She shook her head violently, trying to put it out of her mind. She was making good on it now, wasn’t she? The IRS an the bankers had gotten close, but they hadn't foreclosed, and now they’d been paid in full. She could still forge her mother's signature just like it was her own. Easy, considering how much practice she’d gotten growing up. All those report cards she’d been too ashamed to show. Now the deed was in her name, free and clear. She was finally home. Only now, home was empty. She was too late, and knowing it tore her apart.
She tossed back a Pepto tablet to combat the nausea. If she was lucky, her mother would open her eyes one more time, be granted a few lucid moments so they could see each other to say good-bye. Emily believed that if it happened, her mother would know. She would see that her daughter had kept her promise. That she’d finally come home.
Out front, the porch step creaked, just like it had when she was growing up. Her mother hadn’t bothered to have it fixed. Hadn’t bothered to change anything, come to think of it. The rope swing where she'd played every day after school, and where Jimmy Petersen had given her her first kiss, was still there, although now it hung crooked, and on rotting ropes. Emily planned to have the ropes her father put up replaced. She had begged him for the swing, back when she was eight. Back when they had still been a family.
The ancient, wood-slat mailbox was stuffed. Much as it had been every day in the weeks since she'd returned. Her mother had managed to get herself on every imaginable mailing list in the country. Lonely, maybe? Looking to fill the box because promised letters from California never came?
A large, padded envelope caught her eye. There was no recipient specified, just the address. It was printed on a Packages Plus label. Emily separated it from the junk mail, which she piled on the kitchen table. The Packages Plus envelope was from California. Mail forwarded from her private P.O. box.
The envelope didn't contain much. Two collection notices from online lingerie companies she planned on stiffing, a bill from Packages Plus, requiring payment if she wanted to continue her service, a phone bill, and a copy of the latest issue of Adult Video News.
Emily found herself face to face with a ghost. Sextasy Chase was on the cover, staring back at her. But unlike in the past, it wasn’t a glamour shot. The photo had been retouched, all right, but not in an effort to make it more pleasing. Just the opposite, in fact. Her eyes were flat, her pupils enlarged so that they resembled black saucers. Her skin was waxy and artificial-looking. Almost…lifeless. She bristled when she read the coverline.
CORPSE COVER-UP? leapt out at her in fifty point type. The one below it was even worse. Did Sextasy Chase Put the Feel-Ya in Necrophilia?
She tore into the magazine. It appeared that every article, every department, dealt with the video. Some people claimed to have been there when it was shot. Others claimed that they had been supplied with a copy. The legal forum was covering it, too. Apparently, necrophilia was a prosecutable offense. In most states now, it was a felony. And, unnamed sources had let a columnist at AVN know that the FBI was interested in the male talent who’d gone uncredited. They had questions for anyone who might have information concerning the shoot.
The shoot. Not the alleged shoot. Of course. Why use alleged when the mag had proof? AVN had run a video capture in their feature article. Emily was wearing the red dress, pulling out her tit at the kitchen table for the warm-up masturbation scene. But there in the background you could make out the eyes of somebody looking in. Someone with the top of their head caved in.
Emily closed the magazine and tossed it aside. She knew she hadn't heard the last of it concerning the video, but she hadn't imagined that doing it would make her a criminal. Her eyes drifted back to the cover. She couldn't help it. She took a long, hard look.
Staring into the face of death was nothing new. She had been doing so, in a way, every day since she’d come home. Her mother's face, after all, was hers. Growing up, everyone had remarked upon the resemblance. She was her mother’s daughter, top to bottom, the spitting image of her. She hadn’t inherited a single, notable characteristic from her father.
Seeing the grip of death on her in youth wasn't nearly as unsettling as it was in the face of her own flesh and blood. Pictures paled in comparison to the real thing. The photo retouching, ghoulish though it was, was something she could shrug off. It didn’t mean any—
Something caught her eye. She almost missed it, tucked in the corner, just beneath the AVN logo, behind one of her platinum blonde tresses.
