The Keeper of the Crows

by Kyle Alexander Romines

  “The trouble was, there was no affair. My sources lied to me. Even though there were obvious holes in their stories, I believed them. I wanted to believe them. Now look at me. Even if this story somehow becomes a national sensation, I’ll always be known as the man who faked his sources. Don’t make my mistake, Jezebel.”

  “I already made my mistake,” she said. “A long time ago.”

  The two spent the rest of the ride in silence. When they finally reached 316 Four Winds Acres, Thomas immediately pointed out the SUV. The green vehicle was parked just a few hundred feet from the road leading to a large farmhouse in the distance. Jezebel pulled the police cruiser up to the grassy area, and the pair exited the car.

  “There was another vehicle here,” Thomas said, pointing to the dry grass a few feet ahead of Rick’s car. “See the tire marks?”

  “Someone might still be in the woods,” Jezebel said. “Or in the house. I see footprints over here in the mud. Let’s see where they lead.” The two followed the muddy prints until they vanished. They slid under a barbed wire fence that led onto the farmland. After walking through an overgrown field, they waded through the tall grasses toward the forest.

  “Michelle said Rick received a phone call,” Jezebel said. “Then he came out here with a gun. Do you think he came to kill the person on the other end of the line? We can get the phone records.”

  “I’m not sure,” Thomas replied. “The two cars were parked close together. Whoever was here with Rick is gone, which suggests he might still be alive. They could have been working together.”

  “To what end?” Jezebel asked as they neared the edge of the forest.

  “I haven’t put that together yet,” he answered, grabbing her hand when she helped him descend the steep hillside.

  “When we get back to the house, we need to interview the owners. They might know something.” She would have interviewed them right then and there, but she didn’t want to give Rick the opportunity to escape before nightfall. “Watch your step. It will get dark quickly.” She tossed him a flashlight.

  ***

  Thomas caught the flashlight and tucked it away inside his jacket. He was glad Jezebel wasn’t angrier over their argument in the car. He was actually starting to like her, against his better judgment. In contrast to some law enforcement officials he worked with in the past, she was honest, smart, and dedicated. He stared at her for a moment before venturing into the forest.

  ***

  Clark pulled off to the side of the road. “What now?” he asked Chuck. Following the sheriff’s car was a difficult proposition, especially due to the isolation of Gray Hollow’s back roads. It was a good thing the van’s driver was well experienced in pursuits. Chuck Howard wasn’t about to give the man any praise though. He expected all of his colleagues to live up to his own standards.

  “I guess we go back to the hotel,” Elaine replied, offering up a yawn. “I don’t know what time it gets dark around here, but the sky already looks stormy, and it isn’t like we’re going to follow them into the forest.”

  “Wrong again,” Chuck said contemptuously. He was truly beginning to despise the camerawoman. The day spent in the vehicle with her following Thomas Brooks and Jezebel Woods was agony. Chuck did not intend for all that time to be wasted. He slid off his jacket and pinned the portable microphone to his dress shirt.

  “We’re going in after them,” he said. “Or at least, you and I are,” he added, looking at Elaine. He would rather take Clark with him, but that wasn’t in the cards. “Stay here, Clark. Be ready to start the van. I’ll be in touch via cell phone.” As he picked it up, he noticed the phone screen go fuzzy for a moment. Then it cleared, like nothing had ever been wrong with it in the first place.

  That’s odd, Chuck thought as he placed the phone in his pocket.

  “Do we have to do this?” Elaine asked.

  “Trust me,” he muttered. “I wish it were otherwise. Now grab your camera.”

  Elaine was right about one thing, he thought, looking at the sky. It is getting darker.

  ***

  Thomas couldn’t shake the feeling something was wrong. The farther they walked into the forest, the stronger the feeling grew. He couldn’t tell if it was due to the paranoid words of Michelle Riley or the ominous weather, but his hair was standing on end. A quick glance in Jezebel’s direction told him she was experiencing something similar. At least she was used to the country. Thomas wasn’t accustomed to treks through the woods, and all the unfamiliar sights and sounds made him uncomfortable.

