Josh Malerman - Bird Box

You starved here , Tom thinks. In your parents’ bedroom .

Stepping toward him, his mouth and nose covered, Tom compares him to the photos. The boy looks mummified. Shrunken.

How long ago did you die? How close was I to getting you out of here?

He stares into the boy’s dead eyes.

Robin , he thinks. I’m so sorry .

“Tom!” Jules yells from below.

Tom turns.

He crosses the room and enters the hall.

“Jules! Are you okay?”

“Yes! Yes! Come quick! I’ve found a dog.”

Tom is torn. The father in him doesn’t want to leave this boy. Robin lies in a grave behind the house he left a long time ago.

“If I would have known you were here,” Tom says, turning toward the master bedroom, “I would have come sooner.”

Then he turns and rushes to the stairs.

Jules found a dog .

He meets Jules at the bottom. Before Tom has a chance to tell him about the boy, Jules is walking through the kitchen, talking about what he’s found. At the head of the basement stairs, Jules points and tells Tom to look. Closely.

At the foot of the stairs, lying on their backs, are the parents. They are dressed as if for church. Their clothes are torn at the shoulders. On the mother’s chest is a piece of notebook paper. In marker, someone has written: ReStiNg pEaCe

“I just found the boy who wrote that,” Tom says. “The boy who laid them here.”

“They must have starved,” Jules says. “There’s no food in here. I have no idea what he survived on.”

Jules is pointing past the parents. Tom crouches and sees a husky hunched between fur coats on a dress rack.

He is close to emaciated. Tom imagines he’s been feeding on the dead parents.

Jules removes some meat from his duffel bag, rips off a piece, and tosses it down to the dog. At first, the dog slowly comes out. Then he devours it.

“Is he friendly?” Tom says quietly.

“I’ve discovered,” Jules says, “that a dog will become fast friends with the people who feed him.”

Jules carefully tosses more meat down the stairs. He speaks encouragingly.

But the dog takes work. And time .

The two men spend the rest of the day in the house. With the meat, Jules is forging a bond. As he does, Tom searches the same places Jules already has. There is very little that they don’t have at the house already. He finds no phone book. No food.

Jules, knowing dogs much better than Tom, tells him that they aren’t ready to leave. That the dog is too erratic, doesn’t trust him yet.

Tom thinks of the twelve hours he gave the housemates for their return. A clock, it seems, is ticking.

Finally, Jules tells Tom he thinks the dog is ready to leave the house.

“Then let’s get going,” Tom says. “We’ll have to keep working with him as we go. We can’t sleep here, with this smell of death.”

Jules agrees. But it takes a few attempts to leash the dog. More time passes. When Jules finally does it, Tom has decided that twelve hours be damned; one afternoon has delivered them a dog, who knows what tomorrow morning might bring.

Still, the clock is ticking.

In the home’s foyer, they fasten their blindfolds and put their helmets back on. Then Tom unlocks the front door and they exit the house. Now Tom uses his broomstick, but Jules uses the dog. The husky pants.

Crossing the lawn again, going farther yet from Malorie, Don, Cheryl, Felix, and Olympia, they come to another house.

This one, Tom hopes, is where they’ll spend the night. If the windows are protected, if a search brings them confidence, and if they aren’t greeted with the smell of death.

The pain in Malorie’s shoulder is so exact, so detailed, that she can see its outline in her mind. She can see it move as her shoulder moves. It’s not a bright pain like it was when it happened. Now it’s deep and dull and throbbing. Muted colors of decay rather than the explosive hues of impact. She imagines what the floor of the rowboat must look like right now. Piss. Water. Blood. The children asked her if she was okay. She told them she was. But they know when they’re lied to. Malorie has trained them beyond words.

She is not crying right now, but she was. Silent tears behind her blindfold. Silent to her. But the children can pluck sounds from the silence.

Okay, guys , she used to say, sitting around the kitchen table. Close your eyes .

They did.

What am I doing?

You are smiling .

That’s right, Girl. How did you know?

You breathe different when you smile, Mommy .

And the next day they would do it again.

You’re crying, Mommy!

That’s right. And why would I cry?

You’re sad .

That’s not the only reason .

You’re scared!

That’s right. Let’s try another one .

Now the water is getting colder. Malorie feels its spray with each grueling row.

“Mommy,” the Boy says.

“What?”

She is immediately alert at the sound of his voice.

“Are you okay?”

“You already asked me that.”

“But you don’t sound okay.”

“I said I am. That means I am. Don’t question me.”

“But,” the Girl says, “you’re breathing differently!”

She is. She knows she is. Laboring , she thinks.

“It’s only because of the rowing,” she lies.

How many times did she question her duty as a mother as she trained the children into becoming listening machines? For Malorie, watching them develop was sometimes horrific. Like she was left to care for two mutant children. Small monsters. Creatures in their own right capable of learning how to hear a smile. Able to tell her if she was scared before she knew it herself.

The shoulder wound is bad. And for years now Malorie has feared sustaining an injury of this magnitude. There were other instances. Close calls. Falling down the cellar stairs when the children were two. Tripping while carrying a bucket back from the well, banging her head on a rock. She thought she broke her wrist once. A chipped tooth. It’s difficult to remember what her legs once looked like without bruises. And now the flesh of her shoulder feels peeled from her body. She wants to stop the boat. She wants to find a hospital. Run through the streets, screaming, I need a doctor, I need a doctor, I NEED A DOCTOR OR I’M GOING TO DIE AND THE CHILDREN WILL DIE WITHOUT ME!!

“Mommy,” the Girl says.

“What is it?”

“We’re facing the wrong way.”

“ What? ”

As she’s grown more exhausted, she’s overused her stronger arm. Now she rows against the current and didn’t even know it.

Suddenly, the Boy’s hand is upon hers. Malorie recoils at first, then understands. His fingers over hers, he moves, with her, as if turning the crank of the well.

In all this cold, painful world, the Boy, hearing her struggle, is helping her row.

The husky is licking Tom’s hand. Jules snores to his left on the carpeted floor of the home’s family room. Behind him, a giant silent television rests on an oak stand. Boxes of records are set against the wall. Lamps. A plaid couch. A stone fireplace. A big painting of a beach fills the space above the mantel. Tom thinks it’s of northern Michigan. Above him, a dusty ceiling fan rests.

The dog is licking his hand because he and Jules feasted the night before on stale potato chips.

This house proved to be a little more fruitful than the last. The men packed a few canned goods, paper, two pairs of children’s boots, two small jackets, and a sturdy plastic bucket before falling asleep. Still, no phone book. In the modern age, with cell phones in everybody’s pocket, the phone book, it seems, has passed on.