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  The bird wriggled a little. Shamus tightened his grip on its body. Maybe just one more time. One last bite and he could move on. Buggy got to have more broccoli. Why couldn’t Shamus have just one more bird?

  Lifting the bird to his face, Shamus licked the back of its head. The bird pecked his lip. Shamus opened his mouth. His cell phone vibrated on the floor, startling the budgie in his hand. It fluttered its wings, but didn’t fly away. Shamus lowered the bird to his lap once more, and then picked up the phone. He pressed the green button and then put it to his ear. “Hello?”

  “I got your text,” the voice on the other end said. “You were supposed to do this during business hours, Shamus. We made a plan. You aren’t supposed to be there alone. What happened?”

  Shamus bit his lip and then took a deep, shaky breath before he replied. “I did come when the store was open. Ozzie was with me. It all went as planned. They never let me hold one, though. Said it was against policy. So I felt like it wasn’t what we talked about.”

  “Is that why you’re there now?” She sighed. “I wish you would’ve called me this afternoon. I could’ve talked to the manager and made an arrangement.”

  “I had to hold one.”

  “We agreed you’d only look at them.”

  “I had to know I could hold one without hurting it, so I came back.”

  “Oh, Shame, did you break in?”

  “Not exactly.” Shamus stroked the budgie’s wing with his thumb. The bird seemed to like being held. It trusted him. “I came back before they closed. At first, I didn’t plan to stay. I just wanted to see them again. And then I found myself hiding behind the dog food racks… and then the lights were out, and I was all alone. The birds were loud. They don’t like the dark.”

  “Jesus,” she said. “Have you called anyone else?”

  “No. They’d be mad at me.”

  “Did you call Ozzie?”

  “Not yet. He’s got a date.”

  “Since when?”

  “It’s part of his therapy, remember?”

  “Right. Good. Don’t call him. I’m coming.”

  “Okay.”

  “And for the love of Christ, Shame, there better not be any decapitated animals when I get there. Just practice your breathing. Do you still have your rubber band?”

  “It broke.”

  “Shit. Okay, maybe…” She made a strange noise. “Charlie, go back to bed.”

  “Why is Charlie there?”

  “Don’t worry about him. Listen, hum a lullaby like we practiced. Can you do that?”

  “Sure.” Shamus pressed “end” and closed his eyes. “Hush little baby, don’t say a word,” he whispered. “Papa’s gonna buy you a mocking bird. If that mocking bird won’t sing…”

  Shamus imagined a mockingbird. He saw it sitting on a perch, refusing to sing for him. The bird in his hand squawked.

  “Shhh,” Shamus said. The bird wriggled and then pecked Shamus’ palm.

  Again, his mouth watered. Shamus stared at the bird.

  “If that mockingbird don’t…”

  The bird looked up at him. Its beady eyes blinked, and it turned its head. Shamus licked his lips. “I’m sorry, little guy.”

  Shamus lifted the bird to his face. He opened his mouth and put its head inside. It only struggled for a moment. As Shamus sank his teeth into its neck, the budgie barely made a sound. Shamus’ skin tingled at the sensation of tiny bones crunching. He tasted its blood and then his world blurred.

  ***

  “Oh Shamus.”

  Rochelle’s voice sounded somewhere in front of him. He blinked. His head felt light, as it always did when he gave in to the hunger, but the shame of what he’d done made it impossible to enjoy the high. He looked at the floor around him, and then to the cages lined up on the wall. Only two birds remained in their cozy little homes. The rest…

  A sob caught in his throat as he stared at the tiny headless bodies littering the floor around his legs. Feathers covered his pants, as well as streaks of blood.

  “I’m so sorry,” He whispered.

  “What am I going to do with you?” Rochelle asked.

  Footsteps sounded, and then Shamus saw her body silhouetted in the dim light that shone from the aquariums. He knew he’d disappointed Rochelle without seeing the frown on her face. The price would be never seeing his new friends again. She didn’t let fuck-ups stay in the group.

  “This is the last time,” Shamus said. “I promise.”

