A Gathering of Crows

by Brian Keene

  He promptly forgot about it as they hit a straightaway near the outskirts of town. Sam accelerated and Randy had no choice but to do the same. He glanced down at the speedometer. The needle was edging toward seventy-five miles per hour.

  “Slow the hell down, Sam. It ain’t gonna do us any good if you and Stephanie end up wrapped around a motherfucking telephone pole.”

  He knew, of course, that his friend couldn’t hear him, but Randy didn’t care. Hollering at Sam made him feel better. It took his mind off the horrors around them. It helped him forget about what had happened to his parents. Randy bit his lip and gripped the steering wheel hard. He moaned, long and low, and then the tears started again. He blinked his eyes, trying to clear his blurry vision, but every time he did, he saw the grotesque images. His father, bleeding from dozens of lacerations, shaking and jittering as the glass shard speared his eye. His mother, bravely holding the steak knife and trying to defend him. The way the killer’s voice had sounded when he promised to turn Randy’s mother inside out. How his ears rang and his hands grew numb when he pulled the trigger. Worst of all, Randy remembered the look on his mother’s face when the bullet passed through the intruder and slammed into her instead.

  “I’m sorry, Mommy.” He wiped his eyes and nose with the back of his hand. “I didn’t mean to leave you there. I just didn’t know what else to do. And there was Steph . . .”

  What would Marsha say when she found out? What would she think of him? She’d probably hate him, and she had every right to. He’d abandoned their mother. He’d shot her. It was bad enough that he couldn’t save his father, but he should at least have been able to defend his mother. Instead, he’d killed her.

  Randy hoped that his sister was okay, hoped that she was with Donny. If anybody could kick these weird fuckers’ asses, it was Donny Osborne. If Marsha was with him, she’d be in good hands. She had to be. Marsha was all that Randy had left. Marsha and Stephanie . . .

  They blew past Pheasant’s Garage. It was dark, just like the rest of the town. As Randy caught up to Sam, something occurred to him. They hadn’t encountered any other cars or trucks since escaping his house. Oh, they’d seen plenty parked along the street or in driveways, and they’d seen some wrecked. But nobody had driven past them. Not even a motorcycle. He wondered why? What did it mean? Surely, they couldn’t be the only ones trying to get out of town.

  His thoughts returned to Stephanie. He studied her silhouette through Sam’s rear window. When this was over, he was going to tell her how he felt. Enough was enough. Life was too short. He’d never really thought about that before. Sure, he’d known people who died—his grandparents, and a friend of his had died of leukemia in the fourth grade. But those deaths were different than tonight. He needed Steph to know how he felt about her, no matter what the consequences. Hopefully, Sam would understand and be okay with it.

  Just beyond the garage, they passed a Mazda pickup truck with out-of-state tags parked along the side of the road. In front of the truck was a small pile of ashes that stirred as they sped by. Randy glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the ashes swirling in his wake. He glanced forward again, practicing what he’d say to Steph—

  —and then Sam’s car imploded.

  It happened so fast that Randy couldn’t be sure of what he saw. One second, they were zooming toward the sign that told folks they were leaving Brinkley Springs. The next, it was as if Sam’s Nissan had slammed into an invisible brick wall. There was a shockingly loud sound of a collision, and then the car crumpled, accompanied by the tortured shrieks of metal and fiberglass—and of Sam and Stephanie. The sounds lasted only a second. By then, the engine block was shoved through the rear bumper.

  Randy slammed the brakes and spun the steering wheel. He felt the truck almost tip over as it slid sharply to the side, stopping only inches from the wreckage. He flung the door open and leaped out. The car was no longer recognizable. Neither were his friends. Earlier tonight, they’d sat in his bedroom, listening to music and playing video games and laughing and talking and breathing. They’d had arms and legs and heads and hair. He refused to believe that the scraps of raw, dripping hamburger that were strewn through the wreckage was all that remained of them. He inched forward, screaming Stephanie’s name, and something crunched beneath his heel. Randy lifted his foot and glanced down. He’d stepped on someone’s finger. He couldn’t tell if it was Steph’s or Sam’s.