  After a few minutes, the forest started to change around them. The trees appeared warped, their thin branches curved outward like claws. There were briars everywhere, something he didn’t remember from the forest where they discovered Jeffrey Daniels’ truck. They were numerous miles from that location now.

  Jezebel stooped down, studying something on the ground. She squinted in the dim light and motioned for him to join her. Thomas jogged over to the spot, anxious to see what she had discovered.

  “Blood,” she said, pointing at crusted droplets hardened over dried leaves. “There’s a trail in the direction of that waterfall.”

  “Good eye,” he said. Thomas doubted he would have spotted the trail.

  The pair advanced cautiously, scanning in every direction. The wind blew softly around them. Leaves fell from the clustered trees, which created a thick maze that limited their visibility. Thomas was glad Jezebel wore a gun.

  Thomas saw the body first. It was resting in a puddle of mud at the bottom of the hill. Four crows were picking at the body with their beaks. The birds scattered when the two humans approached.

  “Is that normal?” Thomas asked. His voice wavered. “For crows to eat human flesh? They aren’t vultures.”

  “It must be. Try to keep focused. We have to watch out for the real enemy here. Whoever killed this man might still be around.” She stopped and looked down over the body.

  “What is it?” Thomas asked.

  “This man was killed with a gunshot,” she said. “It’s Gary Davis.”

  The name of the dead man shouldn’t have surprised Thomas, yet it shocked him all the same. This was the man once suspected of murdering his family—the man half the town searched for over the course of a week. Now he was dead.

  “Come on,” she said, pulling her gun. “Let’s go. I have to call this in.”

  “Wait,” Thomas said as they climbed back over the hill. “Over there. I see another set of footprints.” He pointed to the tracks and led Jezebel down by the stream below the waterfall. The two walked around the stream. Thomas could hear the rustling of wings behind him. He turned around quickly, but there was no sign of life other than the twisted trees.

  When he looked back at Jezebel, he saw that she had holstered her gun and was wearing a plastic glove on one hand. She knelt down next to the bed of the stream and picked up a metal object that glimmered in the remaining sunlight.

  “Look,” she said after sliding the object into a bag. She held the bag open for him to see. It was a pistol.

  “Do you think it’s the murder weapon?”

  “There’s only one way to find out,” she said. “We’ll have it looked at when you and I get back into town.” Even through the canopy, Thomas could see the sun starting to fade. He suddenly experienced the same sensation he felt when he saw Paul Morris’ killer. Despite being unnerved, Thomas was drawn to the trail in front of him. Anticipation tingled in his veins.

  “We need more light,” Jezebel said. She switched on her flashlight after a few minutes. “Are you sure you don’t want to head back?”

  “Not yet,” Thomas replied. “Not until we reach the end of this trail.” He brushed a group of vines out of his way while stepping over a mound of dirt, and Jezebel moved to his side. Suddenly, she stumbled and almost lost her balance, and Thomas reached out quickly to pull her back. She fell on the soft earth in front of the ledge.

  “Thanks,” she said. “That would have been
a nasty fall.” Jezebel peered over the side, shining her flashlight. She moved her light to the bottom of the pit.

  Another body, covered in leaves, lay at the bottom. The twin light of their flashlights revealed a reddish hue clinging to the body. The man was obviously dead evident by the fact that he was contorted in a horrifying fashion.

  “Is that Rick Pepper?” Thomas asked Jezebel, recognizing the face from her photographs.

  “What happened to him?” Jezebel muttered. “What could do something like this?”

  “Help me make sense of this,” Thomas whispered, unsure why he was speaking in a hushed voice. “At first we thought Gary Davis killed Jeffrey Daniels then killed his family. Then we thought maybe Rick Pepper killed them all, along with Dr. Paul Morris. They’re all dead, Jezebel. We’re out of suspects.”

  “As much as I hate to admit it, you’re right,” she said. “Who wanted all these people dead?”

  Thomas glimpsed movement to his right. He spun around, holding the flashlight out in front of him. The beam shone only on trees and leaves.

