There was a fluttering explosion in the dark.
There was a fluttering explosion in the dark. It was a sound Johnny associated with his Connecticut childhood, pheasant exploding out of the underbrush and into the air as twilight drew down toward dark. For a moment the smell of the mine was stronger, as unseen wings drove the ancient air against his face in pulses.
Mary screamed. The flashlight beam jagged upward at an angle, and for just one moment it pinpointed a nightmarish midair apparition, something with wings and glaring golden eyes and outstretched talons. It was David the eyes were glaring at, David it wanted.
“Look out!” Ralph yelled, and threw himself over David’s back, driving him down to the bone-littered floor of the shaft.
The flashlight fell from the boy’s hand as he went down, kicking up just enough light to be confusing. Unclear shapes strove together in its reflected glow: David under his father, and the shadow of the eagle flexing and swelling above them both.
“Shoot it!” Cynthia screamed. “Steve, shoot it, it’s gonna tear his head off!”
Johnny grabbed the barrel of the .30-.06 as Steve brought it up. “No. A gunshot’ll bring the whole works down on top of us.”
The eagle screeched, wings battering Carver’s head. Ralph tried to fend the bird off with his left hand. It seized one of his fingers in the hook of its beak and tore it off. And then its talons plunged into Ralph Carver’s face like strong fingers into dough.
“DADDY, NO!” David shrieked.
Steve shoved into the tangle of shadows, and when the side of his foot kicked the downed flashlight, Johnny was treated to a better view than he wanted of the bird with Ralph’s head in its grip. Its wings sent furious skirls of dust in motion from the floor and the old shaft walls. Ralph’s head wagged wildly from side to side, but his body covered David almost completely.
Steve drew the rifle back, meaning to swing it, and the butt cracked against the wall. There wasn’t room. He jabbed it forward instead, like a lance. The eagle turned its gimlet gaze on him, talons shifting their grip on Ralph. Its wings were soft thunder in the closed space. Johnny saw Ralph’s finger jutting from the side of its beak. Steve jabbed forward again, this time catching the eagle squarely and knocking the finger out of the beak. Its head was driven back against the wall. Its talons flexed. One drove deeper into Ralph’s face. The other lifted, plunged into his neck, and ripped it open. The bird screamed, perhaps in rage, perhaps in triumph. Mary screamed with it.
“GOD, NO!” David howled, his voice cracking. “OH GOD, PLEASE MAKE IT STOP HURTING MY DADDY!”
This is hell, Johnny thought calmly, stepping forward and then kneeling. He seized the talon buried in Ralph’s throat. It was like grabbing some exotically ugly curio which had been upholstered in alligator-hide. He twisted it as hard as he could and heard a brittle tearing sound. Above him, Steve drove forward with the stock of the .30-.06 again, slamming the eagle’s head against the rock side of the shaft. There was a crunch.
A wing battered down on Johnny’s head. It was like the buzzard in the parking lot all over again. Back to the future, he thought, let go of the talon in favor of the wing, and yanked. The bird came toward him, squalling its ugly, ear-splitting cry, and Ralph came with it, pulled by the talon still buried in his cheek, temple, and orbit of his left eye. Johnny thought Ralph was either unconscious or already dead. He hoped he was already dead.
David crawled out from under, face dazed, his shirt soaked with his father’s blood. In a moment he would seize the flashlight and plunge deeper into the mine, if they weren’t quick.
“Steve!” Johnny shouted, reaching blindly over his head and encircling the eagle’s back. It plunged and twisted in his hold like the spine of a bucking bronco. “Steve, finish it! Finish it!”
Steve drove the stock of the rifle into the bird’s gullet, tilting its shadowy head toward the ceiling. At that moment Mary darted forward. She seized the eagle’s neck and wrung it with bitter efficiency. There was a muffled crack, and suddenly the talon buried in Ralph’s face relaxed. David’s father fell to the floor of the mine, his forehead striking a ribcage and powdering it to dust.