  Randy bent over and wretched. Vomit splashed his shoes and steamed on the road. He took a deep breath, screamed and then threw up again. His stomach cramped and spasms shook his body. He vomited a third time and then gasped, trying to catch his breath. He smelled gasoline and motor oil and blood. He staggered backward, moving away from the wreckage. Wisps of white smoke rose from it . . . but then he realized that it wasn’t smoke. The shredded metal and fiberglass and rubber wasn’t on fire. These wisps were something else. There were two of them—small, ethereal puffs of white. They reminded him of the way his breath looked when he exhaled on a cold day. They drifted above the accident scene like cigarette smoke, slowly gliding upward. Suddenly, there was a flash of light that made Randy think of the bug-zapper light in his parents’ backyard. The two white clouds flattened out and then disappeared. The entire sky flashed blue, and then the darkness returned.

  “What the fuck? What the fuck?”

  With his throat raw and his eyes nearly swollen shut, Randy charged forward, wanting only to escape this new horror. He paused after taking a few steps. What if he slammed headfirst into the same unseen barrier that had stopped his friends?

  He glanced back at the wreckage. His vision blurred and the world began to spin. Randy’s sobs finally ceased as he toppled backward, hit his head on the ground and lost consciousness.

  ***

  Donny was thinking about the kiss. About how warm Marsha’s lips had been. How she’d tasted. How her tongue had felt sliding across his. How her breath had caressed his face. He didn’t want to; he’d been trying instead to focus on keeping them both alive, but he just couldn’t help himself. It had brought back all kinds of memories that he’d thought he buried once and for all. He was disappointed and angry with himself. As wonderful as it had been, the kiss would just make things more difficult. Marsha was already having a hard time with him leaving. He still planned on doing so, just as soon as this crisis was over.

  Marsha gasped, and squeezed his hand hard.

  Donny glanced at her, and then in the direction she was staring.

  The first thing he noticed was the dead body lying in the middle of the street. Despite the horrific groin injury, it wasn’t as grisly as some of the corpses they’d seen tonight—but it was certainly the strangest. The body had been positioned like da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man drawing (which one of Donny’s fellow soldiers had sported as a tattoo on his bicep). Some sort of weird circle had been drawn around the corpse with chalk. The circle had four points and was decorated with bizarre symbols. Donny didn’t recognize any of them.

  The second thing Donny noticed was the dark-haired man standing over the body. Donny didn’t know him, and he could tell by the look on Marsha’s face that she didn’t know him either. His manner of dress and his long, unruly beard identified him as Amish, which was strange. To the best of Donny’s knowledge, the closest Amish enclave was over near Renick. The man appeared to be in his mid-thirties, although Donny couldn’t be sure. His complexion and build seemed youthful, but his eyes were older. Judging by his expression, the stranger was just as startled as they were. Then Donny noticed the blood. It was all over him, smeared on his clothes and face. His hands, especially his right hand, were stained crimson.

  “Despite how this may look, I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  The accent confirmed what Donny already suspected. The man wasn’t from Brinkley Springs, nor even from West Virginia. He was certainly a Yankee.

  Donny detected what sounded like a Pennsylvanian accent.

  “I’m
inclined to believe you,” Donny said. “But there’s blood all over your hands.”

  The Amish man looked at his palms and then back up at them. His expression turned sad.

  “Yes, there is. Too much blood, I’m afraid. You have no idea.”

  Donny nodded at the corpse. “Looks like that guy had his pecker torn off, roots and all. I don’t reckon you could have done that.”

  “No, of course not. But I guess you’ve no reason to believe me.”

  “I didn’t say you did it. No offense, but you don’t look strong enough to do something like that. But no, to answer your question. I don’t think you did it. We’ve seen the ones who could.”

