The Whispers of the Crows

by Kyle Alexander Romines

  Connor remembered how his father reacted every time he mentioned the scarecrow. She’s right. If I tell Dad, he’ll just freak out again. “I know something’s going on.” He couldn’t keep the frustration from his voice.

  Her tone became more empathetic. “I believe you—that something is going on around here. But you’re going to need proof.”

  He thought about the words for a moment and reached into his pocket to show her the cell phone. “What about this?”

  Jezebel froze.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Let me see that phone.” When he offered her the phone, she flipped it open and held the screen for him to see. “This is Tommy Evers’s phone, Connor.” She paused for a moment to think things through. “What if the flashlight was his too?”

  “Maybe he was running from something in the cornfield.” Connor remembered his own flight through the rows only a short time ago.

  “Or maybe he and his creepy dad killed your horse and left it there to get back at you.” Jezebel returned the phone. “Although that’s pretty messed up, even for the Evers.”

  Connor wasn’t convinced. “There’s something I’m missing.”

  Jezebel patted him on the back. “I tell you what—why don’t you look around and see what else you can learn, and I’ll try to find out more about Jasper Blackwell and the farm. We’ll meet back here later and talk it out. Maybe I can bring some more pumpkins? Would you like that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “OK then. I think I’m going to head back. I’ll see you soon!”

  He waved to Jezebel as she disappeared into the forest. What if she’s right? Dad’s always saying this is all in my head. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d allowed his imagination to get the better of him.

  He studied Tommy’s phone for a moment longer until at last he tucked it away and started on the path home.

  * * *

  The farmhouse was abandoned when he returned. Russ’s truck was conspicuously absent from the driveway, a sign they still hadn’t returned from the hospital. They should be back by now. He tried not to worry.

  The clang of a hammer carried loudly from one of the tool sheds, and Connor set off in search of his uncle. He found Buddy in a shed, installing a set of shelves on the back wall while Bandit watched idly from the shade.

  “There you are, Connor. I was wondering where you got off to.”

  “I’ve been around,” Connor answered vaguely.

  Buddy reached for another shelf and stood on his tiptoes. “Would you mind passing me a nail?” He gestured to a bag of supplies on a blue barrel.

  Connor took a nail and handed it to his uncle. “Do you know when Megan and Dad are coming back?”

  Buddy steadied the nail. “Should be sometime tonight. Your dad called again about a half-hour ago. The doctor still hasn’t discharged her yet. Hospitals today are slower than molasses if you ask me.”

  Connor didn’t know what molasses were, but he had more important questions on his mind. He watched as Buddy hit the nail with the hammer. “Have you seen the scarecrow lately?”

  “The scarecrow? What do you mean?”

  “I was just wondering if you hung it up again.”

  Buddy finished hammering and turned around, the rack of shelves complete. “I didn’t know it had been taken down.”

  Unsure of how to frame his involvement in the scarecrow’s disposal, Connor hesitated. “I thought I heard Dad say something about throwing it away, but it’s still hanging in the field.” He hated lying to his uncle, but he also didn’t want to arouse Buddy’s suspicion.

  Buddy chuckled. “Why would he want to throw it away for? It’s keeping the crows out of the cornfield.”

  “You didn’t find it in the garbage and hang it up again—or something, did you?”

  Buddy shook his head. “I reckon your dad probably didn’t get around to throwing it away yesterday with everything that happened. Or maybe he changed his mind.” He stopped and studied Connor carefully. “You’re not still bothered by that thing, are you?”

  Connor stared at his uncle. “I . . . I need to finish my chores.” He backed away quickly.

  Buddy wiped the sweat off his forehead. “All right. I’ll see you later.”

  Buddy didn’t move the scarecrow, Connor thought as he started on the way back to the farmhouse. And Russ couldn’t have found it either, since he was already gone by the time Connor cut it down. Maybe Jezebel’s right. Maybe Tommy Evers is behind all this. But, despite Tommy’s malicious intent, the teenage bully didn’t exactly strike him as the sort of person capable of devising a well-planned prank. Besides, Tommy’s involvement wouldn’t explain Blackwell’s obsession with the scarecrow.

