The Parturition

The truck broke down half a mile from the barn.

At first, Amber wasn't concerned. The noises coming from under the hood were barely noticeable- just the usual thumps that the engine offered up on a regular basis. She had other things on her mind. However, the low thrum soon turned to a roll of thunder, and thick smoke came up in spurts from the old vessel. Amber cursed and pulled the truck to the side of the road as the engine gave up the ghost. She turned to her somber passenger.

"I'm sorry, but we'll have to walk from here."

He nodded and lifted his bag from the back. They trudged down the dirt road towards the solid shape of the barn, stark black against the pink sky.

The man walked slowly; his skin was grey. Amber wondered if she should have hidden the truck, perhaps concealed in the tall grasses. Her passenger began to look as if every step was a struggle, and she offered to carry his bag. He waved her off and continued, determined, towards the distant barn.

The sun began to set behind a distant copse of trees as they neared the building, and red vestiges of light traced serenely through the air. The man stopped, clutching Amber’s arm, and knelt to catch his breath. As they rested, hundreds of birds flew up from the barn roof, diving out of the numerous holes dotting the rotten wood. Amber and her passenger shrank back at the sight, and he clutched a shaky hand over his chest. Amber looked away.

“We should keep going,” she said, and lifted his arm around her shoulders to help bear his weight as they travelled.

The sky was almost completely dark by the time they reached the door. Amber knocked three times- two short quick raps, a pause, then a third.

The door creaked open, and the Doctor ushered them in. "Quick, quick," she said, peering out at the fields before engaging the multiple locks that lined the interior door frame.

“What's his name?”

Amber shook her head. “He didn’t tell me.”

Her passenger had knocked on her door that morning, holding nothing but his bag, and they had spoken quietly and urgently, making sure that Amber’s landlady couldn't overhear from where she lingered down the hall. He had not offered his name, and Amber had not asked. Since that morning, his condition had continued to worsen, and he had stopped speaking entirely. If there had ever been a chance to introduce themselves, the time had passed.

The Doctor took the man’s arm from around Amber’s shoulders and led him deeper into the barn. “Here,” she said, shoving his bag at Amber. “Deal with this.”

Amber placed the bag into the far corner, a dark hole crowded with similar such items, left by others who had made the secretive trip to the barn to search for answers.

The majority of the barn interior was as to be expected- empty stalls with loose piles of hay scattered throughout. Dust motes floated through the musty air. In the center of the space, however, stood a glass cube, each wall approximately fourteen feet high by fourteen feet wide, resting on a sterile tile floor. Bright flood lights had been hung from the barn rafters and their glow illuminated the interior, which was set up like an operating theater including a long steel table, sink, and assorted surgical equipment. A glass door was set into the front of the structure.

The man staggered and fell onto the wooden floor of the barn. The Doctor grunted and dragged him through the door of the cube and, showing surprising strength for her narrow frame, lifted him onto the surgery table.

Amber watched through the glass as the Doctor snapped gloves onto her hands and opened the silver case holding her scalpels. She leaned over and felt the pulse on his neck, and shook her head.

“You have a choice to make,” The Doctor quietly stated. The man’s eyes were closed, but moved restlessly under their lids.

“You have a choice to make.” The Doctor repeated, louder. “I’m glad you are here, but we do not have a cure. I’m sorry. So, I can save you, or you can die. But I cannot make the choice for you.”

The man was still, and Amber feared that he had passed. Several of her previous passengers had lain on the same table just as they expired. The Doctor, however, reached out and placed her hand on the man’s chest. “Your decision?”

The man coughed, and blood trickled from between his lips. His eyes did not open. Trembling, he lifted a weak finger and pointed at the ceiling of the old barn.

“Good choice,” The Doctor said, lifted her scalpel, plunging the blade into the man’s chest.

Amber typically looked away at the point. When they had begun their partnership, the Doctor had explained why anesthesia was impossible- any imbalance in the body resulted in a failed outcome. Amber understood this, and she respected the Doctor’s work, but the pain of the patient against the precision of the Doctor’s hand had always chilled her. This time, partly out of curiosity, partly out of respect for the quiet man who had refused her offer to help carry his bag, even as he was dying- she watched.

The Doctor used one hand to hold down the man’s shoulders as he convulsed, and with her other hand she continued to slice his chest open.

The man’s body slumped on the table and he grew still. The Doctor, having finished her cut, reached into the cavity of his chest to pull out a squirming mass, dark and bloody. The body shivered one last time, from feet to chest, and Amber imagined she saw the final crumbs of life leave the man's system, much like the light of the sun had faded as they walked towards the barn.

Amber smarted at the taste of blood in her own mouth and realized she had bitten her tongue.

