crow

Originally written on December 11, 2019

Word Count: 3,592

Soundtrack: Erik Satie’s Gymnopedies

(Content Warning: Gore, Foul Language)

On Thursday, I find my sixth dead body in the courtyard. Per usual, its accompanied by a massively elaborate scene; blood clots and bits of tendon adorn the surrounding trees, like a kindergartener had decided to go ham on a can of silly string. I stop, carefully kicking aside a stray mystery bit and just sort of stare. The crow hops over to sink its talons into what remained of the thing’s eye sockets and just sort of stares back. It cocks its head at me.

I slowly back out of the courtyard.

For whatever reason, I found it somewhat unsettling this time. I really had no reason to; it was far from the first, after all. Maybe it had something to do with the fact it was human.

The commotion starts after lunch, blaring sirens and yellow tape and everything. The faculty panics; we are herded out of school like sheep to the slaughterhouse. We are not allowed to stick around and find out who it was, though I hear hushed whispers of “Mr. Irwin” and “how terrible, it’s a shame, really” and figure someone must have stuck around to find out anyway. It really wasn’t a shame though. I bet most of his students were glad to see him go, in fact; he’d been a terrible teacher to a lot of people, myself included. If it means anything, I did feel guilty for the twinge of satisfaction I had in wake of his death.

M suddenly pops up beside me, grinning like a cheshire. “Fun murder, hmm?” There’s a manic twinkle in their eye, like they find something no one would get absolutely hilarious.

My lip quirks upwards. “I guess you could call it that.”

The frigid winter air hits me like a truck as we exit the building. Without a word, M winds their scarf around me and puts their hat over my ears, grin unwavering. I just sigh and pull the hat back onto their head.

“You’re going to catch a cold if you keep giving me your stuff.” I mutter.

They cock their head at me and croon. “Awww I could never. Even if I did, you know I’d still come to school. Your only friend leaving you alone in a sea of assholes? You wouldn’t be able to cope-”

“Shut up.” I feel embarrassment blossom across my face, wishing I’d kept the hat to tug over my reddened ears.

M’s grin only widens. “Of course.”

And for once, they actually do shut up; it becomes so quiet that all I can hear is the rush of cars whizzing by and the crunch of snow beneath my boots. I find that I can’t bear the silence for more than a few paces.

“Do you know whose body it was?” I ask, despite knowing the answer.

M immediately looks up. “Mr. Irwin, ‘course. You didn’t hear? A bunch of the twelves hid in the bathroom and heard the deputy detective say so. Everyone’s been talking about it.”

“Oh.” I say stupidly, unsure how to continue. M is usually the one who does the talking, and now that they aren’t, it begins to feel weirdly uncomfortable. “You can stop shutting up now.”

They break into a cheeky smile, absentmindedly kicking a snow block onto the road. “I mean no one’s going to say this aloud, but honestly good riddance, y’know? He didn’t have any extended family or anything, and it’s not like anyone at school ever liked him. You’ve said yourself that he’s done horrible shit. He fractured your wrist on purpose, remember?”

The memory washes over me like a particularly bad tide of vertigo, and suddenly I feel much less remorseful for the bastard. I remember why I hated Mr. Irwin so much. And I remember why I like M so much: they’re never afraid to voice the truth, no matter how harsh it is.

M haphazardly pulls the scarf from my neck and stuffs a mittenful of snow into my hood before skipping out of range so I can’t reciprocate. “Anyways, I’ll see you around! Bye!” They call, turning onto their street. I just wave exasperatedly back before wearily psyching myself up for the companiless 40-minute trek back to my house.

I’m about halfway home when I encounter my seventh dead body. A disemboweled raccoon lies across the pavement, it’s innards fanned out into a vaguely circle-like shape. I’m somewhat glad it isn’t another human; I would much rather take the animus corpses over possible first-hand murder allegations. The crow flutters down from a nearby tree and settles at the center of the organ circle, like a gruesome centerpiece. It cocks its head at me.

“You gotta stop killing shit when I’m around. The scene this morning was not cool.” I frown, crouching down to meet the bird at eye level. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I’m acutely aware that I’m going batshit insane. Somewhere else in the back of my mind, I’m acutely aware that I’ve been batshit insane this whole time.

