White Owl

An Ornithological Horror Tale

Decided to go gothic for this Halloween/Fall season. I’m tired of being laughed at. I go to the bank to make a withdrawal, they laugh. I walk down the street in my vintage ‘70s bell bottoms, little children, they laugh. Nothing but jokesters…

There’s no humor in this piece below. If you laugh, either 1) I need to do better, much better; or 2) you, the reader, might wanna seek some sort of professional help ASAP.

Enjoy:

WHITE OWL

by ClownWorld Shakespeare

Molly Pritchard earned her money the old-fashioned way — unexpectedly.

But it was more than just happenstance that led to her success. It was brains and toughness too.

And it was that very same hardness and mental acuity that shielded her from falling for phone scams or ghost stories or tales of killer albino birds let loose on the neighborhood or other such “obvious nonsense,” as she called it.

But her keen intuition, built on years of combating a bad childhood and an even worse young adulthood, left her feeling uneasy these days.

And that unease was growing, especially after friend and neighbor Karl’s last visit. He couldn’t stop talking about that damn “white owl.”

***

Ten years ago, Molly’s husband Theo was killed in a car accident and left her with nothing but tears and an asthmatic infant daughter Tessa.

Back then, no one other than a crazy person would have predicted that Molly and Tessa would eventually end up at 146 Larkspur Lane. In Glenmar Estates, that is.

Glenmar, the crown jewel of mostly poor and rural Hendricks County. Stately mansions, well-manicured and spacious lawns. Bedrooms as big as apartment buildings.

After her husband Theo’s deadly crash, Molly was devastated. She couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. In short, she couldn’t…anything.

Molly’s parents and her older brother Tony had long since passed. Not that they would have helped, or cared, anyway.

Molly’s best friend since childhood, Deirdre, went on one of those crowd-funding sites, much to Molly’s dismay. Molly hated those online cash grabs, as she called them. But she needed money. Theo had little savings and no life insurance.

Deirdre’s efforts raised 13K for Molly and Tessa.

Deirdre’s aid was more than just financial. There was the daily house work, but more importantly, she was always there to comfort Molly during those brief-but-frequent crying sessions.

One day Deirdre confided a secret. She’d been writing poetry for the past few years. Writing always helped her when she felt sad, Deirdre said. Never told anyone, not even her husband Pete.

Molly, however, wasn’t in any mind to start writing sonnets. But she trusted and loved Deirdre. Eventually, with Deirdre’s and Tessa’s support, Molly began her journey as a writer.

The 13K gave Molly a much-needed head start. She would write for at least one hour after her ten-hour swing shift at Handel’s Supermarket. And the money helped cover Tessa’s medical bills too.

Molly’s first effort tapped into something the literary world had been craving— a well-crafted story of sadness and dysfunction that ends with the writer forgiving those who caused her pain. Molly’s book was a rallying cry for redemption. Not just absolving those who cause pain, but forgiving one’s self for placing trust in, well, assholes.

After only a few submissions to agents, Molly’s writing career took off like a unicorn shot out of a laser cannon. Truly a one-in-a-million career.

Her non-fiction book “Grief: A Widow’s Journey” sold 15 million copies. Molly topped that off by writing two sequels – “Beyond Grief” and “Family Dysfunction, Personal Triumph” – that sold hundreds of millions of copies worldwide. Then there was the movie deal and the speaking tour and the product endorsements.

And now Molly owns a house with six bathrooms, three of which have French bidets. Not bad for a kid who grew up in Lucasville — just inside the Hendricks County line, an hour’s drive from Glenmar — known by locals as “the slum of the Earth.”

Theo’s passing still stung, and the memories from her less-than-happy childhood could never be completely erased. But in the seven years since moving to Glenmar, Molly’s softened a little. A lot, actually. Grown a little too accustomed to a life of wealth and fame and luxury.

A far cry from her childhood, often marked by spasms of terror when her parents would get drunk and fight.

Mostly, the “fights” consisted of Molly’s dad beating her mom until she bled or cried or both.

And the grief that nearly congealed Molly’s soul into one giant cold, hard clump after Theo’s passing had begun to heal into a scar that was increasingly comforting to her.

It was that hardened Molly who laughed when her neighbor and friend Karl Edwards told her about the white owl.

“Oh, please, Karl. You’re being silly. An owl, pfflllt!” said Molly, whose grin turned sour when Karl said: “Well, why has the sheriff been over at both of their houses if they haven’t gone missing? The sheriff don’t come out here for nothing.”

Molly considered Karl’s words. True, Sheriff Aldo P. Jackson didn’t move his 259-lb. frame for just any old call.

“The sheriff was at the Heinrichs and the Orozcos? Both? How do you know?” asked Molly.

“I saw ‘em,” said Karl. “No sirens, no lights, three am for the Heinrichs and four a.m. for the Orozcos.”

“What, you’re on citizen patrol?” asked Molly.

