Peregrine
Buckshot.
Before you read another word, heed this warning: nothing can prepare you for the searing, bone-deep misery that rips through your torso when it breaks your skin. The initial impact stuns you into an instant state of shock, sending you sprawling backward. As the hellfire pellets scatter throughout your body, inch by agonizing inch, they are like a thousand little stabs in symphony crescendoing together into an apex of agony. In disbelief, you will be compelled to reach down for physical confirmation. When you pull away, your life-force will be slick on the pads of your fingers, warm and wet, a sensation that is strangely not altogether off-putting. Then it unfurls, a dark crimson bloom seeping through your clothes. It’s mesmerizing watching the scarlet tide devour the real estate of your white cotton t-shirt.
My imminent demise was precipitated by the unfortunate underestimation of a little old lady. Technically speaking, "little" was a misnomer. For a morbidly obese seventy-year-old, Sheila was anything but little. She was also surprisingly agile as she navigated her cluttered home with the stealth and precision of a rotund feline on the prowl.
When she hit the bullseye on her first shot, I was reluctantly forced to concede Sheila possessed a commendable degree of marksmanship, but maybe that was giving her a tinge too much credit. After all, with a shotgun, one needs only to point in the right direction and hope for the best.
Mother always said, “greed is the downfall of all mankind.” And if she were still alive, she’d tell me I had no one to blame but myself. In all honestly, I was just too awestruck by the sight of it. I’d been planning this caper for the better part of two fortnights. It was a gift from the Gods that landed in my lap after a chance encounter with Sheila’s bitter and estranged son, Billy, at a dive bar I frequented. Over the years, I’d learned slumming it with the locals often paid out handsome returns. You’d be surprised what the uneducated will say once their tongue has been loosened by alcohol.
According to Billy, (yes, you are correct in your assumption that a fifty-two-year-old man named Billy was as childish as the nickname implied) his mother was a doomsday prepper who didn’t trust banks and believed the international financial system was on the brink of total collapse. When this happened, the world would revert back to using gold as its dominate currency. In preparation, she’d been hoarding gold bars for decades while she waited for this devastating apocalyptic event to happen. Since it hadn’t yet, (and likely never would) I was eager to relieve her of her burden.
Late one night, Billy bragged he’d be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in precious metals when she died. It was a lazy pickup line he thought would green light him into the panties of the bored blond seated next to him. Unimpressed with his seemingly outlandish claims, she got up to leave, passing in a wake of cheap drugstore perfume. I waited patiently, letting the failure percolate from my perch three stools down, knowing with every passing second, he was becoming more ripe for the picking. When the time was right, I slid over and commiserated, “Women never see a good thing when it’s standing right in front of them.”
“Damn straight they don’t.” He agreed, as his face twisted up into an ugly scowl. Then he chugged down the last dregs of his Coors Light, setting the empty can on the sticky bar.
“Let me buy you a drink.” I offered, barely able to stop the cheshire grin from spreading across my face. I signaled to the bar keep, and he came running with the Jamisons.
Four rounds of conciliatory shots later (a crucial ploy to ensure his recollection would be fuzzy of our time spent together), I seized the opportunity. He stood, swaying on his feet, and I absconded with his wallet when he turned to stumble off to the bathroom. It was a stained velcro contraption that on the surface appeared worthless, with the exception of the plastic pocket that housed his driver’s identification.
A few days later, after tracking down his mother, Sheila, on the internet, I pulled my car to a stop a block away from her front door. The home was situated on the outskirts of the affluent beachside enclave of Aura Cove. In the dark, I engaged in rigorous surveillance. The home was a classic seventies ranch, tucked into the end of an unremarkable side street. I was relieved to see it didn’t feature an ocean view which greatly reduced the foot traffic. It was part of the original neighborhood of Aura Cove, built decades before greedy developers sliced up the coastline into multi-million dollar lots.
Sheila’s yard was sparsely lit and covered with overgrown bushes and palm trees in a state of serious neglect. I’d had to tread carefully at first, since those who were paranoid enough to remove most of their financial assets from banks were often diligent about security. But one phone call to an acquaintance at a well-known security company verified that the blue logo on the sign stabbed into the ground near the front door was simply a decoy.
Over the next two weeks, I discovered that Sheila never left her house. She relied on home delivery with the kind of reckless abandon typical of lazy twenty-somethings who Uber for fast food. Every week, brown bags appeared on her front porch like clockwork, disappearing inside within minutes. You can learn a lot about a person by what they consume. Sheila, for instance, had a sweet tooth, an African Grey Parrot, and didn’t believe in tipping. After I handed her driver a generous fifty-dollar tip, he was more than happy to let me rifle through her bags, especially after being stiffed once again.
By week four, it became apparent, in the interest of progress, that I was going to have to break a rule I had never broken before: entering a mark’s house while she was still occupying it.