  “What is it?” Jezebel asked, her eyes widening.

  “There’s something out there,” the reporter answered. Thomas heard the leaves crunching nearby.

  Jezebel held her flashlight in one hand and took out her sidearm. “Come into the light!” she shouted. “I am Sheriff Jezebel Woods, and I am armed!” They heard a soft hissing sound, almost like laughter. “Thomas, we need to get out of here.”

  He nodded and backed away alongside her. The two kept their flashlights out in front of them while searching for the silent attacker. Thomas thought he saw a face in the path illuminated by Jezebel’s flashlight. Slowly, he shined his own light in her direction, his skin crawling.

  “Thomas, what is it?”

  The light stopped. Mere inches behind Jezebel loomed the horrifying face of one of Salem Alistair’s scarecrows.

  “Get down!” he shouted. Jezebel swung around, but the scarecrow disappeared. Then Thomas felt something strike him from behind, cutting into his arm. He tripped and fell to the ground. Moving faster than he would have thought possible, Jezebel ran at the scarecrow, firing her gun three times into the assailant’s chest. The scarecrow was knocked back into the shadows of the forest.

  “Thanks,” Thomas said, breathing heavily. He stood up and shook the leaves off him. “You saved me again.”

  The sheriff was pale and visibly shaken. Thomas could see her trembling.

  “I’ve never killed anyone before,” she said.

  Just as Thomas walked over to comfort her, the scarecrow regained its footing. The frozen grin was still wrapped around its face. Jezebel shot it again and again, but the creature kept moving toward them. It was gaining speed.

  “It’s not working,” Thomas shouted. “Run!”

  The two fled through the forest in the direction they’d come. Casting his light back behind him, Thomas saw two more scarecrows join the first one. One of them was holding something resembling a scythe. Jezebel followed his gaze, and her face contorted with fear. The scarecrow she shot was not bleeding. Instead, there were only empty bullet holes in the straw. There was nothing inside the suit.

  Salem Alistair’s scarecrows had come to life.

  Thomas tried following the path of the stream. He didn’t even want to consider what would happen if he got lost now. Jezebel was at his heels, no longer firing her gun. He guessed she was trying to conserve bullets.

  The scarecrows were gaining on them. Dozens of crows spilled into the sky above the forest, and Thomas was reminded of the crows embedded in Jeffrey Daniel’s windshield. He dodged an outstretched hand, plowing through the briar patch ahead of him. The thorns tore into his skin, but he didn’t care about the pain. Not when his life was on the line.

  As he stumbled up the hill, he grabbed Jezebel and swung her up to his level. Gary Davis’ corpse remained exactly where they’d left it, indicating they were close to the forest’s edge. His light flashed on a small metal object near Gary’s pants pocket. Turning the item over in his hand, he examined the lighter quickly.

  “What are you doing?” Jezebel shouted. “Come on!”

  Thomas looked up just in time. He fell back as one of scarecrows clawing its way up the hill reached for him. Thomas pushed himself up and took off in Jezebel’s direction. The two other scarecrows scaled the mound of earth and lumbered after them. Thomas grabbed a tree before finally stumbling back out into the field beyond the forest.

  It was pitch black, with only the light of moon to guide them. The scarecrows were almost impossible to see in the thick field, disappearing within the tall grasses. Thomas tripped on a fallen branch and landed on his face. He picked up the branch and crawled forward in the grass, out of sight.

  ***

  Jezebel was suddenly aware that Thomas was gone when she turned around and noticed he was no longer behind her. Unfortunately, she could still see the scarecrows. They were getting closer, each with an almost hungry expression on their distorted faces.

  “Thomas?” Jezebel yelled into the night. “Thomas!” She fired the gun, weaving through the grass. The scarecrows disappeared. The sheriff’s heart beat faster. She was alone. Suddenly, everything was quiet.

