The Keeper of the Crows

by Kyle Alexander Romines

  The Keeper stared around as if waiting for a response. For a moment, there was silence. Then, an engine roared to life as Thomas revved the blue truck. Without giving the Keeper a chance to react, Thomas stepped on the gas and charged the scarecrow. Caught in the headlights, the Keeper of the Crows leapt into the air and landed on the hood of the truck. He pounded away at the roof of the cab, denting the metal exterior. His hands tore a hole through the top and almost took Thomas’ head off.

  “Time to start screaming,” the Keeper hissed.

  Thomas stared off into the night. Even in the nightmarish blackness, Cavern Lake was serene. He knew that if the Keeper killed him, he would go after Jezebel next. Thomas wasn’t about to let that happen. Not after all the harm the creature had already done. He didn’t have the power to put what was left of Salem down for good, but maybe there was a way to take the Keeper out of the equation temporarily, even if it meant doing the unthinkable.

  The blue truck gained speed with each second. Thomas kept his foot glued to the pedal as he neared the bridge. He wheeled the car to the right and turned onto the bridge. The truck hit the bridge at full speed. The Keeper of the Crows realized what was happening one second too late. The truck sailed off the bridge, careening off into the night. Thomas fumbled at his seat belt. He managed to free himself just before he hit the water. Then everything went black as the icy depths began to pull the truck under the water.

  The sensation of the freezing water pouring into the vehicle jolted him awake. Thomas looked around groggily, trying to maintain his focus. The Keeper slammed against the truck’s windshield. The creature cracked the window, staring at Thomas with malevolent eyes. Thomas tried to pull back, still stuck in the seat. As the water poured in over his head, he took one last breath.

  Then they were underwater. Suddenly, the truck collided with a giant rock ledge protruding from the lakebed. The Keeper was pinned between the truck and the rock, unable to get free. Thomas watched him from the driver’s seat while he tried in vain to open the door.

  Finally, he lowered the window and managed to swim up toward the surface. His lungs were almost bursting with pain. The surface seemed too far away. He would never make it.

  The truck emitted an unearthly sound as it tumbled off the rock and sank lower. Thomas glanced down. Below, the Keeper was free again. Thomas swam upward desperately. His muscles were on fire. He wasn’t moving fast enough to reach the surface, let alone escape from the monster quickly closing in on him.

  Just as he neared the surface, a hand wrapped itself around his ankle.

  ***

  Jezebel crawled through the field. Charles Underhill was exactly where she’d left him when she shot the man with her service weapon. It hadn’t been difficult to remove her own gun while the judge was trying to find out where she was. She shot him before he could pull the trigger.

  It was almost impossible to pull herself out of the cornfield. Jezebel had never felt so much pain. It was almost unbearable. Then she remembered the sight of her mother’s body, and the sheriff mustered the will to stand. She had lost her flashlight but remembered the lighter was still in her pocket. Jezebel snatched a branch from the ground and fashioned a makeshift torch.

  She limped through the field and stumbled into the forest. It was too late to avoid alerting the crows now. The gunshots had caused the dark forest to spring to life. If she didn’t act quickly, Salem would be there soon.

  Salem, she thought. The very name seemed to give her strength to continue. Jezebel made her way through the thorn patches, limping forward inch by inch. She could no longer see the map, but somehow she didn’t need it. She could feel the evil ahead, festering as she walked deeper into the forest.

  A crow flew out of the darkness, flying straight for her. Its beak tore into her flesh, and she cried out in pain. Jezebel fastened her grip around the torch. She failed Salem once. She would not fail him again.

  Another crow hit her in the chest. She almost fell to the ground at the impact. An image flashed into her mind of the two of them playing as children, happily running through the fields of the Alistair Farm. Jezebel pressed on.

  She could see the cave looming in the distance. The closer she drew, the more crows attacked her. They erupted out of the entrance of the cave, swarming all around her. Jezebel could no longer see anything amid the dark cloud. The crows tore into her, shredding her clothes and tearing at her flesh. Still she pressed forward.

  Jezebel could hardly move against the weight of the endless sea of birds storming against her. Though the cloud threatened to put out the flame, the torch continued burning brightly. Her body cried out to her to stop, but she forced herself to continue moving. Barely clutching the torch, she inched forward little by little.

  I made a promise, she thought. Her eyes were filled with tears. The birds kept coming. I won’t quit, Jezebel swore to herself. Shakily, she put one foot in front of the other. Jezebel called upon her last reserve of strength and staggered into the cave.