  I’ll have to figure out a way to tell Dad about this without him thinking I’m crazy. Until then, I can’t let him catch me with this stuff. Connor returned to the house to hide the broken flashlight and the cell phone he’d recovered. The house seemed particularly empty in his family’s absence—hollow somehow, like one of Jezebel’s jack-o’-lanterns with the insides cut out. The jack-o’-lanterns . . .

  Connor retraced his steps to the front porch. The jack-o’-lanterns were gone. Weird, he thought before returning inside. Sunlight poked through the windows of the unlit house, and Connor guessed there were still several hours of light remaining, which was good—he didn’t want to be out looking around after nightfall.

  His bedroom door closed softly behind him. As he searched for a place to store the items he’d discovered, his eyes fell again on the portrait and were drawn to the smudge where the scarecrow had stood by the barn—if it had ever really been there in the first place, and not his mind playing tricks on him in the dark. Connor settled on storing the objects in the closet. He waded inside the cramped, confined space of the dark closet and tucked the items behind a stack of Jasper Blackwell’s old clothes. No one will look for them here, he thought as he closed the closet door.

  The yellow wallpaper plastered over the bedroom walls seemed to shrink under the sunlight. The tattered paper peeled back at the edges in the corners of the room, as if time had begun to strip it from the walls. Connor traced the faded wallpaper with his fingers until his hand passed over a notch in the wall behind it.

  That’s funny. He felt out the indented area concealed by the wallpaper. It’s like someone carved out part of the wall. His eyes widened at the memory of the words etched across the attic above. Before he knew what he was doing, Connor reached out to the place where the wallpaper frayed at the edges and peeled it down. He pulled back the wallpaper until at last a single word was revealed, larger than any he’d found in the attic—so large it nearly covered the entire panel.

  “Baal,” he whispered, reading the strange word aloud. It didn’t look like anything to Connor, at least not any word he’d ever encountered before. Maybe it was nonsense. Like the other words carved above, there was always the possibility they were nothing more than the unintelligible musings of a diseased mind. But what if Blackwell left behind the words on purpose? What if they were warnings of some kind? Connor decided it was time to share what he’d found with Jezebel. With any luck, she’d made some discoveries of her own. He ran downstairs and hurried outside, leaving the hidden message exposed.

  He waited for Jezebel at the entrance to the woods for almost half an hour before he heard someone moving across the leaves.

  “Hello? Jezebel?”

  The sound stopped. Connor peered into the forest and looked for a sign of her. With a sigh, he advanced beyond the trees. “Are you there?” She didn’t answer. “This isn’t funny.”

  He quickened his pace. The trickle of the creek sounded softly in the background. Shadows cast by towering trees loomed around him. A twig snapped in the distance, startling him, and he slipped and fell. He rolled downhill in a blur of leaves and mud, un
able to slow down. The giant tree trunk was the last thing he saw before his vision went black.

  * * *

  The sound of the crows woke him. Connor’s eyes opened in alertness. He lay facedown in the mud. His clothes were dirty and covered in dry leaves.

  I’m still in the woods, he remembered with a start.

  It was night, and he was alone in the forest.

  Chapter THIRTEEN

  Shadows danced under the dying light, a promise of shapeless horrors to come.

  The sun had vanished. A lifeless gray horizon hung in its place. Shaking from head to foot, Connor scurried to his feet. He dashed in one direction, then another, unsure which path led out of the woods. No matter where he turned, everything looked the same—a never-ending web of trees as far as he could see.

  He broke into a run and searched desperately for a way out. With each step he took, the sky grew darker still. Connor let out a low whimper as night closed in around him like a burial shroud at a lonely grave. He had never been so afraid in his entire life.

