A Murder of Crows: Seventeen Tales of Monsters and the Macabre

by DeAnna Knippling

Another might call it a kind of seduction or a peace offering, a feast meant to tantalize or lull me. But I knew Andros, and Andros knew me.

  I growled, “What do you want?”

  Andros chuckled. “So you’re awake.” The lock of my cage rattled, and the door opened.

  I listened. Andros backed away from the door quickly, almost running, then stopped. Someone else was in the room with him; I heard the breathing, which was so slow and even you would have thought the other was asleep. Yet how could anyone have slept through that jackhammering of smells?

  I slid the drawer free and dropped into the room like an animal, crouched until my hands were touching the tile floor, my nostrils open wide.

  The room was filled with food. The gurneys were piled with it, the shelves, the tables, the chairs, every inch of space was crowded with a feast.

  Andros stood next to the door, halfway out already. “Hello, Adrienne. This is all for you—help yourself.” He slammed the door behind him, and I heard the sound of a padlock quickly closing home.

  I stalked to the door and tried it. Of course it was locked. I rammed the door with my shoulder. The door was too solid simply to break through, but I might have heard the hinges creak a little.

  I rammed the door again and felt a little give.

  And then the smell defeated me.

  “Andros!” I howled, then started to eat.

  —

  Of all things, it was the kataifi, an almond dessert, that I reached for first. Ah, they were so good. And closest. Then I started on the dishes that would fade first. Olive oil ice cream with lemon-basil sauce so sour I could feel it burn my lips. An omelet with spinach, tomato, and feta. Sesame-seed biscuits with butter. Then red-snapper soup with zucchini, tomatoes, and potatoes. The lemon and olive oil in the soup was like silk on my tongue. How had he made all the food? In such a short amount of time?

  With that, although I eyed the octopi, I was sated enough to attack the door again. “Let me out!” I screamed. My shoes were missing, so I beat at the hinges with my shoulders until they were raw, then cleared the food off a side table and used that until I had smashed it to bits. I had almost twisted the bolt off when I heard a moan from within a mound of food on a gurney.

  I froze.

  The moan came again, thick with mucus, like something drug up from the depths of the sea. “Aghch—”

  A platter of crabs slid onto the floor and lay still.

  Oh, God. What had Andros done? What had he tried to make me do? Had me meant me, God forbid, to eat someone?

  I walked back into the room, my heart thudding with fear for the first time, so hard I thought it would choke me.

  On tiptoe, I approached the gurney. The cement floor was cold on my bare feet, colder than death. I do not fear the dead—but I feared whomever or whatever was on the table, breathing harshly. A dozen skewers of shrimp slid to the floor. I held my breath and reached out one hand to push aside the platter of garlic and wine-steamed mussels—

  “Dr. Alex!”

  —

  Food didn’t trouble me until I became a woman. I have always been strong for my size, but it wasn’t until I developed these hips that I started to feel a terrible hunger.

  Perhaps, when I was a girl, I might have lost control and eaten someone, in the depths of my need. But at thirty-five, there was no chance I would do so, no matter how hungry I was. I would—and I swear to you that I truly would—eat my own leg first.

  That damned Andros!

  —

  Andros had not used subtle arts to make Dr. Alex unconscious—Dr. Alex’s head was tender on the back, bloody and obviously swollen through his thinning hair.

  His eyes were open but wandering. I waved my hand in front of his face, and he twitched but could not follow it. I squatted next to him and murmured in his ear, “You must be quiet, Dr. Alex. We don’t know what Andros will do. He believes in his heart that I killed his brother. Perhaps he believes you helped me hide Miklos’s death.”

  “Don’t eat me,” Dr. Alex whimpered.

  I snorted. “I swear, Dr. Alex, I will pick those crabs off the floor before I eat you.”

  His eyes flicked toward mine, almost seeing me. He smiled a little. I reached over, picked one of the crabs up, bit through the shell—and swallowed. His eyes went wide and I laughed, spraying chunks of shell on the floor.

