Fic: Four Hundred And Twenty (1/1)
Title: Four Hundred And Twenty (1/1)
Author: BradyGirl_12
Pairings/Characters: Kristen Bouchard, Sheryl Luria
Fandom: Evil
Genre: Horror
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Spoilers: For October 31 (1x5)
Summary: Kristen gets spooked while out walking on a melancholy November day.
Date Of Completion: February 12, 2021
Date Of Posting: March 6, 2021
Disclaimer: I don’t own ‘em, Robert King and Michelle King do, more’s the pity.
Word Count: 854
Author’s Note: This story was inspired by events that happened to me. Not exactly as written here, but there were similarities! :)
Watching,
Waiting,
With spent eyes,
Roiling,
Boiling,
Black and seething,
Thorns wreathing,
Blocking the clouds
Like silken shrouds.
Let the silence
Sing.
Edward Allender Poe
“Nevermore”
1846 C.E.
Kristen walked past the cemetery, shivering a little as wind blew stray leaves. Most of the trees were bare by now as October morphed into November. Kristen jammed her hands into the pockets of her coat. Her private name for November was the Month of Melancholy.
Maybe it’s a post-Halloween hangover.
Bare trees, gray skies, dead leaves…death.
Her grandfather had died in the month of November when she was a little girl. A year later, her grandmother died, probably from a broken heart. It was the month that her mother had first seen her own mother cry, on the day JFK died.
The only good thing about this month is Thanksgiving.
It was the perfect time for a harvest holiday. With all the bleakness surrounding them, a cornucopia of plenty was welcome, indeed.
Kristen glanced back at the cemetery. Odd place, but this entire autumn, including Halloween, had been odd. The little girl in the mask who had lured her daughters to this cemetery gave her the creeps. Where was she now?
She looked up to see a murder of crows fly overhead and alight in the leafless trees of the cemetery. They were cawing and fluttering their wings, beady eyes watching her.
Oh, c’mon, talk about paranoid.
As Kristen walked, she could feel the avian eyes on her. She had never seen so many crows in her life. She had never seen Hitchcock’s The Birds, preferring to keep the image of feathered friends, not fiends, but she would bet there were scenes like this in that movie.
More crows joined their brethren. The cawing was cacophonous, echoing throughout the cemetery. They sounded almost…mocking?
You’re just jittery after all the weirdness this Halloween. This new gig with the Catholic Church is messing with your head. Exorcisms and ghostly little girls can give you the creeps.
Kristen realized that it was suddenly silent. The crows were still in the trees, still and silent. She shuddered.
More crows flew into the cemetery, blanketing the ground in darkness. Kristen stood by the black iron fence, her fingers curling around the spikes.
The silence was worse than the cawing. An old nursery rhyme ran through her head, ‘Four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie…’
Huh, more like four hundred and twenty blackbirds.
A sudden gust of wind ruffled her hair and hundreds of feathers. She let go of the spikes and resumed walking.
Her thoughts returned to the strange little girl who had lured her daughters to the cemetery on Halloween. She passed by the cemetery and the iron spikes changed to chain-link fencing surrounding a park. The small park was empty.
The crows were cawing again. They flew to the park and covered the ground. Kristen walked past the park, distracted by the noise. It was as if the crows were plotting against her.
Hoo, boy.
She could smell smoke curling from a chimney. It calmed her down. It was a home-and-hearth kind of smell.
Suddenly the crows moved as one, flying up into the air and blocking out the sun. Kristen walked forward, deep in thought, until she realized with a jolt the crows had flown ahead and settled on house porches, roofs, and sidewalk saplings. They were everywhere, watching her as they cawed, louder and louder, hundreds and hundreds of them, ominous and chilling.
They’re just crows. Get a grip, Kristen.
She walked faster. Crows on the sidewalk, crows on the spiked fences, crows on windowsills, all of them staring, staring, staring…
They flew up, whirling around her like a demented tornado with their incessant cawing as she cried out, running wildly down the sidewalk.
“Kristen?”
Kristen almost slammed into the woman standing right in front of her. “Mom?”
Sheryl gripped Kristen’s shoulders. “What is it, honey?”
“The crows! They’re after me!”
“What crows?”
“The crows all over the place!” Kristen looked around as her heart pounded. “What the…?”
“There aren’t any crows, honey.”
“There were hundreds of them, Mom.”
“Well, there aren’t any now.”
Sheryl was right. The porches, roofs, fences and trees were empty. No noise, just peace and quiet, and an occasional gust of wind sweeping up the dead leaves.
“Good thing I was coming over. You look frazzled. I know Halloween was a bitch this year with that strange little girl…”
“It was a bitch, but I’m talking malevolent crows here!”
Sheryl shook her head. “I knew you read too much Poe as a teen. C’mon, let’s go home and I’ll make you some hot chocolate.” She put her arm around her daughter’s shoulders and turned her around. “Through I can’t blame you. This whole neighborhood gives off Arsenic And Old Lace vibes.” They walked past the park and cemetery. “Yep, hot chocolate’s the ticket with a sprig of mint.” She kept up the chatter as Kristen’s shakiness needed comfort.
As the two women walked past the cemetery, a single crow perched on a fence spike and watched with sharp, beady eyes.
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This story can also be read on AO3.
This entry has been cross-posted from Dreamwidth. Comment on either entry as you wish. :)