Red Doves

A blast of Pine-Sol invaded her nose as she opened the door to her new house. Coughing, Melissa turned away, looking at the midday sun to suppress a sneeze.

Bringing the hem of her shirt to cover her nose, she entered the house. A glance around revealed how well the previous owners had cleaned it. Carpets were shampooed and conditioned until they smelled like lavender and felt like clouds, and wood floors shined like the hood of a finely polished car.

The windows were the only thing out of place, however. The insides were immaculate, just like the rest of the interior. On the exterior, there were rusted, bird shit stained iron grille walls. It was a bit off-putting, but the rest of the house was perfect. It was in a nice neighborhood and was close to her new job.

"How do I take these down?" she asked herself, pondering the location of the closest hardware store.

She lacked screwdrivers and drills and had never been one to try her hand at home improvement. Recently moving meant she didn't want to spend money to hire someone to take them down for her.

Scrunching her nose, she turned away from the grilles. Doing this herself shouldn't be difficult.

Unpacking was easy; most of her boxes and suitcases contained clothes. Melissa was relatively lazy when it came to her own needs at home. She didn't like to cook, didn't have the skills to build something as easy as an IKEA desk, and wasn't tech-savvy enough to fix even simple problems with the laptop she had for work.

Melissa was a workaholic, putting in a great deal of time and effort to ensure she could continue her lazy lifestyle at home. With the money she made, she lived far more comfortably than most people her age.

She was twenty-eight, single, and successfully making the better half of six figures.

She was Happy.

Happiness isn't permanent, though, and she knew that. She could forget the college debts she owed, but it was not like she couldn't pay it off in full within the next three years anyway. Not having to worry about college debts was one of the perks of a high-paying job after getting out of college and knowing how to write a damn good resume.

Another block on her road to continuous happiness was her boss. Larry was, in the least amount of rude words she could use, a bastard and a fucking prick.

Larry was harsh with deadlines, extremely exact, and pretty sure he was mentally handicapped regarding his tendency to send back anything so much as an hour early to be completely redone and checked for any mistakes he was sure she or anyone else had made.

Anything brought to Larry a second after the deadline was trashed. If it was on paper, it was thrown into his shredder after he took a picture and photoshopped his name over the original copy. If it were digital, he would demand the entire file be deleted from their computer, of course, only after he plagiarized it to hell and back so he could take credit and get it to the client on time.

His only two redeeming qualities were that he would give you a practical evaluation if you turned it in on time, and he allowed people to eat while working. Larry was anything but professional in his assessments and was cool with food as long as you didn't make a mess or get food on company equipment. If he weren't such a piece of shit, he would easily be a fantastic boss.

Melissa couldn't wait to see him gone. He was in his fifties, a hard ass, and about to be moved to a different branch of the company within the year.

Her thoughts about her boss were paused, a coo from outside the kitchen window drawing her attention. A dove sat on a branch of an olive tree outside, one of the factors that led her to buy this new house.

Despite how lazy she preferred to be at home, she wasn't against picking produce from a tree. Her parents had a grape vineyard that covered a majority of their backyard. Melissa's parents had her pick the grapes, so picking olives wasn't far from what she used to do at her childhood home.

Coo

Another call from the dove, its beady eyes looking at her from its perch. Catching the bird's gaze, it seemed to keep eye contact. She took a few steps to the side, looking at the dove. The head swiveled, holding its gaze on her.

It was unnerving, so she moved close to the window and closed the blinds. "Stupid bird," she muttered as she walked around her new house, taking about fifteen minutes before migrating towards her new bedroom.

She had boxes of clothes to put away, and of course, she had forgotten hangers. Sitting on a blow-up mattress, a shirt she had picked up was thrown at the wall as an exhale escaped her mouth.

Coo

She shot up, staring outside at the dove. It sat on a small bird fountain just outside her window, its eyes glaring at her. The closing of another set of blinds followed another huff.

"We didn't have this problem with the grapes," she whined to no one, grabbing the shirt off the floor.

Funnily enough, doves, in particular, the kind sitting outside her window being a ringneck dove, love grapes. So yes, she would have had the same problem if she had grown up around an area heavily populated by doves or bird species.

After folding the shirt, she sat it on the floor of her sliding-door closet. The solution would work for now, so she did the same with the remainder of her clothes.

A couple more coos came from the window, oddly at specific intervals. Once every fifteen minutes on the dot, no second too soon or too late.

"Why do I have to get another fucking Larry?" Yes, she did have a bad problem with speaking out loud. Especially during work, and this was why she was likely one of Larry's favorites. She wasn't scared to talk back, and the old bastard found it entertaining more than anything.

