The Demon's Crow

In case you didn’t know this about me, I’m prone to twisted evil dreams. Believe me, you don’t want to see what I see when I close my eyes at night. So, I had a dream last night that is a perfect example. In all seriousness, this was fairly average for me.

Stepping out of the car, I looked at the scene. A couple of miles back, on the main road, the sun would soon be up, but there in the thick of the woods, the grey before dawn was just barely perceptible through the canopy of the trees.

The small home was flanked by nearly a half a dozen police cars, their lights still flashing. Uniformed officers milled around, their hands in their pockets and their breath visible in the air. They had arrived less than a half hour before. There had been a frantic 911 call. There had been screams and sounds of violence.

The house, as best as I could see it by a few sets of headlights, had originally been a trailer, but had since been expanded upon. It was an old, dirty place. As I approached, a detective in a trenchcoat walked up to me.

“Glad you’re here. There was some sort of fight. When uniformed officers arrived, the parents were gone,” said the detective.

“Yeah, they were attacked by vampires!” shouted a uniformed cop, evoking a round of laughter. It was obvious that this wasn’t the first round, by any stretch.

“I’d tell it,” said the detective, “but I may as well let the kids. They saw the whole thing. They’re inside.”

Saying nothing and ignoring the further comments that we had better bring crucifixes and garlic along, I followed the detective inside. Once there, we entered the sole bedroom, which was clearly where the entire family of seven slept. There were blankets and pillows throughout the room.

Officers were talking to most of the children. As the detective began to offer more information, I knelt down and spoke to a little blond girl, about five or six years old.

“Hello,” I said. “Is this where you sleep?”

“Yes.” The girl glanced around furtively. She avoided looking me in the eye.

“Were you sleeping here tonight?”

“Yes.”

“Did you see where your parents went?

“Yes.”

“Where did they go?”

“The dark men took them. They came in through that window,” she gestured to a small window near the ceiling, about two feet by three feet. “They got in a fight with my mommy and daddy, and then they took my mommy and daddy with them.”

Just then, the detective tapped me on the shoulder. “You should come see this.”

I followed the detective into the living room, where a crow sat perched on the back of the couch. It remained still, and seemed to be watching us. I knew the crow immediately for what it was. A calling card, of sorts.

I also now knew what I was dealing with. It was no vampire that had visited the house that evening, but a demon. Or two, if little Emily had gotten it right. It had left the crow behind, in part, to send the message that it had been there, but also, like a killer returning to the scene of the crime, to watch the resulting mayhem. It could see through the crow.

I reached out gently. The crow took a step back, flapped its wings once, and cawed loudly. I lunged and snatched it. It immediately panicked and began cawing more, and louder, while still flapping its wings wildly.

“What the hell are you doing?” cried the detective. “Let go of that thing!”

“No.” I said loudly, over the crow’s cries. “It can tell me something.” And then, more softly, to the crow, I said, “I know what you are. Tell me what you will tell me.”

At that moment, the crow stopped cawing and moving. It seemed to look directly at me again, and slowly, fully spread its wings. Then, almost inaudibly, I heard a whisper that seemed to come from the crow. Its voice was an evil, malicious hiss. “Yes, I see you. You won’t get them back!”

At that moment, the crow began to thrash even more wildly, and snapped at my hands and arms with its beak. I tried to squeeze it or ring its neck to kill it, but it was useless. The thing seemed indestructible. Its fit was becoming more intense, though.

I ran out the front door with the crow, hoping to find a stick or rock to hit it even harder. As I got just past the police cars, I tried one more time to break its neck, and as I did, its whole body suddenly crushed under my grip.

Blood began to spew out of the crow. More blood than it could have ever held in its body, even if it had contained nothing else. The blood gushed from it over my hands and down my arms, and though I tried to, I couldn’t let go.

I heard a scream. I knew immediately it belonged to the little girl. I turned toward the house and saw her in the window. Somehow, I knew it was just a vision, and that I was not truly seeing her. She was pale, like death. Her eyes were bleeding down her cheeks. She screamed again, “Wash my eyes with blood! Wash them with blood, and then I’ll see!”

She vanished and I looked at my blood soaked hands, which had dropped the lifeless crow. I laughed. Somehow, I knew - I had to go back into the house, to the girl, and rub the blood over her closed eyes. That would give her the power to track the demon, using the same connection that the crow had had with it.

I knew she would be able to help me find her parents.

Effed up, right? Sleep tight, kiddies. I know I will, after that one.