“I am now,” said Karl. “People say this owl visits you, and poof, gone. Nathan Orozco told me himself about the white owl. He saw it in his bathroom one night. And now he’s gone.”

Nathan. Probably on another junket to Vegas or Monte Carlo, Molly thought.

She brightened a little and snapped her fingers. “Hey, maybe you could dress up as a cop or a monster hunter for Halloween,” Molly said, her grin returning to her pretty 35-year-old face.

Karl rolled his eyes.

***

Later that night, with Tessa at home studying for a high school biology exam, Molly drove a few miles to Glenmar’s upscale supermarket Monty’s, a far cry from her previous employer, Handel’s, to pick up a few things, including some asthma inhalers for Tessa at the 24-hour pharmacy.

Molly remembered how stained and mottled Handel’s floors were. The frozen section was always a mash of dirty soaked towels and “caution-when-wet” signs. Twenty-four-hour pharmacy? Ha! The closest Handel’s ever got to any sort of pharmacy was local idiots dealing weed and meth in the parking lot.

Monty’s was clean and bright and stocked with, well, everything. She was admiring some durian fruit when two women interrupted her produce aisle reverie.

“Tom Mobley and his family, all of ‘em, gone,” said one woman. “It’s that damn white owl that’s taking ‘em. Eats its victims alive,” said the other, examining the Peruvian avocados with a pair of designer reading glasses.

***

Molly knew of the Mobleys, but didn’t know them. How could you not know of them if you lived in Glenmar? Their compound was massive, with six separate mansions, all connected by underground tunnels, apparently.

She was just gonna drive by the Mobley house before returning home from the supermarket. She didn’t have any frozen stuff, so not going home right away wouldn’t be an issue.

Just a quick drive by. That’s all.

Maybe she’d come away with a good story to tell Karl. Or maybe she’s glean some material for something new she’d been working on.

***

Molly parked on the street a few hundred feet from the Mobley compound on Willowbend Lane, just east of her home, and quietly walked toward the dark and silent main house. The rustling of the overgrown lawn sounded like faraway whispers in the breeze.

Molly nervously chuckled at a faded, small private security lawn sign as she approached the main entryway.

“’First Security — always there.’ Not always,” Molly whispered to herself.

But she shivered when she got close enough to notice the driveway’s heavy wrought iron gate — the one emblazoned with a large golden M — was slightly ajar.

The cool October night air pricked the back of her neck like hungry insects. She used both arms to nudge open the heavy iron gate wide enough for her to pass through. She gingerly crept up the driveway, not taking her eyes off the main compound, hoping for any sign of life.

A dog barked. Sounded like it came from across the clean, wide street. She wheeled around to get a glimpse of the Mobleys’ nearest neighbors across the way. But that house was mostly hidden by pines and other healthy older trees whose leaves had already turned color for the season.

Molly let out a huge sigh. And after mentally admonishing herself for being silly —imagine thinking she, a wordsmith, someone who sits in front of a computer all day, was some sort of amateur private eye — Molly continued forward at a snail’s pace.

After a few steps:

Hoot-hoot! Hoot-hoot!

An owl. The white owl possibly. Somewhere. Where? Can’t get a glimpse. Unseen.

Maybe I imagined it.

Hoot! Hoot!

Molly froze. For a brief second, terror. The sound cut deep and hard like a bandsaw. Her body felt heavy, but her mind was strangely manic.

Hoot! Hoot!

That sound was inescapable as it was despicable, like an audio version of sin. If diseased souls were sound, if mangled mental states were audible…

But that terror quickly faded into emptiness. Deep, gouging emptiness. Momentarily, she felt the same type of despair she felt just after Theo died.

The same feeling generated when Deirdre’s husband Pete called her that Sunday morning a few years back to say, “Took DeeDee to county last night. Doc says things don’t look so good, Mol.”

Molly covered her ears and hummed, loudly, to avoid the sound. She quickly regained her composure as she turned tail in the driveway and jogged back to her car.

Why did I have to park so far away?

Once safely locked in her Audi, Molly cranked up Sirius to 11 for the one-minute jaunt home.

Where’s that damn heavy metal channel?

She wasn’t a heavy metal fan per se, but screaming guitar licks and shouting singers would cover up any hooting, that’s for sure.

***

A few days passed since the night Molly visited the still-unheard-from Mobleys. Within a short time after arriving home that night, Molly came down with a blisteringly bad stomach virus.

Tessa was okay, so it probably wasn’t foodborne since Molly and her daughter ate pretty much the same thing every day.

After 36 hours of intermittent nausea, vomiting and abdominal anguish, Molly’s discomfort began easing. She spent several minutes feeling like her normal self over breakfast tea when fear kicked her in the pit of her spleen.

Karl hasn’t been around for days. He didn’t know I was sick, so that’s not why he stayed away. Tessa hadn’t seen him either. Where was he?

“Maybe he went to Florida to see his brother,” Tessa shrugged over her cereal. “He does that sometimes.”