Coo

"Ughh!" Another shirt was thrown at the window, rattling the blinds. Melissa was beginning to learn that she really, really hated birds. She grabbed her phone, taking a look at the date. Thursday, she fucking hated birds and Thursdays.

It didn't help that she got distracted every couple of minutes. The rate between the time she used to put away clothes and how much time she was on her phone or cursing out the annoying dove outside her window was-

She didn't know the math but knew the time she spent putting clothes away was the shortest of the three.

To her knowledge, the cooing was consistent throughout the day, stopping at 8:00 PM on the dot, as she had left some time to buy a new drill. The rest of the night at home, hell, the rest of the week was perfect.

The dove wasn't around; there was no cooing or beady eyes trying to watch her through her window or on her way to her car.

As for the iron grilles on her windows, they had been taken down. At first, Melissa had no idea what she was doing, and her upper-body strength (and, honestly, her lower-body strength, too) was practically non-existent.

Now, the iron grilles stood next to her garbage bins at the side of her house, and trash day was Wednesday.

There are two days until trash day, and she can get rid of those iron eyesores occupying space in her backyard. The two days were amply used at work under her annoying asshole of a boss and repainting the exterior window sills sky-blue.

Never having done it before meant it was poorly painted. Even after looking up a handful of tutorials, there were visible paint runs and splotches where the old white-speckled black color bled through.

It annoyed her, but she could live with it.

Wednesday came and went, and the iron grilles were removed by some less-than-excited garbagemen who didn't enjoy the extra workload. Thursday, however, did not come and go.

Thursday was the biggest pain in her ass, making Larry at work look like a saint. First of all, she woke up to the sound of glass shattering. She called 9-1-1, and the police arrived shortly.

When they arrived, she learned a bird had flown straight into her window. She had locked herself in her room, deciding not to come out until she saw the flashing red and blue lights outside her window and heard a knock at her door.

Going towards the guest room was not on her agenda; that was where the noise originated. She had watched one too many horror movies to know what happens when you go snooping around, even in your own home.

Melissa didn't understand why people were so impulsive and curious in horror movies; it was obvious that the people around them were going missing. Hell, the dying screams of victims are far more than loud enough to be heard throughout the camp. And how many times do people pass working cars?

Work was almost enjoyable. With no deadlines or random barks of new projects, she could go through the day without getting a migraine. It was when she got home, did her day go from slightly manageable to absolute shit.

Quite literally.

The first noticeable, and it was very evident, was the large front window, which was shattered. The second noticeable problem was the amount of bird shit now in front of her house. It caked the grass, pavement, and house.

Her newly painted window sills looked the same as they did before repainting, which made her sick to her stomach. She didn't want to touch them again until they were heavily pressure-washed; even then, she wasn't sure she wanted to get near them.

And then it happened, the sound that patronized her last Thursday.

Coo

Melissa's head shot to the side, eyes quickly becoming bloodshot as she glared at the fucking fancy-looking white pigeon. That's all doves were to her: the upper class and highly antagonistic portrayal of pigeons—the sky rats of nice neighborhoods.

She called the police to ensure no one was inside her house. The entire time, she heard that god-forsaken dove coo. It cooed repeatedly, every fifteen minutes without fail. Again, she was reminded why she would hate Thursdays.

"Ma'am, there is no sign of any intruders... And for your bird problem, I would call local pest control. My recommendation would be to put up something to protect your windows." Melissa looked at Officer WhateverTheFuckHisNameIs and laughed. She bent forward, laughing hard.

She couldn't stop; those fucking iron grilles were probably installed by the previous owners. The irony that taking them down was the wrong choice by any extent of the word was annoyingly hilarious.

Turning towards that fucking smug-ass-looking bird on the olive tree, Melissa screamed at it, laughed at it. When her air supply was diminished, she broke down crying, her insanity temporarily on halt as she was faced with the reality that all her windows were broken by an army of evil fucking birds.

And, of course, all the goddamned birds that kamikazed her windows were, what do you know it- Doves.

Officer 'WhateverTheFuckHisNameIs' raised an eyebrow, watching the hysterical woman in evident confusion. Calling in a woman going insane due to birds didn't seem like something he would have needed to do, so to make life easier and save himself the god damned paperwork- he didn't.

He watched as she broke down and didn't care to follow procedure following her excited state. In fact, he was almost tempted to record it.

The situation was far too unusual and unexpected. A cote of doves smashing all the windows, shitting on everything outside and everything inside of a single house. It was unheard of, crows; it was plausible aside from the suicide aspect- but doves?

Officer 'WhateverTheFuckHisNameIs' watched as the mentally drained woman finally picked herself up off the bird-shit-caked ground and walked towards her house. He turned as a scream erupted from inside, trying hard not to laugh or cry at the situation's absurdity.