  The stranger inched. He took a step toward them, and Marsha slid closer to Donny’s side. Her grip on his hand tightened. He slid one arm around her for comfort.

  “You saw who did this?” The stranger’s tone was excited.

  “I’m guessing it was the same people.”

  “Where? How long ago?”

  Donny shrugged. “Ten minutes ago, maybe. Back that way. That’s why we’re going this way.”

  “Show me.”

  “Hell, no. Trust me, mister. The last thing you want to do is tangle with those guys.”

  “There’s more than one?” Donny nodded.

  “How many?”

  “We saw two of them,” Marsha said. “Dressed all in black. They’re wearing old-time clothes, like they’re Pilgrims or something.”

  The stranger frowned, as if puzzled. “Why do you care?” Donny asked.

  “Because somebody has to. Because it’s my job to care about things like this.”

  “What are you, some kind of cop? Because, to be honest, you sure don’t look like one.”

  The Amish man smiled. “I’m not a police officer. I guess you could say that I’m more of a private detective. I specialize in what you’d probably call ‘weird’ occurrences.”

  “You’re certainly in the right place tonight,” Marsha muttered.

  The stranger smiled and nodded, and then wiped his bloody hands on his pants. Donny noted that the effort didn’t do much good. All the stranger succeeded in doing was making more smears.

  Something bashed overhead. All three of them glanced upward, but the sky was dark again.

  “Heat lightning,” Marsha said.

  “Maybe,” the stranger agreed. “Or maybe it was something else.”

  “What’s your name?” Donny asked.

  “You can call me Levi Stoltzfus.”

  That struck Donny as odd. The stranger hadn’t said my name is. Instead, he’d said you can call me. He chalked it up to just a quirky speech mannerism— perhaps something from the Amish or Pennsylvania Dutch.

  “I’m Donny Osborne and this is my girlf . . . my . . . This is Marsha Cummings.”

  He felt Marsha stiffen slightly next to him. She’d noticed his near slip of the tongue.

  Levi tipped his hat to them. “It is very nice to meet you both. Now please, I hope you don’t think me rude, but I must know more about what you encountered. Tell me everything. Every detail, no matter how trivial or unimportant it might seem to you.”

  “We stick around here any longer,” Donny said, “and I reckon they’ll find us. Trust me, you don’t want that to happen. Come on, Mr. Stoltzfus. You can hide with us.”

  They started to move past him, but Levi stepped in their way.

  “Do you both live around here? Are you locals?” Donny nodded. Marsha said nothing.

  “Well, then,” Levi continued, “if you care about your town—if you care at all about your family and friends and loved ones—then tell me, quickly, whom you saw and how I can find them. I’m not asking you to come with me. I just want information.”

  Donny sighed. “Can we at least get under cover? I don’t like standing out here in the open.”

  “Of course,” Levi said. “I think that would be best.” They hurried into the nearest yard and hid in the shadows alongside a house. When they were settled, Levi nodded at Donny in encouragement.

  “We were standing out in the street,” Donny began. “The power went out all across town and then all of the dogs started barking and howling at the same time. Then my cell phone wouldn’t work and my truck wouldn’t start.”

  “My cell phone didn’t work either,” Marsha said.

  “Does that happen often? Power outages and your cellular network going down?”

  “Not that often,” Marsha replied. “I mean, our coverage isn’t the best, on account of the mountains and everything, but it’s never been like this. And I don’t just mean that the network is down. My cell phone is dead. It won’t even power up.”

  “Same with everything else,” Donny added. “Flashlights—anything electronic or battery operated seems to be out. It’s like somebody set off an EMP inside Brinkley Springs. My truck was just serviced. There’s no reason it would have been fucking dead like that.”

  “I saw two vehicles race by earlier,” Levi said. “A car and a truck. But otherwise, the streets have been empty of vehicular traffic.”

  “But why?”

  “I don’t know yet. What happened after you lost power?”

