She watched the girl get out of a small green car, hoping

that she was alone. The girl was three blocks away,

walking in her platform shoes, and cheap dangling

jewelry. She watched the girl move through the street

shadows. The two birds in her lap took flight from her

stroking and flew the distance in seconds. One, the larger,

dropped to the sidewalk just in front of the girl. It opened

its beak and screamed a hellish caw. The girl stopped cold.

Goosebumps raced to cover her entire body. Again that

horrid sound, another bird dropped behind her. When he

sounded, she spun on her heal and looked into one beady

black eye. The beak of the bird was opened. A sound that

did not seem like one any animal might make came from

its throat. It sounded like a radio, a song. She let down her

guard. It was three o-clock in the morning, not a good time

to let any guard down, but then, this was no songbird, it

was bait. The black flock streamed from the open window

three blocks away, racing to join the two ravens with blood

stained feet. They flew in silent unity, a pitch-black cloud

in the night, blotting out the moon and the stars, and soon

one more life.

The girl took a step off the sidewalk and the sound that

came from the raven beak split her ears. The flock dropped

to the ground. Only a minute had passed since she

stepped out of the car with one hundred dollars tucked

into her bra. It would still be there when her body was

found. From above she saw a nightmare. She thought she

really was asleep. It was not so long ago she had seen this

movie. Tippy Hedron attacked by crazed seagulls. It was

nighttime now, so why not ravens. Wake up! No, reality is

stranger than fiction. These were real birds. They started

bombing her. Dropping from behind. The bird in front of

her began hopping. She took a step to follow. Why? A step

in the wrong direction, and she was whopped by another

bird. Follow the blackbird. Was that really a song? The

tune seemed familiar, a song from her dreams. She took a

few more steps. The raven hopped away. The birds soared

and circled like bees swarming but not biting, unless her

direction faltered. Her bare arm trickled blood. Can

blackbirds carry rabies? Can they really swarm, and did it

even matter? She crossed the street, hoping for a car to

drive by. If one had, the driver would only have seen a

shadow in the corner. His mind would not have registered

flock of blackbirds swarming. That was impossible except

in nightmares. The girl was led around the corner, her

heart beating too fast, faster even than when she had had

danced for the hundred bucks. Nightmares can push past

all limits of reason. She saw the open window. More birds

were flying out. There was a steady stream, more like a

black river, flowing in the sky. The line of shadow flew

across the moonlight, around a streetlight to add even

more substance to the swarm around her head. She

walked toward the only opening they gave her. The only

sounds were the tapping of her thick soles and the flutterslap

of way too many black wings.

She stopped to breathe. The birds had used up the air

and there was not enough to maintain her pace. They dove

on her. Their pounding bodies and pecking beaks piercing

her skin. She bled from seventeen different holes and two

outright tears. Rabies. The only sanity her mind would

allow. The she looked up to the window, no more birds.

She saw a shape, a blot. That blot seemed to absorb light.

It was blacker than shadow and in a misshapen form that

resembled a very large man. There seemed to be one bird

left on a shoulder. It was this building that the lead bird

was hopping toward. Now the girl understood this dream.

It was not. No way she was dreaming this shit. Nothing in

her life could be represented, symbolically or otherwise,

by this kind of terror. She turned, about to take a step,

and she was pummeled. The birds hitting her so hard they

broke their own necks. One buried its beak and head into

her stomach like a spear. No retreat, just lots of blood

pouring into her shorts and down her legs. The blood was

only equaled by the burning pain and outright fear. She

ran toward the open door. It was the only clear path. She

had a hundred bucks. She’d pay the monster, for she was

sure that was what he was, and well, maybe she could buy

her sanity back. Inside the stairs were lined with more

birds. Here, the pigeons were mixed in. Again, that one

stubborn lead bird leaped up from one stair to the next.

Behind her, outside, a wall of ravens seemed to be

hovering just out of reach. Inside the floor heaved with

their excited flutter-claps.

She stepped up the stairs.

Three flights up there was a door. The first bird stood

beside the closed portal, waiting. He had lots of friends,

and a sharp beak, but no hands. He could not open the

door. It stood tall; its head nearly two feet from the floor.