Was he being inconsiderate and rude? Hell yes.

Were his actions unfounded? Also yes.

But the big question is, was it hilarious?

Was that even a question someone needed to ask? It was the funniest shit he had seen in years.

The sight of an irate woman running out the door and screaming about copious amounts of bird shit was enough for him to call it a day. Officer 'WhateverTheFuckHisNameIs' turned to his car and fled.

No way in hell was he dealing with any more of this. It was hard enough not to burst out laughing in front of the woman. And god knows what would have happened if he had.

Melissa watched as that- Too many slurs appeared in her mind for her to choose how she wanted to insult the officer accurately. Her throat hurt too much to scream again, and exhaustion was taking its toll on her.

Resolving to flip the officer, long out of sight, the bird, she turned to the olive tree. It was the only thing, from everything she had seen so far, not covered in a shower of fancy pigeons' shit.

Coo

"Fuck you!" She screeched, her throat burning as she glared again at the damned bird. Storming inside, she washed her sheets, towels, blanket, and clothes. The entire time until 8:00 PM, that fucking dove Cooed.

It even had the gall to enter her house and coo at her from just out of reach, driving her mad. She threw various items at it, almost chucking her new drill. Melissa was positive she would have cried herself to sleep laughing if she had killed the dove by throwing the drill at it.

The item used to cause one problem accidentally and then used to fix a bigger one.

If only it were like that. But no! Instead, it continued to vex her. She hated that fucking dove, she fucking hated Thursday, and she hated all the literal shit she had to clean off everything.

Melissa ensured she did all her laundry after 8:00 PM, hoping the dove would follow the same time frame as last time: the Larry Dove, punctual and an asshole to boot.

To her hope, it did leave after 8:00 PM. She nearly cried- She did cry, but that was later in the night as she was buying windows online and sheets in-store to use as temporary window covers. The night was stressful, and she had already called off work tomorrow, a migraine building up in the back of her mind.

Friday was a godsend. She cleaned the entire house, didn't have to hear Larry's bullshit, and got to sleep in till- Melissa didn't care, she was able to fucking sleep in. That's all that mattered.

Everything was going right, and then she went to her olive tree. Her mind stopped working entirely for a moment. Each and every fucking olive on her olive tree was gone. 

Later that night, she hired pest control to come next Thursday.

On Monday, she bought white, plastic crossed grilles to put on the outside of her windows. She had no idea how to put them up and didn't want to use any more nails and screws, so she used Velcro. She didn't expect the dove problem to last much longer, so it was safe temporary protection from the Larry Dove and its posse. 

The week came and went, and next Thursday snuck up on her like an overripe fruit. She was out of the house before the doves started dive-bombing her windows, not that they would get through the not-so-well-secured plastic grilles.

"Hey, Rich. Why did they ask for three of us? Isn't it just a simple bird problem? That's usually a one-person job." Asked the youngest of three pest control associates to the eldest.

"Because they asked for as many as we would have available and paid exceptionally well. Why not give them what they want? Sometimes, it's better not to ask questions, Mark." Rich replied with a heavy sigh, scratching at his heavy beard.

"So, we got a pigeon problem, right?" Questioned the last member, whose British accent made the other two employees feel their ears were bleeding.

"Terrace, how many times have we told you not to talk unless prompted?" Rich nearly sneered. He was already close to strangling him on the way here. He kept talking and talking, and Rich fucking hated British accents.

Terrace apologized, a bit miffed. He was like the rest of them, born in America. Hell, they were all from the same state. It wasn't his fault a lot of his heritage was heavily British.

"Bastards," he grumbled, looking over at the large olive tree. He approached the tree as the two men with heavy Georgia accents began arguing about something.

Rich and Mark got along like pears and oranges. One always had a problem with the other but seemed to put their differences aside when he spoke. They were like a hive mind, screaming at him to shut up when he so much as spoke.

Reaching the tree, he noticed a lack of olives despite it being the olive season. His gaze drew upward into the tree, eyes widening in astonishment and fear. Hidden within the leaves, somehow not visible from an outside view, what seemed to be hundreds of doves looked down at him.

"What the fu-

Rich was still in the middle of arguing with Mark about the difference between a sky rat and a pigeon. Goddamn, these two were fucking idiots. Dumb and Dumber didn't hear the scream, somehow, some way.

They continued to fucking arguing over the names of a god damned bird. It makes sense, considering their brains were the size of a bird's. Neither noticed the massive swarm of doves gathered above them. How could they? They were your typical horror movie idiots, working on the same mental level as a toddler with an energy drink around too many small objects.

