Olly's Owls

Olly read somewhere that owls are an omen of death. If that were true, then he was in serious trouble. The church steeple was filled with them. They nested in the rafters and perched on forgotten Crucifixes. Their white, disc-shaped faces swiveled on ball-joint necks, capable of spinning 360 degrees as if it were nothing. Luminescent faces pierced through the dark, creating the illusion that they were a legion of floating demon heads. Worst of all, those dead, blank eyes watched him with morbid curiosity. Dozens of pairs of black hell-portals stared out from the floating heads, each one locked unblinkingly on Oliver's rigid form.

Hot beads of sweat poked through Olly's skin, then evaporated in the thick mid-summer heat. His heart beat so fast he wondered if his veins could survive the velocity of his blood, or if they would simply burst. A whimper rose in his throat, but he trapped it there. He wanted his mommy more now than he ever had, but feared that if he made a single sound, the entire parliament of owls would descend on him like fiends, picking the flesh from his bones with their razor talons and predatorial little beaks.

He needed to escape, but the owls would see his every move as long as their eyes remained locked on target. The stairway that led down into the church's foyer was only a few steps behind him. Maybe if he could move slow enough, and quiet enough, they wouldn't attack.

Oliver shifted his weight onto his left foot. His right inched backwards, gliding just above the ancient wooden floor. He could afford no creaky boards. His small, narrow sneaker touched down softly behind him. A relieved sigh dared escape his mouth. One step down.

His left foot followed suit. It hovered over the floorboards and landed only a couple of feet away from the stairs. One more large stride and he would be on the top step. He gingerly applied his weight onto his left leg.

The floorboard loosed an ear-splitting creak that rended the room's weighted silence into pieces. Every muscle in Oliver's body tensed; every hair snapped to attention. He could feel his pulse beating a wild swing rhythm in his eardrums. He inhaled sharply and held his breath, as though he could suck the intrusive noise into his mouth before it reached the owls' keen ears. It was a trick he had learned in school. Whenever his fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Captain, wanted his class to be quiet, she would tell them to "catch a bubble." They would all respond by closing their mouths and puffing out their cheeks, as though they had captured the famously elusive bubble inside. Now, Olly hoped desperately that his classroom training would be his salvation.

The owls' heads didn't budge, nor did their eyes blink. No feathers moved, and no hoots hooted. So complete was their motionlessness, that Oliver considered for a moment that they might not be real at all. Perhaps the silent sentries of the church steeple were nothing more than plastic figurines, intended to ward off smaller birds like scarecrows in fields of corn. Or, perhaps they weren't there at all, and Oliver was sleeping peacefully in his bed, his quiet rest broken up only by this bizarre nightmare.

Olly's dry, desiccated tongue ran over his lips to wet them, but it did no good. His mouth was a desert.

Another tentative step backwards. This time there was a merciful lack of noise from the rotting floorboards. Oliver made it to the top stair. The owls kept their petrified glare fixed on him. Their beady little eyes bored through his skin and muscle like it wasn't there at all. Their collective gaze pierced into his soul, as though they smelled the pungent stench of his fear. His tongue tried and failed to wet his lips one more time, and then he began backing down the steep staircase.

He made it one step, then two, and then three without an issue. On the fourth step, an upturned nail pierced through his Nike tread and nicked his bare foot. The pain was minimal, but he was so tense that the sudden sting shocked him. A cry escaped his lips as his knee buckled, sending him hurtling down the stairs in a tornado of flailing limbs and untied shoe strings. The last thing he saw over the top lip of the staircase as he began falling was the horrifying sight of a dozen disembodied demon heads hurtling towards him through the darkness.

Oliver's arms pinwheeled furiously, hoping to find anything to grab onto, anything at all to stop his mad descent. There was a thin railing that ran along the right side of the wall. His fingers managed to wrap around it, but the decrepit rail tore free of its moorings and clattered onto the stairs, useless.