  “There are cameras, Shame. You’re lucky I’m handy with a pair of wire cutters.”

  “I… the tapes?”

  “It’s all digital, I’m afraid. I could only stop them from filming my arrival. The rest… well, what’s done is done, I suppose. Our problem now is I can’t have you causing trouble for the group.”

  “I can corrupt the files,” Shamus said. “I’m good with computers. And then I swear, I’ll do right. I’ll make up for my mistake. I’m so sorry. Didn’t I say I wasn’t ready? You said I’d be fine, but I’m not fine. Probably won’t ever be fine.”

  She pushed three bird corpses aside, knelt on the floor, and then wrapped her arms around his neck. “Sometimes life gives us more than we can handle. It’s not your fault or mine. It just is what it is.”

  “I can try again. Maybe in a few weeks, after you do that thing with the hypnosis again?”

  “No. I can’t set you up to fail anymore. It would be cruel.”

  Shamus choked on a sob. “I just wasn’t ready.”

  “I know.” She stroked his hair. “The problem is I agree with you. I don’t think you’ll ever be ready.”

  He nodded. “I’m hopeless, aren’t I? My dad said I was and he was right.”

  “Shhh.” her arms tightened around his neck. “I love you, Shame, but this can’t keep happening. I warned you after the incident at the dog park.”

  “I’m out. I know.” He sniffed. It was hard to breathe with her arms around his neck. “I’ll pack my things tomorrow. I won’t be a black mark on the group any longer.”

  “No need to bother yourself, love.” Her arms tightened again. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “I can’t breathe.” Shamus tried to push her away, but her arms were like vices. “You’re squeezing too tight. Rochelle, sto—”

  “Shhh, here.” She loosened her hold and put something against his lips.

  Shamus opened his mouth to apologize again, but she shoved something inside and then squeezed his neck again with her arm. Shamus felt feathers on his tongue. A bird’s head? Why would she do that? Her hand covered his mouth. Shamus couldn’t spit it out even if he wanted to.

  “Now, Shame, my darling, I hate to do this, but our group is important to me. We need to show progress. What purpose is therapy if it doesn’t help people? I’m a good doctor. I can’t have people questioning my ability to heal my patients. Nod if you understand.”

  Shamus nodded, fighting for each breath.

  “God, I wish this didn’t have to happen again, but I warned you, I wouldn’t tolerate any further regression in your progress.”

  Shamus clawed at her arms, but she was surprisingly strong. He struggled to breathe, but the bird’s head had lodged at the back of his throat, gagging him. Her hand covered his nose. He smelled latex, or rubber, he wasn’t sure, and then panic seized his chest.

  “This isn’t personal,” she said. “I love you, Shame, just as I loved the others. I wish there were another way. You just keep fucking things up, darling.”

  Shamus’ head felt light. His eyes blurred. He couldn’t get a breath. Why wouldn’t she let him breathe? He clawed at her hand, her arms, but she didn’t budge. His chest burned and convulsed. She was punishing him. Trying to scare him straight. It was working.

  “Don’t fight it,” she whispered. “Just let the darkness take you. It’s better this way. You’ll finally be free and your friends can move forward with their recovery.”

  Shamus shook his head. He tried to gulp for air
, but the bird’s head was in the way. Slowly, his will to fight her faded. Maybe she was right, he thought as shadows crept into the periphery of his vision. He couldn’t fight the urges. His life was miserable. It’d been ages since his family washed their hands of him, and Shamus avoided making friends, because once they found out what a monster he was, they disappeared.

  Yes. It was better this way. He closed his eyes and stopped fighting.

  CHAPTER 4

  Milo slammed the car door and surveyed the scene. It was good to be back at work. Two days of blissful peace proved his confrontation with Jones had been worth the suspension. His ex-partner left him alone, and the rest of them only talked to him when necessary. He’d had a bit of a moment the day before, when Smith got all up in his shit over a fucking pencil, but he had taken care of that.

