The Darkest Corners. Barry Hutchison
doors swung inward a few centimetres then hit the barricade with a loud thud. Screeches of frustration came at us through the wood, but the barrier held steady for the moment.
‘Nice work,’ Ameena said. ‘That was close.’
‘Uh, guys.’ Billy’s voice was a low whisper. I turned to find him nodding at a spot several metres behind me.
Something stood there. Or rather, something flickered there. It was faint, like the outline of a ghost. A large ghost, with too many limbs. We watched it pacing towards us, then it faded away completely.
‘OK,’ Ameena muttered. ‘So what the Hell was that?’
I turned, casting my gaze around the dimly lit church. There were half a dozen or more figures dotted about, half appearing and fading before my eyes. I recognised some of them as the things that had surrounded me in the Darkest Corners.
‘It’s happening,’ I realised. ‘Like he said. The barrier’s weakening. They’re going to come through.’
‘Not necessarily,’ Billy said, although he didn’t sound convinced. ‘I mean, you can just stop, right? If you don’t do your mojo any more, they can’t come any further.’ He glanced from me to Ameena and back and swallowed nervously. ‘Right?’
‘Yeah,’ I said, but the doubt in my voice was obvious. ‘If I don’t do anything else, the barrier will stay standing.’
A soft hissing and crackling noise began to echo around the church. I looked up to the source of the sound and saw a speaker mounted high on the wall behind the pulpit.
The next sound I heard made my skin crawl.
Fiona, it’s time to get up now.
That was my dad’s voice. My dad’s voice from the recording he had played me earlier.
‘No,’ I said softly. ‘N-no, please.’
The hospital machines beeped on the soundtrack. I heard my mum rouse and my dad smile. Even on the tape, I heard him smile.
That’s my girl. Open your eyes now. Open your…
My mum gave a groan. Ameena reached for me, but I pulled away. I stared at the speaker, and I stared, and I stared.
Wh-where am I? My mum’s voice, shaky and weak.
Look at me, Fiona. Look at me.
On the tape, my mum gave a gasp. ‘No,’ I whispered. ‘Don’t.’
As if echoing me, she cried out, and I could hear all the fear and the panic in her voice. I raised my hands, stabbing them towards the speaker. N-no. Please, no, don—
‘Kyle, no!’ Billy cried.
‘Do it,’ Ameena urged. ‘Shut it up.’
BANG!
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.
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,