A Shade Within a Murder of Crows (Challenge Repost)

Crow perched upon a high branch, drawn to the fresh corpses below by gluttonous hunger. There was a dangerous-smelling man sitting at a fire nearby that left Crow a bit wary, elsewise Crow would have been feasting on the banquet of fresh death unconcerned. Instead, Crow pondered if the delicious corpses were some form of trap to catch unclever crows.

Caw!

The man looked up and smirked at Crow, as if he was waiting for him. Crow studied the man untrusting, and how the shadows surrounding the man seemed angry. Crow’s desire to steal a taste from the fresh bodies ended up trumping his distrust though. Crow glided down and settled on the human corpse, wings taunt, poised to burst into flight if the man indeed tried to trap Crow.

Caw! Caw!

The man laughed as if he could read Crow’s thoughts and cawed back, “Go ahead, clever crow. Feast! Leave nothing behind but his fuckin’ bones!” Shadows flickered violently.

Crow responded to the man’s invitation by ripping off a morsel of the sweet flesh from the opened neck. As Crow ate, slowly another brother from his murder flew in to join his feast, then a sister. Once the corpses were being devoured by the full murder; the man laughed his awful laugh, and cawed at them all, “Yes! Leave nothing behind...”

The murder of crows cut off the rest of his words:

Caw-Caw-Caw-Caw…

~~~

Detective Elliot spat in defiant disgust, as he looked up into the trees, never believing so many damn crows could cluster together; cawing their collective rage.

It was ominous to witness. It was irritating to listen to. It made the crime scene feel even more grim. Between the morbid display of the bodies and how the lighting threw queer shadows that seemed unbound, the scene didn’t need any help with its sense of grimness.

“Is there anything we can do about the damned birds?”

“Sorry Detective, we figured just working the scene would have eventually driven them all away,” the forensics tech responded, leaving the rest of what he wanted to say unsaid.

Detective Elliot gave the tech a slight disgruntled nod and turned his focus back to the two corpses. Both more bones than flesh now.

“Any idea why the killed deer was placed next to our John Doe like that?”

“Not sure the motive, detective. However, it definitely attracted the carrion feeders quickly.”

“Anything else odd or out of place you’ve found so far?”

“The victim’s ring finger is missing and the bone appears to have been cut.”

“Hmmmm...” Detective Elliot took in the scene, so much familiar, yet so much uniquely out of place. Odd pieces to an all-too-familiar puzzle. Puzzles compelled him forward. He had a talent making the pieces fall into place. That was why he was given these grim cases.

Caw-Caw-Caw-Caw…

Detective Elliot looked forward to finding the bastard that committed this crime. There were hearts that probably needed closure, and justice that needed to be administered. He hoped punitively.

Caw-Caw-Caw-Caw…

“Can someone do something about these damned crows?”

~~~

I can still feel the echo of my throat being slit, as I watch the detective and the other’s study my lifeless body. A body I do not even recognize at this point, no small thanks to the crows.

I can still recall how the blood spilled from my neck as the investigator probes what was once a simple gash.

I can still recall the feeling of trying to take a breath but drowning on my own blood instead.

I recall the exact moment of my death. My soul suddenly watching my killer hold my lifeless form, a feral smile of satisfaction on his smug, bastard face. I recall trying to attack him, but only an echo of my former shadow seemed to glance him, with little to no meaningful outcome.

To think I pitied him. To have agreed to take him with me on my usual solitary hunting trip as an act of kindness and fellowship.

The bastard lied about it all! He lied being me being one of his few friends, about his lack of hunting expertise, and about never being to this spot before. Watching him now as a shade of what I was, it was obvious he had an intimacy with this place, with my particular hunting spot. He didn’t just have a moment of passion; my murder was something planned, over a long period of time.

I recall when that crow finally chanced to feast upon my dead corpse. Choosing mine over the deer’s. I recall the rage that filled me when I felt the words, “Go ahead, clever crow. Feast. Leave nothing behind but his fuckin’ bones!” How I raged.

I knew at that moment, I desired vengeance and be damned if that vengeance sent me straight to hell!

Perhaps I should follow this detective for a time. Perhaps the most I can hope for is to find a way to nudge the detective to the direction of my killer and at least give me some justice.

I recall the haunting sound of the murder of crows when they feasting on my former form.