  With a hiss, a scarecrow appeared behind her. The creature knocked the gun from her hand with the scythe. Jezebel lashed out and kicked the scarecrow in the face. The creature’s head snapped back, and its pointed hat tumbled off. Then it turned around, staring at her with dead eyes. The creature knocked her off her feet and raised the scythe. She watched helplessly from the ground.

  Before the scythe fell, the scarecrow burst into flames. The creature writhed in pain and tore at its straw body. Thomas grabbed Jezebel and pulled her to her feet, holding a makeshift torch in his free hand. Jezebel pushed away from him and grabbed her gun. She blasted away at the burning creature. When she pulled the trigger, nothing happened. The gun was empty.

  “Run!” Thomas shouted. “There are two more out there!” The field around him began to catch fire from the embers of the withering scarecrow. As they raced away, Thomas and Jezebel saw the two remaining scarecrows watching them just outside the forest.

  “What are those things?” Thomas asked Jezebel when they reached the police cruiser. “Whatever they were, they seemed afraid of the fire.” He clutched the lighter tightly in his hand.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “But I know someone who might.”

  ***

  Percy Durer sat at the desk in his bedroom over the store, where he continued scribbling furiously in a book. For years he expected a wave of death to envelop Gray Hollow. Now that time had come. The results would be interesting to observe, at the very least.

  The storekeeper had grown up in Great Britain. In his younger years Durer found himself drawn to the occult. When he became a professor of theology, the influence of the occult found its way into his spirituality lectures, which resulted in his expulsion from the Christian seminary where he taught. At the time the removal angered Durer. In retrospect, it was the beginning of his true calling.

  Durer traveled the world to seek out stories of folklore and myth at their sources. He had seen things most people would never imagine in their wildest fantasies. Then something exceptional happened. He was in Ireland, pursuing a particularly harrowing tale of the Morrígan, a local banshee. He could feel that the town was somehow different from the others. There was a presence he couldn’t explain.

  He learned from a barman the story of a group of witches who supposedly lived in the area centuries ago. Durer spent months trying to locate a set of rare books he believed belonged to the witches. Finally, in a hidden location far from town, he found one of the books he sought.

  Then something found him. A stranger crossed his path in the dark of night. Under the light of the moon, the man’s dark clothes seemed to bleed into the blackness. His jacket appeared to swim around him like a pair of wings. A silver badge of some kind shimmered on his shirt.


  “I know what you seek,” the man said, his eyes invisible in the dark. “We share a common purpose.”

  “Who are you?” Durer blurted out, overcome with fear. He could sense something wrong with the solitary figure.

  “You may call me Bartholomew,” the man replied. The stars appeared to vanish from the sky.

  “What do you want?” Durer demanded, shaking.

  Even in the dark, it was obvious Bartholomew sensed his fear.

  “You have lived your life in shadows,” the man said. “You seek a knowledge that is beyond you, and for that you have been rejected by others.”

  “How do you know about me?”

  There was silence for a few moments. Bartholomew seemed to be contemplating his next move. For some reason, this frightened Durer even more. “What would it be worth to you to have your eyes truly opened to the spiritual realm?”

  Durer did not ask how it was that Bartholomew could offer this gift. He could feel power in the stranger’s words.

  “Anything,” he found himself saying.

  “Finish your travels and seek out a town in America by the name of Gray Hollow. You will know it when you find it. Offer sacrifices to the Keeper of the Crows. Only then will the scales fall from your eyes.”

  “How will I know what to do?”

  “Keep the book you have found,” Bartholomew said softly. “It will tell you everything you require. I do not yet have need of it.”

  He never saw Bartholomew again. Durer did as he was told, opening his novelty store in the small town. He could sense the power of the being in the forest and feel its strength in the crows. Although Durer himself held no power other than sensing the emotions and feelings of others, he now found himself able to sense the spiritual world around him.

  When Salem Alistair was born, Durer could feel the boy’s power as well. He knew it was the will of the Keeper of the Crows that the boy should join him, so Durer did everything he could to persuade the boy to enter the forest. At first, Salem was delighted that someone understood him. Later, the boy seemed to realize Durer’s intent and stayed away from the store.