Bird Box

seventeen

“They’re scared of us,” Olympia suddenly says.

“What do you mean?” Malorie asks. The two are sitting together on the third step up the staircase.

“Our housemates. They’re scared of our bellies. And I know why. It’s because one day they’re going to have to deliver these babies.”

Malorie looks into the living room. She has been at the house for two months. She is five months pregnant. She too has thought of this. Of course she has.

“Who do you think will do it?” Olympia asks, her wide, innocent eyes trained on Malorie.

“Tom,” Malorie says.

“Okay, but I’d feel a lot better if there was a doctor in the house.”

This thought is always looming for Malorie. The inevitable day she gives birth. No doctors. No medicine. No friends or family. She tries to imagine it as a quick experience. Something that will happen fast and be over with. She pictures the moment her water breaks, then imagines holding the baby. She doesn’t want to think about what’ll happen in between.

The others are gathered in the living room. The morning’s chores are finished. All day Malorie has had a sense that Tom is working something out. He’s been distant. Isolated with his thoughts. Now he stands in the center of the living room, every housemate in earshot, and reveals what’s been on his mind. It’s exactly what Malorie was hoping it wasn’t.

“I’ve got a plan,” he says.

“Oh?” Don asks.

“Yes.” Tom pauses, as if making sure of what he’s about to say one final time. “We need guides.”

“What do you mean?” Felix asks.

“I mean I’m going to go looking for dogs.”

Malorie gets up from the stairs and walks to the entrance of the living room. Just like the others, the idea of Tom leaving the house has dramatically gotten her attention.

“Dogs?” Don asks.

“Yes,” Tom says. “Strays. Former pets. There must be hundreds out there. Loose. Or stuck inside a home they can’t get out of. If we’re going to go on stock runs, which we all know we’re going to have to do, I’d like us to have help. Dogs could warn us.”

“Tom, we don’t know the effect they have on animals,” Jules says.

“I know. But we can’t sit still.”

The tension in the room has risen.

“You’re crazy,” Don says. “You’re really thinking of going out there.”

“We’ll bring weapons,” Tom says.

Don leans forward in the easy chair.

“What exactly are you thinking of here?”

“I’ve been working on helmets,” Tom says. “To protect our blindfolds. We’ll carry butcher knives. The dogs could lead us. If one goes mad? Let the leash go. If the animal comes after you, kill it with the knife.”

“Blind.”

“Yes. Blind.”

“I don’t like the sound of this at all,” Don says.

“Why not?”

“There could be maniacs out there. Criminals. The streets aren’t what they used to be, Tom. We’re not in suburbia anymore. We’re in chaos.”

“Well, something has to change,” Tom says. “We need to make progress. Otherwise we’re waiting for news in a world where there is no longer any news.”

Don looks to the carpet. Then back to Tom.

“It’s too dangerous. There’s just no reason for it.”

“There’s every reason for it.”

“I say we wait.”

“Wait for what?”

“Help. Something.”

Tom looks to the blankets covering the windows.

“There’s no help coming, Don.”

“That doesn’t mean we should run outside looking for it.”

“We’ll vote,” Tom says.

Don looks to the faces of the other housemates. It’s clear he’s looking for someone to agree with him.

“A vote,” Don says. “I don’t like that idea at all, either.”

“Why not?” Felix says.

“Because, Felix, we’re not talking about which buckets we drink from and which ones we piss in. We’re talking about one or more of us leaving the house, for no good reason.”

“It’s not no good reason,” Tom says. “Think of the dogs as an alarm system. Felix heard something by the well two weeks ago. Was it an animal? Was it a man? Was it a creature? The right dog might’ve barked. I’m talking about searching our block. Maybe the next one, too. Give us twelve hours. That’s all I’m asking.”

Twelve hours, Malorie thinks. Getting water from the well takes only half of one.

But the number, finite as it is, calms her.

“I don’t see why we need to round up strays at all,” Don says. He fans a hand toward Victor at Jules’s feet. “We’ve got one right here. Let’s train him.”

“No way,” Jules says, rising now.

“Why not?”

“I didn’t bring him here so he could be a sacrifice. Until we know how dogs are affected, I’m not agreeing to that.”

“A sacrifice,” Don says. “Good choice of words.”

“The answer is no,” Jules says.

