They circle the playground, gently timed caws nestling into quiet gaps amid the children's squeals, surfing the wind, softly as naptime against the slate sky, almost like real birds. But they gather in such number that the teacher with the porcelain gaze and hair dark as ink moves away from the window and toward the door, just as the first creatures land among her children. "Stay away!" she cries, jogging awkwardly at them, just as a girl shrieks and a large, yellow-haired boy with freckles and tiny teeth leaps after her, mashing one of the black feathered things between his hands. The teacher waves, pleading with them, only now it seems every boy has grabbed one and found a pigtailed victim to terrorize while they laugh like Christmas. A gust from behind blows black hair across her mouth as she inhales; the strands tickle her throat like ants just as the device in the yellow-haired boy's hands BANGS and flashes in orange fire and he drops, arms gone ... The teacher can only choke while, with machine-gun efficiency, the horrible things slice and gouge her tiny charges as if they were soft ground round and the cracked asphalt hungrily laps up their juice...
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