Special Investigator Clayton Yonder, as Commander of the Campaign to Eliminate the Terror Bird, asked his boss, Jules Landau, to call a meeting at Park Department Headquarters for 7:00 p.m. on the night of the Terror Bird War. Those in attendance were Clayton and Jules, of course. Jules’ brother Marcus, Gunny Noah Fernandez, and I.

I was included for the same reason that I became an honorary member of Archie the Giant Chickadee’s mixed flock. Because I was there. Because I was useful. Because I was invested heart and soul in the struggle. And because if they hadn’t invited me (you know me well enough by now to realize that this is true), I would have crashed the meeting anyway.

Archie, of course, was also invited, but I had known beforehand that he would decline. Chickadees mate for life, and he was an emotional wreck having lost Daffney, his one true love. In declining, he said to me, “You speak on my behalf. I know you will do the right thing.”

I did. We all did.

Since the dawn of D-day, just hours before, none of us had been home, had washed up, had changed our clothes, or had eaten a morsel. Marcus Landau, who, in dealing with the public, remembers such things as food, drink, soap and water, had sent us all to the building’s locker room for showers, and even somehow managed to get us clean clothes. We reconvened in the soundproof room behind Jules’ office, where we found a huge platter of sandwiches, pots of coffee, and soda.

Clay started the meeting as we were devouring the last scraps food.

“While we and our songbird allies were out today doing what had to be done, Marcus … by the way, thank you, old chum, for the feast…” – he pointed to the table where we had demolished all edibles. Then he picked up where he had left off – “…Marcus, as Supervisor of our Protests and Special Events Division, was doing what his job title suggests, and was busy these past few weeks protecting us from protestors. Do you want to tell them yourself, Marcus? Or should I?”

Marcus Landau, slumped exhaustedly beside his brother Jules at the table where we were all sitting, lifted his head wearily, shrugged, and said just three words, “You do it.”

Special Investigator Energizer Bunny (where DID that man get his stamina?) nodded.

“Okay.” He turned to the rest of us, “While we’ve been busy training songbirds at bootcamp and strategizing our attacks, Marcus, like a magician, has been equally busy doing what magicians do.”

During a brief pause when Clay raised a cup to take a gulp of coffee, I interjected. “What was that, Clay? Make something disappear?”

“No.” He lowered his cup. “When a magician is practicing his art, disappearing is pretty far down on his TO DO list. What makes his performance possible … vanishing, transforming, sleight of hand, illusion … all comes from one particular talent.”

“Which is?” I prompted.

“Misdirection.”

As Clay said that word, he looked at his boss’s brother as if for confirmation. But Marcus’s eyes were closed and his chest was rising and falling gently. The poor man had fallen asleep. From Special Investigator Boyfriend’s description of what Marcus had been doing lately – weeks of 24-hour days – he deserved it.

“As you know,” Clay continued, “we had five fields of fire: The Pickerel Lagoons. The Southland Elementary School. The Rock Haven Theater. The Glencoe Beach. And the Kings County Zoo. We also had protestors, a few … very few … misguided idiots, many professional haters, and even more paid rabblerousers. All violent. And all determined to portray Terror Birds as innocent visitors to wooded areas who were being victimized by genocidal songbirds.”

I snorted. Couldn’t help it. It was like hearing a flyswatter complain that he was being persecuted by a fly.

Clay ignored me.

“In order for our battle plans to succeed,” he went on, “it was absolutely imperative that all combat zones be free of civilians. Playful children out for a walk. Oblivious families enjoying a day at the beach. Or malevolent conspirators out to assist in the destruction of our innocent avian allies.

“And that is where Marcus came in. While we were preparing for battle, his office has been churning out press releases and creating events to draw activists away from our fields of fire. Last Monday, they sponsored a Best Songbird Harmony Contest in the Village of Millard. Tuesday, it was a Robin’s Egg Blue Paint-off in Staffordshire. Wednesday, a Songbird Circus for sparrows and goldfinches to preform complicated acrobatics under a circus tent. And so on. All of which attracted small crowds of celebrants and huge crowds of protestors. I call it Marcus Magic, but what it really was is misdirection.

“Protestors did NOT show up at our battlegrounds, because they were too busy throwing Molotov cocktails at art shows and heckling aerialists at songbird circuses. The lagoons, the school, the theater, the beach, and the zoo – all harboring Terror Birds – were ignored by demonstrators. Not insignificantly, because Marcus also set up barricades and signs saying KEEP OUT and CLOSED FOR REPAIRS, creating the illusion that nothing was happening or was about to happen at those locations. Nothing at all.”

Clay paused and glanced affectionately at our sleeping colleague.

“Warriors, Weapons officers, Avian Airforce … we were all free to fight the good fight and vanquish the foe, because Marcus kept the haters, the disruptors, the destroyers, the civilian…”

This time, it wasn’t me, but Gunny Hernandez who interrupted, “…enemy,” he said.

“Right,” Clay nodded. “The civilian enemy out.”

Just then, there was a knock at the door. It opened, and a woman I recognized as one of Clay’s fellow officers poked in her head. In a low voice, she advised Clay, “The crematorium just called. They’re ready.”

“Okay, Jill. Thanks.”

She closed the door behind herself, and Clay said, “Which brings us to the last step in our operations, which was...” He nodded at Noah Hernandez. “Clean up. After each battle, Gunny gathered all Terror Bird remains in the backs of five large Park Department pickup trucks, and transported them to our maintenance shed, where they are currently under armed guard. The truck beds are covered with tarps and hermetically sealed so that not a molecule from inside can fly outside, and vice versa.”

“What are we going to do with it … them … the dead birds?” I asked.

“Burn them,” Clay said, making those two words sound as lethal as the Terror Birds had been. “Our trucks will be on their way to the crematorium momentarily, where every last feather, bone, beak, fiber, and fragment of their existence will be removed and incinerated until not an atom remains. After they are burned, they will be pulverized. After they are pulverized, they will be put in sealed containers, carried to the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii, and thrown in. As to our trucks, they will be rigorously sanitized, decontaminated, and disinfected. A process that we’ll repeat in the crematorium and all five battle sites.”

I raised my hand, as if I were a child in a classroom. “Clay,” I inquired. “Are we sure that they’re all dead.”

“Yes. We’re sure.”

“Then why such drastic measures? I mean, dead is dead. Terror Birds aren’t zombies. They can’t come back to life and hurt us.”

Clay ran a hand through his hair, and for a moment. Just a moment, he seemed to sag with fatigue. But then he straightened his back, met, first my eyes, then those of the rest of us (except for Marcus, who was still asleep), and said “Maybe not. But I’ve seen too many movies and documentaries where entire animals have been cloned from a single strand of DNA. So, I’m not taking any chances. By the time we’re through, all vestiges of that laboratory created, invasive, predatory, homicidal hybrid species will be gone. Forever.”

I asked, unmistakable hope in my voice, “So we’ll never see another live Terror Bird again?”

My hero … my ever-so-admirable boyfriend … nodded. Then he shrugged, and added, “Not unless another mad-scientist goes back to a lab to create a new one.”

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