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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/vampyre_money on 2024-10-01 17:24:42+00:00.

George was always a little weird. He was a small, pale, dishwater blonde, whose love of black vintage clothing made him look like a cross between a vampire and a funeral usher. He would talk, and sometimes sing, to himself in public. He spent most of his time reading, drawing fantasy creatures in his many sketchbooks, and taking long walks around town. But the weirdest thing about him was that he said he could talk to crows.

We met in the third grade. I was the new girl in town, sent from Boston to live with my grandparents while my parents slogged through their messy divorce. I first saw him at recess- a scrawny blond boy dressed in black, sitting in an empty field, surrounded by crows. While the other kids hollered and laughed and ran around the playground, this kid was whispering to no one.

“What are you doing?” I asked him.

“Talking to the crows,” he said, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

I crossed my arms and glared at him. “You can’t talk to crows.”

He turned his head around to look at me. “Most people can’t. But I can.”

“How do you do that?”

The boy smiled, oblivious to my annoyance. “Crows are very smart. Scientists say they have their own language. They have jokes, and different names for each other.”

I squinted at the half dozen black birds milling around the boy. They didn’t look that smart to me. I pointed at one. “What’s that one saying?”

“That’s Percival. He’s sulking because Diana-” he gestured to another crow- “ate the caterpillar he wanted.”

Either this kid was playing an elaborate joke, or he was absolutely cuckoo.

“And that one?” I asked.

“That’s Enoch. He’s an elder.” The boy cocked his head slightly. He had the palest blue eyes I’d ever seen, so pale they were almost white. “He’s sizing you up. Trying to see if you’re a friend or a foe.”

Sure enough, Enoch was staring at me, his head cocked in a manner eerily similar to the boy’s. I’ve rarely been able to discern the slightest emotion from a crow’s beady black eyes, but in that moment I could see it. Curiosity. Suspicion.

“So what, he’s like the leader of the flock?”

“Not flock. A Murder.” 

“What?” 

“A group of crows is called a murder.”

Whether he was cuckoo or not, this boy was proving to be the most interesting person in this boring little town. I sat down on the grass next to him. 

“My name’s Maria,” I said. And there I stayed.

My parents were more interested in dragging out their divorce proceedings than coming back for their own kid, so my temporary stay with my grandparents became permanent. I never quite felt like I belonged anywhere. I never adjusted to leaving the city for a small town. I felt restless, like everything around me was slow and dull and hazy. I was a half-Mexican girl living in a mostly white town with my white grandparents. I was “foreign” enough to elicit stares from the locals, but too American to know how to speak Spanish. I was able to make a few friends, eventually. But George and I, always the odd kids out, became the closest.

I learned pretty quickly that George spent most of his time alone. His parents were social climbers, eager to pretend their weirdo son didn’t exist. Teachers didn’t like him much- he was smart, but his grades were erratic. And he never fit in with the other kids. He was too cheerful for the goths, too quiet for the theater kids, too technologically inept for the geeks and nerds.

Aside from me, his only companions were the crows. He knew every one of the dozens of crows that lived in our town- their names, origins, likes and dislikes. He gave them treats like peanuts and hard boiled eggs. They left him gifts- usually shiny things like coins and bottle caps. When Enoch died, George, the other crows, and I held a funeral where George sobbed for hours. After that, the crows took to following him around whenever he went outdoors. Whenever he went indoors, the crows would gather round the windows, pecking and cawing to get his attention.

“Why are they doing that?” my grandma asked nervously. George was over for dinner and she noticed a few crows pecking at the dining room window.

“Crows can remember human faces,” George said matter-of-factly. “They remember humans who are friends to them, and treat them like members of the group.”

“Can they remember the humans who are jerks to them?” my grandpa joked.

“Yes they can. They’ll tell the other crows about them, and coordinate an attack.”

Grandpa started to laugh, but after seeing George’s serious expression he fell silent.

Shortly after that I noticed the crows following me around. Not nearly as many as followed George, and not nearly as often. But there were sometimes a few trailing after me when I went outside. When I told George about it his face split into a smile.