The cover date read: September. The publishers had had to rush the issue into print fast in order to capitalize on their scoop. The video had only been shot ten weeks ago, after all.
Ten weeks.
Emily’s stomach lurched. She toppled her chair and raced for the bathroom. Bile welled up in her throat. She hung her face over the toilet, retching uncontrollably.
Ten weeks, she thought, counting back. Two and a half months since she had that rotted, reanimate cock inside her.
Realization struck her like the bouts of nausea she’d been experiencing every morning. She wiped away strands of vomit with the back of her hand, yanking open the vanity under the sink. There, untouched, were the things she’d brought back with her from California. A half-full dime bag. A bulk pack of Feminine Touch ladies razors. And the item that turned her blood cold. A box of Kotex Tampons.
Unopened.
She was late.
A MURDER OF CROWS
Cole nibbled on a granola bar, anxiously staring out the window at the cornfield. What was taking his father so long, he wondered, stepping away from the window and letting the faded curtain fall back into place.
He glanced back at the wobbly kitchen table, where the checkbook sat, open and waiting. His father had set it out before going to wash his hands. He’d already been up for two hours by the time Cole came down, dressed and ready for school. His hands looked like any farmer’s at that hour. Rough and dirty, callused and nicked. Scarred in places, healing in others. The way honest work left a grower’s hands. Cole supposed his father was right. It wouldn’t do to hand in a check for the school trip to Omaha looking like he’d pulled it out of the harvester.
That settled, his father had given him a wink and gone to the sink to clean up. That was when he’d noticed something wasn’t right. Something out in the cornfield.
“Wait here,” he told his boy, stepping onto the back porch, using it to stare out over the stalks. They were high, higher than Cole could remember. This year, the reaping had begun late, too. Some of their fields were running two weeks behind. But Cole’s father wasn’t concerned, the way he’d been in the past over a late harvest. This would be a bountiful crop, for sure. With the contract his father had signed to sell for ethanol, they stood to do quite well when the fields stood empty, ready for replanting.
Cole recalled how skeptical his father had been when men from the oil company had come, looking to bargain for his crops. Using corn for fuel wasn’t why he’d become a farmer, that was for damn sure. But the money would keep the bankers off their land, he told Cole, and signed the papers.
It had. After so many hard, lean years—more than Cole cared to remember—his father had been happy come fall. Not just Thanksgiving morning, either. This year, when the crop started growing, earlier than any farmer had a right to expect, he’d been wary. But with two fields harvested and eight to go, his father had been as cheerful as Cole had ever known. There were new tires on the truck, Cole had been treated to new blue jeans and an overpriced Cornhuskers sweatshirt for school, and there’d been no fretting when the subject of money for the field trip to Omaha came up. Life had changed, and it all traced back to the day the ‘corn men,’ as Cole had come to think of them, showed up.
He whistled for Moose, their golden retriever. He waited, but the dog didn’t come. That was odd. He didn’t know why, but Moose’s failure to respond made him uneasy. The retriever’s absence was more disconcerting than his father’s. He whistled again, then
called the dog by name. The only reply he got was eerie, unbroken silence.
Cole returned to the window and shoved aside the curtain. He eyed the stalks, trying to see what his father had. At first, he couldn’t. Nothing struck him. The stalks swayed gently in the breeze, row after row as far as the eye could see. So tall, though. So…
Then, he saw it. It wasn’t the crop itself, but a flock of crows circling over the cornfield. There were quite a few of them, hovering over a spot where Cole had never seen them gather before. Still, crows were nothing new. He’d seen plenty of the damned birds in his life, and as any farmer’s son would, he’d come to hate the things. Even so, he’d never seen crows act like this.
“Moose?” he tried again, not really expecting a response. Cole might be young, but he put two and two together well enough. He stepped outside, a stiff wind tousling his hair. He stared at the spot where the stalks had been parted. The route his father had taken into the field. Cole knew that if he didn’t hurry, he’d miss the bus. But school didn’t seem all that important right now. He checked the ground, his dread intensifying. There was no dog scat where Moose usually did his business. Cole didn’t bother calling out again. He skirted a pallet of McGraw Industries fertilizer bags and headed straight for the path his father had cut through the wall of corn.
