“Tak ah lah,” he said in his guttural, gargling voice. “Timoh. Can de lach! On! On!”
The cop’s face had tautened. The skin on it now looked like makeup, or a thin coat of paint—unreal. Even the blood-filled eye looked unreal. It was as if there was another face beneath the one Johnny could see, pushing at the overlying flesh, trying to get out.
The cop’s good eye fixed on him for a moment, and then his head lifted. He pointed at the sky with all five fingers of his left hand. “Tak ah lah,” he said in his guttural, gargling voice. “Timoh. Can de lach! On! On!”
There was a flapping sound, like clothes on a line, and a shadow fell over Johnny’s face. There was a harsh cry, not quite a caw, and then something with scabrous, flapping wings dropped on him, its crooked claws gripping his shoulders and folding themselves into the fabric of his shirt, its beak digging into his scalp as it uttered its inhuman cry again.
It was the smell that told Johnny what it was—a smell like meat gone feverish with rot. Its huge, unkempt wings flapped against the sides of his face as it solidified its position, driving that stench into his mouth and nose, jamming it in, making him gag. He saw the Shepherd on its rope, swinging as the peeled-looking bald things pulled at its tail and feet with their beaks. Now one of them was roosting on him—one which had apparently never heard that buzzards were fundamental cowards that only attacked dead things—and its beak was plowing his scalp in furrows, bringing blood.
“Get it off!” he screamed, completely unnerved. He tried to grab the wide, beating wings, but got only two fistfuls of feathers. Nor could he see; he was afraid that if he opened his eyes, the buzzard would shift its position and peck them out. “Jesus, please, please get it off me!”
“Are you going to look at me properly if I do?” the cop asked. “No more insolence? No more disrespect?”
“No! No more!” He would have promised anything. Whatever had leaped out of him and spoken against the cop was gone now; the bird had plucked it out like a worm from an ear of corn.
“You promise?”
The bird, flapping and squalling and pulling. Smelling like green meat and exploded guts. On him. Eating him. Eating him alive.
“Yes! Yes! I promise!”
“Fuck you,” the cop said calmly. “Fuck you, os pa, and fuck your promise. Take care of it yourself. Or die.”