Caw-Caw-Caw-Caw…

Screw that! I would rather have vengeance. I just don’t know how I will get it...YET!

~~~

“Mrs. Losstrum,” Detective Elliot said somberly, with a balanced compassion, “we have found your missing husband.” Elliot waited for her to respond, but notice she could read the news was not good. Instead she tensed, waiting for the blow. Elliot, more gently continued, “I am afraid to inform you that he was found murdered in the woods.”

Mrs. Losstrum wept. She wept in a way that didn’t make Elliot question that she was sincere in her loss. He still needed to ask her questions though. It was always harder to ask the questions to the innocent, but in these next moments, the subconscious tended to provide the best clues forward.

“Why would someone just want to kill him for no reason?” she eventually asked aimlessly.

“Why do you believe there was no reason?” Elliot replied, curious.

“Well, he always hunted alone and no one knew where his secret spot was. He never even shared it with me.”

Elliot pondered what she said, but didn’t say more. Perhaps it was a kindness to let her believe it was a random act. Too many hints of brutal intimacy for him to believe it was. More likely it was someone Mr. Losstrum knew and trusted.

“May I ask another question?” Elliot asked without waiting for permission to, “Can you describe his wedding ring? We couldn’t find it at the site.”

As Mrs. Losstrum began to described the simple silver band, marked with only two tiny sapphires, she broke down again in a pool of uncontrollable sobs. All he could do was watch the shadow of her on the wall and in a trick of the light, another shadow comforting her.

The illusion gave him a chill down his back and for the first time since visiting the crime scene, he thought about all of the crows and their shrill song, but it came out as:

We know-We know-We know…

~~~

“...and how well would you say you knew Mr. Losstrum?” the detective asked.

“Not well,” the man lied, while imagining how beautiful it would be to slice open this bastard cop’s neck wide open, frustrated that the bastard was interogating the staff from Steven’s old office. It was dangerously shrewd, a cruel genius to do it in a room with so much...familiarity. Easy to lie, harder to lie with the feeling of a ghost watching you. “I mean Steven and I obviously worked together and tended to be the last ones out of the office, but we really never socialized outside of the office.”

“Did Mr. Losstrum mention his hunting trip at all in one of those late nights?”

“No,” he lied easily again. Although, it took effort for him not to smile thinking about the crow eating Steven’s corpse and telling the crow to leave nothing behind but the fuckin’ bones!

“Did you know his wife?”

“No,” he lied, even as she bloomed fully into his imagination, a forbidden fruit almost in reach now, almost all obstacles out of the way. Steven had everything he wanted. Now everything Steven had was slowly becoming his. The wife was the last prize and was only a matter of time, even if she was to be a singular taste.

The detective’s shadow seemed to dance violently at that thought.

A picture frame on Steven’s desk suddenly fell over, brushed only by the shadow. It was a picture of the wife. It was impossible not to look at her for more than just a moment, his final prize.

“I mean, I met her briefly at office parties, but that was about it.”

“I see,” said the detective, “thank you for your time, Mr. Gilmore.”

“Anything to help,” Gilmore replied, shaking the bastard cop’s hand while dreaming again about slicing his throat. The detective left him wary. The way shadows taunted him since killing Steven made him edgy. The detective’s shadow seemed to shift regardless of movement of his body. It made him think the crow cawing:

He knows-he knows-he knows...

Yes, this bastard cop just might know. He might need to die for it too.

~~~

Detective Elliot looked at the body crumpled like a ragdoll at the bottom of the stairwell. If the poor bastard didn’t die of a broken neck, thought Elliot, he died from every other bone being broken. The wall was nearly as broken as the man. The head resembled a smashed fruit. It was as if someone shot the poor bastard out of a canon from the top of the stairs. It was a scene of disbelief.

“Detective! You’ll want to see this!”

Elliot turned and followed the officer to the landlord’s office. There, they replayed the close-circuit security feeds of the stairwell and the hallway leading to it. He watched the victim leave his apartment alone.

“Pause it! Yeah, right there!”

Detective Elliot studied the face. He knew that face. It was that Don Gilmore that he interviewed a few weeks back regarding the Losstrum murder. He got an odd feeling about the man, but nothing solid that would have put Gilmore anywhere near the top of the suspect listof Mr. Losstrum’s murder.

“Detective?”

“Oh, sorry. It is just I met this man not too long ago. Go ahead, and continue the video.”

Elliot watched as Don Gilmore got to the top of the stairway. Then, he saw something unbelievable.

“Go back. Play that again!”

“I told you that you needed to see it, detective!”

They played the scene a second time. A third in slow motion. Don Gilmore’s body flails at the top of the stairwell as if he was suddenly pushed impossibly hard from behind. Yet, after his body starts to fly down the stairs, his shadow seemed to stay behind at the top of the stairs.

They watched each feed dozen more times, to see if there was anyone else there. The videos seemed to show no one else, just Gilmore and his queer shadow.

Elliott recalled how shadows seemed to actively haunt the Losstrum case. He gut screamed a suspicion.

“I would like to look in his apartment, please...”

The landlord lead Elliot into Don Gilmore’s small apartment. It didn’t take long to find what his instincts suddenly urged him to look for. Sitting naked, alone on Don Gilmore’s nightstand was a simple ring of silver. Looking closer, a simple ring of silver with two tiny sapphires.

Elliot had a vibe go up his spine. He could almost hear a crow caw:

See...See...See...

Elliot solved one case in that moment. He knew this new case would always be a mystery. Who would believe that a man was killed by a shadow pretending to be his own?