The smell reached him first. Cole had come across enough dead animals to recognize the odor. Nose wrinkled in disgust, he moved deeper into the field, nearing the spot the crows were circling over.
Why weren’t they being put off by the scarecrow, Cole wondered. All the fields had them. Had several, in fact. Doused with chemicals guaranteed to keep the pests away. They had always worked before. Were working just yesterday, in fact.
Cole hadn’t seen this many in a long, long time. Their fevered cawing raised goose bumps on his arms. He broke into the clearing, already knowing what he’d find. Still, when his eyes fell on Moose—or, what was left of Moose—his stomach lurched. Hot bile raced up his throat. Though he turned away, he couldn’t keep from vomiting up the granola bar, floating in an acidy tide of orange juice he’d gulped straight from the carton.
He hadn’t eaten much for breakfast, so his stomach emptied quickly. The spasms continued, however. He dry-heaved between corn rows until his throat was raw and his eyes watery.
Moose was dead. That was why his beloved dog hadn’t come when he’d called. He’d known, of course. Cole had known almost from the minute his father had left the kitchen. He’d hoped against hope that he was wrong. That Moose had merely been too far off to hear him. Maybe he’d sniffed out a woodchuck and gone chasing after it. Maybe this...maybe that. But Cole knew all about the hearing prowess of dogs. Moose would’ve come...if he’d been able.
Cole forced himself to turn back. The dog had been worked over for quite some time. Probably all of the previous night. He lay on his side, his ribs exposed to both the sun and the scavengers. The stink coming off him was ferocious. Cole knew that’s what had attracted so many of the wretched birds. It was strong enough that they were willing to ignore the scarecr—
A fat, black crow hurtled towards the ground. It braked itself with a fluttering of ragged, molting wings. Cole watched as its ugly head darted into the hollow between Moose’s picked-over ribs, emerging with a chunk of something moist and bloody. Cole wished he had his slingshot. He’d put a steel ball right through the foul bird’s chest. Before the creature could swallow its prize, though, it lurched into the sky, abandoning the knot of flesh.
Moose had nipped at it.
“Moose?” Cole said softly. The dog could barely lift its head, but tried, eager to please his master.
The sight was awful. Cole hadn’t been able to see the side of Moose’s head that had been pressed against the dirt, but now that he could, he wished he hadn’t spoken his friend’s name. Moose’s left eye was gone, along with much of his snout. Cole could see jaw bone where Moose’s gums had been gnawed clean. A wave of dizziness washed over him. His stomach roiled. He began backing away, wanting to leave and pretend that none of this had happened. When he was finally able to pry his eyes from Moose’s ravaged carcass, he was confronted by an altogether different horror.
The scarecrow had moved. It was staring at him.
No...not the scarecrow.
Cole felt his father’s dull gaze upon him as the man tried to pull himself free of the bloody steel hook embedded in his back. Cole’s eyes darted around wildly, searching for signs that whoever—or whatever—had impaled his father on the stand was still present. Now that he looked, he noticed the shreds of the real scarecrow, scattered along the edge of the clearing. Despite the poison, the crows had ripped it apart. Torn it to pieces, just like they’d done to Moose.
His father extended a hand toward him, and Cole knew without knowing that life had fled the man as surely as it had Moose. The crows had played some part in this, Cole sensed the truth of that deep down in his bones. Now, they were reaping their reward, feasting upon his ripe flesh.
Another crow descended, landing on the dead man’s shoulder. Cole’s father jerked, trying to shoo it away. But the bird would not be denied. Large and graceless, it almost lost its footing as it clawed toward its goal. Cole saw that a large swath of feathers had been stripped from one wing, exposing the spindly bones beneath.
Dead, Cole thought. They’re dead, too...