Don turns to Tom.

“You see? The one dog owner we have in the house is even against it.”

“I didn’t say I was against Tom’s idea,” Jules says.

Don looks around the room.

“So, is everyone for this then? Really? All of you think it’s a good idea?”

Olympia looks to Malorie, wide eyed. Don, seeing an opportunity for an ally, approaches her.

“What do you think, Olympia?” he demands.

“Oh! I… well… I… don’t know!”

“Don,” Tom says. “We’ll take a legitimate vote.”

“I’m for it,” Felix says.

Malorie looks around the living room.

“I’m for it, too,” Jules says.

“I’m in,” Cheryl says.

Tom turns to Don. As he does, Malorie feels something sink inside her.

The house, Malorie realizes, needs him.

“I’ll go with you,” Jules says. “If I’m not going to let you use my dog, I can at least help you round up others.”

Don shakes his head.

“You guys are fucking nuts.”

“Then let’s start making you a helmet, too,” Tom says, planting a hand on Jules’s shoulder.

By the next morning, Tom and Jules are putting the finishing touches on the second helmet.

They are leaving today. For Malorie, it is all moving too fast. They just voted on them leaving, but do they have to leave right away?

Don makes no move to hide his feelings. The others, like Malorie, are hopeful. It is difficult, Malorie knows, not to be swept up in Tom’s energy. If it were Don about to leave, she might have less faith in his returning with Seeing Eye dogs. But Tom has an energy about him. When he says he’s going to do something, it feels like it’s already done.

Malorie watches from the couch. Both With Child and At Last… a Baby! talk about the “stress link” between mother and child. Malorie doesn’t want her baby to feel the anxiety she feels now, watching Tom prepare to leave the house.

There are two duffel bags against the wall. Both are half-stocked with canned goods, flashlights, and blankets. Beside them are big knives and the former legs of a kitchen stool, chiseled now into sharp stakes. They will use the broomsticks as walking sticks.

“Maybe,” Olympia says, “animals can’t go mad because their brains are too small.”

By the expression on Don’s face, it looks like he might say something. But he holds his tongue.

“It’s possible that animals don’t have the capacity to go mad,” Tom says, adjusting a helmet strap. “Maybe a thing has to be smart enough to lose its mind.”

“Well, I would like to know something like that before I go out there,” Don says.

“Maybe,” Tom continues, “there are degrees of insanity. I’m constantly curious to know how the creatures affect people who are already insane.”

“Why don’t you round up some of them, too?” Don huffs. “Are you sure you want to risk your life on the hope that animals aren’t as smart as us?”

Tom looks him in the eye.

“I’d like to tell you I have more respect for animals than that, Don. But right now, all I care about is surviving.”

At last, Jules straps his helmet on. He turns his head to see how it fits. The back of it snaps apart and the whole thing falls to his feet.

Don slowly shakes his head.

“Damn it,” Tom says, picking up the pieces. “I had that worked out. Don’t worry, Jules.”

Lifting the pieces, Tom reassembles them, then fortifies the strap with a second one. He places it upon Jules’s head.

“There. All better.”

With these words, Malorie feels ill. She has known all morning that Tom and Jules would be leaving, but the moment seems to come too quickly.

Don’t go, she wants to say to Tom. We need you. I need you.

But she understands that the reason the house needs Tom is because he’s the kind of man who would do what he is doing today.

By the wall, Felix and Cheryl help Tom and Jules strap the duffel bags to their backs.

Tom is jabbing at the air with one of the stakes.

Malorie feels a second wave of nausea. There is no greater reminder of the horror of this new world than seeing Tom and Jules prepared the way they are, for a walk around the block. Blindfolded, armed, they look like soldiers of a makeshift war.

“Okay,” Tom says. “Let us out.”

Felix steps to the front door. The housemates gather behind him in the foyer. Malorie watches them close their eyes, then she does the same. In her private darkness, her heart beats louder.

“Good luck,” she suddenly says, knowing that she would regret it if she didn’t.

“Thank you,” Tom says. “Remember what I said. In twelve hours we’ll be back. Are everybody’s eyes closed?”

The housemates tell him they are.

Then the front door opens. Malorie can hear their shoes upon the front porch. Then the door is shut.

To Malorie, it feels like something imperative has been locked outside.

Twelve hours.