"A Chittering" by R. M. Bundridge
A Chittering
by R. M. Bundridge
Due to animal disappearances and nearly every streetlight losing power—some public buildings, too—the children of Moderate Sized Town had been instructed to remain inside after sunset. To them, it was unfair. Billy Barnaby missed his dog, and he wanted to know why Maxie had run off, but it was summer. They weren’t supposed to be inside. He wanted to swim with his friends, and spend his allowance on soda, discuss comics with his friends—but that wouldn’t be happening.
If it were just power outages, maybe the parents of the community would be less uptight—have a shorter stick up their asses, Billy’s friend, Edgar said just a couple days ago—but the animals worried the PTA moms and construction worker fathers. Collars were found abandoned, both inside their homes and out. No sign of torn fur, a left behind whisker, or a speck of blood; if it weren’t for the family's memories, one might get the impression they were liars. You could see the worry in the children. The space their pets had occupied one moment, didn’t contain them the next. What existed in that liminal expanse between dawn and utter blackness? Whatever it was, it took their family.
Billy Barnaby, a silhouette in his home’s big living room window, pressed his whole face to the glass—his hands, too. If he remained here, Maxie would see him and come running. Maxie would bark, and they would put his collar back on, and it would be a sign that all the other animals would return.
To his left, a couple houses down, in the Vanway’s home, he noticed they were painting: their windows? The color was bright in the consuming black of the moonless sky, while at the same time—stretching from one side of the window to the other—seemed to complete the utterness which trapped them inside with their parents. Another splash of a rich red. Billy wondered if his parents would redecorate that way. His mom and Mrs. Vanway were always in polite competition with one another.
“...like teeth? Marks? That doesn’t-” his dad muttered on the couch behind him, talking to one his buddies.
“John! Grab Billy and Lacy for dinner!” Lynne hollered from the kitchen.
In bed, his mom tucking him in, Billy asked if they could paint their windows like the Vanway’s had, and—more focused on getting Billy to bed over listening to him—she responded, with the smile he often saw in the light of his dark dreams, she said: “Of course, sweetheart. Now get some sleep.”
As she leaned over to place a kiss right on the tip of Billy’s nose, in the Richardson’s home on the other side of the bedroom curtain, another splash of pulpy red connected the darkness from the left side of the window to the right.
The Barnaby’s fell into a dreamless sleep.
A few hours before, minutes prior to the Barnaby’s starting dinner, in the Vanway’s home, the missus was crocheting and watching her shows; her husband was locked in the bathroom masturbating to a picture of his secretary; their two children were in their shared room doing individual tasks.
The youngest, Viv, heard the rattling of their metal trash cans.
“Ange, the raccoons are back.” Viv said, throwing a pillow to get her sister’s attention.
Her sister promptly ignored her, which wasn’t anything new.
The thought of stepping outside made Viv nervous. She’d heard about the missing animals, of course she had, but their back porch light quit working last night. The only outages she’d heard about were at public places: gas stations, grocery stores, the library—not a single home had reports of one. Unfortunately for her, spite was a good motivator, especially as a sister. Viv walked downstairs to grab the broom and stepped out into the nothingness of their driveway.
Viv wasn’t met with the usual merp sounds of the raccoons. She would describe it as a chittering. It was the clanking of cold teeth in winter; incessant. She realized too late her phone was up with her sister. It was too dark to even see the broom in her hands.
Suddenly, there was a slight plop sound followed by the brush of fur on concrete. The chittering ceased. She wondered if it was one of the missing animals. Perhaps the Barnaby’s dog?
“Come on,” she whispered, stepping back toward the steps. She was in the light of the back hallway now. Viv relaxed her arms, the broom, in hopes of comforting Maxie. Only what detached itself from the thick black wasn’t Maxie. It was little with erect ears, long back paws, and it was covered in fur. It was a rabbit. Yes. She told herself as much, but where its eyes should have been, the chittering seamlessly fell into the air from two sets of working jaws.
Viv dropped her broom and looked to the back door, unsure of what reality she had slipped into, unaware of how to process what was in front of her—unaware, too, that looking away was a mistake. The chittering invaded her ears before a searing pain blossomed in her jugular. Skin separated from tendons and muscle. Her body was tissue paper dipped in glue.
With its right set of teeth, the rabbit yanked, chewed, and went back for more. Viv could feel its paws on her shoulder, the strength at which they dug into the blades so the rabbit could get a better grip. She went to stop her bleeding only to get in the way of its teeth and lose a couple fingers. It chittered some more and dug in, deeper than before. The right side of her neck, strings of pulled pork.
She collapsed when it severed her spine, when she was hanging onto her own neck by a sliver of flesh, gazing at her bedroom window. When she was nothing but blood, a puddle on concrete, the chittering hopped up the stairs and through the back door.