The Crowmaster (6 page)

Bleep
.

‘Nearly forgot to mention,' continued the next recording, ‘so you'll know who to watch out for, he's bald too.

‘And he really, really
stinks
of sour milk.'

I
tried calling home, but there was no answer. Not that I was surprised.

I didn't even stop to turn off the radio, or to do anything with the dead crow on the bedroom floor. Still clutching the phone in my hand I bounded down the stairs, calling out Marion's name as I ran.

She was standing in the kitchen, looking down at her hands as she flexed and unflexed her fingers over and over again. I could smell bacon and hear the sizzling of a frying pan on the stove behind her. A white surgical patch was taped over her right eye. The other seemed to sparkle an even brighter shade of blue, as if working to compensate.

It took a moment for me to realise, but Marion had opened the shutters on the windows. The back door stood ajar too. Anything could have been let inside the house.

‘Marion, you OK?' I asked, taken aback by her appearance. ‘What happened?'

She brought up her head and lowered her hands. ‘What? Oh, the patch. Pan spat oil at me. Stung a bit, that's all.' She glanced at the phone in my hand. ‘Everything OK?'

‘My mum's been attacked,' I said. ‘She's in hospital.'

Marion's hand covered her mouth. ‘Oh my God,' she muttered. ‘Oh my God. Is she… I mean…'

‘I don't know,' I told her. ‘Can you take me to the train station? I know the windscreen's broken, but—'

‘Of course I will,' Marion said. She looked me up and down. ‘Better go get dressed first, though.'

I realised I was still wearing my pyjamas. ‘Back in a minute,' I shouted over my shoulder, as I turned and rushed up the stairs to the bedroom. Something seemed off about Marion, but I guessed she was just worried about Toto. I should've told her the truth.

Still, there was no time now. Mum needed me. Nothing else mattered but that.

I charged into the room and snatched up the clothes I'd been wearing the day before, not wanting to waste time unpacking clean ones. As I got dressed, I thought about Ameena's messages.

The man who had attacked them had to be the man from the train. How many fat bald men who smelled of milk could there be? He'd joined the train one stop after me, which meant he must've been able to move much faster than his size suggested.

Was
he
Marion's imaginary friend? Marion had said he was smaller than me, but then the Darkest Corners changed people, so that didn't rule him out. But he'd finished up as a wobbly pile of dead skin on the bathroom floor, so that probably
did
rule him out. If he was the one controlling the birds, why had they killed him?

I buttoned my jeans, pulled on my socks and looked around for my trainers. I could see one over by the door, but there was no sign of the other one anywhere.

I dropped to my knees and put my face close to the floor. The shoe wasn't beneath the old chest of drawers, the bedside cabinet, or the wardrobe. Thrusting an arm below the bed, I felt around for the missing trainer. For a moment or two my fingers just trailed through dust, before finally brushing against something vaguely solid.

It took a second for me to realise what I'd found. I'd completely forgotten about the ball the crow had been tossing around. It felt soft and a little sticky in my hand. There was something attached to the top of it, like a short length of cord, or a piece of damp string.

Despite my hurry to get back to Mum, curiosity got the better of me. I pulled the thing out to take a proper look.

When I saw what I was holding, my hand spasmed, as if I had been electrocuted. The ‘ball' gave a squelchy thud as it landed on the bare wooden floorboards.

On trembling legs I leapt up and backed away, fighting a rising feeling of sickness in my gut. I rubbed my hand against the front of my jeans, desperately trying to wipe off the thin layer of stickiness that clung to my palm.

Even as I did these things, the horror of what I was looking at had only begun to filter through. Despite the urge to look away, I stared down at the squidgy round object, and it stared right back, lifeless and unblinking. An eyeball.

An eyeball with a piercing blue iris.

‘M-Marion?' I could hear the shake in my voice when I called her name from the top of the stairs. Only the faint sizzle of frying bacon, and the persistent howling of the opera singer on the radio answered me back. ‘Marion? You there?'