  The last vestiges of light faded from the sky. He moved about blindly and waited for his eyes to adjust to the night. Dry leaves crackled somewhere in the all-encompassing blackness, and Connor spun around, suddenly aware that he wasn’t alone. He inched backward, away from the sound, and toppled over something behind him.

  As he landed in a heap of leaves on the ground, Connor brushed against something cold and still. He squinted, barely able to see his hand in front of his face. He touched the mass beside him and felt something hairy, wet, and sticky. Faint moonlight stretched through the trees, and when Connor drew back his hands, he saw they were covered in blood. His eyes swelled in inescapable terror as he stared at Lucky’s corpse.

  Connor scrambled back against the mud and gazed into the horse’s lifeless eyes. Wings rustled above, where crows lined the branches of the lurking trees. One by one they rose from their perches to swarm the sky. Connor’s screams echoed through the night, and the birds flew straight toward him.

  He forced himself to his feet and dashed through the forest with the crows at his back. The forest’s border loomed uphill, just visible in the pale moonlight. Branches and briars tore at his skin and clothing as he climbed, but he kept going, driven by panic. Finally free of the woods, Connor stumbled past the trees and into the field. Mustering the will to look back, he glanced over his shoulder with the hope that the crows had abandoned their pursuit.

  Instead, the swarm rose above the trees like a whirling tornado. They swooped down and pecked and nipped at him with beaks and claws. The cornfield, an enticing refuge against the crows’ attack, rustled a short distance away. Connor threw himself into the cornfield before the birds could envelop him. Expecting the birds to follow after him, he ran deeper, but the crows had disappeared.

  Connor felt a chill. The night air was cool. Finally afforded the opportunity to get his bearings, Connor slowed his pace. His hair was damp with sweat, and his legs burned from the unexpected burst of activity. He pushed through the cornstalks to find a way out, and then he realized the crows had chased him right into the cornfield’s heart. He took a few deep breaths and leaned against the cross for support.

  Every hair on the back of his neck stood on end when he realized there was nothing hanging from the cross. The scarecrow was gone. Connor removed his shaking hand from the splintered wooden plank and backed away slowly. His eyes swept the rows of corn and the dark spaces between them. It was as if he were living one of his nightmares—only this time, there was no waking up.

  Wind brushed against his cheek, and Connor caught sight of a figure looming at the end of one of the rows. The scarecrow was out of the moonlight’s reach. Its face shrouded in darkness, it stood perfectly still, facing him.

  “You aren’t real.” Connor’s voice quivered. It’s just a figment of my imagination.

  Then, the scarecrow stepped out of the shadows, and moonlight glimmered off the button eye. Connor felt all the blood drain from his face. The scarecrow’s stitches stretched wide across its face, and a sound like a hiss emanated from within its burlap mouth. Whispers echoed through the cornfield, and Connor stood transfixed, unable to budge as the scarecrow walked toward him.

  Move! Connor’s mind screamed at him, but his body refused to respond. All the while, the scarecrow drew ever nearer, until at last it was mere inches away. It reached out with a withered, gloved hand, and Connor shrank away from its touch. The scarecrow thrust its head forward, its mouth contorting in rage. Connor found his feet and took off in a sprint with the scarecrow following closely behind.

  “Help!” he cried, but no one was around to hear. When he glanced over his shoulder, the scarecrow had disappeared within the rows. The whispers rang out again, coming from every direction. His thoughts began to grow sluggish, and he struggled to ignore the voices. Don’t listen to them.

  Something darted past him in the dark. Connor ground to a halt. Movement, barely visible out of the corner of his eye, flashed behind him. He looked from one side to the other and searched for the scarecrow among the stalks. There’s nothing there.

  Footsteps sounded nearby. Connor inched backward, and his shoes sank into the muddy earth. The air grew cold, and his breath was visible in the night. He stepped away quietly, his gaze locked on the stalks opposite him, and bumped into something standing at his back. He turned around, sheer terror gripping his heart, and found himself face-to-face with the scarecrow.

