Drizzled with Death(73)

I reached with the flashlight as far as I could, trying to see what was the matter. My arm felt like it slid out of the socket and still I couldn’t get a good view. I turned my head, trying to flatten myself enough to slither farther between the lumpy ground and the underside of the car. My legs were still sticking out the end when I caught sight of someone else’s legs. And feet. But most important, claws. Running toward me. Wrinkled, gray-tan bird legs with a long, long claw on the end of each toe.

I dropped the flashlight and wriggled backward as fast as I could. Jumping to my feet, I saw what looked like an ostrich wearing a dinosaur costume. Black glossy feathers draped like an old lady’s shawl over its bulbous body. Its royal blue and red head had a bony ridge on the top. It towered above me. The thing must have been six feet and probably outweighed me by quite a bit, too. Although to be fair, so do a lot of family dogs. The bird hissed like a Gila monster and began to run in my direction. My mind went blank, my legs lost function, and I simply watched as it bore down on me. I still don’t know what snapped me into action, but I was grateful my reptilian brain made the decision for flight, not fight, without consulting the rest of me.

I whipped round the side of the car, keeping the tiny vehicle between us. I made a grab for the passenger door but found it locked. The bird rounded the front of the vehicle and I made it to the back, then the driver’s side. I jerked the door open, slammed it shut behind me, and sat trembling.

I reached into my pocket for my keys but found nothing. I tried the other jacket pocket, then each pocket in my jeans, all the while keeping an eye on the bird tapping at the glass with its beak. That was when I remembered dropping the flashlight with the keys attached under the car, outside, where the bird was. I lunged for my purse and dug out my cell phone. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

“Officer Paterson speaking.”

“It’s Dani Greene. I’m out on County Road and I think I’ve spotted one of the animals you are looking for.”

“Thanks for calling, exotics whisperer. Which one have you seen?” He sounded friendly and eager for information this time instead of superior and condescending. It was miraculous how much more attractive that made him seem. I felt a shivery little tickle on my neck on the same side I was cradling the phone.

“It’s a really big bird. Like a black-and-blue ostrich.”

“You haven’t stopped, have you?” I heard a note of anxiety in Graham’s voice. My stomach dropped low enough to operate the clutch.

“I’m pulled over on the side of the road. I don’t make calls while driving. As a police officer, you ought to know how dangerous that is.” Typical. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen Mitch yakking on his phone as he blew past me on the highway.

“Has it spotted you yet?” Again, I heard the worry. It came through like a physical caress, only not so pleasant. And what about this guy made me think of caresses in the first place?

“It has.”

“Dani, you’ve got no business messing with cassowaries.”

“I thought the point of you asking for community involvement was that we spot them and call you.”

“The point is you shouldn’t stop for cassowaries. Even the Australian government websites say so. They’re very aggressive when provoked and they take gawking as provocation.” I looked over at the bird, which was circling the car. It looked bigger all the time.

“Where are you?” The anxiety in my voice was more than a match for Graham’s.

“Two minutes away, three at most, according to my GPS. Whatever you do, don’t get out of the vehicle.” Graham hung up and I sat huddled in the seat humming “Amazing Grace” when the bird stopped at the driver’s side window, its long-lashed eye cocked inside searching around like a beat cop at lover’s lane. If only the thing had a flashlight and a patrol hat, the picture would have been complete. I took a deep breath and told myself there was no way it was getting inside. And that, of course, was when things took a turn for the worse. Like a scene from a low-budget martial arts movie, the creature lifted one foot off the ground. Balancing on the other, it flashed a claw at me the likes of which I have never seen. Its foot held three toes and the middle one had a built-in dagger. It waggled it at me like we were in a production of West Side Story. My heart hammered around and I suddenly needed to pee worse than I had since that time in the third grade when the neighbor’s Doberman chased me up a tree and no one noticed I was missing until suppertime.

It raked down the window with the claw. The sound wasn’t exactly like the noise of fingernails on a chalkboard but it was close and much more frightening. The bird didn’t stop with the window, though. When it got to the metal of the door, I actually heard it rip.