November 21, 2036
9:45 a.m.
“Birds, Mommie. Birds outside.”
“Huh? Naw, baby. No birds. All the birds are gone. But maybe one day they’ll…”
“Birds. Outside.”
Something in the urgent tone of her five-year-old daughter’s voice made Faye Winston drop the plate she had been scrubbing back into the soapy water in the kitchen sink. She felt a small chill of premonition overtake her small frame as she stood upright. She felt stiff as she dried her hands on a worn blue towel, sighed, then tossed it aside onto the counter. She fixed her face into a comforting smile before turning to look at Simona, her little chocolate heart, who was standing beside the breakfast table pointing toward the glass sliding doors that framed the backyard porch. Simona wasn’t smiling.
“Birds.”
But the flock of raggedy-winged creatures that were now crowding into the backyard just beyond the porch didn’t look like any sort of bird that Faye had ever seen. They were all a dirty grayish black, with eyes that were as black and soulless as those of a shark. Measuring a head taller than Simona, their deformed bodies were semi-transparent, flickering erratically in and out of being like a broken electric sign. None of them made a sound as they continued to land on the grass, staring hungrily through the glass at Faye and her daughter as the two moved closer together.
But then Simona did a funny thing.
I'm enjoying your story bits as they come in, but this time I—old editor—would point out that creatures with black soulless eyes, especially on the sides of the head, would have trouble staring hungrily at something. Or to be more precise, I have trouble picturing that.