I stumble over to my bedroom window and push aside my curtains for a better view. It’s a beautiful, sunny day, the colors crisp with early spring. The street is empty of people, but birds are everywhere. Crows mostly, some ravens, a few buzzards, hopping around in our front lawn, perched on top of cars, lining the gutters of rooftops. The wrongness blossoms into full-blown horror.

A bird crashes against the window, and I jerk back. It drops away as quickly as it came, leaving a brownish smear on the glass. Did it fall? It can’t have survived. I start forward, to look for it on the ground, but wait, I’m standing in front of my window completely naked.

I shudder, creeped out by my own weird responses as much as anything; it’s like my mind is swimming through sludge. I need to talk to someone, or at least hug my mom. I grab my robe from the peg outside the bathroom and put it on gingerly, trying to ignore the burn in my shoulders. I throw open my bedroom door and rush into the hallway. “Mom? Paul?”

No, no, it’s too early for Mom or my stepdad to be home from work. I open my mouth to call out again anyway when I notice the smell.

Sickly sweet, like fruit gone bad. No, it’s gamey, like warm, spoiled milk. With a start, I know exactly what it is. It’s the same smell that filled our house when a rat got lodged under the washing machine and died.

A whimper bleeds from my lips. Ryan. I have to find my brother.

I run, just two steps, but my weak knees can’t take it and I buckle to the ground. I drag myself along the hardwood floor, my knees getting caught in my robe, my heartbeat a drum in my temples. When I reach my brother’s door, I use the doorknob to pull myself to my feet.

I knock. “Ryan? It’s Paige.”

I stare at his Keep Out sign and the hazardous waste symbol beneath it. “Ry-guy?”

But I can’t take it anymore. I have to see him, family privacy pact be damned, and I swing open the door.

Screeching, flapping, black wings, yellow eyes, buzzing insects. A gust of ice-cold air and everywhere that overwhelming, sweet-sick scent. The window is open—no, broken—its jagged edges slick with blood and feathers. Denim curtains sway in the breeze.

My rebelling mind doesn’t want to put it all together, but it does, inexorably, and I fall to my knees all over again. I manage to look up, toward Ryan’s bed, and I see a small pale hand flung over the edge of the mattress. The pinky finger is a shredded, bloodless stump.