His body bounced and rolled off each step. Arms and legs blurred together in a flurry. At one point he caught a brief glimpse of the owls. Their black eyes and white faces were flying down the staircase in pursuit. In the pervasive darkness and the blur of his fall, they looked like a black tidal wave with a thousand eyes.

If they catch me, I'll drown. The absurd thought had just enough time to pass through his fear-addled mind as he fell.

Three quarters of the way down the staircase was a small landing. There the hall took a sharp turn to the right, where there were three final steps before the stairs emptied out into the church foyer. Oliver hit the landing hard, rebounded off the wall, and tumbled down the last three steps. He spilled out into the foyer, a puddle of twisted limbs. Before he could jump to his feet, the owls were on top of him.

Blue-silver moonlight flooded in through the windows that flanked the church's double doors. On his right, the moonlight was shining through the stained glass windows. The silver beams picked up the red, yellow, and blue hues from the pulchritudinous glass and swirled it into a breathtaking moon-rainbow. The array of colors from the sanctuary and the steel light from the foyer appeared hazy in the cloud of dust that the owls' wings were beating into the air. Oliver could only catch brief snatches of the foggy lightshow through the whirling blanket of black and white that engulfed him.

Olly's arms wrapped instinctively around his head. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly, and his legs curled up to shield his torso, like he was a giant armadillo wearing Nike's and a Fortnite T-shirt. Black wings whipped the stale air into gale-force winds that battered his body. Razorblade talons grazed his exposed arms and legs. Sharp, hooked beaks nipped at his clothes. From behind each of those beaks came a piercing shriek that stabbed into his ears like a thousand splintered toothpicks. Each owl was screaming their hatred at him, foul voices combining into a shrill cacophony that sounded more like a funeral dirge of the damned than a bunch of owls.

The owls flew around and around in ceaseless circles, as though they were vultures who had decided they were tired of waiting for creatures to die before they ate them. Oliver screamed, adding his own voice to the owls'. As the winged whirlwind continued, he wondered why he had ventured into this abandoned church instead of going straight home. His parents would be wondering where he was. It would kill his mother if he died. She had barely survived after what happened to Owen. Would the police even find his body, or would he be completely consumed by these demon birds? If there was nothing left of him, his parents might think he had simply run away. Would they think it was their fault? That he had ran off because of something they did or said? He couldn't bear the thought.

To Olly, the attack lasted years. He was certain it would never end. He laid there, curled into a tight ball, and prayed that he would at least be spared the indignity of wetting his pants.

Abruptly, the shrieking stopped. The feeling of wind buffeting him disappeared. No more claws raked his skin, and no beaks pecked at his bare arms. The only sound left in the church was his own screaming.

Oliver quieted. He cautiously peeked out from between his latticed fingers. No owls. The room was empty. The world was still and hushed. Dull light illuminated the final particles of dust, exposing each one as it settled slowly back into place on the musty rug.

He scanned the room carefully, hunting for any demon heads or white faces. Oliver rose to his feet, eyes locked suspiciously on the staircase. No owls burst from the darkened stairwell. Silence permeated the building like a sickly odor that no amount of bleach would ever be able to purge.

Oliver wiped tears off of his cheeks and looked to his left. One of the heavy wooden double doors was propped open with a brick. He couldn't remember if he had placed it there or not, but he didn't care. After one more nervous glance at the quiet staircase, he took off at full speed. His Nikes carried him through the open door and out into the night with a speed that shocked even him.

The air outside the church was scorching. The dry heat made his skin glisten with sweat in seconds, but he was thankful for it. He breathed deeply as he ran, savoring the fresh air and the cool breeze that cut through the heat. His body ached from his fall down the stairs, and he was bleeding from more cuts than he could count, but none of that mattered. He ran faster than he ever had before, anxious to make it home into his mother's embrace.

