* * * *
Samantha’s awake and repositioning the umbrella. Now she’s getting lunch from the cooler. I like watching her out here under the sun. She’s sexy.
A seagull lands on the umbrella and looks at me.
“Yeah, just try it,” I say, daring the bird to make a move for our food. There’s another umbrella lying closed next to my chair, still in its plastic sheath. I start reaching for it, and I swear the bird squints at me.
Something about its eyes…
Two kids run by, the wind carrying the sand they kick up straight into my eyes. I recover just in time to see Sam hand Doug a tuna sandwich. Arm outstretched, Sam’s body leaning forward out of the beach chair, the seagull hiding atop the umbrella makes its move. It soars down and takes the lunch from her just before Doug’s outstretched fingers have a chance to accept it.
The bird flies toward the water, drops my boy’s lunch in the sand, and then has to fight off half a dozen other seagulls that immediately try cashing in on the theft.
People around us are chuckling. Doug is a bit traumatized. Samantha’s pissed.
As the big, white and gray bird devours my kid’s daily bread, I debate whether or not to use the folded umbrella as a javelin. I could cook us some bird for lunch instead. But I’d probably miss and impale one of the 400-pound Speedo-wearing Sumo wrestlers that are wading in the tide just beyond my target.
“He can have mine,” I tell Sam. I hate eating on the beach anyway. Chewing sand with my tuna while scavenger birds hover over my head has absolutely no appeal to me.
“What do you say to Daddy?” Samantha asks Doug, pulling my lunch out of the bag.
“Thanks, Dadda.”
“No problem, buddy. Just watch out for those birds.”
He curls up beside my bronzing bride. She looks hot right now, and I’m suddenly hoping for a repeat of last night’s performance.
“What are you thinking about?” she asks, catching the desire in my eye.
“Things little Doug should never hear.”
She smiles, takes a drink of water, and “accidentally” spills some down her neck and beyond, adding a shiny sheen to her exposed skin.
“Oops,” she teases, and rubs it in with her hand.
“You should behave yourself,” I tell her. “The lifeguard might be watching.”
“Even better.”
“Oh, you animal.” Maybe I’m not the one de-evolving after all.
“You should talk. What was—”
And she’s suddenly screaming, swatting above her head at another seagull. This one, however, seems to have landed in her hair. The more the bird flaps its wings and Sam swats at it, the more the bird’s scrawny legs seem to get entangled.
My wife is standing now, moving in circles and screaming, “Get it off! Get it off!”
I jump to my feet, though not as quickly as she would have preferred, I’m sure, and grab the folded umbrella. I wave it at the bird, but it accomplishes nothing. I just look like an idiot.
The bird pecks at Sam’s head. Not a curious nip, but a full-thrusting stab with its sharp beak. She screams, trips over Doug’s trench, and falls down.
The bird comes free and starts flying away when I make contact, striking it down with a powerful swing. The seagull falls to the ground, spinning in circles while flapping its wings. It’s making loud bird noises, crying out in pain or anger. Then it lurches toward Doug’s nearby toes, snapping at them. He pulls his feet back and shrieks, and I jump at the creature, bringing the umbrella down on its head over and over until its white feathers are red.
I stop, chest heaving. The beach has grown silent, and I can feel a hundred sets of eyes on me.
The seagull isn’t moving. I killed it.
“Are you okay?” Samantha’s asking Douglas.
He nods, staring at the bird. “Bad birdie,” he says, his face twisted with terrified incomprehension.
I ask Sam if she’s okay.
She feels her head. “I think so.”
Now people are talking. I glance around and see cell phones out. I’ll be an internet sensation by bedtime.
Suddenly, shadows begin circling the sand, and I can’t help imagine a giant mobile hanging from the sky. Seems others have noticed too, because the cell phones all shift upward.
I look up.
It’s no mobile. They’re birds, real ones, circling. There’s a whole cloud of them, and they momentarily block my view of the sun. “Must be a hundred of them,” I hear a woman say. Obviously, she’s an exaggerator. Or can’t count. In the world I live in, there might be thirty of them. The way they’re intertwining with each other does give the impression of more, but unnecessary embellishment annoys me.
Instinctively, however, I take a step back. Thirty or a hundred, there’s something about the way these seagulls are behaving that makes me uneasy. They’re eerily silent, gliding in wide, crisscrossing arcs, like a living vortex opening in the sky, the light of the sun its center. I have no idea what they’re doing, what has brought them together. Maybe they’re just observing a moment of silence on behalf of their fallen, crazy cousin.
