"My buddy Keith tried camping out on top of a building once. He was shooting crows, but the police were too busy teargassin' him to ask what he was doin' up there. He screamed for an entire year every single time he opened his eyes! Oh, man! At first, it was funny; then it just got sad, but then it got funny again! Oh, man!"
"CAAAWWWW!"
The crow's call echoes down from somewhere up above the garage. It's been up there all morning, and by this point, the damn bird is tap dancing on Keith's last nerve. Dave had been nagging him about needing to start coming in to the work on time, an' it was somethin' he'd never done before, so Keith had decided to give it a try. And royally regretted it ever since. And Keith's not the kinda person to regret anythin'!
"CAW! CAAWWW!"
But that damn crow is gonna drive him insane! Now Keith ain't never claimed to be a patient man, and after three hours of all that squawkin' 'nough's enough.
"CCAAAWWWWW!"
A loud clang rang through the shop as Keith's wrench flew through the air to crash into an empty barrel.
"Damn it! I've had enough of this shit. Dave, yer jus' gonna have'ta call Eliis or somethin'! I'm done fer the day."
Dave walks out of the nearby office to see Keith storming out of the garage. "Well, hold on. Where you runnin' off to?"
"I'll be back in an hour."
"Then wha' do I gotta call Ellis for?"
If Keith heard Dave yellin' after him any more, he didn't act like it. Instead he just kept on stompin' off down the street, looking majorly pissed off.
Two hours later, Keith reappears outside the shop with a sleeping bag, a box of cereal, and a hunting rifle.
"'ey, Dave! Look who's back." Ellis shouts as he drags himself out from under the car Keith was supposed to have been working on today. He waves excitedly as his best friend walks up to the garage, clearly not bothered about having to come to work to cover for Keith, again. Kid must be used to it by now. A huge grin spreads across Ellis's grease covered face.
Keith claps his hand to his friend's still uplifted one, wearing a crooked grin of his own. Without saying a word to anyone, he makes his way out the back of the shop. Keith tosses his sleeping bag up onto the flat gravel-covered roof. Ellis and Dave appear in the doorway and just watch as the box of cereal and the rifle clatter up above as well.
"What the hell you doin', Keith?" Dave looks like he can't decide if he's curious or just irritated.
Keith steps up on a couple of stacked tires and just stares at the edge of the roof a few feet above his head. "I'm gettin' rid o' them damn birds." No sooner than the words have left his mouth, Keith jumps from the tires, reaching up as far as he can. His fingertips just barely curl over the edge, leaving him suspended about four feet of the ground. Keith grunts as he struggles to hold himself up. Squirming and kicking about, he manages to hook his arms over the top. From here, he is able to run his legs up the wall a ways, before he drags himself onto the roof. Keith lets out a whoop of victory as he jumps to his feet.
CAAWWW!
A startled crow takes flight to Keith's left, and the boy chases after it, shouting. He skids to a stop at the edge of the roof, sending gravel raining down on the pavement below.
"Alrigh'. The crow's gone. Now get down from there." Dave crosses his arms and frowns up at Keith.
"No can do. That son of a bitch'll be back." Keith kicks his hunting rifle up into his hands. "And I'ma be waitin' fer 'im."
Dave sighs and shakes his head. "Come on, Ellis. Jus' leave 'im be."
Ellis looks between his friends, then shrugs and starts to follow Dave back inside. "You get 'em, Keith!" He beams up at his best friend.
"Don' encourage 'im!" Dave shouts from somewhere in the garage. Ellis only laughs and walks back inside, leaving Keith alone on the roof to deal with his crows.
The crows didn't come back that day, but that hardly meant that Keith could just pack up an' go home. No, not now he couldn't. This was personal now. Them crows is determined to make him look stupid, and he's determined to shoot them damn crows. It's Keith or the crows now, ain't room for the both of them 'round here!
