Scaring the Crows Read online

  And then he pounced.

  Goodbye, Friend

  The call came at five o’ clock, barely an hour after Adam Mitchell’s last class of the day. He was still cold from the long walk across campus, and Dr. Robinson’s voice, booming out thoughts on Roman philosophy, remained a close memory.

  He sat down on his dorm cot and answered the phone.

  “Adam?”

  “Hi, Dad.”

  “Tank is bad.”

  “How bad?”

  “You should come home. Mom says the vet can see him within the hour.”

  Adam took a deep breath. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” he said.

  * * * * *

  Tank lay in his kennel, breathing hard and staring straight ahead with cataract-stricken eyes that, even with limited vision, looked out at nothing anyone else could see. His lungs rasped and his chest heaved, over and over, and all the concentration he could muster was focused inward, oblivious to anything outside of his stricken body.

  Adam knelt beside Tank and touched the long mane of hair on his neck.

  “You remember what the vet said,” Adam’s father murmured.

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “Will you do it?”

  Adam paused. “I … I don’t know. I’ll see what the vet says this time.”

  His father sighed. “Tank has arthritis and cataracts, seizures and incontinence, all on top of his lung problems.”

  “I know.”

  “You need to do what’s right.”

  Adam eased Tank out of his kennel and lifted him in his arms. “Right now, all I need is some help getting Tank out to the car,” he said.

  * * * * *

  The late-November day turned cold as the sun went down, the afternoon rain to ice, and the headlights of passing cars dazzled off the foggy windshield and cast halos into Adam’s eyes.

  He kept one hand on the steering wheel, one hand on Tank’s chest. The dog lay beside him on the passenger seat, wheezing softly.

  “Easy now,” Adam said. “Easy.”

  The vet’s office was twelve long miles away, at the end of a complicated gauntlet of back roads and congested highway. Adam already felt frustration toward it. Every time the brake grated down, Tank grunted. Every time he took a turn too tight, Tank whined.

  “Easy now,” Adam said again.

  Norle Street flashed by on his right, a brief glimpse of sign and dark road in the cold, driving sleet. As a child he had lived on that street, second house on the left. The memories of that time were all sunlight, sieved through age and years so only a vague feeling of childhood wonder remained—wonder at how the world worked, and especially how anything could ever change.

  He looked down at the passenger seat and the memory of a long-gone Sunday morning came unbidden and unexpected. In that now-dark house, when he was five, he had looked at Tank and thought, “When I am twenty, he will be fifteen. When I am twenty-five, he will be dead.” The idea had appalled him—that this young bundle, a reflection of himself, would die of old age long, long before he even knew full maturity—and he had taken comfort in the fact that such a time was so far in the future it might as well not exist.

  But now it was close, and that other day, long ago in bright summer sunlight, felt faint and distant.

  “Easy now,” he said, patting Tank’s neck. “Easy.”

  * * * * *

  The turn came swiftly and caught him unaware. Tank fell sideways off the seat. Adam’s open backpack vomited books onto the floor. Tires squealed and gravel crunched. The car lurched to a halt.

  Adam took a deep breath, reached down, and lifted Tank back onto the seat. Tank whined softly.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, stroking his fur, but Tank did not look at him. For a week he had not looked at anyone.

  “We’ll get you fixed up and take you back home,” he continued. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? To go home?”

  Once Tank had calmed, Adam reached into the back seat and picked up all the books. Absently, he glanced at a highlighted line from his Philosophy 121 textbook:

  Never injure a friend, even in jest.

  --Cicero

  He paused, eyes frozen on seven words written by a man two thousand years silent who had found his voice again here, now, in a car at the side of a sleet-slicked road on a cold November evening.

  He dropped the book and turned back to Tank. Tank, who had waited on the front porch every afternoon for him to return from school; who had kept vigil by his bed at night when he was sick; who had always, always put him first—unconditionally and without exception.

  Never injure a friend, even in jest.