“They know you’re my friend,” he said, “They consider you part of the murder now.”

It was a little unnerving, being tailed by little black birds everywhere I went, but I trusted George. If he thought being followed was a good thing, then he was probably right.

There’s only one event, from before things got so messed up, that stands out in my mind. It was right after I’d gotten my driver’s license and inherited my Grandma’s ancient blue sedan. I was driving into town when I saw George. Now, it wasn’t unusual to see him walking along local roads. But this time, he was standing along the highway, in that thin stretch of grass between the forest and the asphalt, and he was staring at the ground. I pulled over and stepped out of my car to make sure he was okay. 

He didn’t even look up. “Hi, Maria,” he said blandly, “You’re just in time for the feast.”

Before I could reply, I saw what he was looking at.

It was a deer that had been hit by a car. It lay on its side, in a pool of its own blood. Its abdomen was slashed open, and its guts spilled out onto the grass. And there were the crows: tearing out pieces of its flesh, sipping the congealing blood, slurping up its intestines.

Worse still- the deer was still alive. What remained of its abdomen moved up and down in shallow, rapid breaths. Its eyes blinked rapidly. Its head moved groggily, snorting and whimpering as it lay there, being eaten alive. I stared and stared, wishing I could put the deer out of its misery, but too afraid to deal the killing blow.

I realized George had been holding something. It was a baby crow with all white feathers. He was feeding it a piece of the deer’s flesh, staining the crow’s pink beak red.

“This is Lux,” he explained, “The other crows rejected her because of how she looks. So I’m taking care of her. And maybe one day, I can integrate her into the murder.”

I nodded blankly, backed into my car, and drove away.

It was the only truly freaky incident that occurred before the real nightmare. At the time, I put it out of my mind. Crows are scavengers, after all. It was just the circle of life.

The trouble truly began when George started dating Kate. They were apparently introduced at some rich-people function, and hit it off right away. I seemed to be the only person who thought it was creepy that a 22-year-old was dating a high schooler. The average response to my concerns was, “He’ll be 18 in a few months, anyway.”

Beyond that, they had nothing in common. Kate’s family- I’ll call them the Oxfords- were old money New Englanders, the sort that brag about their ancestors coming over on the Mayflower. The Oxfords owned half the businesses in town, which meant we had to treat them like royalty. Kate wasn’t outwardly mean, but she was shallow, bossy, and entitled.

Not that George cared. He was head-over-heels, absolutely smitten. George had never had a girlfriend before. Now the prettiest, richest, most popular woman in town wanted him for herself. Everyone constantly talked about how lucky he was. “Kate’s such an amazing catch!” “She’ll straighten him out in no time!” “It’ll be a fairy tale wedding!” “He won’t have to work a day in his life!” By graduation, George was spending almost all of his spare time with Kate. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when I received their wedding invitation at the end of the summer.

I didn’t enjoy the wedding- it looked like it was curated for Kate’s Pinterest account, and Kate made it pretty clear that she didn’t want me there. But George seemed happy, and despite my misgivings, I came to support him. Although we had nice weather, Kate opted for an indoor wedding. I heard her tell a bridesmaid it was because “those stupid birds won’t leave us alone.”

 I took a gap year, waiting tables at a local restaurant to raise money for college. After the wedding, I began to see George less and less. Every time I called him, he had a different reason for why he couldn’t hang out: he wasn’t feeling well, he and Kate were going on vacation, he was seeing his parents. He didn’t go for walks anymore, either. By winter, I mostly saw him whenever he stopped by the liquor store next to the restaurant. These liquor store runs were becoming alarmingly frequent.

I found excuses to drive by his house. George and Kate had moved into one of the Oxfords’ many houses- a Victorian mansion at the very edge of town, about a mile away from the nearest neighbor. It was what rich people called “rustic” and the rest of us called “rundown.” Its whitewash and green shutters were peeling. Its driveway, more gravel than pavement, seemed ill suited for Kate’s shiny new Lexus. The house was surrounded by thin strips of yard before givin…

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