The crow stares soullessly back. Not wanting to be daunted, I intensen my gaze.

The crow flies off.

I realize that at some point, I had started to smile.

Perhaps it’s a bit insensitive, but I really did not feel anything at all with the eighth or ninth dead body. Bright and early on Saturday, it had been Ritchie, who had been M’s childhood tormentor since they were in grade school. His large intestine had distastefully been removed and used to hang him from the lowest branch of the community center’s huge oak. When I’d asked M what they’d thought of the news, though, they had seemed weirdly more concerned than relieved. They had even slapped my hand away when I’d tried to stuff snow down their jacket, refusing to meet my eyes.

A small, pathetic part of me had begun to wonder if they no longer liked me. After all, who else did I have to talk to but M? Ultimately, though, I’d decided it was not worth caring about. Now it was only a matter of convincing myself to believe it.

The second had been Ari, a niner I had talked to once or twice in the halls. She had been meticulously gutted and stuffed with an equally dead litter of bunnies, almost as if she were to give birth to them. The crow had only flown down for a second to bore its gaze into mine before taking off this time. I’d wondered why at first, but then subconsciously reached up to touch my face and realized that I’d started smiling again. Which was weird, because Ari had been a pretty good kid. I ought to have felt more pity. Maybe that was why I’d had such a compulsion to wash off the stench.

(Maybe I had finally begun to find this repulsive.)

School had definitively shut down for the near future, and I found myself becoming increasingly frustrated at the lack of anything happening at all. Now that I had stopped leaving the house, the dead bodies had also stopped, which I supposed was a plus. But, if I’m being honest, I spent almost half of my time quietly hoping to find another. Just to quell the roaring boredom.

I’m lying across the floor, blankly staring at the whitewashed walls when I hear a knock at the door. I open it to a snugly bundled-up M, eyes twinkling with their usual mischief behind a huge red scarf.

“Let’s go on an adventure.”

I frown. “To where?”

“To hunt down the killer, ‘course.”

I pause a moment before shrugging. “Sure; why not.”

M pulls down their scarf and flashes me their usual grin before dragging me out the door; slippers, pjs, and all.

For the first time, I find their smile deeply, deeply unsettling.

Ten minutes in and I am already numb to the core. I had snagged a pair of gardening boots from the neighbors’ porch to warm my shoeless feet, but they did nothing for the shocking cold that had begun to seep into my bones. Somewhat apprehensively, I shoot a glance at the sheer layers M is wearing under their wooly down jacket.

“Surely you can spare me one of those sweaters, can’t you?” I grumble under my breath.

M just adjusts the zipper on their coat and turns to stare blankly at me. I’m not sure if I imagine the flicker of disdain that dances across their gaze.

“It’s fine.” They say, pulling me along even faster through the snow. “You won’t be cold for much longer.”

It is nearly an hour until we finally begin to slow down. After an eternity of walking down the same path, M suddenly veers left into the dead shrubbery that lines the entrance to what seems to be a storm drain pond. I am so numb that I can’t do much more than blindly stumble along. The shrubs part to reveal a pond that is completely frozen over; tiny schools of minnow are sculpted into the ice, stuck mid-swim, and algae paints the surface like brush strokes on a mural. A duck sits atop the ice, firmly frozen in place in a rather peaceful position, as if it had given up the struggle for life just as Winter had bore down upon it. It’s mesmerizingly beautiful in a way.

M does not stop in the slightest, however, and cuts straight across the pond with me in tow. We approach a small, worn-down cottage situated in the very corner, permanently shrouded by a thicket of dead trees. It looks as if it is either home to a dead man or has long been abandoned. M creaks open what is left of the door and turns to me with that empty smile.

“There’s this one and there’s another down that way.” They point across the pond in the direction of the frozen duck, where there’s a similar tangle of plants and fencing . “I’ll go check that one while you check this one. Cover more ground that way, y’know?”

“Why are we starting the search here, though?” I ask, not really caring about the answer.

M nonchalantly shrugs and looks to the ground. “It feels right.”

“Okay then.”

“Holler if you need me, alright?” M says, and it suddenly sounds irreparably sad. “It’d kill me to lose you.”

“Okay then.” I pretend not to hear the last part.

They flash me one last attempt at a smile before trudging off into the distance.