Pinned to the stand, the spike deep in his back, Cole’s father’s arms were all but useless. Though he tried, he couldn’t defend himself from his winged attackers. He sneered at this latest tormentor, but that didn’t keep it from plucking out one of the living corpse’s eyeballs.
Cole screamed. Moose’s paws scuffed at the dirt as the crippled retriever tried to stand. More crows landed, perching on putrid flesh. Icy terror gripped Cole in a way no nightmare ever had—or ever could. The vile creatures had turned their attention to him.
Cole raced blindly through the cornfield, rough husks biting into his cheeks and hands as the cawing behind him grew louder. He didn’t slow down, didn’t dare look back. The house. He needed to get to the house. He was focused on one thing, and one thing only.
The shotgun. He’d grab his father’s Mossberg 12 gauge and every shell he could find. The plan was just forming in his head when a twisted black beak sliced through his ear. He winced, fat droplets of blood staining the cornstalks.
The shotgun, he thought, tears streaming down his face. If he could just get to the shotgun...
Another dagger of pain as one of the birds clawed at his cheek. He swatted at it, before a cornstalk whipped back and pried it loose. His tears burned as they poured into the freshly-opened wound.
Something hit him between the shoulder blades, throwing him off balance. He didn’t know if it was a single crow or a whole group of them, but he stumbled, throwing his arms out in an effort to remain on his feet.
Again, they struck, driving him to his knees. He sprawled face-first into a corn row, blood welling up in a dozen tiny cuts. Short talons dug into his hair. A stinging heat flared in his neck.
Alive…they’re trying to eat me alive…
Cole reached back and grabbed hold, his fingers penetrating the rotten things fragile body. He tore it loose, slamming it into the ground. More descended upon him, but he pushed himself back up and continued running.
A hundred feet, maybe, no more. Crows were battering him from all directions, filthy, dry wings slapping at his face. He tried to protect his eyes as they continued their onslaught, flaying the skin from the backs of his hands. He ignored the damage. He had to reach the house. It was the only chance he had.
In the sky overhead, a second ring of crows began to circle.
CUT MAN
Ben could sum up the night that stretched ahead of him in one word: Crapola. His day hadn’t gone terribly well, his evening had begun poorly, and things had continued to go downhill from there. It wasn’t like he’d been expecting a lot. He’d planned on having dinner with his girlfriend, and catching
a movie at the Cinerama. Late that afternoon, though, Kim’s aunt had experienced chest pains and difficulty breathing. Her cardiologist at the hospital in Walton had decided to keep her overnight for observation, and Kim was at her bedside, either reading a paperback or curled up in the uncomfortable visitor’s chair, sleeping. Tomorrow was his off day. Kim’s, too. The universe, unfortunately, had seen fit to reward them like this.
All right, then, dinner alone. A man had to eat, after all.
He’d barely gotten seated—Shirley hadn’t even brought him his water—when Earl Dennis burst through the door, scanning the customers before his eyes fell on Ben. He stalked right over, which told Ben all he needed to know. No one in a hurry came looking for him unless it was decidedly ugly business. This was no exception. The deputy nodded an apology he didn’t actually deliver, and laid it out for him.
“Hey there, Doc,” he explained, working his hat brim between restless fingers. “Saw your car in the lot and, well…” He trailed off, glancing around but not really seeing anything. He stood out in stark contrast to everyone else in the diner. There wasn’t a single patron who wasn’t staring at him.
“We’ve, uh, got a bit of a situation. Cooper Riley and a couple of his friends tried to beat the eight-oh-five to Schuyler, and, well… they didn’t.” The rest didn’t need saying, but the Riley boy and his friends were in need of Ben’s services. A silence Ben hadn’t been aware of lifted, replaced by a low hum of voices as word spread from table to table. He slid his menu aside, unopened. Just as well, he thought. He’d been planning on ordering a cheeseburger. Rare.
He accepted a To-Go cup of strong, black coffee, on the house. Resigned to foregoing dinner in order to deal with the gruesome business at hand, he followed Earl out, Shirley watching them with red rimmed eyes. A train accident. What remained of his evening was going to be all kinds of unpleasant.
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