Joseph Murnane lurks at the mouth of a cave off the banks of the Eno River in Durham, North Carolina, with four hellish animal companions and an eldritch queen of terrifying beauty. They say you can see him there just before dawn, but only out of the corner of your eye, and only if he wants to be seen.
He can be reached via blood dance, or if the trials prove too difficult, email works too.
THE RED ROLLED ON
by
Joseph Murnane
Fear-mongering bullshit .
Charles clicked off the television and hurled the remote against the wall. He cringed at the sound it made, the rainfall of its innards scattering across the living room floor. His cheeks burned. Luckily, Dana wasn’t there to see his outburst. It would only prove the point she made on her way out the door. The news was nothing to get worked up about.
The most extraordinary thing it could be was some sort of mass bird migration, the human corpses left in their wake coincidental at best.
He’d never known a bird to harm a man, but he couldn’t deny the anxious fluttering in his chest. Charles patted his pocket for the smokes he’d bought the day before. Fuck. Only one left. Twenty-four hours since Dana had walked out the door, and he’d already regressed to a pack-a-day habit. He finished them off, left the box crumpled on the floor, and stepped out the back door.
On the porch, Pumpkin was perched in his chair, one of the things caught in her teeth. The plump cardinal was struggling as best it could, but the orange cat only gripped it tighter between her claws. The fight began to leave its body as she ate the bird alive.
“Get!” Charles kicked the chair and the cat retreated with an indignant hiss, dropping her prey for a moment, before snatching it back up and darting off into the trees.
“Good thing you’re eatin’, cause I sure as hell ain’t feeding you,” he yelled after her, shaking his head as he pulled out his phone and typed an angry “come get your fucking cat” text.
He hesitated, holding his finger over the “send” key for a moment. He knew there was nothing to be gained by salting the wounds, but he sent it anyway. Being angry felt better than being sad.
It wasn’t that he hated the cat. He loved Pumpkin as much as any dog he’d ever had, even if he liked to pretend otherwise. Still, a snarky text back would be better than the endless, persistent silence. He couldn’t take much more of that. Did Dana have to take the kids too? The house was so empty without them.
Charles fixated on the faintly glowing screen in his hand, willing her to respond, yet knowing she wouldn’t. His heart fluttered again, and he pounded at his chest to shut the thing up.
A shadow cast over the back yard as the cloud passed overhead, blocking out the sun. He looked up, marveling at the sheer number of cardinals teeming above. It reminded him of a school of brightly colored fish, the way it writhed and seethed.
As he watched the sky fill with the birds, the buzz in his chest intensified, a rapid transition from floating anxiety to growing pressure and pain. He sat down in his chair, lit his last cigarette, and drew in deep to calm himself.
Get it together, Chuck. It’s just nerves.
He regretted chasing her away wished Pumpkin would come back. Why did he do that? He hated to be alone, so why did he allow his temper to ensure he always ended up that way? Dana, the kids, and now, even the fucking cat.
The birds above were so much louder than he would have expected. They called it “The Red” on TV. It was a fitting—if not uninspired—name for the phenomenon. The birds had been tracked across the country, always growing in numbers, but he didn’t believe they were the ones leaving corpses behind. - Something else had to be going on. Something hidden beneath the chaos.
Still, how could she run at a time like this? With the nation rocked by uncertain terror, why would she abandon their home?
“Fucking selfish,” he said aloud, rage again supplanting his shame. It felt so good to be angry. He didn’t need her. He didn’t need fucking anybody.
Not even the cat.
It was their loss if they couldn’t take him as he was.
His heart thudded in violent rhythm, but he shrugged it off. He’d show them all how wrong they were in thinking he couldn’t make it alone. He’d always been better on his own. He wasn’t so weak as to lean on anybody, nor deal with their precious bullshit emotions.
The world could fuck itself, starting with the damn birds.
Charles stood, raising a middle finger to the swarm above. As he did so, a rough tickle crawled from his chest and up his throat.
He croaked and retched, and with the cough came a sensation of something rising to the surface. No smoker’s cough had ever compared to the pain.
Again, he beat at his chest as he fell to his knees, trying to expel the lump now lodged in his windpipe. He prayed for Dana to appear, to comfort him like she always used to, but of course, she was gone. They were all gone.
Charles slumped onto his side, a rasping choke finally releasing what had been trapped inside for so long.
As his vision faded, he saw a fat red cardinal perched nearby on the porch floor, ruffling its feathers dry of mucus and spittle. His final thoughts were of his wife, and he telegraphed a silent apology to the air, wishing he could have been different. He felt a buzz from the phone in his pocket, then he felt no more.
The cardinal breathed in deep, free of its cage, and launched itself skyward to join its brethren. It was never meant to hold such bitterness, and now it didn’t have to.
Pumpkin returned from the trees to her owner’s side. She sniffed quizzically at Charles, licked at his vacant, glassy eyes, before turning away to trot back into the forest. She didn’t expect he would taste very good at all. She’d much prefer a bird.
And the red rolled on.