Had someone asked me to come up with a thousand different scenarios about how our war against Terror Birds would proceed, never in a million years would I have predicted what I saw outside the offices of the National Park Service the morning after Special Investigator Clayton Yonder (my boyfriend) and his boss gave their press conference.

But if I had considered it at all, I would have put it in the category of “when pigs fly.”

How wrong I was.

Technically, I should not have been at Parks Department headquarters at all, so my witnessing such an appalling event was a fluke. How it happened was that I went to my favorite bakery on my way to work, and noticed they had a special on powdered-sugar bowties … the lightest, crunchiest, deliciousist pastry in the world. After I introduced them to Cal, he fell in love with them, and brought some in to share with his task force, who fell in love with them, too. So, I bought a few pounds of bowties, and decided to drop them off at his office.

How can I describe the mayhem that I met? I like to think that I’m brave, but every second I spent breathing the same air as those rampaging lunatics, my heart was in my throat.

No question that I arrived before the police, for I saw no barricades. No patrol cars. No armed officers. No human beings at all, except for angry, fat, thin, bearded, shaved, old, young, purple-haired, tattooed, braless, barefoot, shod, grungy … they all looked grungy … people of indeterminate sex, with rage and hatred on their faces, eyes bulging, nostrils flared, screaming, carrying torches – yes. Torches! – throwing Molotov cocktails, wielding spray paint cans, and waving protest signs that read:

• DEATH TO SONGBIRDS

• STOP SONGBIRD GENOCIDE AGAINST REFUGEE SPECIES

• SONGBIRDS KILL NEWCOMERS

• FROM THE FOREST TO THE SKY. EVERY SONGBIRD HAS TO DIE

I was stupefied, and paralyzed with indecision. Should I wade into the crowd and force my way toward the building? Should I circumvent the rioters, and sneak up to a back window? Should I…

But before I could make a decision, the front door from the lobby swung open, and … I swear … even though there was no halo of light around him in the real world, there certainly was one in my mind. Yes. True. Irrefutable fact. I saw Special Investigator Clayton Boyfriend, my Larger-than-Life hero, the man who made my heart flutter and my socks roll up and down, take a single, decisive (I was surprised the world didn’t shake) step forward. He raised one arm high into the air – in his hand I recognized his .40-caliber Glock pistol – and he pulled the trigger four times.

Each shot … one. Two. Three … Four … was an ear-splitting crash of thunder.

After that first blast of gunfire, the thugs, rowdies, and agitators, instantly, as a single, amorphous but cohesive unit, fell silent.

Clay lowered his hand and pointed his weapon at the crowd.

Nobody moved.

Making eye-contact first with one, and then another, and another, and another, he began to swing his gun this way and that. Then the head of the Avian Slaughter Task Force threw back his head and laughed (I think he wanted them to think he was crazy). He returned his eyes to the mob, took aim, and fired. Exactly into where the crowd was most dense.

Panic ensued. Men and women alike, screaming like silly females in 1950s horror movies, turned and began to run – hysterical and frenzied, like sewer rats – scrambling and stepping on top of each other. They stampeded toward their cars and trucks. All to the sound of incessant gunfire (Clay must have reloaded), and within minutes, except for my lone little self, standing amid the left-behind debris, the entire parking lot was empty.

The world went silent. Eerily silent.

Clay holstered his pistol. He looked at me. I looked at him. He started to walk toward me. I started to walk toward him. When we met, I raised my head and said, “Jesus.”

Special Investigator Clayton Boyfriend tilted his head ever so lightly, and his eyes twinkled. Twinkled!

“I wish they were real bullets,” he said evenly. “But the gun was loaded with blanks.”

My heart still in my throat and barely able to breathe, I whispered, “Seriously?”

Clay beckoned me to follow. “I want to show you something. It will explain what happened today.”

I tagged along behind him, muttering under my breath, “I love that guy. I love that guy. I love that guy.” He walked into the lobby, and strode past fellow Park Service officers who called out, “Great job, Clay.” “Way to go.” “You showed those sons of bitches.” And so on, until we got to his office. There, he grabbed a stack of newspapers off his desk, thrust them at me, and said, “Read these.”

I lowered myself into the guest chair, and began to flip through the pile. The headlines shouted:

• SONGBIRDS GUILTY OF HATE CRIMES

• NEWCOMERS TO WOODED AREAS VICTIMIZED BY SONGBIRDS

• NOT A SONGBIRD? WE’LL SHOOT YOU DEAD

• SONGBIRD MESSAGE TO ALIEN SPECIES: DIE. DIE. DIE.

The text under each headline conveyed pretty much the same story:

“Yesterday, at a press conference given by the National Park Service, the Avian Slaughter Task Force declared war against a peace-loving species newly arrived to the area. Maliciously described as “Terror Birds,” they have been misrepresented, vilified, and falsely accused of causing the declining population of chickadees, sparrows, goldfinches, orioles, and the like.

“‘Lies! Lies! Lies,’ declare the editors of Ornithologists Without Borders magazine. ‘The overstated deaths of songbirds in Gossamer Gardens were caused by the Avian Flu.’

“These falsehoods about our migrating friends are being propagated by monetized groups sympathetic to songbirds. Although claiming to be native to the area, they are actually invasive, with a violent history of claiming the territories of other species as their own. The songbird agenda is genocidal, and our only defense is to kill them first.”

I threw the newspapers into the wastebasket and said, “I think I’m going vomit.”

Clay leaned against the edge of his desk.

I continued bitterly, “No mention of 617 birds with broken necks and shattered spines. Nothing about butchered rabbits, squirrels, opossums, and racoons. Not a word about lab-created predators, illegal entry, smuggling, decimated wildlife, and…”

Special Investigator Clayton Boyfriend cut me off. “You know what Winston Churchill said about lying, don’t you?” he asked.

“No. And I don’t want to know.”

Clay extracted a folded index card from his shirt pocket, opened it, and read, “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”

I grunted unappreciatively.

Clay glanced again at the card, and added, “I plan to put pants on the truth, and with Archie’s help,” he paused to grin a wonderfully wicked grin “…send all of the nasty, naughty, evil, homicidal … are there any adjectives I missed?” He asked, but didn’t wait for an answer “…Terror Birds, their apologists, backers, co-conspirators, and collaborators on a submersible one-way rocket to hell.”

Copyright © Shelly Reuben, 2026. Shelly Reuben’s books have been nominated for Edgar, Prometheus, and Falcon awards. For more about her writing, visit www.shellyreuben.com.