Cuckoo

Image credit: Canva

Cam watched the creature with a sort of morbid fascination. The long, curved beak broke through the shell first, then the matted dark feathers of the head appeared. When the body finally emerged it was wrinkled and bat-like, the tendons that flexed the immature wings as thin and dark as veins.

His nose pressed to the glass, Cam saw the grotesque little creature crawl to the nearest bright blue egg, then twist and squirm until it had rolled the delicate sphere onto its back. It stretched out its gnarled, stick-like legs to rest against the sides of the nest and pushed.

The pretty blue egg teetered, then dropped, shattering on the wet grey flagstones beneath the branch. The murderous hatchling was still wet.

One by one, each of the other eggs Cam had watched the mother robin sit for days was lifted and broken. He witnessed the whole thing in mounting horror, unable to tear his eyes away from the window. When it had finished, the tiny murderer wriggled as if to get comfortable in all the new space it had created for itself, then opened its mouth.

“Gowk!” it said. The sound was as harsh and ugly as the creature that made it. “Gowk!”

The mother robin appeared as though summoned. If she noticed her own eggs, smashed and smeared on the ground below, she showed no sign. She came to rest on the edge of the nest and cocked her head at the hatchling.

“Gowk!” it said.

Cam knew what was supposed to happen next. The robin would take the alien chick for its own, fluster about for bugs and worms to fill that gaping, demanding craw. Forsaking all thought of its own lost brood, the parent bird would exhaust itself feeding the interloper. His eyes took in the scene with a look of resigned disgust. Nature was cruel, his father would have said, if he were still here to say such things. But nature had been cruel to him, too, so Cam just said the words to himself, in his head.

Then he bent a little closer to the glass.

The hatchling’s beak opened wide. It lunged, stabbing, at the parent bird’s throat.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

There was a bright splash of crimson, a brief, stunned flurry of feathers, and the robin lay motionless in the nest. Calmly, the small, black creature sank its hooked beak into the little carcass and tore out a morsel of bloody flesh, gulping it down. Then it dug its beak into the body once again.

Cam stayed at the window until all that was left of the robin was feathers, then he went to his mother’s computer and searched up “Cuckoo,” frowning. None of the images he found looked like the inky, vicious creature in the nest outside. The photographs showed tiny, ungainly dinosaurs, naked of scales and feathers, but as ruthless and as ugly as they were, there was a comforting vulnerability about them. They looked as newborn creatures should look. His hatchling had sprung into life a toughened killer.

Scrolling and scrolling, his forehead creased in concentration, he exhausted site after site. None mentioned any behaviour like that he had just witnessed. Brood parasite chicks did not kill their hosts.

Perplexed, he returned to the window, and stared. The strange chick had vanished. In the nest sat a plump little robin, preening its pretty feathers. Had the father bird returned? What had happened to the little traitor it had helped to hatch?

But as Cam watched, the other parent bird returned, brighter and a little larger than its mate. It alighted on the edge of the nest and Cam thought it seemed nervous, as if it sensed something wrong.

“Gowk,” said the female robin.

There was another flash of crimson, and the male bird lay in the bottom of the nest, dead.

The hooked beak darted, plucked and swallowed.

This time, Cam stayed after the meal was finished. He watched, not understanding, as the female bird swelled and grew, digesting its gory feast. The feathers deepened in hue, the red breast glowing brighter until he saw that somehow, he was no longer seeing a female bird, but a male one.

“Gowk!” it said, as if pleased with itself.

“Cam,” called his mother’s voice from the kitchen, “what are you doing in there?”

“Watching the birds. A cuckoo just ate a robin!”

“Don’t be silly dear. Cuckoos don’t eat other birds.”

He was about to argue when he noticed next door’s cat slinking along the top of the fence toward the nest, its eyes gleaming at the plump, murderous cuckoo-robin. Cam didn’t much like the cat; it was a hissing, unfriendly creature and it bothered his birds, but this time he was happy to watch it make a kill.

The cat slunk toward the nest.

The creature didn’t stir.

Cam saw the feline body crouch, the mouth make the strange, twitching gesture that precedes a kill, and he leaned toward the glass in anticipation.

The cat leapt.

The bird fluttered in alarm. There was a splash of crimson.

Cam’s mouth dropped open.

The cat fell to the path beneath the tree, blood pooling around its limp body.

“Gowk!” said the bird, its beak dripping red.

Then, as he watched, it stretched its wings and glided down to land next to its kill. Jab went the sharp beak, again and again.

Cam watched as the bird began to swell and grow, its feathers shortening, softening to fluff. The murderous beak retracted. Tiny triangular peaks swelled on the small head, lengthened into ears. A tail snaked and twitched as the corpse dwindled, a mouthful at a time.

“Mom!”

“Not now Cam, I’m on the phone.”

“But Mom!”

He heard his mother’s voice apologizing and then the slam of a door.

The cat looked up.

For a moment he froze, feeling that ruthless, hungry gaze fixed on him, but then the furred ears twitched and the head twisted.

The cat sprang back up to the fence.

Cam heard footsteps, the lid of a dustbin opening and slamming shut.

He saw the top of his neighbour’s head bob along next to the fence, heard the familiar croaking voice croon the cat’s name. Fingers reached up to pet.

“No!” Cam howled, but his voice was muffled by glass, so he could only watch as the cat sprang, and a little shower of red droplets momentarily misted the air.

“Mom!” he shrieked, running to slam open the kitchen door, eyes wide, belly cramping and sick, but his mother wasn’t there. Her phone sat on the counter, its display still lit.

For a moment he stood stock still, uncertain what to do. Should he call an ambulance? The police? The army? In his mind he heard his own ten-year-old voice explaining what he had seen, the pause at the other end of the line and then the inhaled breath before adult words patiently assured him he must have imagined it all. And all the time the thing would be growing and changing, not a cat any longer, but something horrific and impossible, so that even if someone did come in response to his call, there would be no evidence left to prove his story.

A sound broke through the whirr of panicked thoughts, clear and insistent. The ringing of a bell.

His socks skidded on the floorboards as he turned the corner into the hall, where his mother was reaching for the door chain.

On the other side of the glass, he could just make out the familiar outline of their neighbour.