Do you like scary movies?  I used to love them.  I don’t mean those slasher flicks they have now, I’m talking the classics.  The movies that scared you more by what they didn’t show, than what they did.  For instance the original Jaws – can you honestly tell me that after seeing that movie you never had a moment of total panic, even years later?  Well I’ll admit it.  Even now I could be swimming in a lake, treading water, and a current will touch my foot and all of a sudden I just know that lurking deep beneath me is a giant shark, gliding up from the depths, opening that cavern full of razors he calls a mouth – ah even thinking about it gives me the chills.  Anyway, like I was saying, I used to love them . . . until the night I saw the vulture for the first time.

 

All the self-inflicted terror of my earlier years was no comparison to what I felt after the birth of my son, Christian.  I would lay awake at night, scaring the bejeebers out of myself by imagining the most horrible things.  When he was a baby it was SIDS, RSV, asthma, and a million other things that my over-active mind imagined, and I found the only way to calm myself would be to sneak in to look at him … closely . . . to ensure he was still breathing.

 

When he hit 3 my nightmares changed to fear of falling accidents (that little daredevil had no fear, climbing up the highest thing he could reach and then leaping off as if to prove he could fly), pedophiles, or mistreatment by other kids that would permanently scar him.  Did I mention I had a very active imagination?  I kept the monitor turned up high at night so I could hear the slightest noise, and there were times when a simple burp would come through loud enough to knock me off my bed.

 

One night I woke up at 3:30 a.m., with no idea what had interrupted my slumber.  From habit I decided to go check on Christian.  He was very proud of himself for getting a “big-boy bed”, and enjoyed using every inch of that twin mattress.  That night he was lying sideways, curled up against the side rail which kept him from tumbling off onto the floor during his nightly gymnastics routine.  Then my eyes drifted up towards the headboard, and I almost lost control of my bladder.  Perched there, staring holes through me with beady black soulless eyes, was an enormous vulture.  It had to be at least 3′ high and it was more than black, it was an anti-color – the color of a black hole, or the door to hell.

 

My brain refused to accept what it was seeing at first, and I must have blinked a thousand times in less than a minute, hoping this apparition would disappear, but it remained.  The vulture continued to eye me as my protective instincts kicked in and I started towards it.  I grabbed one of Christian’s plastic golf clubs, hoping it would withstand the hit I was about to give.  The bird never moved as I approached, but as I reared back to swing the club its beak cracked open into a malicious grin.  Before I could begin the swing the bird just popped out of existence.  Badly shaken I rested my weight on the club for a moment before my knees gave out and I collapsed to the ground.  Dripping with sweat I crawled into bed with my son, and slept no more that night.

 

A week went by with no further encounters, and I had just about convinced myself I had imagined the entire episode when it repeated itself.  This time, however, the club was only inches away before the bird disappeared and the resounding crack against the wall woke up Christian.  He seemed to take his mommy standing over his bed with a plastic golf club in stride, and went right back to sleep.  Once again, I joined him, glaring at the headboard until the sun finally came up.

 

This went on for a month, with no real pattern.  The vulture would be there one night, gone for a few days, back again for two nights in a row, and on and on.  During the day I researched everything I could find on supernatural, vultures, ghosts, premonitions, anything I could get my hands on.  I knew vultures were scavengers, and fed on dead flesh before I started.  The only thing I truly learned from my research was that I was utterly alone; there was no precedent for what I was going through.

 

Then the vulture started appearing two or three nights in a row before taking a day off.  Within 3 months the evil creature was perching every single night.  By this time I had become convinced that the bird was a harbinger of death.  He was warning me that something was going to happen to my son.  Finally, on my son’s 4th birthday, the vulture appeared during the day.  That day I took an extended leave from work and pulled my son out of daycare.  I was not going to let anything happen to my beautiful baby boy.  Christian thought it was great fun at first, he had me home all day and my undivided attention.

 

I began making lists of anything that could possibly happen to my son.  I refused to let him go outside, in case someone jumped the fence and took him or a car lost control and crashed through.  Then I began to be afraid to drive anywhere with him because of accidents.  I grew afraid to order take-out, in case someone had poisoned the food or the delivery person was actually a serial killer.  I stopped answering the door at all, afraid of who, or what, might be on the other side.  And still the vulture appeared, more frequently, all through the day and night.  Interestingly enough, Christian couldn’t see the bird, but he always knew when it was present.  He would immediately be at my side, peering around the room from behind my leg.

 

I called all my family and friends and told them that Christian and I were going on an extended trip with some money I had come into, in hopes that people would stop beating on the door.  I stopped my mail, because I was afraid to take Christian with me to the mailbox, but more terrified of leaving him in the house by himself.

