Apocalypsis 02 - Warpaint

abandoned my post to go running after him when another movement caught my eye.
    A brown shape was coming towards him from off in the distance, up in the sky. It looked like missile headed straight for him. My mouth dropped open and my ears filled with the sound of my own blood, pumping like mad with the rhythm of my freaking out heart. What the …?
    My brain would not compute what my eyes were seeing, even when I heard the high pitched shriek of a large brown bird of prey that was now stretching out its wings and holding out its claws, coming in for a landing on Bodo’s arm.
    ***
    Holy doodle on a stick. Bodo has a bird. And it wasn’t any parrot or even a crow, either. This thing was like a friggin eagle it was so big. I watched it land on his arm and then stand there, gripping the leather on his wrist, stepping a bit from side to side as it bent down to take something from Bodo’s other hand. His earlier injury from Trip didn’t seem to be bothering him at all anymore.
    “You can come out now, Bryn. I know you’re back dare.”
    I sighed. Dammit. How had he seen me? I stepped down from the tree and came walking out, moving to stand on the side of him that was opposite the bird, about ten feet away. “How did you know I was there?”
    “You are not very good at da sneaking.”
    “I thought I was pretty awesome, actually.”
    “Well if awesome is da same as loud , den yes, you are really, really, really awesome.”
    “Shut up,” I said, trying not to smile. I looked at the bird, suddenly at a loss for words. It was more than beautiful - it was almost magical.
    “You like my bird, don’t you?”
    “I … do. Actually, I really do. Even though it’s completely freaking me out that you have it standing on your arm and I’m pretty sure it’s going to peck your eyeballs out any second.”
    “Nina would never do dat. She is well-trained.”
    “Nina? You named the bird Nina?” I don’t know why that struck me as odd. He could have named it anything and I still would have thought this whole situation was outer-limits crazy.
    “Yes. She looks like a Nina, don’t you think?” He moved his arm to hold her up higher, and her wings opened part way, flaring out for a moment before slowly coming to rest down by her sides again.
    “Wow. She’s gorgeous.”
    “Yes. And she knows it, so don’t talk about it too much. She has already a too big headt.”
    Sounds like Bodo and his bird have something in common. “So … um … what’s the deal? I mean, you’ve been sneaking off a lot since I met you. I guess now I know what you were doing.”
    “Yeah. I am always going away, taking care of my babies.”
    “Babies? As in plural? More than one?”
    “Not anymore. Just Nina now.” He sounded sad.
    “What happened to the others? How many were there?”
    “I started with four. Dat’s a lot. But it is my very favorite hobby to train da birds. You know, it’s called in da United States and da U.K. falconry .”
    “Yeah. So you’re, like, a falconer?”
    “Yah. You can say dat. I used to have four, which is too many in normal times. But I was alone a lot and hadt a lot of time becausse all da people’s dat I knew died. And I trained dem to hunt togedder, so I got to eat a lot of meat with dem. But soon da canners found us.” His voice had gradually gotten lower and lower as the story went on. When he got to the canners part, I knew this story had a bad ending.
    “What did they do?”
    “Dey used to be my friends. Dey were guyss in my neighborhood who went to da same high school as me, when dare was a high school with classes and teachers. Dey tried to recruit me for dare crazy group later. Dey wanted me to come and eat da people. I said some bad words at dem, and dey came back and took my birds. All of dem.” His voice broke at the end. He reached up slowly with his harmonica hand and wiped his eyes with the back of it.
    Nina leaned over and plucked at his hand, giving me a small heart attack in the process. At first I thought his eyeballs were about to be a bird appetizer, but then I realized she wasn’t being aggressive at all. She was being almost affectionate.
    Bodo took the top of her beak in his fingers for a second before dropping his hand and continuing his story with his eyes closed. Tears were coming down slowly. “Dey were my friends once, dose guyss. But dey killedt my birds and ate dem. Dey left da heads in dare mews - dat’s where da birds were alwayss sleeping. I knew dat I was