Butcherbird

I will write out my story here, one I have told before but this time it won’t be regulated or altered. I shall tell it with no regard to how it can influence the outcome of my life, because now, it can’t. I will write with no care as to whether anyone will believe or even read my story, because they probably won’t. Forty years ago, a public defence lawyer had listened to my story in a small interrogation room. The truth, he said, doesn’t always help in a court of law. 

“It’s done for ‘til tomorrow when it’s light and then I can take a look”

“It’s light now.” I said irritably.

“Yeah but it gets dark in about an hour buddy boy. It’s not enough time, gonna need to take a look at the pressure pump” 

I couldn’t say anything, he was the one who could fix the car, not me. If he needed daylight to do so, who was I to argue. I didn’t want to spend a night in the car with this man, let alone in the near freezing desert of north Nevada. I knew the man as Jackson, I hadn’t worked with him before and didn’t care to again. He drove aggressively, not wise with a gym bag full of cocaine in the trunk. He had a smell of body odour washed with motor oil and refused to open the windows, favouring the failing air conditioning of our clapped out Buick. I didn’t know much about him, aside from he was a drop out, a drug addict who shamelessly hid behind the governmental position of his father. 

 “We need to get this product back to Vegas, the boss won’t take kindly to a late arrival.” I told him, needlessly. 

“Yeah, well, there's nothing we can do buddy boy, as soon as we get going tomorrow we’ll hit cell service on the highway, we can make a call then.” He knew buddy boy annoyed me so I tried not to react in the hope he would eventually lose interest like ignoring a child threatening to throw your keys down the toilet. 

We sat and smoked. Time seemed to go slower in the desert, in stark contrast to the speed of Vegas just miles away. The phone we had was a burner phone, a cheap Nokia ready to be thrown after reporting to the boss. It had no flashlight. 

The cold came as fast as the light disappeared. There were a couple of blankets that smelt less of oil than Jackson so we used those, I didn’t expect to get any sleep. 

Jackson snored within minutes. I tried pulling my shirt up over my mouth and nose to act as a filter to Jacksons pollution. I sat awake, shivering, when you have more time to think you think more can go wrong. I knew the police wouldn’t come out here, but wondered if the Russians we had just done the deal with would return. Then we’d be done for. They’d suspect something, as is their nature, and take the product back along with the money.

I saw an amber glow blinking faintly in the dark. Fear shot through me. I woke Jackson up. He didn’t act concerned but grabbed a pistol from the glove compartment. “Let’s go take a look”. Usually I wanted to stay away from anything and anyone when doing business, but on this occasion I didn’t oppose it, I think I just wanted to get out of the gas chamber on wheels. 

We started walking toward the flickering light, our footsteps were unbelievably loud in the silence of the desert. I tried to tread softly, Jackson did not. Our clouds of breath held in suspense showing a trail of where we had walked from. Breath-prints, I thought. 

The glow became clearer, a neat campfire in the middle of nowhere, with a man sitting by it. His hat pulled down over his eyes. “Yo!” Jackson yelled. 

The man slowly raised his head and tipped his hat backwards with a long finger. The hat still sat quite low and his eyes remained in its shadow. He was about 60 or 65. A huge wiry beard that I assume guarded a mouth. He wore unbranded clothing in earthy colours. 

“What are you doin’ out here old timer?” Jackson said.

“Waitin’.” The answer came.

“Yeah. What for?”

“A ship.” He looked up at the myriad of stars.

“One of those desert ships ey?” A grin spread across Jackson's face but it vanished when he received no answer. 

I asked if the man minded us sitting by the fire to keep warm. He gestured to the floor with a wave of his hand. “So when’s this ship comin’ old timer?”

“Anytime now.” The man smiled.

“And where’s it takin’ ya to?”

“Home, I’ve spent quite long enough here. I’m ‘retiring’ as your kind would put it.” 

“Our kind!?” Jackson automatically took offence to these two words in tandem. 

“They’ll be another to take my place, another shift will begin.” The man spoke softly but could still be heard over the crackling firewood.

“Another shift, and what line of work are you in?” 

“Extermination.” 

Jackson seemed to enjoy the nonsensical midnight talk with the stranger by the fire. I didn’t like the fact we had a broken car full of class A drugs and I didn’t like the fact there was a man in the middle of the desert saying peculiar things, no matter how strangely sincere he seemed. Jackson pulled a pack of cigarettes from his hoodie pocket and lit one. “And what do you exterminate mister?” 

“Caninyans.” The old man said, I’m assuming that would be the way to spell it, he gave the word a strange affliction on the second ‘n’. “Excuse me?” Jackson sniggered through closed teeth, smoke shooting through the wide gaps. The old man seemed weary. “You might call them lizard people.” Jackson stared at the man through the dancing flames, deciding on what to say. I pulled up the collar of my jacket. The fire only did so much against the dropping temperature. Not many people in Vegas experience the northern desert at night, I suppose they’ve no need to. It's a far cry from the lights, warmth and distractions of the city. Something I craved right then and there as I sat by that meagre fire. The cold made me regret my decisions that led me to that fire. I’ve regretted almost every decision in my life, it was a series of regrets that left me indebted to the boss and forced to do this job with Jackson. I had no doubt my regrets would continue if my debt was ever paid. 

“Most of you don’t know they exist,” The old man continued “those that do don’t truly know who they are.”