Keith lay in his sleeping bag on the roof of the garage, hunting rifle in the gravels beside him. Those birds would be back sooner or later, and he'd be waitin' on 'em.
Keith wakes to a sharp pain in his lower lip. When he opens his eyes, staring back at him, are the cold black eyes of a big crow. Keith narrows his eyes at the creature, and it cocks its head to the side, just staring back at him. Then it pecks his face again.
Keith or the crow!
Keith shouts as he swings one arm at the offending bird and grabs for his gun with the other.
CAAW! CAAWWW!
The bird flaps its wings angrily as it flies up off of Keith's chest, beady little eyes never leaving the trail of blood running down from the boy's lip.
Swinging his rifle up, Keith shoots at the bird flapping just a few feet above where he sits. The bullet flies past the bird's head as the sound of the gunshot echoes off the surrounding buildings. "I've got you now!" Keith quickly fires off a few more shots at the bird. With one final awful squawk, the crow falls dead at Keith's feet. He lets out a whoop as he lowers the rifle. Keith's face lights up, and he can't wait to tell Ellis he'd finally got rid of the damned bird. When Keith turns around to walk to the back edge of the roof, his smile slips. There in front of him, in a perfect black line, on the edge of the roof, perch five black crows.
"Aw, shit."
The crows swarm at Keith, pecking at his face and neck. The hunting rifle slips from his hands as he lifts his arms to try to protect himself. He swats at one of the crows, getting a peck to his ear and cheek in return. Keith drops to the ground, keeping one arm up to keep the birds from his eyes, and scrambles to get ahold of his gun again. As soon as he grabs it, he shoots, not even bothering to aim. One of the crows lets out a pitiful sound and hits the gravel, thrashing about on the hard rocks, one of its wings hopelessly mangled.
Keith shoots a few more times before hearing the gun click, out of bullets. Cursing, Keith drops the gun and just starts batting at the crows with his hands again.
Amidst all the noise of being attacked by crows and all, Keith never even heard the sirens coming his way. He's still shouting at the crows when he finally notices someone else is shouting at him. He stumbles towards the edge of the roof, but the crows make moving a bit difficult.
Something thunks on the ground at Keith's feet, half-burying itself in the gravels. Next thing he knows, the air is filled with black feathers and white smoke. The crows squawk angrily, and Keith swings at them wildly, unable to see anything but blurs of white and black now. As preoccupied as he is, Keith doesn't notice when his nose starts to itch, then burn, until finally he starts coughing. His eyes burn as if he'd stuck his head in a smoky campfire, as tears and snot stream down his face. The air burns in his lungs so bad he woulda held his breath and stopped breathing, if he could just stop coughing and gasping long enough. Forgetting the crows flapping about him, Keith stops flailing and tries to cover his face instead. He rubs roughly at his nose and face, trying to make the burning stop.
But it only gets worse. Keith gets the awful feeling he's gonna throw up, as he continues to reel about blindly on the roof of the garage. Then his leg hits the slightly raised ledge of the roof, and before he can even react, Keith tumbles over the edge.
Keith's shoulder slams into the ground first, and he flips awkwardly over on his back on the hard pavement. Hitting the ground had knocked all the air out of him, so for one sweet moment, he almost feels better. Almost. He struggles to take a breath and immediately begins coughing and spluttering all over again. "Damn crows."
Keith thrashes about on the pavement, rubbing frantically at his face, getting desperate for air; but the pain only gets worse, and each breath harder to catch than the last.
Rough hands grab hold of Keith and flip him over on his stomach. The world seems to spin around him, and he can't see anything but blurs and shadows. Keith kicks and struggles to get up, but a dozen strong hands pin him to the pavement. His legs are held down, his face is forced down on the ground, and his arms are wrenched behind his back. There's so much shouting and sirens going off that Keith's ears start ringing. Completely disoriented, he keeps fighting as best he can without even knowing what he's fighting against.
A couple of cops drag Keith to his feet and start hauling him to their police car. Someone opens the back door for them, and they shove Keith into the backseat of the cop car. He's still struggling to get away and to breathe when the door is slammed in his face.
