Bird box

Malorie tries to calm down by focusing on the child growing inside her. She seems to be encountering every symptom mentioned in her baby book, With Child. Slight bleeding. Tender breasts. Fatigue. Shannon points out Malorie’s mood swings, but it’s the cravings that are driving her crazy. Too afraid to drive to the store, the sisters are stuck with the items they stockpiled shortly after purchasing the pregnancy test. But Malorie’s tastes have changed. Standard foods disgust her. So she combines things. Orange brownies. Chicken with cocktail sauce. Raw fish on toast. She dreams of ice cream. Often, looking toward the front door, she thinks of how easy it would be to get behind the wheel of the car and drive to the store. She knows it would take only fifteen minutes. But every time she leans toward doing it, the television delivers another harrowing story. And besides, who knows if the employees show up to the stores anymore?

“What do you think people are seeing?” Malorie asks Shannon.

“I don’t know, Mal. I just don’t know.”

The sisters ask each other this question constantly. It’d be impossible to count the number of theories that have been birthed online. All of them scare the hell out of Malorie. Mental illness as a result of the radio waves in wireless technology is one. An erroneous evolutionary leap in humankind is another. New Agers say it’s a matter of humanity being in touch with a planet that is close to exploding, or a sun that is dying.

Some people believe there are creatures out there.

The government is saying nothing except lock your doors.

Malorie, alone, sits on the couch, slowly rubbing her belly, watching television. She worries that there is nothing positive to watch, that the baby feels her anxiety. With Child told her this would happen. The baby will experience the mother’s emotions. Still, she can’t look away from the screen. On a desk against the wall behind her, the computer is open and on. The radio plays softly. Together, it makes Malorie feel like she’s in a war room. At the center of it all, while everything is falling apart. It’s overwhelming. And it’s becoming terrifying. There are no commercials anymore. And the newscasters pause for periods of time, shamelessly revealing their surprise as they receive updates on air.

Above this buzzing din of media, Malorie hears Shannon moving on the second floor.

Then, as Gabriel Townes, one of CNN’s primary anchors, silently reads a sheet of paper just handed to him, Malorie hears a thud from above. She pauses.

“Shannon!” she calls. “Are you all right?”

Gabriel Townes doesn’t look good. He’s been on television a lot lately. CNN let it be known that many of their reporters have stopped coming in to the station. Townes has been sleeping there. “We’ll go through this together” is his new slogan. His hair is no longer perfect. He wears little makeup. More jarring is the exhausted way in which he delivers the news. He looks sunken.

“Shannon? Come down here. It looks like Townes just got an update.”

But there is no response. There is only silence from upstairs. Malorie rises and turns down the television.

“Shannon?”

Quietly, Gabriel Townes is discussing a beheading in Toledo. It’s less than eighty miles from where Malorie watches.

“Shannon?! What are you doing up there?”

There is no answer. Townes speaks quietly on the television. There are no accompanying graphics. No music. No inserts.

Malorie, standing in the center of the room, is looking toward the ceiling. She turns the volume of the television even lower, then turns the radio off, then walks toward the stairs.

At the railing, she slowly looks up to the carpeted landing. The lights are off, but a thin ray of what looks like sunshine sprays upon the wall. Placing her hand on the wood, Malorie steps onto the carpet. She looks over her shoulder, to the front door, and imagines an amalgamation of every report she’s heard.

She takes the stairs.

“Shannon?”

She is at the top now. Trembling. Stepping down the hall, she sees sunlight coming from Shannon’s bedroom. Slowly, she comes to the open door and looks inside.

A corner of the window is exposed. A part of the blanket, having come loose, hangs.

Malorie quickly looks away. There is a stillness, and a faint hum from the television below.

“Shannon?”

Down the hall, the bathroom door is open. The light is on. Malorie walks toward it. Once there, she holds her breath, then turns to look.

Shannon is on the floor, facing the ceiling. A pair of scissors sticks out of her chest. Blood surrounds her, pooling into the tiles on the floor. It seems like more blood than her body could hold.

Malorie screams, clutching the doorframe, and slides to the ground, wailing. The harsh light of the bathroom exposes every detail. The stillness of her sister’s eyes. The way Shannon’s shirt sinks into her chest with the scissor blades.