The Darkest Corners

The speaker exploded before the gunshot had a chance to ring. Before he had a chance to kill her again. The sparks buzzed across my head, then receded again, leaving only the charred remains of the speaker behind.

‘What did you do?’ Billy groaned. ‘What have you done?’

‘Leave it, Billy,’ Ameena said, and this time I let her press her hand against my shoulder.

A sudden fluttering up by the rafters made us all jump. A small black shape flapped around at the ceiling. We followed its flight until it landed on one of Christ’s outstretched arms. A beady black eye gazed blankly down at us.

Billy let out a nervous laugh. ‘God, that nearly gave me a heart attack,’ he breathed. ‘Just a bird.’

‘Not just a bird,’ I said, trying to keep my voice low and controlled. Ameena and I both stepped back, our eyes never leaving those of the bird. ‘It’s a crow.’

Billy shrugged. ‘So? What’s so bad about crows?’

‘Obviously you’ve never met the ones we’ve met,’ Ameena told him.

And he hadn’t. He hadn’t been there at Marion’s house when the Crowmaster attacked. He hadn’t seen Marion’s skeletal remains, the skin, muscle and sinew torn off by a murder of flesh-eating crows.

But I had seen it. And it was something I’d never be able to forget.

‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’ Ameena whispered.

‘No,’ I said. ‘He died here in the real world. That means he was reborn over there.’

‘Oh, now that’s just cheating,’ she protested.

‘No argument there,’ I said. The bird wasn’t moving, just watching us in silence. ‘I couldn’t agree more.’

‘What’s the problem?’ Billy asked. ‘However mean and scary you say it is, it’s just one bird.’

The cries of the screechers were louder than ever. The table and pews groaned against the floor as they were pushed back.

‘No,’ I said quietly. ‘It’s never just one bird.’

And then, in a heaving torrent of squawking black, the space inside the church was torn in two.

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We ran for cover as the crows came. They surged in their hundreds through a hole in reality itself, filling the church with the thunder of their wings.

Ameena pulled me down behind a pew as Billy took cover behind the one across the aisle. The crows were a dark tornado around us, squawking and cawing as they circled the inside of the church.

A figure stepped through the cloud of birds, short and stocky, his face hidden beneath a rough brown sack. Back at Marion’s house the Crowmaster had been revealed as nothing more than a little man called Joe Crow, who liked to dress in a scarecrow costume. The costume was gone now, but Joe was doing everything he could to maintain the Crowmaster act.

‘I see you, boy,’ he said. His voice was still like fingernails down a blackboard. The tattered eyeholes in the sack turned in my direction. I raised my head to reply, but a crow swooped down at me, forcing me to duck again. ‘You thought you’d seen the last of the Crowmaster,’ he said, and then there was that laugh of his again, audible even over the screechers and the birds: SS-SS-SS-SS. ‘You thought that your nightmares was over, but, boy, they’s just beginning.’

‘Shut him up,’ Ameena said.

‘How?’

She glanced along at the barricaded doors. It took me a moment to realise what she meant. Her eyes drilled into me, urging me on. Along the aisle, Joe Crow paced towards us on his tiny legs.

I nodded. The sparks lit up the inside of my head and the doors flew open. Joe Crow stopped advancing as the screechers burst through. Their eyes locked on him. Their jaws gnashed.

‘Aw,’ Joe groaned, ‘crap.’

They were on him before his birds could react, ripping and tearing at him, their teeth already slick with blood.

His command over them broken, the birds began to thud against the walls and fall to the floor. I moved to run for the door, but there were more screechers rushing through.

Ameena and I began clambering quickly over the pews in front, and Billy raced to do the same. The screechers were still busy with Joe Crow, and we hurdled our way to the front without them noticing us. Together, all three of us ran for the back room and hurriedly closed the door.

‘This way,’ I said, making for the rear exit that led out into the graveyard. As I pulled it open a hand clawed through the gap. Billy and Ameena rushed over and threw their weight against the wood. Between us, we forced the door closed, but the screecher on the other side was already trying to break it down.

‘What now?’ Billy yelped.

‘Magic them away,’ Ameena told me. ‘If you’re ever going to do your thing, now’s the time.’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ Billy told her. ‘You saw what happened. Those things are starting to come through.’

‘So what do we do, Billy? Just wait here to die?’

‘What’s it matter to you?’ Billy asked her, and I could see his old wicked streak shining through. ‘It’s not like you were ever alive to begin with.’

‘Ladder,’ I said, pushing between them. A metal ladder was attached to one of the walls. It led straight up to a hatch in the high ceiling. ‘It must lead to the tower. We can hide there.’

‘For how long?’ Ameena asked. ‘Up there we’ll have nowhere to run to.’

A clawed hand punched a hole through the back door. There was no more time to make plans.

‘Go,’ I said, gesturing for Ameena to lead the way up the ladder. She hesitated, but then set off at a breakneck rate. By the time Billy was halfway up, she was already at the top, pushing open the hatch and clambering through.

I went last. When I got to the top, Billy reached down and helped pull me up into the tower. The hatch closed over just as the back door came down, and we heard the screecher howl in confusion.

‘We’re safe,’ I whispered.

‘Maybe for now,’ Ameena added quietly.

The inside of the tower was dark and gloomy. There had once been a bell up there, but it had long since been removed. The rectangular openings in each wall that would once have allowed the chimes to ring out across the village were boarded over, letting only scraps of light seep through. The floor was thick with dust. Mousetraps were dotted here and there around the little square room. Billy kicked one to the side and it snapped shut with a clack.

‘Sssh!’ I hissed. I pointed down at the floor, and to the screecher that lurked below.

‘That’s our plan then, is it?’ Ameena asked. ‘We stay up here and keep quiet?’

‘You got any better ideas?’ I asked.

‘What happened to finding your dad? When did that plan stop?’

Billy answered for me. ‘When he realised he was playing right into his dad’s hands.’