  He started the car and pulled back onto the road, tears welling in his eyes. The whole time he kept his right hand on Tank, feeling the ebb and flow of the dog’s belabored breath. He knew what he had to do.

  Tank wouldn’t be coming home.

  Minutes passed slowly but inexorably. Twilight turned to night. Sleet turned to snow.

  “You always put me first,” Adam murmured.

  As the lights of the veterinary clinic dotted the dark surrounding woods, Tank raised his head and licked Adam’s hand.

  Adam pulled into a parking space and turned off the car.

  He looked down. Something had changed.

  Never injure a friend…

  He placed a trembling hand on Tank’s cooling head, then on his still, silent chest. He closed Tank’s eyes, then his own.

  Without Power

  Night came, and Rachel Phillips looked toward the ceiling. Darkness met her gaze and she saw nothing beyond it. The nothing scared her.

  Her small hands clasped the corners of the quilt until her pudgy fingers went white in the knuckles. Far away, in the cold outside, a dog barked. She counted the barks until they numbered thirteen. Then the barks stopped abruptly, with a yelp.

  Downstairs, no reassuring sounds came from the kitchen, the living room, the study or porch. In the other bedrooms no one spoke, snored, rustled blankets or fluffed pillows. She couldn’t see the sliver of light that usually filtered under her door from the open bathroom. The back porch light didn’t shine through the window.

  The house was old. Once she’d asked Grandpa how old, and he’d said, “Older than you and me and your parents put together.” That, she knew, was pretty old. In the past it was always warm and bright. Before two days ago. Before the sudden, cold-sweat drive through the snow and the quiet talk of hospitals from the front seat.

  In the past it hadn’t bothered her; the age hadn’t been an issue and neither had the creaks and groans, the thumps and bumps, the far off murmurs and nearby squeaks.

  Now they bothered her.

  Now they kept her up, shivering, although February was stuck outside and the room was warm. Now they made her think of the dark fields beyond the edge of the back yard, past the picnic table and the maple tree; and of the forest; and of the church and graveyard past the fairgrounds. And of the carpets still stained with mud from the paramedics’ shoes.

  And it was now, with everything dark and everyone gone, that she realized something—something very close—was wrong.

  “It’s just the dark,” Mommy would have told her. “We’ll keep the bathroom light on.”

  But Mommy was out, and Daddy was out, and Grandma and Uncle John were out, and Grandpa—

  Under the bed something rustled.

  A mouse, Grandpa would have said. And she would have believed him because it would have been true.

  Now, though.

  Now.

  The rustling continued, and Rachel moved to the center of the bed, arms and legs tucked up tight around her. Her lower lip began to quiver.

  Whatever it was, it was more than a mouse. Bigger. The wooden floor creaked beneath its weight as it shifted, scuttling across the cool beams then back again.

  She wanted to scream. She wanted to holler, reach out a hand, slap on a light switch. But no one was home and the power was out.

  “Stay i
n bed,” Daddy had told her. “We’ll be back before eleven, and I want you asleep by then.”

  “But I want to come too.”

  “Tomorrow. You’ll see him tomorrow.”

  No way to tell what time it was now. It had been 9:30 the last time she checked, before everything went dark. She would have to wait for the tolling of the church bell.

  The bed lurched, bumped from below. A shriek escaped her lips. She clapped a hand to her mouth, eyes wide and staring.

  Instead of counting seconds, she counted the pounding beat of her heart. She soon lost track, distracted by the smell and texture of the quilt against her nose and face. She held it there, over her, knees pulled up to her chest. The quilt would protect her. It always had.

  But it’s just a quilt, a small voice whispered.

  “No,” she whispered back.

  Yet she knew it was true. If whatever lurked under her bed chose, it could slide out, rise up, and grab her, quilt and all. She would be spider’s prey already wrapped in silk, ready to be consumed.