 

I found myself lying beside Christian on the couch in the living room one day, thinking to myself that maybe I should just end it for both of us.  At least that way we could go together and I could make sure he didn’t suffer.  The vulture was roosting on the back of the couch, not a foot away from me, and I could feel the evil projecting from the bird in tidal waves.  I looked down at my son, my handsome little boy.  He had the most beautiful eyelashes, long enough that even most supermodels would have killed for them, and deep green eyes, with gold flecks radiating out from the center.

 

And then I really looked at him.  His skin had grown pale, from lack of sun.  His little ribs were visible through his shirt, from lack of food.  His hair hung down in his face, not having been cut in months.  There were deep red marks under his eyes, and his cheeks were starting to sink in.  Over the last few days he had lost all energy, barely moving from the couch at all.  He was dying.

 

All of a sudden I was furious.  I mean angry enough to take on a whole football team of serial killers and kick butt and take names.  I thought I had been protecting my son, but I was not letting him live.  He was being deprived of friends, fun, and family and all because of this damn BIRD!

 

I jumped off the couch with my fists clenched and my face blood-red and I looked at that vulture.  I stared him down until he was the first to look away.  And then I woke up my son.  I told Christian to go to his room and get dressed, because he and mommy were going out.  We were going to get a Happy Meal and then we were going to the park.  When we got done there we were going to the grocery store and I was going to stock the house back up and make him anything he wanted for dinner, and we were going right now.

 

The vulture puffed up to twice his size as Christian rushed passed him to get dressed.  Then it opened its wings and a twinge of fear shot through me in spite of the anger.  The wings stretched out past both ends of the couch, and when the vulture started flapping it was like being caught in a tornado.  It opened its beak and emitted a sound like a thousand fingernails scraping a chalk board.  The sound roared through me and I clapped my hands over my ears as the pain drove me to my knees.  I fought back to a standing position, keeping that vision of what this bird, and as a result I, had done to my son.  I fought the wind, and I fought the pain, and I looked through the eyes of the demon and did not back down.  Then I heard it, faint at first, but growing with each heartbeat.  A trilling that was vaguely familiar, and that beat back the pain the vulture was inflicting.  My heart grew stronger, my resolve didn’t waver.

 

That’s when the vulture leapt into the air and shot towards me.  I heard the tinkle of broken glass, saw a flash of red, and before the vulture could reach me it had reared back emitting a shriek.  The vulture looked almost human for a second, its face registering complete shock and a tinge of fear.  For a second it looked as if the vulture would try again, and that’s when the robin flew down and landed on my shoulder.  The vulture’s black eyes radiated a lifetime of hatred at the little bird, who sat there calmly, head cocked to one side as if to say, “Are you still here?”  The vulture vanished with a scream of pure rage, and I never saw it again except for my worst nightmares.

 

The robin remained for another moment, and a river of warmth spread through me filled with hope, faith, and love.  It hopped off my shoulder and bounced over to the window.  For a split second, with the sun shining in behind it, I had an impression of a large winged glowing figure, superimposed behind the little bird.  Then it disappeared.

 

That was sixteen years ago.  Christian is now in college, and I am so proud of him.  I don’t get to see him as much as I’d like, but I understand that he has his own life to live.  I’m sitting at the kitchen table.  I was drinking coffee while reading the paper, but now I’m just reading the same article over and over, my heart racing.

 

Vulture or Victim

 

Koreen Reynolds was arrested this morning at her home.  Authorities were called to the scene by a worried relative who hadn’t seen her or her four year old son, Lee, in weeks.  Police finally kicked in the door after an hour of trying to talk the woman out of the house.  Upon entering the residence police found the woman curled up into a corner of the living room, rocking the body of her dead son.  The cause of death has not been officially released, but a medical source revealed that the child had been smothered, and had apparently been dead for days.  Ms. Reynolds has told authorities that she killed her son to keep “the vulture from getting him.”  When questioned further, Ms. Reynolds revealed that she has supposedly been “haunted by a ghostly vulture, intent on causing her son pain.”  Her story is that she killed her son so he wouldn’t have to suffer.  Ms. Reynolds has been remanded to a state mental institution for testing and diagnosis.  Friends of the Reynolds’ are shocked.  They describe Ms. Reynolds as a, “. . . loving, caring mother.  She loved her son more than life itself.  I can’t believe she would ever intentionally harm him.”

 

Now I know I’m not alone, and my heart aches for this woman I do not know.  If only she had found the strength to stop and realize that you can’t protect your child from everything.  Sometimes they just have to get out there and fall from the monkey bars, leap off the rope into the lake, or deal with bullies.  It’s part of growing up, and they have to have the bad as well as the good in order to be able to function as an adult.

 

More than anything, I wish she had been strong enough to see the robin.