She doesn’t get up.
She just lies there as people scurry around her.
He thinks, She came after me. Right? That’s why this happened. She came after me. She came after me. She came after—
He’s on his back, and the machines are screeching around him, and he’s trying to move, trying to do something, but he can barely breathe around the fucking thing shoved down his throat, and he’s choking, he’s choking, can’t anyone see he’s choking to death, and he hears, “We need you to calm down, we need you to calm down, okay? Someone get Malcolm in here right now! I don’t care where he is, just do it. That’s it, you’re fine, just breathe, Mr. Hu—”
He opens his eyes.
He’s in Bookworm. The sun is shining.
Mrs. Richardson is across the street, setting a pumpkin in the doorway of the hardware store.
It’s normal.
Everything about this is normal.
It’s just Amorea, after all.
Except it’s not normal.
He takes a step toward the window.
There are starlings.
Thousands of them.
All sitting on the edges of the rooftops of all the buildings across the street.
He doesn’t understand why everyone in Amorea isn’t pouring into the streets. The noise from the birds has to be echoing up and down Main Street.
He pushes open the door to Bookworm.
The birds are dead silent.
He can hear the ruffle of their feathers, yes. The way their feet scrape against brick and mortar.
But they do not sing.
People wave at Mike as they pass by him on the street.
“Great to see you, Mike!”
“Nice day, isn’t it, Mike?”
“We’ll be seeing you tomorrow, right, Mike?”
“You okay, Mike? You look a little pale!”
Yeah, he’s okay. He’s just seeing things, after all.
He’s not surprised then, when the birds lift off almost as one, the great cloud rising up and over Amorea. And yet, somehow, they still don’t sing. They still don’t call out. The beating of their feathers is furious and it sounds like rain that never reaches the ground, but he’s the only one who can see them. He’s the only one who can hear them. Even as their cloud begins to block out the sun and the shadows stretch, he’s the only one who knows they’re there.
“How’s Sean, Mike?”
“Should be a gasser tomorrow, eh, Mike?”
“Save me a dance, Mike, if it’s all right with Sean!”