“Scientologists?” I blurted. The man smiled. “Caninyans come from a large elliptical galaxy many lightyears from here, they are a scourge on the universe. They can’t take over a planet through force, they’re not equipped. Instead, they infiltrate and slowly subtract from the dominating population until they have had their fill. Not unlike your shrikes here.” He pointed with an open hand to a small yucca plant that was illuminated every so often depending on where the flames flickered. What was left of a dried lizard was impaled on one of its spines. Something I don’t think Jackson saw even when it was pointed out. “What's that now?” Jackson inquired. “Shrikes live in these deserts. They are not large birds and don’t have big talons like their competitors, instead, they corner and impale their victims on thorns and spikes, once impaled the shrike slowly tears off bite sized pieces of their victims. Knowing their quarry cures naturally in the heat of the desert sun, the shrike will come back to feed as and when it needs. The Caninyans are.. not unlike this.” We sat in silence. Jackson wore a strained look as if forgetting why he was sitting where he was. I was quite entranced by the man's words, he didn’t seem insane, and he had a lyrical way when talking which felt oddly comforting, I do not know if this was just the effects of an elderly man talking at a campfire late at night. “We exterminate these Caninyans. They reproduce asexually, through parthenogenesis-”

“Nice.” Jacksons elbow swung into my ribs as he grinned broadly showing his puerile youth and bad teeth. He lit another cigarette.

“They feast,” the old man continued “largely on homeless people, solitary people, anyone they can corner or lure away from other humans. They break the neck of their victim like the Shrike would with a large rodent, pinching the neck and then severing the spinal cord by sharp thrusts. Once that’s taken care of they feed. Sometimes they feed on your dead, breaking into coffins from underneath so no one on the surface can tell, they can source nutrients from a body that’s been expired for a week.”

“And you're what? Our protectors?” I stuttered. 

“We have little concern for your kind. The Caninyans are diseased, if they spread to too many planets we risk another infestation of our assets which is costly to us.”

“OK, whack job, where's your tin hat?” Unfortunately, I knew this time would come, the time where Jackson would feel he wasn’t getting enough attention, felt inferior or was just bored. I didn’t respond to Jackson's joke but instead looked at the man, I could feel Jackson staring at the side of my face. “You believe this nut?”

“I don’t know -” I began

“I do! For 50 years there's been a mental asylum not far from here, it still operates today, it still houses nut jobs of all kinds, puts them in the middle of the desert where they can’t bother anyone. This fella has obviously escaped from there. I met tons of guys like this before, man. Hey old timer, you got any food?” The old man looked toward the fire. My legs were beginning to get numb, I hadn’t sat like this since school. My back was very cold, like the dark side of a planet. The man looked up “No. And now I must ask you to leave.”

Jacksons eyebrows raised and he leant back holding his knees to stop himself toppling over. I stood up. I remembered what was in the car and what we were here for. Jackson told me to sit. “We have work to do.” I lowered my voice.

“Bullshit! Sit down buddy boy. I wanna see this spaceship of yours old man. And I wanna see what's in your jacket pocket.” The old man looked very tired. “Go back to the safety of your car. You should be watching over what's in there, not me.”

“What did you just fuckin’ say?” 

“What do you know about our car?” I asked him.

“I know you’ll be in trouble if you stay here.” The response came.

Jackson pulled out the gun from his pocket and pointed it at the old man. “You’re the one in trouble motherf-”

Jackson flew backwards. As if attached to a bungee cord. His heels dragged along the dust and rocks, he slammed into a thorn bush with such velocity. I watched, mouth agape. The man hadn’t moved. Jackson made a noise I hadn’t heard before, somewhere between a scream and a gargle. He was contorting like a demon had possessed him, writhing in the thorns. I ran toward the car, where I thought the car was. I don’t know why. The car symbolised some sort of safety. It was the job we had come to do, not whatever I was involved in now. I stopped and looked back, I could see the old man walking toward Jackson. He stepped into the thorn bushes and bent down toward Jackson’s head. I ran, relying on the waning moon's glare to dodge the shrubs. What would stop the man coming to me? How would a broken Buick that I couldn’t fix help me? The car was closer than I expected and I slammed into it, bending over the hood like it had run me down, my cheek bouncing off the freezing metal. I crouched behind it, my long dormant lungs burning from heaving in the dry air. My heart was audible in the dead of the night but I was sure it stopped completely when the sound of a megaphone boomed from behind me. 

“Lay face down in the dirt with your arms and legs spread.” The noise thundered. Red and blue lights appeared all around me transforming the blackened moonscape into Fremont street. The police went straight for the bag. A young officer returned from the direction of the campfire, with my belly in the dirt I watched him intently. His white face shone in the black night sky, he stared at me, his superior stood to his left barking at him for a report but his eyes remained fixated on me.

Everything else you will know, the papers filled in the gaps. I was arrested for drug trafficking following stellar undercover work from LVPD, and the papers coined me ‘Butcherbird’ after I murdered a Commissioner's son by breaking his neck and slicing pieces off of his chest and back, his organs were ‘incomplete’ when the autopsy report was released. No tools or knives to carry out such brutalities were ever found but the prosecutors didn’t need them, it was just Jackson and me out in the desert that night. 

And now I sit and scribble these words in secret until the orderlies escort me to the next white lifeless room in my immutable routine. When I get a chance, I sneak a look out of the window, although I can’t see it, I know that once, just a few miles away, sat a broken down Buick. Inevitably, the wardens find my papers with my story and throw them away. Then, once more, I will sit down and write the events of that night.