Blood Bird ★ Benjamin Shelor (Part Two)

Something screeched in the distance.
It was a hollow wail, like a bird’s call, but not a nice melodic bird.
The sickly screechy kind.
It was the only sound that traveled.

I swallowed thickly.

“What was that?” Bob aimed his flashlight sky bound. “It came from above us, to the west.”

Ernie’s face went pale. He didn’t answer.

“It’s that bird ol’ Bill used to talk about before he died,” someone said.

Blood Bird ★ Benjamin Shelor (Part One)

It was a Sunday.

The day the kids down the lane went missing.

It was sunny, but cold; sunlight flitting through the trees like racing pixies. The fall air full of wood smoke and whimsy, changing leaves and magic.

The smell of it all would wrap around you whenever you stepped outside.

They were all kin, you see. The kids.

Two brothers and a sister.

There was Judy, Jack and Gene.

I supposed their parents thought themselves poetic, but couldn’t quite grasp what they were going for with the names was witty alliteration.

I think the beast gets a taste for a bloodline, and after that--- well, any future you might've had becomes a whisper of smoke, because your days are numbered.