  He couldn’t stand pencils. They were useless and gross. But driving one into the pompous dick’s neck had been quite satisfying. Smith wouldn’t bother him again either. A perfect arrangement. He knew it’d mean another suspension, but he didn’t care. Idiots like Smith and Jones didn’t respect mere words.

  The pet store parking lot was empty except for three cruisers, an ambulance and a few looky-loos peeking in the window. He was pleased to see three cop cars. Three was a good number. It told him his first case since his forced timeout wouldn’t be unsolved for long.

  He walked toward the pet store, counting his steps and sliding latex gloves over his hands as he neared the officers standing guard in front of a long strip of yellow police tape. Thirty-three steps and he was still a few feet from them. He forced his foot forward, and then the other one. Thirty-four, thirty-five… it would take at least ten more steps to reach the door, and then he’d be at forty-five. Forty-five divided by five was nine. Nine was a good number. Three groups of three.

  No. He shook his head. The numbers would not defeat him.

  “Detective Smalls,” a stout officer—Jenkins or Johnson or something with a J—with thinning hair and unfortunate teeth said, taking a step toward him. “They said—”

  “Doesn’t matter,” he interrupted. Captain Cunt probably gave the case to Jones or Mikkelson, but when the call came over the radio, he knew they’d take hours to get there. Their rationale was that the body wasn’t getting any deader, so the lazy fucks took their sweet time.

  Something in his gut told him it was another weird one. Man dies in bird attack at a closed pet store screamed a nutter murder. This would be the fourth. Maybe this time he’d find some evidence that would lead to a perpetrator. He should have had better luck with the third, because three—no. Milo shook his head. He could solve the fourth just as well as the third. Numbers didn’t affect his ability to do his job.

  He surveyed the exterior of the building. No sign of forced entry. Not at first glance anyway.

  “Has anyone disturbed the scene?” he asked.

  The officer shook his head. “We went inside to confirm the stiff was in fact a stiff, but we didn’t touch anything. It’s fucking weird in there. Never seen anything like it in my life.”

  “Good.” He opened his bag and then removed the crinkly blue booties he carried to every crime scene. He pulled one over each shoe, and then straightened. “And the employee who found the body?”

  The officer pointed to a short blond girl. “She hightailed it out of there the second she noticed him. Said she barely made it past the aquariums so the scene’s still untouched.”

  He nodded. She wore black pants and a red shirt. Probably her “uniform.” Poor thing. Her bright pink sneakers clashed terribly with the tomato color of her shirt.

  “They said you weren’t allowed in.” The officer avoided meeting Milo’s eyes.

  “Who said?”

  “Detective Jones called. Said he’d be about an hour and to not let you near the place.”

  “Is Jones your boss?”

  “No.”

  “He’s not my boss either, so he can fuck off.”

  Milo ducked under the tape and made his way to the door, which someone had propped open. They might not have touched anything, but their presence in the store, their dirty shoes walking from the door to the bird aisle, compromised any evidence the perpetrator might have left along the way. He forgot about the numbers issue as his brain found a new thing to focus on. God, he hated when the uniforms got there before him, as they usually did. First responder bullshit. They were messy and careless. No one should touch anything before the detective in charge arrived. A crime scene must be left pristine, particularly in a homicide investigation.

  And this, like the others, was a homicide. Sure, Captain Cunt had dismissed his nutter cases as either accidental deaths, or suicides, but he knew with almost absolute certainty she was wrong. She might be the boss, but the captain wasn’t the one with the highest rate of solved cases in the department. She was almost always wrong and she smelled like that shitty expensive soap women are always buying that smelled like lavender or some other stinky flower. Anyone who intentionally smelled of lavender had poor judgment and therefore, couldn’t be trusted.

  He stood at the cash registers positioned just inside the doors. A woman’s purse lay on top of the counter next to him. It was small, black, with an ugly silver buckle, and had a large ring of keys clipped to the strap. Its heart-shaped key fob read “My cat thinks I’m awesome.”

  “Moron,” he said. Had to be the employee’s purse. Still… he reached into his bag and pulled out a plastic marker. He placed it on the counter next to the purse. The forensics guys should check it just in case.