“Yeah, maybe, maybe. That’s probably it,” Molly said more to herself than to Tessa, as she downed a lukewarm cup of green tea.

***

Later that night, Molly sat alone in her spacious study working on her initial attempt at fiction. Her agent and publisher were keenly looking forward to her first draft. Molly, however, was keenly filled with fear that her fiction would flop.

Tessa went with some friends and a parent to nearby Silverton. The boyfriend of one of Tessa’s friends was playing in a high school basketball game there.

Molly struggled to get something down onto her blank computer screen. And what she did put down was barely readable. She kept thinking about Karl. She went over to his house in the afternoon and knocked. And rang the bell and texted him and waited and waited. Nothing.

She checked her phone every five minutes to see if he’d responded. Nada.

She eyed her Odyssey golf putter sitting idly in a corner of the room, resting against a large metal filing cabinet. Molly recently had taken up the sport of kings, and sometimes would take much-needed practice — she wasn’t very good yet — putting for a few minutes as a work break. But she was even too distracted for that.

In the back of her mind, she kept seeing Karl’s vintage 1991 Porsche — Priscilla he named her, Priscilla the Porsche — sitting in the driveway earlier that fall afternoon. Though strangely, she noticed a headlight missing and the rear bumper gone. Karl was meticulous. He treated that car like a doting father.

If he’d gone away, he’d have taken Priscilla. If Karl was going to hop on a plane, he would have told Molly.

“I’m a young 71, but 71 is still 71,” Karl said to Molly when he first moved to Glenmar a few years ago, imploring Molly to check in on him from time to time. Now their checking in was…was a daily occurrence.

***

Molly was just about to switch off the light in her study. She stood for a moment in the quiet room.

Wings?

A distinct fluttering sound pierced the quiet.

A white owl. Perched atop the study doorframe.

Didn’t look different than any other owl, except for its black unearthly eyes and almost human-like grin. The eyes weren’t so black as they were just empty, a complete absence of light.

Hoot-hoot! Hoot-hoot!

Poof! Molly’s computer and desk vanished into a cloud of mist.

Hoot-hoot!

Now various bookshelves and her filing cabinet had vanished, leaving behind wood and metal debris.

Molly looked down. Her shoes and socks weren’t there. And her feet were sickly pale.

With every hoot, more things vaporized into a miasma of atomic mist.

Barefoot, Molly backed out of the room, not sure where she should go or what she should do.

Hoot-hoot! Hoot-hoot!

The hooting continued like a broken record. Paintings on walls disappeared, furniture, appliances, floor rugs, all gone like they never existed, except for dusty fragments falling to the ground.

Molly ran… into a wall so hard she cut her forehead.

Hoot! Hoot! Hoot!

She ran towards Tessa’s room, or what was left of it. Her daughter’s books, framed science award on the wall, the stuffed toy lamb from Tessa’s childhood were vanishing.

Poof! Poof! Poof! Gone! Gone! Gone! The vaporous air almost too poisonous to breathe.

With blood streaming down her forehead, a gasping Molly tried to grab the photo, her favorite one, when she and Tessa went to Disneyland a few years back. It was tucked into a little picture frame on a side table.

The ground disappeared. Or rather, her feet had gone away, and blood gushed from her fleshy leg stumps as she lay crumpled on the floor.

At the end of Molly’s left arm was now just a series of pulpy, sinewy tendons.

Her right elbow vanished, and her arm down to her hand peeled off onto the ground like melted cheese.

Molly’s left ear crumbled. Brain matter and blood spatter bubbled and oozed from the hole. Her right eye, thwop! Gone.

Molly let out a tiny scream, but it was cut short when her tongue and esophagus…gone.

And so was Molly.

***

In a valley — perhaps somewhere in the Andes or the Rockies or a village near you — filled with thick blades of green grass and a variety of multi-hued flowers, a white owl gorged itself.

This owl was as tall as a mighty oak and wider than the Mississippi River. Blood coagulated down its uneven maw, devouring shredded human body parts that were supplied by thousands of smaller white owls serving as minions.

The white owl that visited Molly was, of course, a minion.

A makeshift city, massive actually, was being constructed with all the furniture, clothes, car parts and random stuff taken from the disappeared humans.

In a small corner of the beautiful valley was a tiny cave. They say that caves are the vents of the earth. This particular cave was venting the vanished items — the body parts, the furniture, the personal items, etc. — into large piles that would eventually be picked up by the servant owls. Like some sort of supernatural or alien fencing ring.

The hooting continued, deafening, incessant, a funeral dirge for those within earshot. It rumbled louder than thunder and had a measurable presence, like the combined will of an angry mob or the determination of an army under siege.

But was it really hooting? Underlying the bird sounds, there were words and meaning if you listened close enough. A chant that could never be forgotten once heard:

The Earth was created just for us

Humans are a virus

Destroying all humans is our endless pursuit

We are predators, your body is fruit

We’re taking back Earth… hoot by bloody hoot!

***

THE END