Day 276 - The Shadows Grew Darker III

 The Shadows Grew Darker III

Matthew Ryan Fischer

 

The crows were on the move. The wind kicked up and a dark laughter echoed from the hills through the forests and to the swamps.

Ben had been given the night watch. Captain Hawkins had wanted the men ready at a moment’s notice. Ben hadn’t been told why or where the Captain was going, but he was given orders and he followed them. While the other men rested, he kept an eye out for strange doings and unexpected threats. The Captain’s words stayed with him. The militia had to deal the thieves and outlaws and occasional vagabonds and raiders from the coast. But all the talk of strange and unexpected were beyond him. But he did his duty anyway.

Ben fought off his heavy eyelids. His head bobbed once or twice and his shoulders sank. The night seemed especially long and especially dark. Maybe it had been a dream, or his imagination playing tricks, but he would have sworn he saw movement in the trees. He had to investigate.

Ben moved closer to the trees. His foot sank in the mud. There was a putrid stench of waste and rot. There had been no rain. They were far from the river. But still the ground sank. Suddenly it wasn’t one boot in the mud, but two, and it seemed too soft for him to lift his feet.

Ben looked up and noticed a crow high above on a tree branch watching him. He reached for a lower branch and pulled himself up. He would need to be more careful. He looked at the ground and wished for more moonlight. There seemed to be a trail of slime.

Suddenly a twisted mud-covered appendage reached out and wrapped around him. Ben was pulled down into the abyss and swallowed whole into the mud below.

The crow on the high above branch called out into the night, then flapped its wings and flew off, on the move again.