This was a quick exercise that I had to do for school and I thought I'd see what others thought of it. No particular title but suggestions are welcome, please review if you can.
That bloody cat! I pulled my quilt up over my head as I crouched on the floor. If I found one more dead bird under my bed… I ground my teeth as I picked up the tiny body. It looked so helpless, just a tiny sparrow, covered in blood and feathers and torn flesh. I hated that cat, the horrible thing; it was my stepfathers and aside from him being useless he also had a disgusting obsession with cats. Our ugly tomcat, Jerry, had been his wedding gift to my Mother. I'll never forget her face when she lifted the lid off the box and he struck out at her with a paw, slashing needle sharp claws across her face. There were still a few blood stains on the wedding dress in her closet.
I lifted the bird into my hand and walked out to the garden. Grabbing a shovel I made my way to the tiny plot in our backyard where I buried all the dead birds I found. There are already twelve graves there and those are just the birds I've found. I'm sure that he's probably killed many more and left them under my Mum and Stepfathers bed, but my Stepdad doesn't like me 'being silly over a lot of dead animals' and my Mum won't contradict him. I finished shovelling dirt back over the bird's body and put a little wooden cross over the site, I have a lot of these. The bird is buried deep enough that the cat won't find him. I sprinkled lemon juice over the soil (Jerry hates the sour taste) and then walked back to the house.
When Mum came home she noticed the freshly turned earth in the backyard. "Jerry kill another one?" she asked, raising her eyebrows. I nodded, afraid that if I spoke I'd say horrible things about both Jerry and my Stepfather. I've done this a few times already, but it always hurts Mum so I try to control my temper.
Anyway, the rest of the afternoon passed pretty much normally. Henry (my Stepfather) came home and threw himself onto the couch (as usual). He ordered my Mum to bring him a beer and she did (as usual). I don't know why she married him, he's such a loser. After tea I went into the lounge room and watched some T.V until Mum called. She wanted me to go get a mousetrap from the shed so I threw on some flats and nearly tripped down the front steps, slamming the door behind me. The kitchen window was open and I could see Henry staring out at my burial plot. There was an odd expression on his face, a mixture of anger and pain. He turned to someone whom I assumed was my Mother and said, "I want those crosses taken down, they disfigure the backyard". My Mother murmured something in response and Henry snarled. I closed my ears and walked quickly away from the house. As I walked past the bird graves I noticed something lying on the ground. It was a perfectly preserved bird skeleton. The beak was gone and there was a round hole in the skull where it would have been with one of my small wooden crosses protruding from it. I frowned and knelt down; none of the graves had been disturbed. The skeleton was a pearly white colour, not stained or filthy like it should be. I stooped and prodded at the bones, they were hard and real. At that moment Henry roared from the house, "Hurry up with that trap". I glanced again at the skeleton and then picked it up, wrapping it in my coat as I pushed into the shed and took a trap from the second shelf on the right. I ran back to the house and left the mousetrap on the hall table, then raced up to my room to examine the skeleton.
Shutting my door quietly, I walked over to my desk and unwrapped the skeleton from my jacket. It was still there, white and unmoving with the cross protruding from where its beak had been. I frowned and tried to remove the little piece of wood but it must have been stuck on something because it wouldn't come out. As I leaned in closer to examine the skull I heard a soft 'pad, pad, pad' from my doorway. I glanced around in time to see Jerry walk in, a dead bird in his mouth. His horrible frizzy black face and nasty red eyes were the last thing I wanted to see right now and to see the dead bird in his mouth made everything just that much worse. With a roar of rage, I picked up the heavy lamp from my desk and swung it at him, catching him on the side of the head. He yowled in surprise and pain, then lowered his ears to his skull and hissed at me. I shrieked back and swung a foot at him. The force of the kick took him out of my room and neatly down the stairs. As Jerry fell he snarled and hissed up a storm and my Mum and Henry came running from the kitchen to see what was happening. You probably won't believe me but I could have sworn that Jerry cast me a cool and calculating look before rolling onto his back and yowling like I had tortured him. Henry rushed forward, yelling horrible things at me and slapping me as he went past. It didn't particularly worry me, he'd done that before. The funny thing was, as Henry bent over Jerry, he was clutching his side as though he'd hurt himself. My Mother hung back, trying unsuccessfully to look angry and upset but failing. Henry scooped the cat up as though he were made of glass and shot the both of us a cold look. "Get the car, Mary" he ordered my Mum, "We'll have to take Jerry to the Vet". My Mum nodded and went to get the car keys. As soon as she left the room Henry rounded on me and hissed, "Now listen here, you little brat! If I ever catch you so much as touching this cat again, I will personally bestow upon you a fate worse than hell, d'you understand?" I nodded, with Henry it was unwise to do anything else, and watched as he stalked from the room. A few seconds later I heard the door slam and the car engine start up. Walking to the window, I watched as they pulled out of the driveway and drove off as the darkness of night rose. Shivering, I walked into the lounge and switched the light on. After a moment, I walked all around the house, switching lights on as I went. Finally I entered my room, shutting and locking the door behind me. I sat at my desk and switched my mobile phone on, scrolling through the contacts and pretending that I wasn't alone in the house. I realised suddenly that there was nothing on my desk and remembered that I'd left the bird skeleton on there when I went down for tea. I started to hunt around for the bones but I couldn't find them. Eventually I stopped and stared at the empty space on the desk, the hairs on the back of my neck prickling, my breath coming in short, shallow gasps. I was grateful when I heard the car pull up in the driveway, its tires crunching on the gravel and Jerry yowling from the interior.
