A Murder of Crows: Seventeen Tales of Monsters and the Macabre

by DeAnna Knippling

  He’d lost his son.

  She’d have to understand that.

  Except she wasn’t likely to be too understanding while they were stringing her up, were they?

  All the while, he was thinking he was missing something.

  It wasn’t until he noticed the smoke—which had to have been coming up from Nitzaniya’s house—and started running alongside Dustry that it came to him, and then was gone almost as quick: MacIntosh was dead. His daughter-in-law was dead. Where was MacIntosh’s son?

  —

  They were going to string her up, right then and there, but Dustry wouldn’t hear of it. “Cut her down!” he yelled as they started to hoist her over the crosspiece of an old light pole.

  They hadn’t bothered to tie her hands, and she was holding onto the rope with both of them, trying to keep her windpipe from being crushed. Her face was lit up from the burning lamps around her, including the one above her. The way she was swinging back and forth as she rose, the lamp was shaking and spilling burning oil. It landed in her hair, on her clothes, on the ground. She was going to go up like a torch any second.

  “Cut her down!” Dustry yelled again, and his deputies surged forward, jerked the rope out of other men’s hands, and let her down. Daniel grabbed her and wrapped his arms around her to smother the fires blooming in her clothes; dirt spilled over their heads as someone else put out her smoking hair.

  Nitzaniya gasped for breath, eeled out of his grip and dropped to her knees, threw off the noose like she was a greased pig, and started running. The crowd chased after her. Daniel stayed where he was; there was nothing he could do for her now. If she’d gone to the jail with Dustry, he might have been able to talk her or bust her out, but there was nothing to do for her now.

  No stories, no talk, there was nothing that was going to stop that crowd, he was sure.

  The deputies had gone, but Dustry had stayed behind, probably for the same reason Daniel had. There was nothing he could do, and the town would heal faster if he didn’t see who did what when they finally caught the woman. They’d tear her apart.

  Dustry walked over to him, his boots crunching on dry grass. “There’s just one thing I have to know,” he said.

  “The son,” Daniel said. “Where the hell was the son? I’m going back.”

  “Mind if I join you?” Dustry said. “I can’t do any good around here.”

  The two men walked back to the cart, pulling it with them back to MacIntosh’s house.

  —

  Elaine stood in her doorway, watching them. “Ely’s dead,” she called as they passed.

  “Yeah,” Daniel panted. “I wrapped him myself. He didn’t come back.”

  “Good.”

  The two men trudged with the cart. It had to have been after midnight by then.

  “It was all her fault, wasn’t it?” she asked.

  “Workin’ on findin’ out,” Dustry said. “Gotta check something.”

  “What?”

  “Never…you…mind,” he said. He lowered bend over, lowering his pole toward the ground.

  Daniel laid his down, too.

  “Hell,” Dustry said. “I don’t know how you do it. Alone. Hell.”

  Daniel shrugged. “Part behemah,” he said.

  Dustry spat. “Don’t say stuff like that. You don’t know who’s listening.”

  Something shifted in the back of the cart. Daniel checked, but it was just body parts sliding around in the pool. “Okay,” he said.

  They walked into the house, and Daniel got another whiff of it, the smell of something turned. He cursed; if he hadn’t been so upset about Ely, he’d have smelled it a mile away.

  “What is it?” Dustry asked.

  “It’s another turn.” Daniel pulled his machete out of its sheath and drew his revolver. At the top of the steps, he raised his hand for Dustry to hold still. Something was making a sound below them, in the basement.

  Daniel stepped over the stains of his son’s blood and fully into the house. “Don’t get all wound up and shoot me now,” he said.

  “You want me to go first?”

  Daniel shook his head.

  The house looked almost untouched, like the years has passed it by without letting it age. Lace curtains, bright paint, nice rugs. The furniture was protected under heavy plastic covers, and the rugs had clear plastic runners laid over them, but that wasn’t too unusual, even for the years before the plague. Photos everywhere, some of them faded. Heavy curtains that blocked the light. Dustry had him wait a minute while he lit a heavy hurricane lantern using a sparker, then they moved forward.