  “We were . . . talking.” Donny glanced at Marsha as he explained. She lowered her gaze. “The dogs stopped howling and then everybody started screaming. We heard it coming from all over town. Gunshots, too. It sounded like there was a house-to-house battle going on. Then this weird guy appeared.”

  Marsha shuddered, and Donny was surprised to find himself shivering, as well.

  “Go on,” Levi urged softly. “Tell me about him.”

  Donny did, recounting their escape in short, haltingsentences. He fought back tears as he told of the slaughter, and the fear and despair they’d both felt in running away and leaving Brandon and the neighbor behind. When he mentioned the strange abilities that the men in black had possessed, he assumed Levi would make fun of him, but the Amish man merely stroked his beard and listened intently, his expression showing no disbelief. When he was finished, Donny felt physically exhausted and emotionally drained. He noticed that Marsha was crying, and he slid his arm around her shoulder to comfort her. The memory of their kiss came to him again. He leaned down and kissed the top of her head. Her hair smelled like honeysuckle shampoo just as it had when they were in high school. Something stirred inside of him.

  “None of this makes any sense,” Levi muttered. Donny got the impression that the Amish man was talking to himself rather than to them. When Levi looked up again, he almost seemed surprised that they were still there. “Are you sure you’ve told me everything?”

  “The kiss,” Marsha said.

  For a moment, Donny thought she was talking about the kiss they’d shared in the bushes, and then he realized what she meant.

  “They leaned over each person as they killed them,” Donny said. “And then they kissed them.”

  “Kissed them? How do you mean? A gentle kiss on the forehead to honor their victims in some way?”

  “No. This was . . . obscene. It’s like they were sucking the air from their lungs or something.”

  Levi became alert. His eyes blazed. Donny thought at first that he’d said or done something to anger the man.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Sucking the air from their lungs . . . or the souls from their bodies?”

  Donny shrugged. “I don’t know about that.”

  “It’s okay. I do. This still doesn’t make sense, but at least now I know what they might possibly be after.”

  Levi placed a hand on Donny’s shoulder, and Donny was surprised at the man’s strength. He felt it radiating through him.

  “Tell me how to get there,” Levi said. “The street where you first encountered them.”

  “You don’t need directions. If you want to find them, just follow the closest scream.”

  Something fluttered softly in the darkness. All three glanced upward and saw a large black crow perched directly above them atop the e
aves of the house. It tilted its head and croaked, almost as if mocking them.

  “I don’t think that will be necessary,” Levi whispered. “It appears that they’ve found us instead.”

  SEVEN

  The crow cawed again. The sound echoed through the night, loud and obnoxious. Then the bird spread its massive wings and swooped toward them. Donny and Marsha stood transfixed, gaping as it approached. Levi stepped in front of them.

  “Stay behind me.”

  “It’s just a bird,” Donny said.

  “No, it isn’t. This is something else.”

  The crow landed in the yard and then seemed to blur. It grew, changing shape, transforming into a tall man. The entire process took only seconds. Behind him, Levi heard Donny and Marsha gasp. He knew how they felt. The transformation was simultaneously incredible and terrifying. He’d certainly never seen anything like it before, and he’d seen a lot in his travels. Encountering it like this left him momentarily stunned. He knew of therianthropy and zoanthropy, of course. They were two terms that described the same thing—the metamorphosis of human beings into animals, and vice versa. His library back home was full of examples, and although he had never witnessed it personally, Levi knew associates and peers who had, and he’d heard their stories. Werewolves were the most obvious example, but the phenomena extended far beyond mere lycanthropy. In many Native American, Chinese, West African, Central American and Pacific Island cultures, there were incidents of people turning into dogs, cats, bears, boars, owls, leopards, cheetahs, hyenas, lions, lizards and even sharks. Some scholars believed that this was where stories of centaurs and mermaids had originally come from, as well as human-animal hybrid deities like Ra and Anubis, but Levi knew better. Indeed, most of what passed for mankind’s collective knowledge regarding religion, the paranormal and their own human history was incorrect. Man’s understanding of shape shifting was no different.