  He counted as he walked six steps forward, and then stopped to looked at the signs hanging above the aisles. The bird section was near the back. Handy for the perp, thought Milo as he searched for cameras. There were two above the registers, one further back, near aquatics. There was no light flashing on any of them to indicate they were recording. Had they been turned off, or were they ever turned on?

  He patted his pocket and then pulled out his notebook. Before arriving at the scene, he’d already jotted down the few details given over the radio. He added a note about the inoperative cameras. Why would a business have cameras that weren’t even turned on? He tapped the pen against the page. Tap. Tap. Tap. They worked just fine the last time he’d been there…

  Maybe the murderer turned them off. He made a note to ask someone about the cameras and then walked toward the bird section.

  The store wasn’t very big. It was a mom ‘n pop operation, with only two owners and three employees. He knew this because he’d been called to the store a year ago. When he got the call he checked his old notebooks to make sure he’d remembered correctly, although his memory was never wrong. There had been a burglary, but the burglar didn’t know the owner had been in the back taking an inventory. The owner said they’d had some inconsistencies in sales and balances, or something equally boring, and he suspected one of his staff was stealing.

  The burglar was surprised by the owner’s presence, panicked, and then brandished a knife. The owner, a war vet with an itchy trigger finger, shot the burglar with the rifle he kept behind the desk. At the time, he jotted every bit of information down, including the number of employees. Back then it’d been four. The burglar was obviously fired. Well, he was dead, but if he’d survived his stupidity, he’d have been fired. The owner had told Milo at the time that he didn’t plan to make any new hires in the near future. Couldn’t trust people these days, he’d said.

  He recalled many details from that investigation. Most importantly, they didn’t have a puppy or kitten section like most pet stores—thank fucking God—and each aisle that did contain animals was small, with the nasty beasts securely locked in a cage or aquarium. The entire back wall was made up of cages. In these were hamsters, birds, various reptiles, and other non-cuddly beasts. Eyeing them now, he shuddered. He recalled a particularly frightening tarantula that liked to twitch as he walked past. With any luck, someone had adopted that piece of shit and he wouldn’t have to loo
k at it again. The aquariums filled the open space between the narrow aisles and the banks of cages. He walked past these and then stopped when he saw the body.

  He surveyed the scene, jotting notes in his book. Two birds left alive. Several lying about the floor, sans heads. The victim was propped against a stand announcing a two-for-one sale on guppies. Guppies made him think of Chernobyl. He scowled.

  A squawk startled him from his thoughts. A lone cockatiel rattled around his cage fluffed its white feathers. The other bird, a shifty-eyed parrot with a ridiculously long red tail feather, bobbed up and down on its perch. He counted the bobs. Twelve. He decided the parrot wasn’t so bad, even if it was ugly as fuck. He could handle a bird. Not in his apartment, but nearby maybe. Birds didn’t give a shit about people. He thought about the film he’d watched as a child. He recalled the scene where a blonde lady was pecked to shit by a swarm of birds.

  On second thought, he couldn’t handle them. Birds didn’t give a shit, so they’d fuck a guy up if the notion took them. Because they were birds, no one could predict when that notion would occur.

  He looked at the victim again. His face was a fascinating mix of grey, purple and blue, his eyes bulgy and vacant. He tapped his pen on his chin. Looked like suffocation, possibly strangulation. How did a man strangle himself? Could’ve hung, but there was nothing around his neck.

  The surviving birds squawked again, flapped their wings and generally made an unholy ruckus for no reason other than they could. Why would anyone want such an animal for a pet? Why would anyone want a pet at all? Animals should be left in the wild, where they belonged. Only idiots would invite the creatures in to shit on their floors and chew their belongings. The very thought of an animal sharing his bed, getting its animal bits all over the sheets….

  He shook his head. Focus.

  Two birds left. Why not leave three. Or six? Or none? Why just two? Two was unlucky. It was an omen. The guy probably died because he left those two behind. You never settled with two, or horrible things happened. He wasn’t sure what, but death seemed logical. Didn’t the dead body in front of him prove that two was bad?