  Under the stairs was a small door standing open. In Daniel’s experience, nobody left the door under the stairs open on a regular basis, so he looked inside. Sure enough, there was a hole in the wall behind it. The hole was blocked with a thick slab of wood with a padlock on it. The lock was covered in dried blood, and there were drips of it puddled under the lock.

  Daniel ducked under the doorway to get a better look at the lock, then straightened up and hit his head, thumping on the stairs overhead. He cursed. Something moved below.

  Daniel pushed Dustry out of the doorway, aimed, and waited.

  Footsteps came to the door, which shifted slightly as a weight rested on it. Long seconds passed, and a woman’s voice called, “Ian? Is that you?” The door shifted again. “Ian…I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  There was a moan from below, and a gasp. “No!” the woman said, then ran down what sounded like stairs.

  Daniel leaned forward again and spotted the shotgun just inside the stairwell. He holstered his revolver and set his machete aside. Both barrels of the shotgun were loaded.

  “Ready?” he mouthed at Dustry, who nodded.

  Daniel shot both barrels at the door, blowing the lock off the wood. He tossed the gun, picked up his machete, drew his revolver, and toed open the door with one foot.

  Dustry held up the lantern behind him.

  A hole had been dug down into the ground, a secret basement shored up with railroad ties and rotting plywood. A passageway led through the dirt, around the regular basement, and down further, until the bottom edge of the foundation passed overhead. The stench was unmistakable. As they went down the last set of plank stairs, they saw a light ahead of them.

  Under the foundation was a small room dug out of the dirt with plywood walls and mud all over the floor. There was a bed, a bedside stand, a lamp with a scarlet shade, a rug, and a hole in the far corner covered with more plywood, ragged around the edges. Daniel looked under the bed; Dustry peered at the books on a bookshelf and tried to see whether there was anything behind it, finally tipping it over to see the rotted wall behind it.

  “Nowhere else to look,” Daniel said, pointing at the cover of the shitter.

  Dustry pulled back the plywood while Daniel aimed.

  Two sets of eyes looked up from them as the smell of zombie shit filled the room. Daniel was used to it from the ipish, but Dustry gagged and spat. Luckily, neither of them had eaten for a good long time.

  It was a fully settled zombie woman—gray, sagging skin, gaping mouth and jutting teeth, and not a lick of fat on her—and a young man in the middle of turning, the two of them squatting in the shit hole. Daniel recognized the boy as MacIntosh’s son.

  “No,” the woman said, hanging onto the boy so he couldn’t jump out at them. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry…”

  The boy just moaned and tried to eat them.

  Daniel aimed at them. By the time Dustry was done heaving his guts out, both of the zombies were at the bottom of the shithole, black sludge drooling out of their shattered skulls and the smell of gunpowder almost covering up the rest of the stench.

  Dustry said something, then grinned. Neither one of them could hear a damned thing.

  —

  They came out onto the street, each holding a laundry basket full of chopped up body parts that they’d wrapped in furniture covers to keep them from putting themselves back
together.

  Daniel thought he had it worked out by then, and promised himself he’d tell Dustry his theory when they could hear each other without screaming themselves hoarse. Nitzaniya had somehow gotten Ely to make a delivery for her—probably because Dustry had had someone watching her. The treif was probably for the woman zombie, MacIntosh’s wife, and now his son. Ely had come to the door at a bad time, while the son was turning, and MacIntosh had killed him for what he’d seen.

  In the middle of all that, the woman had lost control, attacked MacIntosh and her daughter-in-law, and…a big damned mess was what it was.

  He was almost sure Nitzaniya was dead by then. Had got what she deserved.

  He blamed her for Ely’s death. Hell, hadn’t she just said that he was all she had to live for? Maybe she was better off dead, anyhow.

  One of Old MacIntosh’s arms had untangled itself from its gauze wrapping, so Daniel rewrapped it before adding the rest of the parts to the pile.