The car pulls away from the garage, taking Keith to jail. He slumps over to lay down on his stomach in the seat, his head lolling to hang over the floor. Between harsh gasps for air, he starts retching. Keith's vaguely aware of the two cops in the front seat complaining as he throws up in their car. He woulda thought it was funnier, if he wasn't so oxygen-starved that his vision's starting to go dark. No more than a minute later, Keith passes out.
Keith opens his eyes and immediately groans in pain. His eyes burn like fire, and he quickly squeezes them shut again. He hears someone to his left snicker. Bracing himself against the pain, Keith slowly forces his eyes open to see who's laughing at him.
"Well, wha' d' ya know? Looks like he ain't dead after all."
Keith groans and shakes his head. "Shut up, Dave."
A voice on Keith's other side chimes in. "Damn, man. Yer eyes're still all red 'n shit."
Keith looks over to see Ellis leaning on the metal railing of the side of what he guesses must be a hospital bed, and he smiles up at his friend. Keith reaches up to rub his burning eyes, but Ellis quickly catches his wrist before he can. He casts a confused look up at his friend and starts to lift his other hand to just wipe his eyes with it instead, when Dave grabs hold of his other wrist and pins it to the bed. Keith's confusion turns to irritation, and he frowns between his two friends. "What the hell, guys? I-"
"Don' touch yer eyes, Keith." Dave warns as he tightens his grip on his friends wrist.
"Alright..."
As soon as the word is out of Keith's mouth, Ellis loosens his hold. Keith jerks his wrist from Ellis and tries to rub his eyes again. But Ellis recaptures his hand less than an inch fro Keith's face. Dave glares at the both of them. "Hold on to 'im better, El." He glances towards the window to the hallway behind Ellis, then turns back to the man lying in the hospital bed. "You keep goin' fer yer eyes like that, they's gonna tie yer hands down again. They only let ya go in the firs' place, 'cause we told 'em we'd keep an eye on ya."
Keith blinks up at Dave, not sure how he should react to that. "Then, wha's wrong with me?"
"Doc said ya had a real bad reaction to tha' tear gas stuff them cops used to get ya off the roof. Messed up some nerves in yer eyes or somehtin'. Said ya got real lucky ya ain't blind, but you touch yer eyes now, ya migh' make it a lot worse. 'specially ya take to rubbin' at 'em like they said ya kept doin' a'fore."
Keith sighs and shuts his eyes for a minute; it hurt a lot less with his eyes closed. Reluctantly, he opens his eyes again and looks back up at Dave. "I'll leave 'em alone. Can I've my hands back now?"
Dave looks at Ellis and nods. They let go of Keith's wrists, and he starts shifting his wrists to get feeling back from where Dave had held him so tightly.
"How long 'm I in 'ere for?"
"Can't say fer sure. A while pro'ly. Depends on how long ya take gettin' better. And yer mama's been throwin' an awful fit over them cops puttin' ya in the hospital an' all. Way things are lookin', you prob'ly won't even have to spend one day in jail."
Ellis chuckles and adds, "And it kinda helps you may end up bein' here longer 'n you woulda been in jail anyways."
Keith laughs and flashes his friend a crooked grin. "Must'a been a short sentence. Jus' you wait. I'll be out'a here in no time."
One week later, Keith walks out of the hospital. His eyes still burn like Hell, but he told the doctors they didn't. Of course, nobody believed him, but seeing as they couldn't prove otherwise and had no other excuse for keeping him, they let him go. Ellis sits waiting in his truck right outside the front doors, waving excitedly as his friend walks out. Wearing his crooked smile that always means mischief, Keith jumps into Ellis's truck, free to wreak havoc on the world for a little while longer.
Author's Note: Originally, I had planned on doing all of Ellis's stories about Keith, but for now I think I'll just be leaving it at this one. I may add more on later though.