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.


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

More Writing

From another short story I'm working on:

Old cornstalks stroked and soothed his cheek as he passed, and he could smell the earth in their long, brown, dying veins.



(My photo)
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Flowers

I've been working on some short stories, and I'm gonna cheat a bit and say it counts for this blog. And while I have no plans to publish the stories on this blog, I am going to have an excerpt. (And that is my photo.)

Flowers For The Dead (excerpt)

...The day woke with a storm on its way. I could tell by the way the sky slowed and grew heavy. The dark grey clouds pushed in, and the trees began to bend, the leaves glimmering like a thousand emeralds catching the light. I could hear the house react to the wind, hear its strain against the violent pushes of air. The wind wanted to come inside, wanted to take everything and carry it outside. I felt the wet heat build, as if the heavens were taking in a long deep breath. And I could hear Mama in different parts of the house, hurrying the windows she had opened shut again. I heard something slide and break, and her cuss because of it. Out across the yard I could see the woods swaying like grass and I pictured a great monster sweeping his hand across the tree tops. Then the Oak next to the house groaned and its large branches began to scrape, like claws of a thing that wants in...




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