  I was calm then, or calm enough to hold myself back from either breaking down the door or consuming the feast. The food had all been made with fondness, if not love.

  How could I tell that? Ah, how could I not?

  I thought Andros would burn down the house with myself and Dr. Alex in it. I thought he would shoot me if I tried to take Dr. Alex to safety. But he did not. He wished to kill the woman he loved—but first, the horrifying, loving feast.

  Dr. Alex must have come to the house to check on me when I did not appear for my appointment and been hit on the head for his trouble.

  “But what about the heart?” I murmured to myself.

  “A bull’s heart,” Dr. Alex mumbled. “I used a bull’s heart. And it was barely large enough.”

  I grabbed the gurney to keep myself from sliding to the floor, knocking loose a pattering rain of oysters in their shells, alabaster calamari rings laid on pasta ribbons dyed black with their own ink, and a plate of lobster, bright red shells like the armor of the god of war. Dr. Alex wobbled, but I steadied him as I steadied myself.

  I saw it then, as plain as I can see the sky.

  “Where did you put it?” I asked.

  “In a jar,” Dr. Alex said. “In storage.”

  And it was I who had given Dr. Alex permission to perform the autopsy, his little look-see to determine the cause of death: heart attack.

  “When?” I asked.

  “Why did he have to—I sent him all the—why did he have to ask so many questions?” Dr. Alex panted and turned his head from side to side.

  “What about Yuri?” I asked.

  “What about him?” Dr. Alex asked. He sounded suspicious, and I guessed I might have only one more question before he was fully conscious.

  I leaned closer, so my hair, which had come loose, trailed across his face and filled his nose with my scent as though I were his lover. Of all the things I wanted to know—proof of his guilt—who else was involved—blackmail—revenge—I wanted to know what he saw when he looked at me, when he stood next to me and implied that I had scared Miklos to death with my appetites.

  I purred seductively, “What about my heart? Don’t you want that, too?”

  “I will take it soon, my lamb,” Dr. Alex said. “It will fit into the same jar easily.”

  —

  It was easy enough; the room was well-stocked with knives and saws and served with an abundance of drains.

  Because I had told him I wouldn’t hurt him, I hit him in the head with a bone hammer first, knocking him out like a steer. His expression was stunned even before I hit him. The idea of his raw flesh disgusted me, so I called for Andros to let me out, so I could cook it. But I received no answer. I called again. Nothing.

  Either the police would come, or they wouldn’t. Either Andros would open the door, or he wouldn’t. I did not think, one way or another, that I would have time to prepare Dr. Alex properly, as meat. As offal.

  Miklos! With that cry and a scalpel, I cut Dr. Alex’s throat. The hammer had not killed him: the living blood pumped free. I leaped back. Even though I had taken care to stand behind him, the blood sprayed widely at first. After a time, I rolled Dr. Alex onto the floor, kneeling on his back until the blood had stopped running, long after he had died. Then I washed him and hung him from a ceiling joist, after I had pushed away the acoustic tiles.

  —

  I decided not to damage the door any further—the story I would have to tell would be complicated enough without having to explain having torn the bolt out of the door.

  I was only just finishing up the last swirl of juices and grease from the bottom of a plat
ter of fried oysters, a splash of water I’d poured in to save myself the indignity of having to lick it clean, when Andros unlocked the door. I tossed the platter at his head; he gulped back whatever he had intended to say and disappeared as the platter rebounded from the door frame.

  I laughed.

  “It’s all right, Andros,” I said. “It was only a joke.”

  He peeked around the corner like a little boy. I growled; he vanished again. I almost burst from laughing.

  When he reappeared, his eyes wandered the room.

  But for a pile of dishes stacked neatly by the sink—I had been only just about to wash the last platter before I had thrown it at him—the room appeared as it normally did.

  “I suppose the clients’ families are worried,” I said. “Or is it still only Monday yet?” No clocks in the preparation room; Miklos had insisted. And a lock on the massive door; it could only be opened from the outside. A mystery. I wished I’d asked him while he’d been alive, asked, and not allowed myself to be turned aside.