I flung the door wide and collapsed into my Mum's arms, breathing heavily in great gulps with relief. I'd never been so creeped out in my life! Henry shoved past, nose in the air, Jerry purring now in his arms. I considered spilling the story of the bird's bones then decided that my Stepfather would probably have me carted off to an institute and kept my mouth shut. My Mum and Henry had a cup of tea and then Mum announced that she was going to bed, it must have been about 11:00. I hurried upstairs after her and crept into my bedroom, switching on my desk and bedside lamps for optimum light. A few minutes later, I heard my Mum's quilt thud against the wall and the creaking of springs as she climbed into bed.
I'm not sure how long I sat, just staring at my hands, but I do know that when I checked the clock afterwards it was about 1:00 in the morning which was when I heard that fateful noise. It was a sort of tearing, thudding noise, as though someone was digging in the backyard. I walked to my window and pulled the curtain aside, slowly as though that would make it less scary. A sliver of light from my window fell across the lawn and illuminated....Henry? He was bowed over the little plot of earth where I buried the dead birds I found. His form was placed roughly where I'd buried the bird I'd found that day and his mouth was working furiously, his hands moving up and down. I blinked twice in surprise, was he crying? I looked closer and felt a bubbling wave of nausea roll over me, he wasn't crying, he was eating! I choked down my repulsion and sped down the stairs and out the back door, slowing down when I made it outside. I stopped a few feet from him but he didn't look up or give any indication that he'd noticed me, just continued eating. I saw feathers float to the ground around him. I couldn't hold it anymore; I leaned over and was sick in my Mum's rosebushes. Still Henry hadn't looked up; I could hear him crunching away, probably on bones. There was movement by his feet and I looked down to see Jerry, his face stained with blood, calmly dropping another dead bird at his master's feet. Henry reached down and seized it; I turned away, not wanting to see what happened next. After what seemed like an age Henry stood up, wiping his hand across his mouth. His white T-shirt was splattered with red and he was grinning didn't I backed away, stuttering and then I tripped over. Henry loomed over me and then stopped dead; something was lying on the ground in front of me. It was a little white skeleton, with a wooden cross for a beak. He began to back away, hands held out as though warding off the skeleton. It twitched and suddenly started to drag its self towards him on delicate wing bones. To terrified to scream I sat and watched mutely. All over the yard the little graves I had dug for the birds began to tremble as pearly white bones pushed up through the earth, Jerry hissed and backed away, swiping at them with his claws. There were crow skeletons, sparrows, finches and magpies, there were others that didn't even have a feather left to identify them by. They dragged themselves towards Henry, silent and terrifying, even though they were just little skeletons. Henry and Jerry were back to tail now, hissing and swiping out at the bones with paws and feet, but never making contact. The little skeletons were lunging forward, their wooden beaks jerking wildly as they tried to peck at the man and the cat.
Suddenly Jerry lost it; he gave a high, wailing yowl and leapt backwards into Henry's arms. I expected Henry to catch him, or maybe even push him away, but he didn't. Instead he held his arms wide and Jerry sank through his chest. Henry started twitching, his eyes flickering backwards and forwards, his arms jerking wildly. I pulled myself backwards, suddenly finding that I could move. I watched as my Stepfather staggered on the spot, then went still, his arms hanging limply at his sides and his head down. The little skeletons had stopped moving and a high pitched chirping began to swell from the centre of the mob. I don't know how they were making any noise since they didn't have beaks, but they were. Henry stood like that, surrounded by skeletons, for another few minutes. I wanted to get up and run but I didn't want to leave him alone out here, not knowing what he would become. Would he find me? Or maybe my Mother? No, I decided, I had to stay and find out what was happening.
I'd just come to this conclusion when Henry started to move. He raised his head, slowly, and I saw that his eyes were closed. The chirping from the skeletons had risen to an almost painful pitch. I clapped my hands over my ears and watched. Henry's eyes flew open and his mouth stretched wide in a silent scream. His eyes were bloodshot with red irises and row upon row of needle sharp teeth lined his mouth, going all the way down his throat. He took a step towards the house, and me, and the birds lunged. I had always sharpened the ends of the crosses for my bird's graves into a stake, so that they sank into the earth easier. They sank into Henry's skin and his flesh was sizzling and burning where they touched. His skin began to bubble and run and he screamed. I heard it even through my hands, a horrible scraping, sound that clawed at my eardrums. I screamed too and the back door finally banged open, my Mother standing there. She's a heavy sleeper, but even she couldn't have slept through that scream. She saw Henry in the middle of the yard, his teeth glistening and blood pouring down his legs. He was doubled over now, birds stabbing at every part of him they could reach. She cried out and tried to run to him but I held her back. Was she insane? He had three rows of teeth! I held her back and watched as Henry gave one last scream and burst into flame. There was a horrible smell of burning flesh as the fire consumed him. He turned to stare at us with bubbling eyes and then vanished with another scream. I'm sure I saw a blood red man standing in the ashes, two curly horns peeking from under his frizzy black hair.
I finally let my Mother go and she ran to the place where Henry had burned. The little bird skeletons had fallen still and they were stained now with ash and dirt like bones should be. I crawled on my hands and knees to the nearest one and picked up the skull, there was no cross now. As I turned it upside-down a little stream of ash floated from the hole where the beak had been and drifted away. My Mum was on her knees in the charred grass, poking in the earth. She was muttering to herself. As I listened I heard her give a psychotic little laugh and saw her run her hands over her face, smearing it with ash. I turned numbly and walked to the house, closing the door quietly behind me. I went to the kitchen and switched on the coffee machine, getting a mug from the cupboard. There wasn't much else I could do. I couldn't tell anyone or do anything about what had just happened so I did what I had always done. As I poured the coffee from the pot into the mug, I reflected that the little skeletons all over the lawn, you know, the bird's ones? With their wing bones spread wide, they looked like they belonged to angels. I buried them that morning, and put a little cross over each of them.