  Now her imagination, already heated from overwork, kicked into overdrive. Images flashed across her mental vision, captivating her the way a gruesome accident captivates those who drive by it—unharmed, but cognizant of the fact that the blood on the road isn’t syrup dyed red, that the teddy bear in the dirt isn’t a prop, that the broken bodies aren’t dummies.

  A rabid dog with glowing green eyes lay in wait, drooling white foam.

  Her first cousin, killed in a barn fire four years back, had come home again, pallid eyes gleaming from a charcoal-black face, clothes smelling of cinders.

  A giant rat had raced up through the sewer, through the heating ducts, and was clawing at the grate in the wall, yellow teeth grown long and crooked, red gums dotted gray with disease.

  The huge salamander she’d hooked with Grandpa when she was six had somehow survived. She remembered its gasping, toothless mouth, how it had lunged up at her when she reeled it in, its slimy body squirming and wriggling until, with a moan, it gurgled and stilled. And now it was back.

  Or—

  Or…

  No.

  She sniffed the air.

  No. None of those.

  She forced herself calm.

  None of them.

  Breathe in, out. Deep, slow breaths. In. Out.

  Nothing.

  Up, down. Rise, fall. In, out.

  Incredibly, her pulse slowed. Amazingly, she relaxed.

  Mommy and Daddy will be home soon now, she thought.

  Beneath her bed, nothing moved. Nothing breathed. Nothing clawed at the bedposts or tore at the edge of the quilt. Nothing smelled rotten. Nothing whispered in the dust.

  She started to hum. At first it came out dry; she had no spit in her throat and her voice box didn’t work. Then she swallowed twice and tried again.

  The sound entered the room and everything was fine. The shadows receded. They lost depth and texture, fell back, faded out to make way for moonlight. The closeness of the room rose up above her head and dissipated. She extended her hands and feet again, feeling the edges of the mattress.

  Rachel put words to the tune.

  “Hush little baby, don’t say a word. Mama’s gonna buy you a mockingbird.”

  The high sweetness of her voice coursed warmth through her blood.

  “And if that mockingbird don’t sing—”

  She stopped. Her breath caught in her throat.

  “Mama’s gonna buy you a diamond ring,” the croaking voice beneath her bed finished.

  In Rachel’s nightmares, the worst moment always came when she reacted with a scream to whatever horrible thing happened, but no sound came out.

  She tried to scream now, but no sound came out. Over and over. Again and again, until she tasted bile in the back of her throat. She didn’t move. She didn’t get out of bed. She didn’t go rushing from the room. She was frozen. She was frozen, and something under her bed was perfectly willing to lie there and sing with her, sing her to death, scare her heart to splinters.

  She was caught.

  If Grandpa were here he’d take care of it, she thought desperately. He always does. All he’d have to do is stare it down, and it’d go away.

  The thing under the bed growled softly.

  He’d take care of it, Rachel thought, and despair shook her. Everything dark—above, below, inside, out.

  The gloom was strong again. Something black, a shadow within a shadow, moved up the edge of the wooden bed frame with a rasping of claws.

  Rachel saw it, heard it. She lay rooted, the pale skin of her ankle just inches from its scrabbling want. She felt her heart palpitate. The weight of the room’s walls pressed down. With a whisper of breath she closed her eyes tight …

  And then in a brilliant, shining instant, shifting light burned bright through the window blinds. Outside an engine purred, then stopped. Car doors opened and slammed shut. Boots crunched on snow. Daddy spoke quiet words. Mommy and Grandma responded.

  The front door opened, and Rachel was free.

  With a shriek she tore off her blankets and jumped out of bed. She sprinted across the bedroom and down the hall—straight into Daddy’s arms.

  “Whoa, now! What’s this?” He hugged her tight, a flashlight in one hand.

  She threw her arms around his neck, sobbing.

  “Hey, hold on.” Daddy held her at arm’s length, smiling. “What’s the matter? It’s just a power outage.”

  “There’s a monster under my bed!”

  Daddy smiled. “Oh yeah? Let’s go take a look together, huh? See how he holds up under my flashlight.”

