The Bird Eater Page 28

  “You think I haven’t seen worse than you?” he croaked, the sound of his own voice sending a shock wave up his spine. He sounded rough, inhuman. “You ugly son of a bitch.” Attempting to stand, he had to pause. Vertigo rocked him back and forth. Something warm filled his throat. He coughed, and blood bubbled from between his lips. When he finally managed to look up, he was alone again, the shadows of those creatures watching him from the safety of the pines. “You fucking cowards,” he hissed. “Come out and fight!” Crashing to his knees, he pressed a cold hand to his neck, then pulled it back as though he’d just scalded himself. Half of his neck was missing, nothing but a void. He coughed again, a thick slew of blood dribbling down his chin into his beard, his gored hands leaving prints in the snow.

  “You ugly sons of bitches,” he repeated, choking, feeling himself start to slip. With his final wind, he forced himself to look up at the growling shadows of the hidden demons. “Take me, then,” he hissed, extending his arms to his side like Jesus on the cross. Because if he sacrificed himself, perhaps they’d be satiated enough to move on, to distance themselves from his home, from his wife.

  They fell on him, but Don didn’t feel a thing. He was too busy picturing Jenny in her wedding dress, twirling in the sunlight that filtered through the stained-glass windows of a tiny church. He was too busy listening to her hum, her singing blocking out the silence of winter, distracting him from the tearing of his own flesh.