A Gathering of Crows

by Brian Keene

  Donny thought of Henry and McCann and Bloom often, but he thought even more frequently about his friends who had made it home—and the few who were still there, counting the days on their own short-timer calendars. He missed them terribly and wondered if he’d ever see any of them again. They’d promised to stay in touch. So had he. But somehow, those promises had fallen by the wayside when, one by one, they returned home to the real world—a world of family and wives and kids and taxes and jobs and college and mortgage payments. Donny’s real world was Brinkley Springs, and in some ways, he hated the town more than he’d ever hated Iraq.

  Donny Osborne was twenty-four going on eighty-four.

  He glanced back at the house again, and his gaze lingered on the for-sale sign in the yard. The sign was new—less than a week old—but already looked weather-beaten and worn, just like the house itself. The realtor (a red-headed woman named Mallory Lau who, despite being twice his age, had mercilessly hit on Donny even though he kept declining her advances) had promised him she’d do her best, but Donny wasn’t holding his breath. Brinkley Springs was full of similar signs, many of them from her real-estate office. With the economy still down, it was a buyer’s market right now—except that there were no buyers. Each morning, new realtor signs seemed to have sprung up overnight. The houses weren’t selling. New construction was nonexistent. In short, the town was old and sick and weary. The town was dying. No, not dying. Maybe the town didn’t know it yet, but Brinkley Springs was dead.

  Just like his mother.

  Donny could have stayed in the military after his second tour of duty. He’d certainly wanted to stay in. He was decorated—including a Bronze Star— and he’d already made E-. He’d been the type of soldier they needed more of, and the brass hadn’t been shy about letting him know that the army offered him big bonuses and all sorts of extra benefits if he’d re-up again. He’d planned on doing it. It wasn’t that he desired to make a career out of the army. He could do without combat, and the endless hours of monotony in between firefights—the “hurry up and wait” mentality so prevalent in the military.

  But he really didn’t have any other options that appealed to him. He could have taken advantage of the G.I. Bill, of course, and let the government pay for his college education, but there was nothing in particular that Donny had wanted to study. He didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life. All that he knew was that he didn’t want to spend that life trapped in Brinkley Springs. The army provided him with a way to do that, a way to escape. Unfortunately, in the end, Brinkley Springs had sucked him back. A line of dialogue from the third Godfather movie ran through his head.

  “Just when I thought I was out,” Donny said, doing his best Al Pacino imitation, “they pull me back in.”

  He could have re-upped, could have gotten the big reenlistment bonus and the offer of full retirement at age forty, and never had to set foot in Brinkley Springs again, except for the occasional holiday when home on leave, had his mother not gotten sick.

  The cancer had been slow but deadly, ravaging her body one cell at a time with unerring precision. The doctors down in Beckley had discovered it by accident. Mom had gone in for a checkup while Donny was still on his second tour in Iraq. They’d discovered a lump in her abdomen, but had assured her it was merely a lipoma, a benign tumor composed of nothing more than extra fatty tissue. And they’d been right. The lump they’d removed was benign, but the tumors they discovered beneath it during the operation were malignant. So were the ones that followed.

  His father had died when Donny was ten years old. He’d been coming home from work late one night after a full day of cutting timber on Bald Knob and had rolled his truck down a mountainside between Punkin Center and Renick. After plunging eighty feet, there wasn’t much left of him or the truck. Investigators were never able to determine what had happened. Maybe a deer had run out in front of him. Maybe he’d fallen asleep. Maybe another car had run him off the narrow road. Or maybe it had just been one of those things—dumb luck, the kind that altered lives forever. In any case, no matter what the reason, his father had never come home that night.

  His mother had never remarried. As far as Donny knew, she’d never even dated again. He had no siblings, so when his mother got sick, he’d returned home, come back to Brinkley Springs to take care of her. He slept in his old bedroom. At night, after his mother was asleep in a haze of painkillers and sedatives, Donny had lain in that old bedroom and stared at the ceiling. It felt like a prison, and with each passing night, the walls had seemed to draw closer.

  Mom had lingered for just over a year. They’d tried various treatments, but none of them had worked, and some of them had made her sicker than the cancer itself. In the end, she’d succumbed. Donny had been by her side in the hospital when it happened.

  Now she was gone, and in a minute, as soon as he climbed back in his pickup truck and started the engine, Donny would be gone, too. This time for good.

  “I’m sorry, Mom.”

  The street lights blinked out. Donny stared up at them, waiting for the illumination to return, but it didn’t.

  “Fucking town. Nothing works around here anymore. Even the lights are dead.”

  Something screamed in the night. Donny jumped, startled. It sounded like an injured woman or child. The cry came from the woods, shattering the stillness. After a moment, he realized what it was. The shrieks belonged to a screech owl. He’d been terrified of that sound as a young boy, but had forgotten all about it in adulthood—as adulthood had given him all new things to be afraid of.

  “Damn it.”

  With a third sigh, Donny turned away from the house and clambered up into the cab of the truck. The seat springs groaned as he climbed inside. He slammed the door, rolled the window down and slipped his key into the ignition. He was about to start it when someone called his name.