  “We’re going to have to be careful with this,” he said. “I really don’t need these to spill out.”

  Dustry sighed and grabbed a pole. Daniel hefted the other, and they were off.

  —

  Dustry left him as they passed the jail. “Sorry, Lieberman. But I have to check on things.”

  By things, Daniel understood he meant find out what the crowd had done to Nitzaniya. By that time, he was settled about it. She’d got what she deserved, and that was that. She never should have sent Ely out with that package.

  His feelings were bubbling up in him, and he wanted to get out of town before they spilled out, so he kept walking, both poles on his shoulders now. He’d stop inside the quarantine area to put on the ipish.

  But he hadn’t got more than another hundred steps when Dustry caught up to him again.

  “Come on, Lieberman. You got to see this.”

  Daniel put the poles down gently, checked the body parts to make sure they were secure, and followed Dustry into the jail. It was a tidy place, for all that rioters had been through there with spray paint, baseball bats, and shotguns when the plagues had first started.

  Dustry led him into the holding area, and there she was: Nitzaniya.

  Outside the cell his wife was sitting on a rusted folding chair. Both women looked miserable, but not, strangely, mad at each other.

  “What the hell are you doing here, Leah?” he asked. “You know she’s the reason our son is dead.”

  “Shut up,” Leah said. “You old fool. Who do you think took orders for her?”

  Daniel felt his legs go weak, and he grabbed onto the bars of the cell. “Leah,” he gasped.

  “I’m ready to die,” Nitzaniya said. “Don’t worry about it. I panicked, that’s all.”

  “How are you even alive?” He had to know.

  “I talked them out of it. I told them I had a good bit of money saved up, and I’d give it all to the widow, if they brought me to the jail and let me be strung up instead of ripped apart.”

  Daniel shook his head. He couldn’t believe it.

  “But don’t try to be noble and get me out of this,” she said. “I’m ready. I’m ready to go. I don’t have anything to live for. No reason for it.”

  “Good,” he said.

  “Daniel!” Leah said.

  He shook his head. He didn’t have it in him to forgive Nitzaniya. Leah was a different matter; it had been the storyteller who’d talked her into it, obviously.

  Dustry tugged on his sleeve. It would be good to be gone for a few days, that was true.

  “I’m going to take the bodies out,” Daniel said. “One way or another, Nitzaniya, you better be gone when I get back.” He studied his wife the way he always did before he left. She was beautiful, and she was angry at him. He opened his arms stiffly; she stood up stiffly; they embraced each other stiffly. He didn’t want to have anything happen to him while he was out and her thinking he didn’t love her anymore. He put his lips on her cool neck and kissed it. “I love you,” he whispered. “Just you.”

  “I know it,” she said. “But we’re old now. It doesn’t matter anymore, if it ever did. You should say goodbye.”

  Daniel sighed. He should, even if only to make his wife happy. He kissed her again and stepped back so he could see Nitzaniya.

  “I wish it hadn’t come to this,” he said.

  She gave him a little half-smile. “I wish I’d had time to find that apprentice. Teach him some stories. Something to keep that part of me alive, at least. You’re right. I shouldn’t have drug Ely into this. And I shouldn’t have let these stories die. They’re lies, but they’re good to hear now and again, eh?”

  He nodded. She walked up to the bars, reached her hand through. He took it, held it a second, and let go. Followed Dustry out of the jail. Didn’t speak another word; didn’t have to.

  Dustry said, “You want some help taking that the rest of the way?”

  “Nah,” Daniel said. “You might get me a couple of sandwiches and something hot to drink, though.” He picked up the poles and staggered forward until the cart started moving again. It seemed to have gotten heavier since the last time he’d picked it up, but he wasn’t about to put it down; he’d never get it started again. He was just too damned tired. He should probably spend the night in quarantine was what he should do.

  Daniel heard yelling from over by the jailhouse; a group of people were standing outside the building, yelling. He tried to look away, but he couldn’t. He kept twisting his head around to see what was happening until his neck was sore.