  “Just now Tuesday,” Andros said. He glanced at the refrigerator and away, but not so quickly that I didn’t notice. I wiped my hands—wet with suds only—and opened the door to the autoclave.

  The silvery dental amalgam was cool to the touch, barely. I took the mass in my palm and crushed it with my thumb until it tangled together. I tossed the mass to Andros. “A memento,” I said. “Or use it for blackmail. Your choice.”

  Andros caught the amalgam in his fist, held it over his heart, kissed it, and put the metal in his pocket. Then he shuddered.

  I told myself it did not matter whether Andros believed me or not.

  We interrupted each other.

  “Did—” I asked.

  “Did you kill—” Andros asked.

  “I killed Dr. Alex,” I said. I tried to smile ironically, but I think I merely appeared bitter. “Isn’t that what you wanted? Miklos is avenged.”

  Andros dropped his head on his chest, his face trapped in as ugly a grimace as I’ve ever seen. “You didn’t kill Miklos then,” he said.

  I suppose I should have rushed across the room to comfort him, or at least pretended to cry, so he could comfort me, but I am not that kind of woman. That was not what had made Miklos steal me away at sixteen, his brutal, sad eyes more thrilling than even his caress.

  Also, I admit I was angry.

  “It is time for you to go,” I said. “I forgive you. But you must go.”

  He nodded, unable to speak. I closed my eyes, smelled ozone and felt the thunder as the hot air shocked through me, counted three, and opened them again.

  He was gone.

  —

  Upstairs, in the kitchen, a cake box and an envelope had been placed on the breakfast table, a place of pleasant memories.

  I cut a slice of the cake and opened a bottle of Irish stout to drink with it.

  The cake flesh was supple chocolate, its fine crumb supple enough to spring back under a caress without crumbling. Between its two layers was pomegranate jam, sweet yet astringent, just barely blessed with thyme.

  The entire cake was draped in ganache, rich as butter and bitter as death. In fact, I think he mixed in ashes—but not many, not many at all.

  Across the top of the cake he had scattered pomegranate pips, blood-jewels, love-jewels. The symbol of both marriage and death.

  I ate it all.

  I did not open the envelope, although I treasure it still, because I already know what is inside.

  Later, I found that Andros had deeded the Harbor to me, for moneys and services rendered. It thrives under my hand and the aunts’ cooking, but I cannot make it sing, not the way Andros made it sing, and not the way the women sang beside the lake the night Miklos was sent home.

  Rather, I am happiest here, with the clients, sharing their peace. In the summer I will visit Mother. And, of course, the aunts make sure I always have enough to eat.

  * * * * *

  I told you that story because it reminds me of your situation, and the monster outside your door. It has eaten those I love; it will eat the thing you try to defend yourself with; it will eat you.

  And yet you are the hollow one, aren’t you?

  But to return to my chick, and his first story.

  Zubalo shivered on his perch. He saw the eyes looking at him, the eyes of his brothers and sisters, the eyes of his friends and flock-mates, the eyes of his elders. Believe me, when one is standing on a real storyteller’s perch, whether it be a mere branch or the top of the roof, the eyes that one has always known change into the eyes of demons, the eyes of greedy cats.

  I chuckled, then had to cough up the bead, as Zubalo shivered on his perch.

  If he hopped down before he spoke—then all would have been well. The chicks would chatter their beaks with laughter and batter him with their wings. And all would be forgotten.

  But no, he would not, and I knew he would not.

  Zubalo cleared his throat and said…

  5. Family Gods

  “Aunt George,” I said. “I tried to kill my wife and baby girl yesterday.”

  She reached across to the glove box and pulled out two cigars. Her eyes didn’t leave the road as she unwrapped one and handed me the other.

  “Here. He likes the smoke.”

  “Who?”

  She bit the end off her cigar and spat it on the floor. “I’ll tell you later.”

  “What about Serenity?” My daughter, in the back seat.

  “So open a window. There are worse things that could happen to her than a little cigar smoke.”