  “Donny? Donny, wait!”

  Surprised, Donny leaned his head out the window and glanced behind him. The streetlights still hadn’t returned, and at first, all he saw was a shadow. Then, as the figure drew closer, he recognized it. Marsha Cummings was hurrying down the street toward him. Her flip-flops beat a steady rhythm on the pavement.

  I must be tired, he thought. I didn’t even hear her coming. How could I not have, with her wearing those flip-flops?

  Swallowing the sudden lump in his throat, Donny turned the key in the ignition. Nothing happened.

  “Shit.”

  He tried it again, but the engine refused to turn over. When he tried the headlights, he found that they were dead, as well.

  “Donny,” Marsha called again. “Wait a minute, goddamn it!”

  Sighing a fourth and final time, Donny let his fingers fall away from the keys. He waited for Marsha to reach him, and repeated the Pacino line under his breath.

  “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”

  And that was when the dogs began to howl.

  ***

  “Yo, turn this shit up,” Sam said, reaching for the computer mouse. On the monitor, iTunes had just segued from Redman to Kanye West. The bass line thumped softly from two speakers and a subwoofer hooked into the back of the computer.

  “Leave it alone,” Randy warned, smacking his friend’s hand away. “My parents are still awake. We don’t need them coming up here. And besides, Kanye West is a bag of fuck.”

  “If you don’t like him,” Stephanie asked after sipping her beer, “then why is he on your iPod?”

  “Because I used to like him. I just don’t anymore. Dude be tripping all the time. Too much ego and not enough talent. And besides, his shit’s outdated.”

  “Well,” Stephanie persisted, “so are Redman and Ice-T, but you’ve got them on here. Hell, Ice-T was around when our parents were our age.”

  “Yeah, but that’s classic shit. There’s a difference between being a classic and just being outdated. Ice-T was an original gangster. Kanye ain’t all that. He’s a squirrel looking for a nut.”

&nbs
p; Randy turned his attention back to the video gamhe was playing with Sam. The two sat on the edge of his bed, controllers in hand, staring at the television. Stephanie sat in the chair in front of Randy’s desk. Her gaze went from the television to the boys to the computer, and then back to the television again.

  She sighed.

  “What’s wrong?” Randy asked her, his tone impatient.

  “I’m bored. I mean, I didn’t come over here to watch you two play video games all night.”

  Randy’s attention didn’t leave the television. “Then what the hell did you come over here for?”

  “To spend time with you guys, asshole.”

  “I reckon we are spending time together.”

  “No, we’re not. We’re just hanging out in your bedroom.”

  Her cell phone beeped. Stephanie picked it up and smiled.

  “It’s Linda. Hang on, let me text her back.”

  She grew quiet for a few moments as she typed, and Randy tried to focus on the game. Then Stephanie’s phone beeped again as Linda replied, and Stephanie squealed with laughter. Grunting, Randy dropped his game controller in frustration. On the screen, his character died a bloody death at the hands of Sam, who sat back and grinned.

  “Now look what you did,” Randy said to Stephanie. “You fucked with my concentration and I lost.”

  “It’s not my fault!”

  “Sure it is. You and Linda text like twenty-four/ seven. Ya’ll are lesbians or something.”

  “Asshole.”

  “Don’t you get sick of each other?”

  “Sounds to me like you’re jealous.”

  Ignoring her, Randy turned to Sam. “I’m done, yo. This game sucks, anyway.”

  “Come on, Steph.” Sam fished the controller out of Randy’s lap and held it up. “Why don’t you give it a try?”

  “Okay.”

  She hopped out of the chair and took a seat between them on the bed. Smiling, she accepted the controller from Sam, whose hairless cheeks suddenly flushed red. He glanced away from her, shifting back and forth nervously when she giggled. The bed springs squeaked.

  “Promise to be gentle?” Stephanie grinned. “I reckon so,” Sam murmured.

  Randy stood up and crossed the room. Like Sam, his ears and cheeks were red, too, but unlike Sam, it wasn’t from embarrassment. Sam was supposed to be his best friend. They’d known each other all their lives. They’d known Stephanie all their lives, too, and it wasn’t until this year, when it suddenly became apparent that Stephanie wasn’t just the little girl they’d always known anymore, that the relationship between the three of them had grown so complicated. Randy hated it when Stephanie tried to play him and Sam against each other. Worse, it bothered him even more that Sam was sucker enough to fall for it every time. Sometimes, she genuinely seemed to want to be with him. Other times, she seemed more interested in Sam. Randy hated how the whole situation made him feel.

  Not for the first time, Randy wondered what would happen to them all after graduation. It was only a few months away. They’d have the summer together. He supposed that he and Sam would have to find jobs, although he didn’t know how in the hell they’d do that when there weren’t any jobs to be had. Stephanie would be going off to college in the fall. She’d gotten into Morgantown. What would happen then? Would she be like everybody else who left Brinkley Springs, and never come back?

  “Where’s your sister at tonight?” Sam asked.