Sad Sunday Night Mini-Fiction

It's Sunday, it's getting late, and I've got quiet, sad music on. I've had a little too much to drink, and my demons are whispering to me tonight. This scene came to mind. It's not part of anything larger (for now), nor does it have any grand significance to me. I will say, though, that I feel so bad for this guy. Hope you can connect with him, too, on some level.

The rest of the island was practically empty. Just about everyone had evacuated that morning. Glen understood. To stay was suicide.

Glen had had to commit a little breaking & entering to get into his old suite at the Palm. Twenty-eight hundred square feet of luxury. It had taken roughly two hours to remove all of the boards and other exterior protection over the windows and doors.

Now, the grand French doors were open to the veranda, facing out onto the mighty Pacific Ocean. Glen, however, did not–would not–look in that direction. Not just yet.

He poured himself another glass of Jameson. The suite had such beautiful glassware. He had always had a bizarre urge to throw one of those finely crafted tumblers onto the volcanic rock below the veranda, so he picked one up and did so. It exploded into a thousand sparkling pieces that mixed in with the sparkle of sea spray. He wouldn’t need any more than the one from which he drank, anyway.

Speaking of which, he tossed its contents down his throat and crossed back to the suite’s bar to pour himself another.

It was about time to make the call he’d been planning for a week. Glen pulled his mobile phone from his pocket. Good thing he’d spent so much on the satellite phone. He heard the cells had gone dead around mid-morning.

He took a huge breath and an only slightly smaller sip of the whiskey in his hand. He closed his eyes, unconsciously opened the phone, and hit the auto-dial. Stored phone number 1. Lily had always been number one.

Glen held the phone to his ear. After a moment, he spoke. “Yeah, Honey, it’s me...no, no, I didn’t make the plane...No, it’s going to be fine...Honey, listen, I’m fine...Everything is fine.”

She didn’t believe him any more than he was telling the truth. She told him so in enough many words that he began to feel dizzy.

“Lily, listen. Listen, damnit! There is nothing to be worried about. But, I have to tell you something, just in case...Christ, no that doesn’t mean I’m lying, just let me tell you this! In the office, there’s a copy of The Catcher in the Rye. It’s on the shelf just to the left of the door into the foyer. In there, I’ve tucked a key to a box at First National.”

He listened as she collapsed into nearly wordless grief. He listened as long as he could. He told himself so for the rest of his life.

“Lily, I have to go. I love you.” Silence. Her terrified response. And he hung up.

Glen had managed to drain the glass once more during the call. He refilled it again.

Turning from the bar, Glen walked back out to the veranda. Finally, he looked out on the ocean. The sun had just now finally been blocked out by the clouds, as the winds began to pick up. The water had grown to a green-grey sort of hue. It seemed like something evil. Like something the devil would make you drink.

The thought compelled Glen to have another sip of Jameson.

The churning ocean water held nothing, however, to the monstrosity that was the sky above it. The clouds approaching stretched from the tops of the waves to the pillars of heaven themselves. They seemed to pulse with life, shifting between various colors; purple, grey, green, black. Forks of lightning danced within them, like the tongue of a dragon. A dragon that would annihilate everything in its path.

That beast was swimming through the Pacific, straight at Glen.

He sat on one of the veranda chairs he and Lily had shared many times. He had promised to always share everything with her. He hadn’t kept that promise lately. Directing her to the box at First National was hopefully the beginning of making up for that.

It would certainly share everything he had kept from her until today. She would know what had been going on. She would know how to undo the parts that had gone wrong. Most of all, she would know she would be provided for, no matter the outcome. With a month of preparations, Glen had made sure of that.

The only part that Glen couldn’t have planned, couldn’t guarantee, was whether Lily would forgive him. Whether Lily would still love him. Well, some things had to be left to fate, didn’t they?

So, Glen accepted then and there that Lily would have to make up her own mind about him and what he’d done. No use looking at it any other way. He had left her everything she needed in order to understand, not least of which was his return here. She had always loved this place.

He finished the glass of whiskey, but this time didn’t get up to refill it. Instead, he lobbed the glass over the railing and, though he couldn’t see it, heard it crash on the rocks below, like the one before.

He stared out to sea, into the heart of the largest and deadliest typhoon in recorded history. It had already stripped dozens of islands bare, leaving little more than the soil that peeked out of the waters of the Pacific.

All Glen needed to do was wait. It wouldn’t be long, now.