I turn to face the broken-down cottage, take a deep breath, and head inside.

I am standing in the doorway of the bedroom on the second floor, which is where I find my tenth dead body. A mass of what probably used to be human sits neatly in a plastic blue chair in the center of the room, enclosed by a very messily drawn heart of blood on the floor. A drop of blood hits my forehead. I look up to see strips of flesh strung up on an orderly row of nails along the walls, like somber streamers for a party no one went to. Some sort of organ slimes down from the nail directly above me and lands on my nightshirt, splattering it with more blood. I squish it carefully with the tips of my fingers and watch with mild curiosity as it spurts a geyser of murky fluid onto my front. I feel another drop hit my cheek, and as I wipe off the spots of blood that have begun to congregate on my face, I come across the risen cheekbones of a huge grin.

The crow comes down from the rafters and perches atop the back of the chair. I know it’s there before I even turn to look at it.

“You’re disgusting.” I spit through clenched teeth, mustering as much disdain into my voice as I can. I’m angry, and I don’t know why but I’m angry, and my face is still stuck a stupid fucking grin and I feel like I’m going to explode because I hate this fucking bird and I hate my life and I don’t know what I don’t hate anymore and-

The crow lets out a guttural shriek. I don’t realize it at first but soon I am screaming right along with it, scraping my voice raw with the force of frustration and fury and whatever the hell has been building up this whole time. I scream for so long I start to forget which are mine and which are the crow’s; I scream for so long they become one and the same. And then at some point the crow begins to laugh, and I begin to cry, and as I sink to my knees onto the floor all I can ever remember is that screeching guffaw just getting louder and louder and increasingly more hysterical and it echoes off the walls and it haunts me and my forehead is to the ground and I am sobbing and begging for mercy, or my life, or just for this fucked-up show to finally stop.

And then it stops.

I slowly will my breathing down from desperate gasps and look up to the sight of an empty room. The tear-blurred silhouette of black is gone. I am alone, again, among a mess of blood and human carcass.

A droplet lands on the nape of my neck and trickles down to my chin. I can’t find it in me to get up. Blood steeps the front of my shirt, still somewhat warm despite the freezing air. Its embrace begins to feel kind of comforting, and I slowly succumb to the urge to just lie down to sleep in it.

Somewhere in my subconscious I hear M’s frantic calls getting increasingly closer, and I know I have to get up. It’s as if some sort of switch is flipped; I lift myself off the floor, wipe the tears from my face, squeeze the red out of my shirt. I spot a jacket hanging on a hook in the hallway and run to grab it, zipping it up over my nightshirt. I’m trying to think of a way to cover the stains on my knees just as M bursts through the doorway.

“Are you okay??” They exclaim, running over to pat me down. I look down and do my best to evade their touch, squirming out of their grip on my arm. They’re trying their best to hide the interested glint in their eyes, but it’s never been more obvious.

Across the room, another strip of flesh falls off its nail and hits the ground. M immediately jumps, their eyes having instinctively followed it, and turns to me with a grimace.

“What the hell happened here?”

“I don’t know, the room was like this when I came in. There was so much blood on the floor that I even slipped in it.”

M’s gaze lingers on my reddened knees before looking down to carefully step out of a blood puddle. “Goddamn. I must’ve got pretty lucky then.”

The silence engulfs the room; I feel like I’m being strangled by it. M’s stare bores into me the whole time, unmoving. It feels like it’s been hours before they sigh, breaking the silence, and slip their mittened hand into mine.

“We got really close to catching the killer though.”

“Mhmm.”

They give me a sideways smile, and it seems somewhat genuine at first. The inherent emptiness in it spoils the illusion. “Good adventure?”

I force a smile back. “Good adventure.”

We call the cops. The station is down the street, so it doesn’t take long at all before they come rushing onto the scene, surrounding it with orange cones and yellow tape. The police are pretty shit at decorating, M jokes. I muster a display of amusement back.

We’re manhandled by a plethora of policemen before being handed off to a burly red-haired woman with green nails. She ushers us away from the cottage, stopping occasionally to mutter into a two-way radio before pushing us along even faster to the far end of the storm drain site. I catch the words ‘suspicious’ and ‘the interrogation process’ and ‘that can’t happen with kids, Charlie, what do you plan to do’ and figure the situation is anything but good for me and M.