The top step gave a groan as I put my weight on it. I was about to continue down when I noticed the door to Marion's bedroom. It had swung half open, revealing her dressing table and part of one wall. Last night, when I'd gone in to lock the shutters, Marion's room had looked immaculate. Now the jars of creams and ointments that had stood neatly on the dressing table were scattered and toppled on the floor.

The step creaked again as I slowly back-paced to the top of the stairs. I'd found the missing shoe just outside the bedroom door and had quickly slipped it on. Even with my trainers' soft rubber soles, though, my steps echoed on the wooden floor. They resounded around the whole house as I crossed to Marion's room and edged in through the half-open door. I stopped just inside, my legs suddenly unwilling to take me any further.

The room was a mess, but I couldn't see it. The shutters were broken, the windowpane smashed, but I noticed neither one. All I could see – all that was in the room – was the
thing
on the bed.

It looked like Toto had, only much larger; a tangled mess of bones and flesh and black, oily feathers. A skeletal arm hung down over the ragged remains of the bedcovers. I watched, hypnotised by the steady
drip-drip-drip
of blood trickling from the fingertips.

I may have been there, but I felt strangely detached from it all, like an observer watching a recording of events years later. Maybe if the bits on the bed had looked more like a person I might have reacted differently. I might have
felt
differently. But the arm was the only thing to suggest I was looking at human remains. I kept my eyes fixed on it, followed every droplet of crimson as it meandered down the fingers and fell in slow motion to the floor. Focusing on the fingertips meant not focusing on anything else. Anything
worse
.

How long did I stand there? I honestly can't say. Time and the world beyond the room became meaningless, as if nothing existed but that place and that moment. All I know is that it was a while before the numbness became confusion, and a while later still when confusion was joined by the urgent gnawing of fear.

I didn't want to believe it was Marion, but who else could it be? There was no way to tell by looking at the remains, but I
knew
it was her. I'd have bet my life on it.

My lungs began to cramp up and I realised the rank smell of death had forced me to stop breathing. The walls around me seemed suddenly to bulge forward, closing in on me, squeezing out any clean air that was left in the room.

I had to get out. Had to get away from the room, away from the walls and the stench and the
thing
on the bed. Chest burning, I spun round, ready to run from this place and never look back.

And then, there she was in the doorway. Large as life.

Marion.

‘Boo!' she said, and her lips drew sharply upwards into an impossible grin. Her whole face seemed to stretch, until I was sure that smile was going to tear her head wide open.

With a sudden jerk of her arm she tore the square of bandage from her eye. I caught a glimpse of empty darkness, before she doubled over, clutching at her sides and howling with laughter.

‘M-Marion?'

Still laughing, she straightened and held her hands up for me to see. The ends of her fingers bulged grotesquely. I watched, too stunned to move, as one by one the fingertips split in half. From within the blistered skin other fingers emerged – longer and thinner, tapering into black, claw-like nails.

Marion's single eye was bulging from her face, swelling to the size of a golf ball. When it finally popped from its socket she laughed harder than ever. It was a hissing, high-pitched giggle – loud enough to shake the remaining shards of glass from the window frame. I heard them shatter on the floor behind me as Marion dug her nails into her neck and began to pull.

She was still smiling as the skin across her throat split and her face slid backwards over her head. With a
schhlp
the mask of skin was pulled off, revealing another face underneath.

The face – the whole head – was made up of a rough brown sack, tied off at the neck. Its eyes were two dark, narrow holes. A wide mouth crammed with brown, rotting teeth took up the bottom half of the head. It wore Marion's grin like a trophy.

Stray strands of soiled straw poked out from where the head met the neck. The body that wriggled free of Marion's skin was agonisingly thin – barely half as wide across the shoulders as me. Its limbs were skinnier still, and far too long to be in proportion. Fully extended, they stretched down past the figure's knees, each one well over a metre from shoulder to claw.

The thing had no skin of its own. A red-and-white striped T-shirt and a pair of ragged dungarees covered most of its body, but those parts I could see were formed from decaying knots of straw and grass.

‘A scarecrow,' I muttered in horror. ‘Of course she'd have a scarecrow.'