  I lit Aunt George’s cigar, then mine. My lungs released after months of holding back half a breath. I leaned the seat back. Cornfields flashed by outside the window, countless fence posts, rolling hills decorated with black cows. I rolled down the window. The air smelled like coffee and manure.

  “Tell me about it,” she said.

  “I’m not the kind of guy who kills people,” I told her. “That’s not how you raised me.

  “The first I heard about Tammy leaving me for John Fox, who is this thick-necked man who works at the stockyards, was when I got home from Afghanistan to see Mom put into the ground. Tammy was writing me all kinds of dirty, sexy letters telling me how bad she wanted me to be home while the whole time she was screwing around with a guy who smells like rotten meat. He must have been a hell of a fuck.

  “I walked into the house just after midnight and threw my bag on the floor. Tammy was waiting up for me. She said, ‘I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, Michael. You can stay here tonight, but that’s it.’ And then she told me.

  “I didn’t wait until morning. I didn’t even kiss my baby girl. I walked out of the room, out of the house, down the driveway, and down the street. The cab had already left, so I walked to the nearest gas station, bought a gallon of gas in a red plastic container, went back to the house, and poured gas all around the place. Then I lit it on fire with a series of flimsy matchbook matches that kept going out.

  “The gas finally went up. I walked around the building to make sure it all caught, and then I saw my daughter through the window.

  “Just then the fire went out, almost like I’d never lit it. Just disappeared. The only thing left was the smell of smoke. It wasn’t until then that I felt upset about what I’d done, and then I was so angry that I kicked the side of the house so hard I think I broke a toe.”

  “I know all that.” Aunt George sucked air past her cigar. “I put the fire out for you.” I stared at her. She adjusted her steel-rimmed glasses and brushed a white-blonde hair away from her face.

  “You put it out?”

  Aunt George lifted two fingers off the steering wheel, as if to wave at a passing car. She flicked the tips of her fingers against her thumb, and a blue curl danced on her blunt, stained fingernails. She flicked them again, and the flame went out. “But then you went inside, and I couldn’t see. What happened then? How did you end up with Serenity?”

  “I don’t un
derstand,” I said. We turned off the Interstate.

  “What I need to know is, are the cops looking for you? Are you AWOL?”

  “No. I, uh. After I calmed down, I went back inside to talk to Tammy. Serenity was awake and screaming her head off. When she saw me, she cut off like somebody had pushed her pause button. Tammy made me promise to take Serenity with me to the funeral, just to get the kid out of her hair. I slept on the floor next to her crib. After a while, I picked her up and laid her next to me to sleep.”

  “So Tammy’s all right then?”

  I nodded.

  “Good.” She turned off Main Street and into the church’s gravel parking lot. “The short, short version is that we have a family curse. Sort of. A family god.” She pulled into an empty parking space and put out her cigar. “A murder god.”

  —

  I’ll skip a description of the post-funeral funeral we had. My mother had long since been buried, but the people at church went through the motions again, for my sake. I shook a lot of hands and lost track of my daughter as she was passed around. Old women would tell me how much she looked like her grandmother and insist on “giving me a break” from her even though I ached to keep her close. I felt like I had to protect her from something awful, just out of sight, and I hated those women for taking her away from me. If I’d thought I could get away with it, I would have hit them until they’d let her go.

  I stood next to Aunt George at the graveside. She stood shoulder to shoulder with me, her cream-colored hair tied with a leather thong and draped over one shoulder. She’d raised me after I’d proved to be too much for my mom and dad to handle, but she was always gentle with me.

  “You’ve been having the dreams, haven’t you?” she muttered.

  I gaped at her, which must have been answer enough.

  “I’ve been dreading this day since your mother brought you to me,” she said. “I’ve always known. But your mother thought if she hid you long enough, he’d let you go. Of course he wouldn’t, but she was always a fool. Do you know how she died, Mike?”

  “A fire,” I said.

  “You don’t know the half of it. It wasn’t just a fire; we Kaufmans don’t burn easy.