  “No, Daddy, it’s—”

  “Come on, now.”

  They went back to the bedroom. They looked under the bed with the flashlight.

  Nothing was there but dust and dirty socks.

  Ten minutes later Rachel finally felt tired for the first time in hours. Tucked in tight, Daddy sitting on the edge of the bed reading Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel out loud, the flashlight’s beam reassuring as it spilled off the pages of the book and onto the blankets, her eyes grew heavy.

  Daddy looked tired, too. She could see it in his face. Everyone would sleep well. She didn’t need light. All she needed was to know they were sleeping nearby, in the rooms around her.

  “Mommy,” she murmured. “Grandma. Can they come say goodnight?”

  Daddy stopped reading and looked at her. “Mommy’s … Mommy and Grandma are real tired, Honey,” he said.

  “But it’ll only take a minute.”

  “They’re real sad now, Rachel. It—”

  He stopped.

  Rachel sat up straight—so straight she knocked the flashlight from Daddy’s hand by mistake. It flipped backward and fell to the floor. The light went out. The sound of batteries rolling across the polished planks seemed to die before it could properly be heard.

  “Why are they sad?” Rachel demanded.

  In the dark, Daddy fumbled for the batteries. She could hear him. There, he had one … There now, the other.

  “Honey, in the morning. We’ll talk more in the morning.”

  “Is Grandpa OK?” she asked, her voice very small.

  Daddy said nothing. In the dark, all Rachel could hear was the sound of his hands fumbling with the pieces of flashlight and the batteries that made it work.

  Then she heard something else.

  “Daddy, turn the light on,” Rachel breathed.

  “Just give me a minute here,” said Daddy, but his voice sounded odd, strange. It sounded upset in a way she’d never heard before.

  “Please, Daddy. Hurry!”

  “Hold your horses, now, I’m getting there.”

  “Daddy!”

  Something black and hulking, a shadow within a shadow, stepped out from the corner of the room behind Daddy. It turned toward her. Two great tendrils of gloom reached forward.

  “Almost got it, Honey. Almost.”

  “Too late,” whispered Rachel, and
shut her eyes tight.

  Two Calls

  Of course it was never as fine as his dreams, but still it was fine. The waves rolled on toward the shore. The world tilted on the edge of sight far out to sea. The sun slipped past its zenith and raced to fall, a comet across the water. Warm, bronzed people lay on the white sand, some already packing up, leaving for gritty showers at home, bare feet kicking up powder. A few, final Venice Beach street merchants plied their trades in the fading light—incense sticks, charcoal portraits, power crystals and sea-shell animals. Half a block down, a guitarist, case open for change, played a sad song about something lost forever.

  Jacob stood, dusted off his swim trunks, and turned to his best friend.

  “Dinner?”

  “Sure,” said Richard. “I should call Julie first. See how she’s feeling.”

  “No problem. Call away.”

  Richard did. Frowning at his phone, he punched in the number to his home in Baltimore. His eyes took on a far-away look, glazed and sightless, and Jacob knew he could no longer see the great halo of light that glowed like a path from the shore to the rolling Pacific horizon. He saw other things instead.

  Then Richard began talking, phone to one ear, a finger in the other, turning off the far-away guitar and the hum of the waves, the sea gulls and the street vendors.

  What, Jacob thought, are they saying to one another? He imagined a laundry list of things that needed to be done upon Richard’s return: messages from work, small crises and tiny triumphs. The latest doctor report. Did the baby kick? Has it turned? Can Julie feel it?

  Jacob walked toward the shore and sat down just above the tide line. He remembered his first vacation here, ten years before. He’d stopped the Venice Beach Hotel manager with a gentle tug of his sleeve and asked, “Do you ever get tired of this?”

  “Of what?” the harried old man had asked.

  “The beach. The people. Venice.” He’d made a sweeping gesture with his arm.

  And suddenly the old man’s tired face had brightened. “Never,” he said. “Look around.”