  He wasn’t afraid for Leah; Nitzaniya would never betray her; she’d kept her secrets well, even from him.

  The smell of zombies got stronger, and he set the poles of the cart down. It would just be the kind of thing that would happen tonight, another turning. He spun in place, trying to filter out the smell of the zombies on the cart, but he couldn’t figure out what direction the smell was coming from.

  The rioters at the jail got louder all of a sudden and moved in a group toward the wood frame that served them as a gallows.

  Daniel found himself running toward them. He had no idea what he was going to do: but when he got close enough for them to hear him, he yelled, “Run!”

  Screamed it and kept screaming it.

  “They’re coming! Run!”

  In his gut, he knew it was true. Like so many things about zombies, when it came to smelling them, his nose could work miracles, if he let it.

  The ground started shaking, and there was screaming everywhere, and shots. The zombies were sweeping from behind him toward the jail, across the town. They’d surely swept over most of the living already.

  He didn’t have to look. He ran toward the frame, where Nitzaniya was already standing, her hands tied behind her, the noose around her neck. She was looking at the zombies behind him, mouthed, “I told you so.”

  “You surely did,” he said, although he doubted she could hear him.

  He pulled the noose off her head and drew his machete, started to cut through the ropes around her wrists.

  The zombies rode up around them on behemah as big as small elephants. In other circumstances he would have laughed to see their identical faces with their eyebrows raised and mouths in small, shocked-looking circles.

  One of the zombies reigned to a halt in front of the platform, and Daniel noticed that Dustry had been ridden down in the dirt underneath him. The zombie was gray and hairless and gaunt and had blood-red lips drawn back from his white, white teeth. He was wearing a cowboy hat and a silver star on the breast pocket of his threadbare shirt.

  The zombie glanced at Nitzaniya, then at Daniel. “Kill him,” he said. Another one of the zombies swung down off his mount onto the platform, holding a revolver.

  “No!” Nitzaniya yelled.

  The zombie looked at her; she looked at him. Daniel finally cut through the ropes, and she winced as he cut just a little too deep without meaning to. She shook off the ropes and walked over to the zombie. “Le
t him go.”

  The zombie jerked his head toward his mount, and Nitzaniya climbed up behind him, just like that, no ipish or anything to cover her scent.

  The other zombie holstered his weapon and climbed back onto his mount.

  “If he hurts anybody or the behemah, kill him,” the leader said and rode off with Nitzaniya behind him.

  The other zombie watched him for a moment, then rode on. The wave of zombies passed him by, and he heard more behemah coming, herds and herds of them, running through the streets toward the lake.

  Daniel climbed off the platform and went into the jail to watch. Leah was at the window already, watching. He squeezed her around her shoulders. “I’ll make sure they don’t hurt you,” he said.

  “All you have to do is eat the treif,” she said. “It marks you to them. I’m fine.”

  He clenched his eyes until the tears went away. The behemah toppled the gallows, tore down trees, broke into houses, set fires.

  It was a stampede. Fortunately, it was easier for the huge, shaggy red half-men to pass the jail by than knock it over, although it did sound like they were trying from time to time.

  “What are we going to do?” he said.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “Nitzaniya and I were ready for this. As much as anybody could be. Goodland was doomed, and we knew it.”

  He believed her. And so he burst into tears, watching the behemah knock down his town, and mourned his son.

  —

  Nitzaniya stood back and stretched, trying to work the kinks that being hung one and a half times had put into her.

  Caleb had come up behind her while she was telling the story and was waiting patiently for her to finish. She cleared her throat, rubbed her neck, and said, “Thank you again.”

  “It was nothing,” he said, and she knew it was more or less true.

  “It was good timing, though,” she said. “Sometimes, that’s enough to make a good story.”

  He nodded. His gray flesh moved differently than a human’s, but it wasn’t truly rotting away or anything like that.

  “I have a favor to ask you,” he said.

  “Anything.”

  “There’s a girl…” he sighed. “She was my daughter, in life. Now she’s just trouble. I was wondering…”