The Doctor cradled the bundle in her arms and walked to the large stainless-steel sink, disinterested in the corpse left on the table. She carefully deposited the trembling creature at the bottom of the sink and removed her gloves to test the temperature of the water, methodically cleaning away blood.

Amber studied the remains. The man had been young, and handsome, and had been dressed well, in slim pants and a thick sweater. The scalpel had caught on the blue wool of the sweater, and there was a long thread, stained red, hanging from the discarded blade.

The Doctor finished washing and leaned over to pick up the small creature. Exiting the cube, she introduced Amber to the fruits of her labor. Cradled in the Doctor’s hands, the satin blue-black bird she had pulled from the man’s chest lay small and frightened. The Doctor held its wings firmly but gently in her fingers. The accelerated heartbeat pulsed visibly through the feathers on the chest. The bird's gaze flicked rapidly between Amber and the Doctor- there was nothing of the kind eyes of Amber’s passenger left in its glance.

The Doctor bent and whispered some secret prayer at the bird, then flung her hands in the air. The bird, thus launched, spiraled towards the roof of the barn then, fitfully, tested its wings for the first time. The two women watched as it careened around the roof for several laps before joining its fellows on the rafters.

Hundreds of birds, of various sizes, colors and breeds had nested for their slumber in the old barn. The rustle of their feathers permeated the space; Amber wished she could shut the noise of their existence out of her head. She felt nothing but disdain for the birds above- she was here in the barn to try to help people, not their parasites.

“What do you do with the bodies?”

The Doctor turned and frowned at Amber. “You’ve never asked about that before.”

Amber shrugged. She looked back at the man, at his soft hair and blank eyes. “But what do you do with them?”

The Doctor locked the door of the glass cube. “I have a colleague. He comes in the morning to clean up. We study the bodies, try to figure out why this is happening.”

"You don't know?"

"No. Not yet." The Doctor handed Amber a brown leather wallet, creased from wear. "This fell out of his pocket. When I cut."

Amber opened the worn leather- inside was a government ID, a credit card, and several hundred dollars in faded bills. The man’s name had been Matthew, and he had been twenty-eight years old.

Amber took the money then threw the wallet into the far corner, where the bags piled up against the wall. The Doctor raised an eyebrow as Amber shoved the money into her own back pocket.

“I need it to fix my truck,” Amber justified to the Doctor, and to herself. "It broke down about a half mile down the road."

The Doctor shrugged. "I wondered why you were late...I'm done here tonight. I can give you a ride back to the city."

“Would it have mattered? If we’d been here on time?”

The Doctor shook her head. “No.”

Amber followed the older woman to the barn door. Before they exited, she hesitated, then asked, “Do you really think it’s a good choice?”

The Doctor frowned and rubbed at a crimson spot on her white coat. She seemed very tired, and old. “You mean what I said to him, before I cut?”

“Yes.” Amber nodded.

“Hmm. Well, I don’t know. Not really. It’s not a choice I’ve had to make.”

“But would you?”

“Yes.” The Doctor pointed up at the ceiling, where hundreds of birds rested.

“Those are living creatures. I don’t know what they remember. I don’t know why this happens, and I don’t know why it started happening. I couldn’t tell you if it’s contagious or genetic or due to the radiation in the air or the chemicals in the water. But those are living creatures. I don’t believe that any creature regrets life. Decisions, maybe. Interactions. But not the energy of life.”

Amber thought of how Matthew had grabbed his chest as he had watched the birds darken the sky above the barn, as if he was trying to keep something in. “I wouldn't choose that."

The Doctor shrugged and opened the door. "That’s a shame."

"I can't leave my truck..."

"Pick it up tomorrow. No one will notice it. No one notices the barn, either. Just another stain on the landscape."

The Doctor flicked a switch and the flood lights shut off with a final electric hum. She shooed Amber out and dialed a code into the keypad by the door, setting the alarm. As the Doctor exited, the sound of multiple locks engaging on the door interior clicked out into the darkness.

The two women walked towards the hedge concealing the Doctor's beige sedan.

“Anyone asking you questions?”

“No. Well, my landlady’s nosy- she just asks where I’m always running off to. I told her my brother is sick, that I just have to go help him sometimes.”

“You have a brother?”

“Yes…”

“Is he actually sick?”

“Well… no.”

“Think of a better excuse. Or move to a new apartment with a less nosy landlady.”

Amber looked back at the barn, containing the man she had brought there- separated, now, into two, a dead body and a living thing. The walls of the barn called out to her, concealing the light of the stars, and she shivered and slammed the car door.

The women drove off. Outside the barn was all darkness, stretching across the fields and roads and the distant city. The stars watched from far above. And all around the barn came a great whisper of wings, moving swiftly through the darkness, whispering secrets of a new world.