A family of shearwaters made one above Max’s bedroom window. In the morning he’d crane his neck and see the daddy shearwater poke his head out of the hole he’d chipped in the house’s facade, darting it in both directions before arrowing out over the water to hunt.
Max’s father, however, wasn’t impressed. The lawn was covered in Styrofoam and pink rags of insulation. The birds would wreck the home’s resale value, he griped—despite the fact that he’d lived in North Point his whole life and would likely die in this house. He drove to the Home Hardware, returning with a bottle of insulating foam sealant. He clambered up a ladder to the nest, shooed the birds away, stuck the nozzle into the hole, and pumped in sealant until it billowed out and hardened to a puffy crust. He climbed back down with a self-satisfied smile.
But the shearwaters were back the next day. They’d torn away at the sealant, ripping it off in chunks with their sickle-shaped beaks. Now the lawn was covered in Styrofoam, insulation, and sealant. Max’s father repeated the procedure, believing the birds would relent. But shearwaters are cousins to homing pigeons—they always come back. I should shoot them, Max’s father groused, though he could never do such a thing.
Still, he was angry—that particular anger of humans defied by the persistence of nature. He drove back to Home Hardware, returning with another can of sealant and a few feet of heavy-duty chicken wire. Using tin snips, he cut the wire into circles roughly the size of the hole. Clambering up the ladder, he made a layer cake of sorts: a layer of sealant, then chicken wire, sealant, wire, sealant, wire. Okay, birds, he’d said. Figure that out.
Max returned from school the next day to find a dead shearwater in the bushes. The daddy—he could tell by its dark tail feathers. It lay with its neck twisted at a horrible angle. Its beak was broken—half of it was snapped off. Its eyes were filmy-gray, like pewter. It’d made a mess: shreds of sealant dotted the lawn. But his father’s handiwork held strong. The daddy bird must’ve broken its neck—had it become so frustrated, so crazy, that it’d flown into the barrier until its neck snapped?
When Max’s father saw the dead bird, his jaw tightened, he blinked a few times very fast, then quietly he said: I just wanted them to find someplace else to live.
In the middle of the night Max had been woken by peeping. The sound was coming from the walls. Max padded into his parents’ room. His father rubbed sleep crust from his eyes and followed Max back to his bedroom. When he heard those noises, his face did a strange thing.
At three o’clock in the morning, Max’s dad climbed the ladder. His housecoat flapped in the salt breeze. Using a screwdriver and vise grips, he tore out the sealant and chicken wire, working so manically that he nearly fell. By the time he’d ripped it away the peeps had stopped. He reached deep inside the hole, into a small depression he’d not realized was there. He placed whatever he’d found in the pockets of his housecoat with great reverence.
In the kitchen, his face white with shock, he laid them on the table: the mama bird and two baby birds. The mama bird’s wing was broken. The babies were small and gray-blue, still slick with the gummy liquid inside their eggs. All three were still.
I didn’t know, was all Max’s dad could say. If I’d known I’d’ve never… I got carried away.
Max thought of this now, in relation to what they’d done to Scoutmaster Tim.
They’d gotten carried away, was all. It happened to adults, too. When you got angry and frustrated and scared enough, it was so, so easy to get carried away.
“I never seen a dead person before,” said Newton. “My hamster died. Yoda. He got out of his cage and got his neck broke by getting caught in a sliding closet door. He was just a hamster but man, he died in my hands. His neck hung all funny. I couldn’t stop crying.” Newton swabbed his wrist across his eyes and fetched a deep sigh. “We buried him in a shoe box in the backyard. I made a cross out of Popsicle sticks. That’s kinda dumb. Jeez. Don’t tell the other guys, huh? They’ll rag me a new one.”
Max’s father had buried the birds in a shoe box, too, lining it with lush coffin velvet. “It’s not dumb, Newt. It was the right thing to do, I think.”
“Yeah?” Newt smiled, but his expression darkened by degrees. “Do you think we could let the Scoutmaster out?”
“Kent’s the only one who knows the lock combination.”
The boys squinted at the pinpricks of light on the mainland. There appeared to be more than usual. Smaller lights zipped back and forth beneath its awning like phosphorescent ants pouring out of a neon anthill. A remote sense of calm settled over Max. A sense of Zen forbearance, even, as his body marshaled its remaining strength—as if it knew, in advance of his mind, that he’d need every ounce of it over the coming hours and days. Distantly, Max wondered if this was how men felt in a war. Even more distantly he wondered about his parents: in bed, probably, sleeping soundly with no earthly idea what was happening.
“Do you really think the boat will show up?”
“Shut up, Newt. Please.”
PART 2
INFESTATION
Lead news item from CNN.com, October 22:
As of 7:15 a.m. the tiny (18-square-kilometer) island of Falstaff, 3 miles off the northern coast of Prince Edward Island, has been officially quarantined.
A memo released by the Military Attaché office cites the cause as “a biological incident of unknown origin.” This could mean an outbreak of contagious disease, fungal infection, parasite, or a water- or airborne contaminant that poses a significant risk to human and animal populations.
The military continues to mass in the small town of North Point. Sources indicate the military is working jointly with the Public Health Agency—specifically the Centre for Contagious Disease.
As yet no information has surfaced regarding either the specific cause behind the quarantine or the nature of the biological threat.
According to the military, the island is currently unoccupied.
17
THEY HAD locked him in the closet. Their Scoutmaster. The town’s only doctor. Almost unbelievably, this had happened. They’d ganged up. Kent and Ephraim, and Shelley with his ball-bearing eyes. Even Newton and Max had joined in.
You deserved it, Tim, HAL 9000 chastised. You put the boys in danger. Knowingly or not, but they were your responsibility. Remember the Scout Code.
How was it my fault? Tim asked himself. Had he invited the sick man onto the island? Had he purposefully, maliciously set events on an extinction vector? No, no. He’d acted out of kindness. He’d done what any caring person would do. He’d tried so hard, under such desperate circumstances, to make the right choices—how was he to know it would turn out so horribly wrong?
It ended in this: Tim locked in a closet, alone with his thoughts. And his hunger. And the sick sweet stink of his body.