Twigs crunched beneath his shoes and leaves snapped against his face as he charged through the dirt path that led from the church to his house. Though the church was a couple of miles from his home, he knew a shortcut through the woods. His oldest brother Owen had shown it to him late one afternoon. That had been before Owen died. They had explored that church together a thousand times, along with their other brother Ozzy. It had been their secret place, far away from the boring mundanities of everyday life. Those rotting walls where once holy gatherings took place had served as a pirate ship, a fortified castle, and a secret superhero lair, among many other things. The adventures they had inside that building would forever live in infamy in the minds of the remaining two brothers, as secret adventures between siblings often did. Now, he wasn't sure he would ever muster the courage to return to that place.

"Olly! You're home!"

His mother's familiar voice was a soothing balm on his battered eardrums. She ran to meet him, her arms scooping him up and squeezing him tight against her chest. Oliver hugged her back as tight as his little arms could muster. She kissed his head and ran her fingers through his hair.

"Oliver, you're bleeding! Are you okay? What happened?"

She was speaking so fast that her words ran together into one breathless sentence. She sat him on the ground and began running her skilled nurse's hands over his arms and legs, checking for broken bones or large gashes. There was nothing that required immediate attention. He had lots of bruises and tons of minor cuts, but he was otherwise unharmed. The owls had not done any serious damage to him.

His father jogged up beside them. He waited patiently for his wife to finish her examination before he hugged his son. Oliver gratefully returned his father's embrace.

"Where have you been?" His dad asked. "Your mother and I were worried sick about you."

"I'm sorry," he said meekly. Oliver realized for the first time how weak he felt. The events of the evening had taken their toll on him, and he hadn't had anything to eat since lunch at the school cafeteria.

"I stopped at the old church on my way home from Joey's, and I went upstairs, and there were these owls, big owls, and lots of them too, and they were scary, and I tried to get away but then I tripped and fell down the stairs and then they attacked me and scratched me and bit me and I wasn't sure if I would ever make it out alive but I did and then I ran straight here through Owen's secret path and I just wanted to come home and eat a sandwich."

His story completed in a record ten seconds, Oliver began gulping air into his lungs. His parents exchanged looks that he didn't understand. They looked worried, but maybe also confused? He wasn't entirely sure. All that mattered to him was that he was home safe and sound.

His parents must have realized how exhausted he was. They asked him no more questions. His mother cleaned and bandaged his wounds while his father prepared a grilled cheese sandwich (a gourmet meal in Oliver's opinion) and potato chips. After that, they tucked him safely into bed and said goodnight. Oliver slept better than he ever had. He expected to have nightmares about church-going owls, but his exhaustion won out against his subconscious that night.

The next morning he woke earlier than usual. The adventures of the previous evening seemed little more than a fairytale that he had read about in school, rather than something that had actually happened to him. That was quite alright. He figured feeling like it didn't happen was better than being scared.

After dutifully making his bed, Oliver padded downstairs with Lucky Charms on his mind. If his parents weren't awake yet, he might have time to use chocolate milk instead of regular. That thought alone was enough to give a guy hope for a better future.

Olly paused halfway down the staircase. There were voices in the kitchen. His parents were already up. No chocolate milk this morning, it seemed.

He started back down the stairs again, but froze a couple steps from the bottom. One of his parents had said his name, and they were both whispering. Whispering about him. He crouched down and pressed his ear against the wall, straining to hear more.

"...told you it was too soon to let him walk home alone. What if it had been him? How would we have dealt with two dead sons, Richard?"

"Well, I didn't know this was going to happen! The cops said they caught the guy. I thought we were safe. Do you know how unlikely it is that something like this would happen again?"

"Tell that to the Peterson's. I'm sure they would love to hear it while they're busy arranging their son's funeral. Jeez, Rich, Oliver could have died."

"I know," came his father's soft reply.

"If he hadn't gotten attacked by those owls..." His mother trailed off before she could finish her sentence.

"I know," his father said again.