  It grabbed him and seized his arm in its powerful grip before he could flee. The scarecrow lifted him in the air, inches from its face, as if to swallow him whole. Remembering the pocketknife in his back pocket, Connor grabbed it and managed to spring it open, despite his shaking fingers. When he stabbed the scarecrow in the arm, the creature released its hold on him, and Connor fell hard against the earth.

  The scarecrow plucked the blade from its arm, and a white, ash-like substance poured from the hole as the pocketknife tumbled to the ground. Connor scooped up the knife, but before he could regain his footing, the scarecrow grabbed hold of his shoe. Connor clawed against the mud as the scarecrow dragged him deeper into the cornfield, where the shoe slid free of his foot.

  Light glowed faintly in the distance, and Connor spotted the farmhouse through the gaps in the rows. He staggered to his feet and broke into a run, pushing past stalk after stalk. The scarecrow cast the shoe aside and followed him. Connor stumbled out of the cornfield, the scarecrow close behind. The farmhouse loomed tantalizingly out of reach. Connor’s sides stung with exhaustion. There was too much distance to the house. He would never make it.

  He looked back at the scarecrow and tripped over a rock, which sent him crashing to the ground. The scarecrow stepped free of the cornfield and towered over him. A low growl broke the silence, and Connor saw Bandit running from the farmhouse. The blue heeler positioned himself between Connor and the scarecrow. Bandit bared his teeth as the scarecrow approached, when suddenly a set of headlights appeared down the gravel road.

  Dad! Connor recognized Russ’s truck. His father and sister were finally arriving home from the hospital.

  The scarecrow looked at the truck and back at Connor and Bandit before slowly retreating to the cornfield, just out of sight. Connor pushed himself up and ran to the farmhouse, where he collapsed on the porch just as the pickup pulled into the driveway.

  “Connor!” Russ shouted. Connor heard the truck door slam and soon felt his father’s arms around him. “Are you all right?”

  His vision swam. “Scarecrow,” he whispered. Then the world faded to black.

  * * *

  Somewhere in the depths of his fevered sleep, he had the dream again. He was standing once more in the cornfield, but it was wrong, somehow—distorted and otherworldly. He walked in silence down a dirt trail, dwarfed by the trees, which seemed to sway and move even in the complete absence of wind.
Nearly everything appeared blue under the ethereal light. This world was like a twisted reflection of the real thing.

  The air was thick and heavy with an ancient scent. Spectral presences drifted by but took no note of him. Crows flocked above, and when he looked closer, he saw that they were blurred swirls of darkness with wings. Wherever he was, it was a place no human was meant to walk.

  “Connor,” a voice echoed from farther down the trail. There she was, standing among the stalks. His mother looked almost the way he remembered her, but her appearance was off just a little, like someone had tried to trace the lines of an image underneath.

  He drew nearer. “Mom?” Her skin was pale—waxy even, and her mouth was covered in blood.

  “I’m here, Connor.” She reached out her hand. “We can be together again. Everything can be like it was.”

  Before he could take her hand, his mother faded away. His eyes opened, and Connor found himself lying peacefully in bed.

  The dream felt so real, he thought weakly.

  Bandit, lying at the foot of the bed, raised his head when Connor shifted beneath the sheets. Connor wrapped the blue heeler in a tight hug, and the dog playfully licked his face.

  “It looks like someone’s feeling better.” Russ stood in the doorway, next to Megan. “Good morning.”

  “Connor!” Megan jumped onto the bed and curled up beside him. “I drew this for you.” She showed him a drawing she’d made in crayon. It was a picture of the farmhouse, with the family standing outside.

  “Thanks.” His forehead felt hot, his cheeks flushed.

  “You gave us quite a scare last night,” Russ said. “You were running a fever for a while. I was starting to worry we were going to have to take you to the doctor.”

  “What happened?”

  Russ stared at the spot where the wallpaper had been peeled back. “I was hoping you could tell me.”