Day 521

The sirens outside your house had stopped after blaring away for over twenty minutes.
Peering through the curtains of your flat you saw that the ambulance had been left wide open.
The figures hunched around the accident nearby were just swaying.
Something was slowly slinking over to them, someone wearing an old plague doctor's mask?

It glanced around, head tilting unnaturally like an owl's.
As its head rotated to face your window you saw that it wasn't wearing a mask at all.
Its face was something like a crow's but its eyes were so much larger, so human.
After a few tense moments of eye contact it turned away and began to creep towards the accident.

It joined the swaying figures and sat crouching down beside them, beak opening and closing rapidly.
You felt curious and snuck out of your flat to investigate, moving quietly towards the front door.
Peeping through the letterbox you heard what sounded like a "phone busy" tone.
It was shockingly loud, echoing throughout the silent street.

Slowly opening the door you began to move even closer to the scene, sticking to the shadows.
All the while your eyes were fixed on the strange creature and its rapidly moving beak.
Just as you reached the nearest paramedic its head turned toward you sharply with a sickening crack.
It didn't seem to be able to see you though, as you waved your hands at it, just hear you.

It hadn't stopped muttering the whole time, now you began to make out what it was saying.
A conversation between two people on the phone.
One was complaining of a bad signal and how late they were getting home.
The other begged them to just get back safely, they'd been having bad dreams about this night.

One voice reassured them, saying the roads were dead but there were loads of crows around.
The other wailed on about their dream and all the crows it contained.
They argued and were distracted long enough for the one to crash into a lamppost.
You glanced left and saw his body half loaded onto the stretcher, phone still in hand.

Dead man's grip, you thought, they'll never get that out of his hands now.
The "busy" tone was still emanating from it loudly as someone called Monica tried to call in.
Something fluttered beside you and as you turned right the creature was inches from you.
Its hand slowly reached for the phone, dragging the corpse alongside it.

You both stood up slowly, exactly at the same time.
It began walking backwards, trailing the corpse beside it as was joined by hundreds of crows.
The shadows all around you rippled with them as they swarmed the body.
You could only watch as they lifted it into the air and away, phone ringing on all the way.