Wil held out some hope that the flying creature might give up and continue on. However, after its fourth and fifth pass, it became obvious that whatever the creature was, it was tenacious. It emitted several shrieks like air-raid sirens and women screaming as it passed overhead, clearly frustrated it couldn’t find the prey it had so narrowly missed.

“It’s gonna attract every zombie in the city if it keeps howling like that,” Wil hissed after it soared overhead again. Matsuda grumbled and adjust his rifle from underneath the truck ahead. Qadira was silent but Wil could actually see her shaking beneath her car.

Wil was about to suggest to Matsuda that he and Qadira try to make a run for it while he distracted it, when the flapping from above changed. It had been an occasional, double flap of wings as it propelled itself over the bridge. But now, it became a more rapid sound as its wings beat the air directly overhead.

A van a few cars behind Qadira squealed and crunched as an immense weight landed on top of it and pushed it into the the bridge. Its tires flattened under the weight and the underside of the van was crushed against the hard road of the bridge as the creature settled itself on the vehicle’s roof.

Wil couldn’t see it from his vantage point, just the underside of the van slamming down into the asphalt. But he could hear it perfectly. It made a kind of metallic cooing noise, punctuated by sharp clicks and clacks of something bony. Wil thought of a parrot snapping its beak shut, except to make a sound that loud, the parrot would need to be the size of a small airplane.

The van creaked and protested as the creature shifted its weight, then rose up a few inches as it took off. A sedan next to the van squealed and was pressed down into the road. It had shifted perches. Qadira glanced behind her, then up at Wil as her face contorted with fear. If the creature shifted perches again, it would crushed Qadira into paste.

No distortion nearby, all I’ve got is a pistol and an axe, if I stay under her it’ll crush me too, Wil thought. He was probably going to die if he did anything, but he was probably going to die if he did nothing. If it was a toss-up either way, he’d rather die trying to save somebody.

Wil grabbed his pistol and rolled out from under the car just as he heard another flap of wings, likely from the creature starting to hop to another car. It paused as soon as Will stood up, and he looked eyes with the thing.

It was roughly the size of a very small plane. Its body was entirely pale and white, with thin blue veins visible beneath the surface of its pebbled skin It had the basic body of an over-sized bird, but the head of something else. Something like a mosquito and a swordfish. It had two huge, tumorous bulges on the sides of its skull, each one pocketed with dozens of tiny, glossy black orbs that Wil realized must have been its eyes. It had a snout that stretched out for a couple of yards at least, with vicious barbs on the underside of it that ended in a wicked point. Two long, narrow holes sat on the top of the protruding spike, near the thing’s face. The sharp clicking noise had come from this elongated sword-beak opening and snapping shut.

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The creature locked its dozens of tiny black eyes on Wil and cocked its head to the side in a gesture that was definitely avian, then spread its four wings wide enough to eclipse the narrow bridge. The wings weren’t feathered, just more skin, but they were split along their edges, creating overlapping flaps of thing membranes.

“Uh, shit,” Wil said and raised his pistol. The mosquito-bird let out a shriek that made Wil wince as it jumped forward, pointed beak aimed at his skull.

Matsuda opened fire behind him, and Wil saw three red holes appear in the creature’s tumorous left eye bulge. Blood, red and thick, gushed out and the thing squealed in agony as it flung itself to one side, its charge ruined by the sudden attack. Its beak missed Wil’s face by inches as it crashed into the guardrail on the side of the bridge and drove it into the street.

The hard black asphalt cracked under the beak, and its huge talons scraped across the roof the car Qadira hid under as the creature fell forward. Matsuda adjusted his aim for the thing’s head but it swept a wing across and slapped the old man. The gun flew out of his hands as he was thrown back into the side of a truck hard enough to shatter the window.

Wil emptied his pistol in a panic in the general direction of the bird-thing’s head and chest. More blood, more holes, more inhuman screams, but it didn’t go down. It flailed in the street, spewing blood across its pale skin, but it only became more aggressive. It snapped at Wil and thrust its beak at him. The beak grazed his side as he dodged it, missing impalement by inches, but getting a vicious gash just below his ribs.

“Freak!” somebody said in a guttural voice and piece of black iron pierced through the back of the bird-thing’s wing. Wil recognized the iron as the tip of a crowbar, and the voice as Qadira’s distorted with terror. She yanked the crowbar down and tore through the thin, membrane of the wing, and blood gouted from the torn halves and the creature screamed.

Wil reached down for his axe as the creature shifted its attention to Qadira, and brought it down where its beak met its face. There was a crack like a thick tree branch splintering as the axe-blade cleaved into the beak. The creature was now in a blind, violent panic, and it flapped its enormous wings and scrabbled at the ground with its talons.

“Get down!” Matsuda said and Wil ducked, yanking his axe out as he went down. There were three more quick shots and the creature fell with a thud. Three more holes had appeared, these in its skull. It twitched and jerked as it spilled its blood and brains onto the road, but it was done.

“Christ,” Wil breathed and backed away.

“Uhn,” Matsuda grunted and leaned back against the truck. Wil got to his feet and hurried to the old man.

“Are you okay? It hit you pretty good.”

“Nothing broken except the window. Hurts like hell though,” Matsuda said and winced as he placed his hands on his hips, then arched his back. There was a series of pops and cracks and he grunted again.

“And you? You okay?” Wil asked and looked at Qadira. She had blood all over her face and jacket, but Wil couldn’t tell if it was hers or the bird’s.

“No I’m not okay!” Qadira hissed. “I almost died!”

“I mean are you hurt?” Wil asked.

“I don’t think so,” Qadira said and looked herself over.

“Then we need to move. Those gunshots will have echoed across most of the city, let anything with ears know where we are, and our escape routes are limited to two directions on the bridge. Unless you wanna jump and swim,” Matsuda said.

“Swimming is out forever,” Wil said. “But that bird-thing threw my bike in the damn Willamette.”

“No use for the rest of the bridge anyway, c’mon,” Matsuda said.

“Never wanna go on another bridge for the rest of my life,” Qadira added as she picked up her bike and hurried after Wil and Matsuda.