We soon arrive at the other end of the pond. The frozen duck sits two feet away from us, staring at me blankly. I wave at it. Behind me, I hear M exhale quickly out of their nose, no doubt trying to suppress a smile.

“Stay right here.” The lady says to me. “I’m going to go talk to some people first, so you’re going to wait here until it’s your turn. I can see you from where we’re going, so there will be consequences if you decide to run.”

She turns to address the both of us, her tone lowering to an apologetic hum. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing scary; we’re just going to have a little talk, okay? I’m sure you’ll be back home in no time.”

I watch M nod in quiet compliance and so I do the same, looking down to absentmindedly drag red imprints through the snow with my boot. The lady nods back with resignation and turns to head back towards the crime scene. It’s not until she is five or six meters away that I realize that she has M with her.

“Hey,” I call, “Where are you taking M?”

“What?” The woman turns to look at me over her shoulder and cocks her head. “Sorry hun, what did you say?”

“Where are you taking my friend?”

Her brow furrows as she pauses. “Somewhere away from here.” The words come out sluggish, almost as if she’s hesitating. “You’ll… you’ll be back together soon, don’t worry.”

I shrug as nonchalantly as I can muster. “Okay.”

M and I shoot a quick glance at each other as they get dragged off by the policewoman. ‘Stay safe’, they mouthe. ‘You too’, I mouthe back.

It’s almost fifteen minutes before the lady returns; long enough for my wrists to begin to chafe from their curled position in my sleeves.

“Where’s M?” I ask her.

“Somewhere else.”

“Okay.”

The lady pulls a notepad out of her jacket and clears her throat. “So, chump, can you tell me about what you saw happen in that room?”

I pause a moment and pretend to think about it. “Not really.”

There’s an instance in which I’m convinced she’s going to blow up; she pinches the bridge of her nose and growls like a kettle ready to boil, but in the end she just deflates and wearily scribbles something down. “Okay then.”

I bite my lip. “Trust me, you don’t want to know what i’ve seen.”

Another sigh. “Okay then.”

“I just found the scene like that; I always do.”

“Okay then.”

“There’s always this bird there-”

“Let’s go back, shall we?” Without waiting for a response, she puts a hand on my back and begins to steer us towards the cottage.

There’s something terribly, terribly wrong mellowing in my bones; it prods at my chest, it causes something shuddering and frantic to rise in it until it almost hurts how fast my heart is beating. I feel like I’m going to keel over and puke any second.

“The murderer is a crow,” I blurt.

The lady stops, and turns to face me with a look of complete incredulity. There’s a pause.

“Whatever you say, kid.”

We arrive back at the crime scene, and I spot M sitting absentmindedly in the snow, staring into the distance. They run up to hug me as we approach.

“You okay?” They say into my shoulder.

“Yeah.” I sigh and bury my head into the crook of their neck. “It’s been a long day.”

“Don’t worry, it’ll all be over soon.” They gently lift me out of the embrace and lean down to brush the snow off their legs. In the distance, I see the policewoman talking in hushed tones to another lanky blond officer by the cottage. She points in our direction and whispers something into his ear. That terrible feeling begins expanding in my chest again; I can’t tell whether she’s pointing at me or M. I’m not sure which I’d prefer.

Something suddenly occurs to me: we had walked all the way across the pond to the duck and I hadn’t seen a glimpse of the cottage M went to investigate. I hurriedly scan the area just to be sure. M throws a concerned look my way and cocks their head. “What’s wrong?”

“You-” A cop steps between us and looms over M, whispering something hushed and terse. Tension rises their shoulders as the man talks and M seems to comply with something with a stiff nod. The roaring in my chest grows to a frantic cacophony, and somehow I’m sure something horrible is going to happen.

The cop backs up to talk to another officer, and we’re finally left alone again. M turns to just sort of stare at me. There’s something acutely familiar about it that I can’t pinpoint; an overwhelming sense of deja-vu that sparks dread in the pit of my stomach. They flash me their signature cheshire grin, and it’s genuine in all the wrong ways.

“Goodbye, Reader.” M says.

And I do nothing but watch as my best friend takes flight as a crow,

and a pair of handcuffs snap over my wrists.