  Randy turned around to answer and noticed that

  Sam and Stephanie were sitting very close to each other on the edge of the mattress. So close, in fact, that their thighs and shoulders were touching. Neither seemed inclined to move. Randy wondered if they were even aware of it. A lump rose in his throat and something churned in his stomach.

  “She went out,” he said, trying to keep the edge out of his voice. “Donny’s leaving tonight. She wanted to confront him before he goes.”

  “She ought to just let it drop,” Sam said. “Hell, he’s the one who left in the first place. Went off to Iraq and shit. Left your sis and his mother here. And what with his Mom being sick and your sister in love with him—that shit wasn’t right, yo.”

  “She’s in love with him,” Stephanie declared. “It’s easy to see why, too. Donny’s . . .”

  “What?” Randy and Sam asked at the same time. “Never mind. All I’m saying is that it’s easy to see why Marsha is still stuck on Donny. Love makes you do strange things.”

  “Randy?” The voice came from downstairs.

  “Shit. It’s my dad.” He waved at Stephanie and Sam to be quiet. “What?”

  “Turn that music down. The bass is coming through the ceiling.”

  “Okay,” Randy yelled.

  Muttering to himself, he walked toward the computer. As he did, the background music changed, switching from Kanye West to Foxy Brown and Kira singing “When the Lights Go Out.”

  “Oh,” Stephanie said, “I love this song.”

  And then the lights went out, along with the computer, the television, the video game and all of the other electronics. Stephanie gasped. The bedroom grew dark. The windows were open, allowing the night air to come through the screens, and a slight breeze ruffled the curtains.

  “Uh-oh,” Sam said. “Must have blown a fuse.”

  “Listen,” Randy said, holding a finger to his lips.

  “Ya’ll hush up a minute.”

  Downstairs, Randy and Marsha’s father was cursing, and their mother was asking him where the flashlight was. Outside, a dog howled. And then another. And then a dozen.

  “Come on,” Randy said. “Let’s go see what’s happening.”

  Sam and Stephanie stood up and followed him to the bedroom door. Randy reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze. She squeezed back, and her teeth flashed white in the gloom as she smiled at him.

  “Besides,” Randy whispered, “maybe it’ll be more exciting than sitting here playing video games.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “I was sort of having fun kicking Sam’s butt.”

  Sam laughed behind them and Stephanie’s smile grew wider. Randy let go of her hand and walked out into the hall, barely realizing that his hands had curled into fists.

  Outside, the barking and howls grew louder.

  ***

  Five black crows swooped in over the town and then split up, each heading to the outskirts. One glided to the town’s northern point, another to the southern tip. One went east and another west. The fifth crow hovered over the center of town. When all were in position, each simultaneously shed a single black feather. The feathers floated slowly downward. As each one touched the ground, the birds croaked in unison. Their voices sounded human rather than crowlike—as if they were chanting.

  The air around Brinkley Springs changed. A glow briefly surrounded the town, and then vanished.

  ***

  When the lights went out, Esther Laudry had finished brewing hot water in her electric tea kettle. She’d just poured some into two dainty, porcelain tea cups decorated with red and pink roses when the power died.

  “Oh, fiddlesticks . . .”

  She tugged on the teabag strings and left the cups and saucers on the kitchen counter, allowing the tea to steep for a moment. Then she made her way to the laundry room, moving slowly—it wouldn’t do to slip and break her hip in the darkness—and checked the fuse box by the light of a match. Everything seemed normal. None of the fuses were blown.

  “Esther,” Myrtle Danbury called from the sitting room, “do you need some help, dear? Is everything okay?”

  “It’s fine,” Esther said, coming back into the kitchen.

  “The electricity is out.”

  “That’s strange. It’s not storming.”

  “No, it’s not. Maybe somebody crashed into a pole. Or maybe a tree branch knocked down one of the wires. Just give me a moment to call the power company.”

  Esther reached for the phone, but when she tried dialing, she found that the phon
e lines were out, as well. She placed the phone back in its cradle, went to the kitchen drawer and pulled out a pink flashlight. When she thumbed the button, nothing happened. Either the batteries were dead or the flashlight was broken. Shaking her head, she picked up the teacups. They rattled softly against the saucers as she carefully carried them into the dark sitting room.

  “It’s chamomile,” she said, sitting the cup and saucer down in front of her guest, “but I’m afraid we’ll have to drink it in the dark.”

  “That’s okay,” Myrtle said, her voice cheery. “I like the ambience.”

  “You would. My flashlight isn’t working.”

  “When was the last time you changed the batteries?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I change mine twice a year, just to be sure. You can never be too cautious.”

  Esther frowned. “Just let me light a few candles.”

  She moved around the room, lighting a series of votive and decorative candles that were scattered among the knickknacks on various shelves and end tables. Soon the sitting room was filled with a soft glow and the competing scents of honeysuckle, strawberry, cinnamon, vanilla and peppermint. Sighing, Esther took her seat, and after an experimental sip, pronounced her tea too hot to drink. ***

  “What did the power company say?” Myrtle asked.

  “Did they give you any idea how long it would be?”

  “I couldn’t get through. The phone lines are down, too.”

  “Well, that’s odd.”

  “Yes, it is.”