With a final shuffle, he pulled his dirty work-boots clear of his disguise. Marion's blubbery skin lay in a heap by his feet. The spaces where her eyes had been stared blankly upwards, as if seeking mercy from some higher power.

That was the split second that everything fitted together. It wasn't a slow, dawning realisation, but a sudden jolt, as if someone had crept up and shouted the answer into my ear.

I'd been looking at it all from the wrong angle. A crow hadn't come in through the train window. Nothing had come in.

But something had gone out.

Joseph had told me to ask myself if the man had died before going into the bathroom or after. The question had seemed ridiculous at the time, and of course I'd said ‘after'.

But I was wrong.

‘
You
,' I croaked, ‘it was you. On the train.'

The scarecrow's bulging head bobbed up and down like a novelty nodding-dog's. His straw hands made almost no sound as he clapped them enthusiastically together.

‘You killed that man and… and…' I could barely bring myself to say it. ‘And
wore him
. And Marion. You did the same to Marion.'

‘What can I say, boy?' he sniggered. ‘I just couldn't resist dropping in to meet you in person.' His voice was high and shrill, like metal rubbing on metal. Reaching into the chest pocket of his dungarees, he pulled out a crooked, mouldy carrot. The vegetable made an almost comical
boing
sound as he attached it to the middle of his face, just above his mouth. ‘I'm a sucker when it comes to fancy dress!'

‘And my mum. You hurt my mum!'

‘Wrong! I
killed
her. I killed yo' momma dead,' he cackled. With a
whoop
of delight, he began to dance on the spot, singing: ‘Ding dong, the witch is dead!'

‘No, you didn't!' I bit back, and then immediately wished that I hadn't. He stopped dancing and stroked the bulge where his chin should have been.

‘Well, ain't that a shame?' he muttered. ‘Guess that's what happens when you go running off to catch a train.' He shrugged his pointed shoulders. ‘Maybe I'll drop by and see her when I'm done with you. I reckon she'd like that, don't you, boy?'

It erupted like a volcano inside me. The thought of this… this
animal
being anywhere near my mum shocked my abilities into overload. I couldn't just feel the energy sparks this time, I could
see
them. They flooded out from within me until they covered every surface of the room like a living skin of electric blue.

A jagged triangle of glass rose from the floor behind me. Even without looking I could see it. I could see
everything
– every groove of the floorboards, every fibre of the wallpaper, every bloody scrap of Marion's remains. I could see it all, but all I focused on was the scarecrow.

And the broken glass.

With barely a thought, I sent the shard slicing past me. I felt the wind as it whipped past my cheek. Heard the
thup
as it found its target. The scarecrow was sent staggering backwards as the glass embedded itself deep into his chest.

Without moving, I reached out for more glass. Three deadly slivers rose into the air, rotating until their most pointed edges were aiming directly for the monstrosity in front of me.

Thwip
. Another piece of the broken pane swished through the air at my command. It dug into his arm, just above the elbow.

Thwip
. I sent another flying in his direction. This one was driven into his stomach. He stumbled backwards as I twisted the shard deeper inside him, making a tunnel all the way through to his back.

He was looking straight into my eyes when the final shard hit him. It was the largest piece of all, with a wide, serrated edge that caught him across the throat and ripped clean through his neck. I didn't feel even an ounce of guilt, as I watched his head roll backwards and thud down on to the floor.

His body remained half upright, his back wedged against the wall of the upstairs hallway. The long, branch-like arms hung limply, his fingers almost touching the wooden floorboards.

Gradually, my rage faded, taking the shimmering glow that had covered everything with it. The numbness I had felt earlier began to creep back in, joined this time by a trembling that started at my feet and worked its way up until my whole body was shaking. I stared down at the expressionless face, barely able to believe what I'd just done.

Had I meant to kill him? I wasn't even sure. I'd wanted to stop him going after Mum, yes, and I wanted him to pay for what he'd done to Marion, but what I'd done went far beyond that. Something savage had assumed control, forcing me to finish him. To
murder
him in cold blood.