Oliver didn't understand what they were talking about, but he didn't like it. Something about their conversation unsettled him. His heart began to beat as if he was still in the church, curled up in a ball as owls swarmed on top of him. His stomach roiled like an angry sea that rose and fell with the winds of a powerful hurricane. He found he was no longer hungry. Not even for chocolate milk and cereal. As his parents continued arguing, he tiptoed up the stairs and into the safety of his bedroom. His bright blue bed sheets cooled his skin as he climbed back into bed. They slipped over his head and covered him in safety. They were neon forcefields through which no monsters or boogeymen could penetrate.

Outside his bedroom window, his old treehouse sat perched in the middle of an ancient oak. The morning sun splashed across the natural wood finish, bathing the treehouse in the warm light of a new day. Inside its walls, however, existed a curious darkness. If Oliver had thought to look outside, and peer into the treehouse's windows, it would likely seem strange to him. The treehouse was rarely dark when the sun was out. Stranger still, was that the darkness was not entirely complete. The inky blackness was broken up by a pair of white faces, with two hooked beaks and two sets of black eyes. The barn owls didn't make a sound. They simply sat and watched.

Six weeks later, Oliver found himself walking his brother's path through the woods. The air was a little bit cooler than it had been the last time he trod the earthen trail. Fall was waking up, and just beginning to sink its fingers into the trees. As the leaves turned yellow and fell from their summer homes, the path to the church became a minefield of crackling foliage. Leaves crunched with nearly every step he took. The woods around him leaned in close, trees and bushes craning towards him to listen to the whispers of the leaves as they divulged ancient secrets long held behind the unyielding vault that was death's door.

The church waited patiently for him at the end of the path. In the daylight, it looked far less imposing than it had under the dark blanket of night. Oliver wasn't sure why he had decided to come back to this place. He had just woken up that morning with the compulsion to do so. It was the first time he'd been back since he discovered the owls' roost in the upper room. Looking at it now still gave him the creeps, but it wasn't how he imagined it. He found that he didn't hate this place. It still held some of the magic it used to when he was younger.

White flecks of paint still clung to the graying walls of the church. The stained glass windows looked exceptionally colorful against the gray backdrop, each individual color appearing to the eye as a brand new hue not yet discovered by mankind. The double doors that opened onto the foyer had a short set of cement stairs leading up to it. Its concrete was interrupted only by a parallel pair of rusty guardrails, and a handful of small weeds that had forced their way up through spiderwebbed cracks. These were all features that Oliver knew by heart. The only unfamiliar feature was the yellow crime scene tape that roped off the front of the church.

His parents had tried to explain it to him. They said something about the murder of the Peterson boy. Oliver thought the kid's name was Henry, but he wasn't sure. He hadn't known the Peterson's personally, only that they lived around here. His father said the police caught the killer. He had been hiding out in this very church, alone in the basement for months or even years. The cops said this was the man who had killed Owen, too. Said he'd been lying low for a while after Owen's murder, waiting for the police to stop looking for him before he killed again.

Olly knew what that meant. The killer could have been inside when he was upstairs with the owls. It could've been him that had died instead of Henry. Or was it Harry? He wasn't sure.

The only thing he was sure about is that his life had been saved that night. In fact, he still had a couple of small scars to prove it. Even so, he needed to come see the place for himself. It was hard to believe that their childhood playhouse had been the hideout of a murderer. But, then again, it had been a magical realm of infinite possibilities for he and his brothers. Why couldn't it have been the same for anyone else?

Oliver took one last look at the old church. His parents had forbade him to ever set foot in it again, but of course that made it even more tantalizing, didn't it? Now he could add "crime scene" to the list of adventurous locales that church had been for him. He turned on his heel and started back down the path to home. As he walked the familiar trail, a curious thought nagged at the back of his mind. Had he seen an owl staring at him from behind the grimy steeple window? Surely not. It was daylight. Owls usually hide in their roosts during the day. But, then again, that church had always been a magical realm for he and his brothers.