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Evolution: Change in Times - Chatper 2 - Changing Beliefs
By Hero(Raptormark
"I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created parasitic wasps with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars."
Radios and televisions all over the small, quaint town blared news of the “mysterious birds falling from the sky”. Everything sickened Mark. In fact, he wished he had never made his comments on channel 12. From what I can see and understand at this moment, we may be looking at what scientists all over have been searching for… the key to the evolutionary belief. He hated himself now for saying it. Every reporter turned his words into some sort of coming “apocalypse”.
The ride back to his house from school was quiet, his mother never turning to talk to him as she listened intently to the local radio station. The D.J. was rambling on about how he thought it was a sign from God. His assistant would occasionally hop onto the microphone and criticize Mark’s theory.
“Evolution… Please. That kid has some nerve going on public television spurtin’ out his beliefs and crap. It’s pretty sad when a youngster like himself goes in front of the public just to try and alienate us creationists. Little rat ass…”
The radio clicked off, Mark angered by the ignorance that man had just displayed. Here he was, a witness to the god damned weirdest thing he’d ever seen and people are still criticizing him. The evidence was there. A courtyard littered with featherless, talon-tipped pigeons… what more could you ask for?
“You know Mark… that guy was kind of right. The reporter only asked what had happened… and you go off into your own little tangents about things that have never been proven.” Mark’s mother broke the silence.
“Ma… what I witnessed did prove my theories. The thing that killed Kerrie was not one of those damned birds. It was… different. It looked exactly like what those birds were turning into.”
“Yea… but nobody but you saw that little creature. If it weren’t for those pecking at his body when the police arrived, you would probably be the main suspect.”
A sigh escaped Mark’s lips as they pulled into the driveway. He knew he was right... and he had to find a way to warn the public.
Animal Control littered the streets of Downtown Rocky Point. Every store had closed after word of the “mini-murderer”. This small town was never known to have any type of murders; even robberies were extremely rare, so when something went wrong, even the slightest thing, the town would go on lockdown. A.C., under the slight control of the Suffolk County Police Department, searched every nearby mass of trees and bushes for the little creature, but so far, after a three hours search, they had found nothing.
“The sky is completely empty…” Officer Miles Penbry tilted his head upwards, staring at the blank sky.
“Pretty weird, aint it?” His partner for the day, Chester Christ, stared at the sky along with him, his eyes taking in absolutely nothing but the blank blue. “You think we’ll find the little bastard?
Miles chuckled a bit, turning his head down and towards Chester. “Jesus… if that thing is a small as the kid described him as… I doubt it.”
“Okay, I’ve told you a million times to not call me Jesus. It makes me feel all… weird inside.”
Penbry just laughed, shrugging his shoulders a bit. “Let’s go join the hunt. I’ll check the 7-11.”
“I’ve got the Dunkin’ Donuts.”
The officers laughed as they turned from each other, heading it opposite directions.
Penbry strolled along his route, checking over his shoulder ever few steps. He didn’t take kindly to the idea of a miniature carnivore running around. But I feel so safe now… cuz I have Animal Control to save me. He smiled to himself, kicking his heels as he walked. As he got further downtown, he noticed things started to change. Quirking an eyebrow, he scanned the area he was in completely. A.C. trucks but no personnel? His hand immediately went for his sidearm, pulling it from its holster, holding it tight and close to his side. The area was completely silent, aside from the quiet crunch of his boots hitting the asphalt. A feeling of eeriness swept over the officer as a sound filled the silence. Stopping in his tracks, Penbry tilted his head slightly, perking his ear towards the sound. Crunching? The sound grew a bit louder and a bit more frequent. Slowly, he started to take small steps forward, following the sounds.
The sound grew the loudest as he neared the broken glass window of the Rocky Point Bakery. Penbry threw his back up against the outer wall of the store, silently creeping along it towards the window. As he crept along, his boots crunched down on bits and pieces of shattered glass, bringing about a new noise from inside. The screech that came from inside the bakery was inhuman. In fact, to Penbry, it wasn’t even recognizable. Several short huffs emitted from the bakery, each new sound seeming a bit closer than the first.
