Feathers

14. We Need Help

For the space of a few heartbeats, Dean's body moved in time with his desperate ragged breathing. Then it stopped moving. Outside in the distance, a siren rang through the city. Maybe a neighbour had heard the commotion and called for the police, for an ambulance.

Then Michael remembered what he was seeing in front of him. Somebody who was alive only moments earlier in his house was now lying lifeless in a pool of their own blood on his kitchen lino. The siren faded. He didn't know whether to be relieved or panicked. He settled for dumb shock.

Nobody spoke. Gretchen sat in the corner of the room with her arms wrapped around her knees, rocking gently backwards and forwards. Kobie pushed herself upright out of Michael's arms and then rushed to the sink to throw up.

The acrid odour of her sick mixed with the sickly sweet smell of Dean's blood. Michael tried to keep his breathing shallow so the rank scent didn't make him vomit as well. Kobie washed out the sink and then turned to lean against it. She put her head in her hands.

"Did you all see that?" Michael asked.

Nobody answered him.

"You all saw that thing right" Michael tried again, "I'm not crazy."

"I saw it," Gretchen said from behind her knees.

"I don't know what I saw," Kobie said, pulling her hands away from her face and rubbing the back of her neck compulsively.

The pool of blood around Dean was slowly expanding. Michael tried not to look at him. Every time he did he felt a wave of bile threatening to rise up in his throat.

"I've been seeing that thing, The Crow, for a few days, ever since the lightning. I thought I was going insane."

"I think I'm insane too," Kobie said, "I must be, we all must be, this can't be happening."

She buried her face in her hands again and started sobbing.

Michael walked over to the sink and put his arms around her, pulling her into his chest. At first, she resisted, her body stiff and rigid. Then she softened and accepted his embrace.

"What. The. Actual. Fuck. Just happened?" said Gretchen from the corner.

She unfurled herself from her semi-foetal position and got shakily to her feet.

"Are you okay Gretch?" Michael asked.

"No I'm not fucking okay" she snapped "this psycho just held me at knifepoint and now he's dead in our house. And there was some fucking.... crow... demon thing."

"It's going to be okay," Michael said, in what he hoped was a soothing tone of voice. He knew instantly it was a stupid thing to say. How could anything ever be okay again? Everything he knew to be true, the basic laws of reality, the fact that paranormal beings didn't exist, had just been called into question. And someone had just been murdered in their house. They had a dead body. And no-one was going to believe they didn't kill him.

"Wait a minute", Kobie said, looking up at Michael quizically "What do you mean you've seen that thing before?"

Michael took a deep breath. He tried to think of a good way to explain but then the words just tumbled out of him in a rush.

"After the lightning hit us, well before then there were crows. So the lightning must have scrambled something in my brain. Because one of the last things I saw were those crows on the beach. And then in the hospital, I saw that man. And he's like a man crow. He's got a beak. So he was a figment of my imagination. Some sort of hallucination that was made out of things in my mind."

"Where did you see him?" Kobie asked.

"In the hospital, sitting in the visitor's chair. In the bathroom at the pub. At your grandma's, in one of your photos"

"Oh my god."

"Wait a sec," Gretchen said walking gingerly over to stand closer to Dean's body. "It's not a hallucination mate. A hallucination didn't do this did it".

They all stood and stared down at Dean's lifeless body.

"Is he dead?" Kobie whispered.

Gretchen squatted down next to the body with a pained expression on her face. She reached out carefully and squeezed Dean's wrist.

"I can't feel anything. I'd feel a pulse if he was still alive wouldn't I?"

"I'm pretty sure he's dead," said Michael.

Kobie slid down to sit on the floor with her back against the sink cupboard.

"This is all my fault."

Gretchen looked up sharply "Don't ever say that. It's never the victim's fault, it's always the abusers choice if they attack you. You didn't make him do anything."

"I brought him here. I mean if it wasn't for me he wouldn't have come here. I'm so sorry Gretchen."

"Don't sweat it, sweetheart." Gretchen groaned as she stood back up and leant heavily against the kitchen table. "I've had worse. And this is the fastest I've ever seen justice be delivered. Even if it was a bit brutal"

A bit brutal was an understatement. There were human intestines glistening on the kitchen floor.

Kobie looked up at Michael "Why didn't you tell me about the visions you were having?"

He slid down to sit next to her on the floor.

"I didn't want you to think I was crazy."

"I'll never think you're crazy," she said and squeezed his leg.

"What if I do go crazy though?" He asked.

"I still won't think you are," she said and smiled.

Gretchen cleared her throat.

"Hey, lovebirds, sorry to interrupt your special moment over there. But I've got two questions that I'm really gonna need an answer to ASAP or I'm likely to go a bit crazy myself. Question one, what the fuck is that very real and not-a-vision thing that appeared in our kitchen. And two, what are we gonna do with old-mate-no-guts on the floor here?"

Michael's brain was spinning and going nowhere all at once. he couldn't think straight. This was definitely the sort of situation where you called the police. But the police also definitely looked down on murder. And that's what had just happened. There was no way anyone was going to believe the truth.

Michael pulled his phone out of his pocket. There was only one person he knew who would be smart enough to know what to do, and maybe, just maybe, weird enough to not freak out ion them.

"I'm gonna call my friend Spencer," Michael said and dialled his number.