Rich and Mark were the definition of Darwin's law of natural selection. Two idiots blind and deaf to everything that wasn't themselves. They would never see the corpse not even a hundred feet from them, doves crawling down the poor English-sounding Georgia man's throat like rats directed by an encroaching flame.

It wasn't even to the point of being too late when they noticed the dove army crashed down; a wave of small bodies and feathers with small spears dug into their bodies and skulls. They were dead before their bodies had a chance to die.

The shock from the quick overload of pain was too much and too fast for their brains to handle. Dropping, their bodies riddled with small, shallow holes. As the doves began pecking at the bodies as if searching for worms, one lone Dove was away from it all.

Looking down upon the carnage from its perch atop the pest control van, 'Larry' Cooed.

Melissa wasn't sure what she expected upon returning home. However, four police officers, seven bystanders (including two children), and the three pest control associates all deceased on her property wasn't it?

Feeling her stomach twist and turn, she bent forward as vomit spewed from her mouth, covering her steering wheel. Her eyes began to tear up, stinging her tear ducts.

Her new house was once again covered in dove shit, and her driveway and grass were painted crimson with blood. The only thing still pure in color was the dove atop her house.

Perfectly white, gazing at her with eyes that seemed to want to bore a hole in her and nibbling on a piece of flesh.

She coughed, looking at the bird through her windshield. Fuck she hated doves and Thursdays. Putting her car in drive, never having gone into her driveway, still on the side of the road opposite her house, she drove. Fuck all this horror movie bullsh-

Crack

Her head snapped, and her driver's side window was now spiderwebbing. She slammed the gas, going forward. She was fucking done with these goddamn birds.

HONK

"You've-"

Her sentence was cut off as an old pickup slammed into the side of her small car, flipping her twice in her car.

Coming to a stop, dazed and bleeding from her head, which had been slammed into her steering wheel. Why the airbag didn't activate confused her, but she didn't have time for that confusion as another loud crack slammed into one of her car's windows.

The crack was followed by more doves flying recklessly into her windshield as it began to give. Each dove was another crack, and each dove had already cloaked in red because no one expects the Spanish Inquisition!

Hold up...

*Looks at the rough draft-*

Oh wait, there is no rough draft...

*Chucks handful of random blank papers*

FUCK IT!

Melissa could do nothing but watch as the last dove slammed into her windshield, bursting on contact into a plume of blood, feathers, and guts like the rest. As her windshield caved in, 'Larry', just like her fucking boss, right on cue...

Coo

"I'm so fucking sick and tired of all this-

Her voice was cut off as a dove flew into her mouth as she screamed. Her mouth and throat began to bleed as she felt the little fucker dig its claws into her interior, forcing its way inside.

Hands flying to her mouth, she tried to grasp at it, to no avail. Attempting to scream again in hopes the vibrations would scare it into fleeing, another dove flew in. If the first dove hadn't blocked her airway, this one sealed the deal.

Tears ran down her face as Melissa clawed at her neck, her face slowly turning white as her throat bulged and moved as the two doves continued their way down. Why the doves, usually peaceful and kind creatures, hated her and this house so much, she wouldn't know.

One last attempt at a gasp for help was her last mistake. A new flurry of doves took the opportunity, flocking over her open maw. Climbing inside her like ants to their burrow, they began to tear her insides apart.

She squirmed in pain, feeling every little injury as it happened. Pecks, tears, cuts, everything was felt in excruciating detail.

Until she didn't.

Melissa's body, along with the fourteen unlucky souls, somehow never taken to a morgue, were left to the doves. Taking the opportunity given, the doves did as they wanted.

Melissa, having been the last to die, was the last to be assaulted. The white-turned-red birds had already taken their toll on the other victims. All the doves began to pile into her mouth to commemorate their 'final' and most sought-after target.

Her body moved unnaturally as the doves crowded her insides, packing in further until finally-

Like an overripe pomegranate, her body exploded. Crimson doves flew from her body in all directions, covering her car.

Hank looked on in horror at the car he had hit. He was about to get out when he saw a bird, a blood-red bird, crash into her windshield.

Another one came after, and then another. Watching in horror, they kept attacking the car, small red-homing beacons of suicide trying to break into her car. He looked past the bed of his truck towards the road behind him.

In his peripheral, hundreds of pomegranates in the back of his truck were now sprawled everywhere as he put his truck into reverse. Backing out of the road, he didn't care to see what happened to the woman.

Not looking was a mistake; he didn't see a lone white dove fly to his truck. Hank's blood was pumping too hard in his ears to hear the soft clink of avian feet landing atop his truck, eyeing the delicious fruit.

'Larry' would feast again, as would all the other doves.