I took as many precautions as I could. On the eve of the full moon, I parked two streets away and used its natural illumination to navigate through connecting backyards to the rear of her house. I scaled the fence quickly and dropped onto the ground before scrambling toward the sunroom. At the back door, I pulled out my tools and, after only a few seconds of work, grinned with satisfaction when the interior mechanism disengaged. Then, I let myself in as quietly as possible, walking on tiptoes and gently shut the door behind me. Once inside, I pressed my body into the shadows, straining to listen for movement, and waiting for my racing heart to relax. The unexpected rush of adrenaline filled me with overconfidence and resulted in taking larger risks.
Another downfall.
According to Billy, Sheila was fond of utilizing the ductwork to hide her treasure, and behind most of the vents in the house, gold bars and coins were tucked away. I started in the cluttered sunroom, two sides of it were composed of glass where moonlight flooded in tracing the lines of three dwarf lemon trees and other planters and buckets of vegetation. The air was musty with a slight citrus scent and buzzing with fruit flies. From the corner of the room, there was a rustling sound and a drowsy squawk that drew my attention to a large cage draped in a black sheet. During my month of surveillance, I learned there would be a large parrot sleeping inside.
“Who’s a pretty boy?” the bird mumbled and churred between soft clicks and warbles. I froze in silence, waiting for the bird to calm back down, counting my breaths in the darkness. Eventually, he did, and I located the first vent, resting on my knees in front of it. Outside the house, I heard the ancient air conditioner power on. It squealed and hissed to life, the fan blades screaming in protest. I was grateful the loud rumbling helped settle the bird and disguised the electric whirring of my portable screwdriver.
After a few seconds, the vent was resting on the floor, the screws squeaking as they rolled back and forth on the metal plate. I bent down, reached in, and patted around, feeling the first rush of euphoria when my hand connected with something cold and metallic. I pulled out the first two bars that caught a sliver of moonlight and made a satisfying grin spread across my face. In astonishment, I held the solid gold in my hands for a long moment, imagining the down payment I was going to make on a sailboat, already spending the windfall in my head. My literal ship was coming in and it energized me to reach back into the ventilation duct to pull out more when my fingers brushed against the rough edges of something strange.
Completely engrossed in my pilfering, I pulled it out and transfixed. I stared down at what looked like an exquisite golden sculpture of a miniature parrot barely three inches long. In my hand, the cold metal warmed to the touch, and I raised it to study the bird, when a sudden shimmer of golden light stole my attention. I felt it vibrate in my palm, and then a flutter, as the wings flapped.
FLAPPED.
I shit you not.
Totally mesmerized, I cupped it in both of my hands, willing it to flap once more when, with a bang and a flash, the thunder of buckshot pitched me forward.
By the time I whirled around, Sheila was mere steps away. She cocked the shotgun again, and I tried to dive for cover, but it was too late. When the second blast hit, I knew I was in trouble. I squeezed the bird into my fist. The wings were sharp, and they cut through my hand, but it was a minor annoyance and paled in comparison to the mortal wounds I’d already suffered.
“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” I mumbled under my breath, letting out an unsettling chuckle at the absurdity. In my final moments, I was quickly entering delirium, so I cannot tell you if what occurred next actually happened or was a figment of my imagination.
The golden bird began to flutter in my palm, tickling the ridges of my hand until I released it into the air. It flapped its wings and a shower of sparkles drifted from the bird to the floor. Enamored with it, I struggled to my feet, stumbling toward it as it flew toward the cage draped in fabric.
The shotgun cocked again, and I felt another shower of pellets explode as I fell forward onto the cage, disengaging the lock on the door in one fell swoop. There was a metal clang as the shotgun fell to the ground and then a heavy thud when Sheila landed next to it. She was clutching her chest and moaning, her skin pasty and white. I staggered to my feet again, both hands covered in blood that was now dripping from my mouth in sputters and starts.
“Are you seriously having a heart attack right now? Why couldn’t that have happened five minutes ago?” I let out a choked laugh as my blood dribbled onto the floor. The only kind of luck I’d ever had was bad, and in my last moments, as the circumstances became almost comical, my laughter became more unhinged.
“Uh-Oh!” the gray bird squawked, taking in the scene of his caretaker on the ground as if he could understand what was happening. “Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” He crowed, then repeated. “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” The life alert commercial catchphrase resurfaced from my misty childhood memories, and I coughed out another coppery laugh. The bird had obviously been as overexposed to local access television as I had been.
He flapped his wings, exiting the cage, cawing at the golden bird and coming to a rest on top of it. His eyes were unblinking, and he was getting more animated and squawking louder as the golden bird flapped closer to him. His soft head bobbed up and down in glee as the golden bird flapped its tiny wings closer. “Gimme a kiss!” He chirped, now that the golden bird was mere inches away. Then he jutted out his chin and spread his wings wide in what could only be described as an elaborate mating dance, while his flirty demand repeated in a sassy staccato. “Gimme a kiss!”
The golden bird whirred and chirped as it drew closer and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the pair, now only a breath away.
In my final moments, I reached out to touch my shimmering avian guide. I was desperate to fly away from the pain when I felt lightheaded and saw a whoosh of black light. There were screams I only recognized as my own as I drifted away, and then my soul took flight.
Sale
Sale
Sale
