Prologue Part One

From the Journal of John Sparrow

October 28, 2008-

I moved to Hope Parish as a boy. My parents wanted a break from big city life and thus moved to this little town. They fell in love with it instantly. However, I was not as pleased. A boy of eight I saw little in the town to my liking. There were no big shopping malls, no multiplexes, and hardly any other children. Every morning a bus picked me up and transported me ten miles to the nearest school. Me being picked on by the other kids that they had to be drug all the way out there because my parents would drive me there. Then came the first Halloween there and my parents decided that, instead of taking me to the next town over for trick-or-treating, they would take me to Hope Parish’s Coming of the Crows festival.

Needless to say, I was infuriated. I’d spent all year planning on what I was going to be and they’d blown that and a future of candy out of the water. For what? A bunch of stupid birds. As they drug me through Market Street, browsing homemade arts and crafts with a crow theme, I couldn’t help but be a little rigid in the face. Until the first wave of them arrived that is. I would later learn that it was one of the first times the crows actually started showing up on Halloween in the town’s history, but I didn’t know that at the time. Silently and in awe, I watched as thousands soared through the sky, writhing like some living cloud of pitch. It was a sight that I would not forget. Especially since that night they played Hitchcock’s The Birds on television and I couldn’t get a decent minute of sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, their would be the crows swooping down on Market Street and attacking the festival goers.

As I later learned, the crows come to Hope Parish every year near the end of autumn. Surrounding Hope Parish are miles and miles of corn crops and they flocks show up to scavenge what remains of them after the harvest for the winter. The Coming of the Crows festival is the only joy in their visit though. By week two the people are complaining about the bird droppings all over town and the trash scattered all about the commerce areas. By week three the people are forming committees and trying to rid themselves of their yearly guests. All there plans inevitably fail though and the flocks head out at the first sign of spring. At which point Hope Parish begins planning its next Coming of the Crows festival.

We are only two days away from this years festival and already an ancient crow sits upon a sign near the entrance of town. He is missing an eye and his beak bears the scars of time and survival. Like a weathered herald he perches, awaiting his brethren. He need not wait long, the murder will come soon.