She thought the black bird looked like a marine at

attention. The few, the proud, she kicked its head into the

wall, the fucking dead.

The girl opened the door.

From inside, above the din of the remaining birds, she

heard the click of the door. A great swell of waves rose and

ebbed like a tide as she turned her rolling flesh to greet the

girl. The amount of blood flowing from the girl was

surprising. The birds did not usually have to use quite so

much determination. She motioned with thick, knurly

finger, directing the girl closer. The girl turned her head

from side to side, more ravens behind, extreme ugliness in

front, and choosing ugly over swarming, rabid ravens, a

short step toward the horrible woman in the center of the

room. The puncture in her abdomen assured her this was

a good choice.

“The fuck’re you?” The girl said weakly. Her energy was

fairly used up.

“Raven,” she sang softly.

“Raven?”

“Like my birdies, my pets, love.”

“Jane.”

“Huh?”

“Gonna, kill me, call me Jane, not love.’

“You’re a tough one, Jane?”

“I been around the block two or three times, it happens.

All my cute got used up.”

Raven laughed melodically

Jane winced. The hole near her navel was burning. She

pulled up her shirt, stopping just below her breasts. The

hole was pushing blood out in pulses. She knew that was

bad. There was a small black feather sticking to the

wound like a bandage. Jane removed it. She touched the

stab wound with her finger. The blood was warm and

slick. She drew a line from the hole to her breastbone

stopping just between Ms. Pride and Ms. Joy. She wet her

finger in the blood again and drew another line. They

formed a cross.

“Recognize that, Raven.”

“Sure, but it won’t do you any good.”

“Wrong, it might not save me from you, but it’ll do me

damned good. See, I never lost my faith. Jesus is filled

with love and forgiveness, although, if he met you and

your birds, he might reconsider. Even if you let me go, this

hole will kill me before I can get help, right?”

“Looks that way. I’ve never seen the babies so eager, or

the prey so resistant.”

“Surprise.”

“Just a little one. You’re here and the love and

forgiveness you spoke of, that’s just what I’ll be needing

from you, Jane. Your love and forgiveness. It fills you,

despite your indiscretions and business propositions. I’ll

have it, every bit of the love left within you. More than

blood, more than desire, it’s that emotion I need, and will

have, it comes with the life, I’ll take both.” Raven said in a

most soothing reassuring voice. I can save you from

yourself, your own shadows, and your own fear.”

The song began to repeat in Jane’s head, the soft guitar,

the twinkle of the piano, a door to salvation. The music

had been echoing from her dreams for days. Now looking

at the fattest living thing her eyes had ever seen, her pains

eased. Jane recalled images of her husband and her God.

The tears began to flow as freely as the blood from her belly

wound. Jane remembered the gentle kisses, the soft

touches, and the sense of fulfillment as her husband

entered her. She forgave herself, again, for the men, the

ones that paid for fantasy with cash not love. She forgave

herself for the broken heart of her husband. It was the love

she shared with him the she wanted to grasp as she felt

her life slipping through the hole just below her breasts.

She irrationally stepped closer to the bulk that called

herself Raven. She had no need to choose any more. Jane

stepped forward. Raven embraced her. Raven took her

love without forgiveness as she squeezed all memory and

life from the broken body slumped between her fat, blood

soaked arms.

As the moon disappeared below the horizon, two hours

before sunrise, the cloud of black again flew from the open

window. Tucked within the black cloud were lighter

flashes of color. Small, but bright flashes, an arm, a toe,

and the cloud carried its carrion toward the highway.

There would be another breakfast buffet. Jane would be

found before the sun fell below the horizon line again. A

one hundred dollar bill tucked under her left bra strap, a

cross painted in blood across her midsection. Her clothes

intact, but her blood missing, the small wound at her

wrist unobserved. The hole in her belly blamed. Jane had

grown up tough, but the song was stronger than her will.

One lone raven flew in a circle above her corpse as

measurements and pictures were taken. Two ravens flew

overhead as the black bag was zipped and a small dark

cloud of black wings followed the white van, with its

blinking lights off, all the way to Saint Anne’s Hospital.

The church stood to the left, the hospital to the right, the

raven cloud dispersed and glided past the open ball field,

the community pool, and settled in the ragged trees

alongside the Taunton River.


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