  Then all was quiet. Thorns grew up around the dusty insides of the cave, reaching out like claws. The birds were still there; she could feel them. There was something else there, too. Another presence. It was an entity far darker and more unsettling than even the twisted version of Salem Alistair.

  “You should not have come here,” roared the entity, its voice moving like the wind.

  “Let my friend go,” Jezebel demanded weakly. Her vision started to swim. She was dying.

  “You cannot command me, girl. I have existed millennia before you were born and will endure long after you return to dust.”

  “What are you?” Jezebel waved the torch in the air. She fought to stay conscious.

  “I have been known by many names. You may know me as the true Keeper of the Crows. Your pitiful efforts will not stop me from casting this town into eternal darkness, Jezebel Woods. Salem Alistair will remain my servant for all time.”

  “No,” she whispered. “I’ll stop you.”

  The shadow roared with laughter, splitting her ears with pain. “What can you do? With each drop of blood spilled my power increases. You are nothing.”

  “Maybe so,” Jezebel said. “But you aren’t taking anything. I choose to give my life freely to save Salem Alistair.” She smiled, blood dripping from her mouth. “I’m betting that makes a difference.” Jezebel held out the torch. She would burn away the entity and purge it with the flame.

  She could feel the thing’s fear.

  “Fool,” the spirit roared. “Your sacrifice means nothing! Even if you drive me from this cave, the portion of my spirit trapped here is only a fragment! My consciousness will live on if it is destroyed. There will be no such return for you.”

  “If that’s what it takes,” Jezebel whispered. Her eyesight blurred. “To save my friend.”

  She tried to walk forward, but she found she could no longer move. Her body wobbled, and she lost her balance. She felt herself falling for what seemed like an eternity. The darkness wrapped around her but could not touch her. Finally, she hit the ground. Her blood seeped into the dusty floor of the cave, and the torch rolled out of her hand. Jezebel’s eyes closed as the flame spread to the dry thorns, covering the cave in fire.

  The demon roared in pain. It could feel its hold over Salem Alistair fading. The darkness knew the impediment was only temporary. The Keeper of the Crows would live on elsewhere. Gray Hollow might be free, but this wasn’t over. Its servants would see to that.

  Then the shadow faded away, and was no more.

  ***

  Thomas gasped for air as he broke to the surface of the icy lake. The freezing waters rose over him in waves. His muscles felt like lead. Then he felt a hand grab his ankle, pulling him back under the water.

  The shell of Salem Alistair stared at him with hateful eyes. Using one last burst of energy, Thomas kicked free. He panted from exhaustion and swam toward the shore, where he collapsed from exhaustion.

  A wave of water erupted across the shore
as a large form emerged from below. The Keeper loomed over him. The wretched pumpkin mouth grew wide, exposing a mouth full of sharp, orange teeth.

  Suddenly, the Keeper staggered back.

  “No. Not when I was so close.” The scarecrow tried to lunge at Thomas, but an invisible force pulled him back. The wind ripped around him, and the Keeper threw his head back as a column of pure blackness erupted from his mouth and dissolved into the night.

  The Keeper of the Crows fell still. Eventually, the wind carried his body back into the water. From the shore, Thomas watched as Salem Alistair’s body sank to the bottom of the lake.

  Epilogue

  One month later, Thomas stood at the edge of Cavern lake and peered down at the crystal waters below. Somewhere within the depths lay Salem Alistair’s body. That was where it would remain, undisturbed and finally at peace. Jezebel had seen to that.

  Thomas missed her more than he cared to admit. Jezebel’s body was never found, but somehow he knew that she was gone. All his attempts to locate the cave concealed within Gray Hollow’s vast network of forests were futile. Thomas wasn’t even sure if there would be anything left to find. The darkness was gone, like a fog lifted from the town. In the end, Jezebel succeeded in freeing her friend from the Keeper’s grasp. Together they saved the town.

  Judge Charles Underhill’s body was found outside a large cornfield. It wasn’t hard for Thomas to figure out what had prompted the judge’s odd behavior. Not when he did some research of his own and discovered that Underhill’s father, Jeremiah, was close friends with Logan Randall’s parents. Then Thomas remembered that it was Charles Underhill who had employed Rick Pepper. With Underhill working as a judge and Logan as a deputy, they thought they were all perfectly positioned to keep their involvement in Salem Alistair’s disappearance quiet. They were wrong. As Thomas learned over the last few weeks, no secret could remain buried forever.

  He didn’t pity the judge or the deputy. They chose to run from their actions, whereas Jezebel took responsibility for hers. Wherever she was, Thomas hoped Jezebel was finally free of the guilt that haunted her for so long.

