Excerpt : The Last Scarecrow

It started in the year of the crow infestation, the black beasts picking the crops clean of every budding dime and nickel. Three scarecrows made of sacrificed shirts, work-worn jeans and mildewed hay were erected across the fields - hopeful figures against the great dark growing tide. The sun was lost behind the feathered wingspans, and the crops began to wither and drop, long rows of corn staggering to earth like old men.

The creatures did not eat the poison grain set out for them, and a shotgun blast became ammo wasted as they seemed to turn deaf ears toward the sky. The farmer looked out at the black ocean from his upstairs bedroom window and then to the three still figures on the horizon. He lowered his head and there it lingered for quite some time.

He took to making scarecrows night and day, and in a month he had a dozen spread out across the acreage.

The crows continued to eat but at about that time a certain madness set in, and the rows became littered with blind, dying birds. They had taken to pecking out the eyes of their brothers, and their screeches of anger and cries for mercy rolled across the fields. Black feathers fell as they tangled  midair in a murderous rage, tumbling to earth scratching and clawing and dying. In two weeks' time they were either dead or had flown off, singing a strange and mysterious song as they went.

That had been 40 years ago.


*

Photo by me (Polaroid Spectra)
Excerpt from my short story The Last Scarecrow