“They kill and eat people in flocks much like that… peck out their eyes, brains…. organs… it’s kinda gross. Evil little bastards.” She shrugs, again with the deadpan tone of indifference and I gawp at her back and seriously wonder what kind of wrong goes on in this girl’s head.
“Way to make us all feel at ease, Puta!” Meadow chirps in, a tone of ‘really?’ while pushing me to walk faster with a little lumber shove and Carmen almost gets run over as we start to pick up speed.
“Just saying, watch the little shitheads. Never turn your back on a flock of angry birds.” She seems to be taking delight in raising my blood pressure to the highest level possible and Meds shakes her head at her, a low growl of ‘shut up’ wavering subtly.
“Yeah well, I doubt birds have any real effect on angry werewolves. Now run… we ain’t got all day.” She snaps at her, trying to end this conversation and I get another aggressive jab to my spine to hurry me onward. I eyeroll at Meadow’s sudden pushiness and throw her back a snarky glare to tell her to be less handsy, but yet still obey.
Carmen breaks into a run as commanded, then stops abruptly, and I collide painfully, right into her back and then Meadow into me. Letting out muffled cries and protests as we tumble into an ungraceful heap. Falling over one another clumsily, and then groaning as I scrape my palm and knee on the rough terrain.
“What the hell.” I whimper and pull a stray thorn out of my finger, casting an angry narrowed frown at Carmen for her stupid halt.
“Meadow, ravens can’t hyper speed and we are following them…” she points out with that superior tone that I know will make Meadow want to punch her in the throat, and I throw Meadow back an ‘oh, she has a point’ kind of look. There goes her fast run plan and getting there and back at speed. I knew we should have waited in the damn truck and now we have to rely on following birds who can only move at natural speed.
Almost as if on cue, they scatter from the trees in a clapping of wings, a rustling of leaves, where they have been waiting and head further back in the direction they are leading before landing on trees in the near distance. Urging us on and we hesitate for a moment, looking up at the disappearing sun in almost synchronized unison, sighing that we may not get another chance, and move to follow without question.
Follow Them
“Maybe we can speed between goal posts?” I point out, meaning from perch to perch where the crows are, we could hyper speed then wait on them to move, and go again. Which is exactly what we do the second we see them land further on and move to go. Racing to the next set of trees in the blink of an eye and the birds move again in a game of follow me.
“I hope to god this is not some crazy idea and we’re not just following some random flock of ravens who are trying to get away. I mean we’re kinda assuming.” Meadow quips in and I giggle out of pure nervousness and frustration and also doubt. Maybe she’s right and were insanely following birds that have nothing to do with this. We assumed, given Sierra’s text and then their freakish behavior that we should, and who knows, maybe their curiosity has them come to us, but mistrust pushes them to move further away when we get too close.
We hyper speed to the next set of trees that are further into overgrown landscape, light failing us, as they land on and do this four more times. Covering a fair bit of distance in the shortest time. They maybe can’t speed like we can, but by air they can cover further ground than a normal human can walk, in a third of the time. So were making progress and we seem to be heading into denser wood and more of a forestry sort of weird space that’s neither green and luscious or sandy and rocky, but somewhere in between. It’s like a drying up, almost dead wood, but dense enough to seem like it’s not. Eerie, something haunting about it as shadows lengthen across the ground and noises of night creatures start to come out subtly around us. We move fast, ignore the building anxiety that soon it will be pitch black and hope we are heading somewhere less rural. That maybe there’s a house at the end of this trail.
“This place is weird” I point out when we stop again and wait for the birds to move. Kicking away dead tumbleweed that’s grazing my ankle and taking note of the terrain that’s way too abundant in plants for the desert like soil beneath us. It’s almost mystical in itself that something seeming so dry and arid can have so much vegetation.
“I get creepy vibes too.” Carmen admits in a low voice, seemingly aware that we’re not alone out here in the wilderness as multiple eyes start to shine from distant brush. Large and small animals taking note of our alien presence and peeking because they can obviously tell we’re not just wandering humans. Animals tend to avoid the scent of wolves at a very large distance in this outer world.
We move again as soon as the birds settle once more. This stop and start game that’s becoming tiring the farther we plod on. We have come off the path a few trees back and now seem to be wading through wasteland of some sort with no sign of houses, manmade light, or roads in the front where we’re heading. Just dead trees blocking our view and lots of rocks for as far as the eye can see.
“I’ve got no signal on the cell either.” Carmen sighs, aggravated, and hands Meadow back her phone she brought from the truck. “So, we can’t even check with Sierra if we’re heading the right way.” She adds with a furrowed brow and a stern expression making my last traces of hope fizzle out, like being drained of the last ounces of energy.
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