  Rebuilding the town proved to be difficult work. The scarecrows killed many people, and Thomas mourned along with everyone else when Max Harper, Heavy Markham, Al Pittman, and others were laid to rest. Members of the Thistlewood police force appeared a few hours after the darkness lifted from the town. With Gray Hollow cut off from communicating for so long and the fierce weather on the other side of the bridge, Thistlewood’s emergency personnel quickly concluded something was wrong. It took awhile for them to obtain motorboats and cross the lake.

  It was impossible to explain what happened. Although some people told the media stories of terrifying scarecrows, the tales were largely dismissed. For his part, Thomas publically attributed the deaths to a group of microbursts and flat line winds that had torn the town apart. The people of Gray Hollow knew the truth and largely chose to keep it to themselves.

  Several doves flew over the clear blue sky above. Thomas watched them until they disappeared from sight. He shifted in the snow, toasty in multiple layers of clothing. Below, the ferry passed over the water and carried passengers from Gray Hollow over to Thistlewood.

  After he resurfaced from the lake that night, Thomas discovered that all of the scarecrows had been rendered lifeless. He led others in the community in burning the scarecrows to obliterate every last trace of the evil that had stalked the fields. They spent weeks searching through Gray Hollow, looking over farms and in cornfields. He started with the field where he and Jezebel were attacked for the first time.

  They found hundreds of scarecrows remaining, excluding Salem himself. Thomas was surprised Salem Alistair was able to make so many in his youth. He didn’t know if Salem had built them all while he was alive or if the entity in the cave had multiplied them somehow. Burning the scarecrows provided a catharsis of sorts for the town. With the memories of the lost still fresh in their minds, the people of Gray Hollow slowly returned to their regular routines. The small town resumed life as usual, with a few changes. Some policemen from Thistlewood volunteered to serve Gray Hollow temporarily until the town was back on its feet, and the makeshift ferry took over the role of relaying travelers between towns.

  Thomas looked up at the bridge, the sensation of the icy depths below not forgotten. It would take some time to rebuild the large structure, a symbol of all that was lost.

  “I thought I might find you here,” he heard a familiar voice say. Thomas looked up to find Eve approaching him, her car parked at the curb. She sat down next to him on the snowy ground with a smile.

  “I like to come here,” Thomas said. “It helps me reflect. It looks like you finished early.”

  Eve had taken a temporary leave of absence from her job in the city to help him deal with the fallout. “Are you kidding? These stories are impossibly easy to write, Thomas. A debate to lower property taxes is the most heated topic in this place. Next to living monsters of straw, it isn’t very exciting, is it?”

  “Give me the boring stories any day,” Thomas said.

  “So,” she asked. “Have you reached a decision?”

  He nodded. “I have.”

  “You’re staying, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You know there’s nothing keeping you here. You’ve redeemed yourself, at least as far as I’m concerned.”

  “I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Thomas said. “But I think Gray Hollow is where I belong. I can do a lot of good here.”

  “So you’re going to stay on as the permanent editor of Hollow Happenings?”

  “Yes.”

  Eve sighed. “You know I’ll be going back soon. What’ll happen to us then?”

  “I don’t know,” Thomas admitted. They had only just started to rebuild their relationship. “Let’s just take it one day at a time.”

  They sat there holding hands in the snow, and Thomas felt himself smiling for the first time in a long while.

  The nightmare was over.

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank the members of my family who read this book first: Pam, Allie, and Jacob. Your feedback and encouragement helped make this book a reality. I would be remiss if I didn’t thank my dad for his support through this process.

  I would also like to thank Dr. Susan Wright and Amanda Lee for providing a second set of eyes. Your catches, comments, and suggestions were invaluable. This book is much better because of you.

  A big thanks goes out to Sunbury Press for publishing this book. Thanks to Amber Rendon for a beautiful cover.

  And finally, thanks to you, the reader! I hope you enjoyed what you read.

  Until we meet again,

  Kyle

  Published by Hellbender Books

  an imprint of Sunbury Press, Inc.

  Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania USA

  www.HellbenderBooks.com

  NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 by Kyle Alexander Romines.

  Cover Copyright © 2015 by Sunbury Press, Inc.

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  ISBN: 978-1-62006-646-1 (Trade Paperback)

  ISBN: 978-1-62006-647-8 (Mobipocket)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2015954539

  FIRST HELLBENDER BOOKS EDITION: September 2017

  Product of the United States of America

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  Set in Bookman Old Style

  Designed by Crystal Devine

  Cover by Amber Rendon

  Edited by Sarah Somple

  Continue the Enlightenment!