."
The nurse turns on the T.V. and the first image to pop up was footage of New York City from twenty-five miles away, with what appears to be storm clouds swarming over it. They all think that those have to be storm clouds. No, those massive objects are too fast and fluid moving for a cloud. What that one looming object really is are tens of millions of smaller objects, all birds.
The Bulletin says: New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angelos are Under Siege.
The news reporter was just finishing his declaring statement. "--this is just the igniting flame for the explosion. For at the same time massive unpopulated regions, such as the Great Plains and The Rockies, are accumulating into flocks that would dwarf the now-extinct Passenger Pigeon's flocks of the billions when they were still around. There have been few reported 'skirmishes' in the rural smaller towns, which started the chain of events, but are now seen as insignificant compared to now."
Next footage shown are endless colonies of gulls making their own white clouds over Pudget Sound and roasting on the Golden Gate Bridge.
While here, all is quite...for now.
No wonder they aren't any around this town or at the hospital. They are gathering first in the largest of flocks from the wilds where man is absent and the cities where man is centered at, all at the same time to then launch their plague.
All the birds who would or wouldn't pack together are forming the supernatural. Murder of crows, wake of buzzards, seige of cranes, bevy of doves, aerie of eagles, flock of ducks, charm of finches, skein of geese, colony of gulls, shoal of herrings, hedge of herons, scold of jays, watch of nightingales, rookery of pigeons, storytelling of ravens, host of sparrows, flight of swallows, wedge of swans, descent of woodpeckers. They are all coming together.
This is just the beginning of this great congregation of the Aves Class of animals against the Homo Sapiens species.
Mitch realized that driving off to anywhere else is irrelevant.
They have only gotten out...for now.
A/N: R&R please. Do see how the grammar is. Often over extensive time when I look back I try to understand what I was thinking then and am thinking now. I had to go over a lot the past couple days to make it presentable and up to my current standards. So check if despite my updating if there are still noticeable flaws.