Penbry, unaware of his position outside, stumbled across the doorway, falling backwards and knocking into the door. The officer’s weight pushed the door open, breaking off one of the hinges. Penbry stumbled to the floor, his gun slipping from his hand as he did so. He hit the ground hard, his vision going black for a second after. As he lay there, his vision slowly came back. First everything was blurry; all he could see were disfigured shapes. Then, as his vision cleared entirely, his heart sank and his lungs stopped.
Standing in front of the officer, about two feet tall each, was a group of three of the featherless birds that had been described to him earlier. The talons of each creature were doused in blood, the source of that blood being the torn up body of the bakery’s owner lying at the feet of the beings. The creature that stood in the middle of the other two lifted its head up, sniffing the air. A low growl rumbled within its throat as the shifty eyes on the top-sides of its head gazed over Penbry. It snorted and snapped its jaws in the officer’s direction.
Penbry crawled backwards, moving away from the three beasts that were still standing there, snarling and snorting at him. His eyes searched the store, looking for his gun. As far as he knew it dropped outside before he fell.
When the largest of the three beings started to stalk its way towards Penbry, the officer crawled faster, backing himself up against the wall. Penbry stood up against the wall, the yellow eyes of his stalker staring straight at him. Standing fully, his back pressed hard against the wall, he started to slide along the wall towards the door. It seemed as if the creature was pushing him more as it angled itself to Penbry so every step it took would be a step closer the left arm of the officer.
When he finally reached the door, Penbry took notice to the fact that the other two creatures had never moved, still standing over their killed. He pushed himself through, stumbled along some rubble as he took a deep breath of fresh air. He turned; the beast had stopped following him. Penbry watched as the carnivore turned its full attention back to its kill. This is it. Penbry searched the ground for his gun; finding it and raising the barrel at the monstrosities inside.
The interior of the Animal Control ambulance was cool and brightly lit. Various medications and drugs lined one side of the truck, being held in by make-shift cabinets and shelves. A small stretcher was folded up and pressed tight against the wall, strapped in by lines of bungee cord. What looked to be a fairly large heating lamp hung from the roof of the van, the light from it spreading over a larger stretcher.
Lying sprawled out on the large stretcher was one of the creatures, several bullet wounds spread all over its body. Officer Penbry stood off to the side of the van, watching as one of the control personnel cared over the creature. He couldn’t understand why they would want the damn thing alive. Nor could he understand how the little critter survived the rain of gunfire it was suppressed by.
“You said that they didn’t attack, right? They just kind of let you leave?” The Animal Control personnel asked Penbry, breaking the silence.
“Uh yea, kind of like it just wanted me out.”
“They may have seen you as some sort of threat to their kill. Carnivores, especially hunters, are very protective of those that they kill, they will defend their… um… prize as if it were family.”
“Th… that’s fascinating.” Penbry thought his question out for a moment, and then let it out. “Where the hell did they come from? I breezed through this town everyday for the past five years and never have I seen anything like that.”
“I think our answer lies in the words of a teenager. That kid that witnessed the first attack stated that more than half of the attackers were featherless pigeons. Now, how many times do you see a pigeon rip off the skin of a human being?”
Hesitantly, not sure where the vet was getting with this, Penbry answered. “Not... ever. Why?”
“There was something wrong with those birds. Either it was just a freak accident caused by human’s unkindly ways towards nature… or nature’s unkindly ways towards man.”
Penbry just shook his head. He was far from a scientist; in fact he had failed every year of science at least once. He stood slowly, approaching the table. “So when will you have anything on this… thing?”
“It’s hard to tell… but what I can tell you is that…” he paused, his head tilting slightly as his fingers brushed over the things skin, “…it used to be a bird.”
7/6/2002 3:28:51 PM
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