Then one breaks rank, diving out of the dizzying pattern and coming straight for us. I grab Doug and jump back. The bird lands in the sand next to the feathered corpse and starts pecking into it. It seems curious at first, like a bird testing the ground for worms. I don’t know, maybe it’s some kind of honor thing among avian soldiers or something, the bird equivalent of a 21-gun salute. But the pecking quickly turns violent, and the bird is exhibiting a demon-possessed savagery that frightens me, tearing the lifeless body to shreds with its sharp beak.
And then all the seagulls, as if imitating old footage of WWII bombers, begin diving out of the sky with loud, screeching battle cries.
Everyone backs away now.
The thirty or so birds are fighting over the body, opening it up and playing tug-of-war with intestines, snapping wildly at each other. There isn’t enough meat to feed the entire horde, and only the most aggressive eat. Bloody feathers are carried away by the wind as the violent feast unfolds. The screams of the feathered mob strike some obnoxious frequency that has attracted the attention of everyone within sight. The whole beach is watching. Even the lifeguard is coming over.
Finally, the huddle of insanity breaks, and the birds take flight, disappearing over the nearby jetty just as quickly as they’d come. There’s nothing left on the beach, not even a spot of red-speckled sand. The bird I killed is gone without a trace, the crime scene cleansed completely. Devoured.
“What the hell was that?” The question comes from a large, beer-bellied man who must’ve fallen asleep with his hands on his stomach, because two perfect handprints rest on either side of his navel. Or perhaps they belonged to the two girls standing in his formless shadow. “Mob Boss” goes through my head. Mafia don. Not sure why. Maybe it’s the Italian accent. Maybe it’s the build and all the gold he’s wearing. Maybe it’s the supermodels hanging on him. I guess I don’t care as long as he doesn’t whip out the Tommy-gun he’s got tucked in his trunks. Whatever the power persona he’s going for, the two sets of fingers that tickle his belly seem to undermine it.
“No idea.”
Other people start stepping closer, their toes approaching the boundaries Doug had previously established with his moat.
“You okay?” It’s the lifeguard. I’m not in bad shape, but this guy makes me self-conscious—which is ridiculous considering the overall composition of the crowd pressing in on us. Still, I can’t help but steal a glance at Samantha. She seems uninterested in the brown eight-pack and little red shorts. Good.
“I think so.”
“Never seen anything like that before,” he says. “Anyone get bit or scratched?”
“Why?” I ask.
He shrugs, but I know better. I step closer to him and mutter under my breath, “You’re not thinking…bird flu or rabies, are you?” I don’t know if birds can get rabies, and I’m not entirely ser
ious.
“Bird flu?” A lady overhears and then repeats it too loudly. Could be the exaggerator. Wouldn’t surprise me. She has a little boy’s head palmed in one of her oven mitts, and she’s moving him backward as she tries shrinking away. Good luck with that, I think. I truly am an awful person.
The question drifts through the crowd, interpreted somehow as a statement instead. A panic starts—subtle at first, but escalating. Apparently, no one else here has any explanation for the piranha-like behavior exhibited by the sea birds.
Sam steps close to me, puts her arm around my waist. I look at her and step away. A trickle of blood is peeking through her hairline. “Bird flu,” I mouth without sound, staring at her.
Her face melts in terror.
And then I laugh. “Just teasing.” I wrap my arms around her and kiss her forehead. There’s blood in her hair.
“Jerk.” But she nestles her head against my chest. Right in front of the lifeguard. Score.
With nothing left to do, the lifeguard turns back to his stand, shaking his head, unable to explain what just happened.
After a few uneventful minutes pass, everything settles down, and everyone returns to their towels and chairs, already putting the event behind them. I do catch a few people lifting wary eyes to the sky, though.
5
With Douglas completely fried from a full day at the beach and asleep by 6:30, Samantha is curled up on the sofa and engrossed in one of those Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks flicks. It isn’t Joe Versus the Volcano, or I’d stay and watch it with her. Instead, I kiss her on the head and tell her I’ll be back. I’m still hoping the look she gave me earlier will lead to something tonight. She squeezes my hand and tells me to take my time but warns me not to get too drunk. She isn’t going to leave Douglas in bed while she comes to get me when I call for help, and she isn’t going to wake him up in order to bring him along. I love my wife. She’s always looking out for what’s best for me.
“I don’t plan on getting drunk,” I promise. “Not without you.” In truth, I saw a flyer on the boardwalk advertising a live jazz band at a tequila bar a few blocks over and across from the beach. I just want to sit and watch…space out, relax.
“I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she answers. Then she says we should talk about something when I get back.
“Talk? I was hoping for something else…” But I know what the “something” is, and I don’t want to think about it right now. I can’t. I need to unwind from months and months of stress. “Okay.”