Chapter Two- Not Crows

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I walked over the sidewalk that was in shadow over to my green 1998 Volvo parked nearby in a no clamp zone. It was sunny and warm which was normal for the late summer day or rather early autumn day.

Over in the parking lot opposite I noticed that the blue car that I saw that morning still hadn't moved. It was about three years old and was practically unmarked. There were no scratches, no signs on the tyres that it had even been driven before and no flecks of dirt anywhere. I saw that two people were stood nearby; a man and a woman. They were both wearing sunglasses to protect their eyes from the glaring sunlight, not that I could blame them.

I squinted through the sunlight at them. I had a very strong feeling that something about them was wrong. They looked like they were a mirage and not quite what they seemed. For a moment they were all fuzzy and moving in and out of focus. Seconds later my eyes could focus on them and I could see them properly.

The man was wearing jeans, sneakers and a fabric imitation of a biker jacket. He looked like he belonged to one of those bars you find by the highway and that he would actually walk away if you needed help down a dark alley way late at night. He didn't look pleasant at all.

The woman on the other hand was wearing a quality leather jacket, jeans and high stilettos. She looked less aggressive than the man stood next to her. I could see a small smile sitting on her pretty face as she surveyed the surroundings.

I couldn't help but wonder what a pair like them was doing in a little town like Charleston. They seemed to be waiting for someone as they kept glancing up and down the street before checking the town clock. When I looked again I felt their eyes staring intently at me. I walked quicker to my car and my breath started to get shallower and quicker.

Calm down!

I kept telling myself that as I power walked to my car. Logically, there was no reason for them to be looking at me. I couldn't even tell what direction they were looking in with those sunglasses covering their eyes. So why did I assume that they had been staring at me?

The heat was starting to get to me.

Why would they even be looking at me? I was nothing special. I was only a waitress with no husband or kids, no degrees and no knowledge outside of knowing how to make a damn good espresso.

When I had reached the driver's side of my car I looked again casually over my shoulder and they were still staring or at least their heads were twisted in my direction. I unlocked the door and got in as fast as I could and locked the door after myself. I tried to calm myself down. My heart must've been going well over its normal rate and my breathing was so fast and shallow that I thought that I was going to faint.

"Calm down for God's sake," I said to myself as I placed both my hands on the steering wheel before focusing on my breathing. I felt it gradually get slower and my heart rate went with it.

I looked into the rear view mirror to check that I was alright to reverse and saw a pair of startlingly blue eyes staring back. I knew in an instant that they weren't mine! They belonged to a man, he had dark hair and I turned around to face him.

All I saw in the backseat were a few old magazines that I had forgotten to take to the recycling plant and a few CDs. There was no man there.

He was gone...

I swallowed the growing lump of fear that sat within me and turned the key in the ignition and waited for it to connect. After less than a split second the engine began to rumble and I made my way over to the warehouse just out of town.

-M-

It was nearly one o'clock when I pulled into the parking lot outside the large warehouse that held everything and anything anyone could ever want when cooking or running a diner, shop or bakery. Hell, even the local housewives came here to do their grocery shopping.

I got out of the car and walked up to the large, automatic glass door. It slid apart and allowed me to enter the cooled building that had industrial sized shelves holding things ranging from tins and condiments to candy and salted meats. The huge refrigerators that lined the back of the building held milk, juice and milkshakes in large quantities as well as fresh meat and yoghurt. This place was run by one of my old friends, David Guano. The man was nearly seventy years old and had come over from the Caribbean in the forties to find work after the war.

I found the aisle that housed the condiments that I needed quickly enough. I surveyed the shelf looking for the brand of ketchup we served, the one that tasted like Heinz but was a fraction of the cost. When I found it I grabbed an entire crate and carried it to the till. It was heavy and wasn't going to do my back any good but I wasn't hanging around enough to mess around with a shopping cart. Those things were damn difficult to control.

There was a young girl working on the till. She looked about eighteen and had probably taken this as a summer job that carried on after she'd graduated from high school. I guessed she was David's granddaughter with the way she spoke and her dark skin. She had the same laidback voice that he did.

"Hey, that it?" she laughed, "You normally come in with seven carts of that stuff!"

I smiled and tapped on the top of the box with a painted nail, "we ran out of this early."

The charge was eleven dollars and sixty cents. If I didn't know better I could have sworn that it had gone up in price but I wasn't going to argue. I needed to get back to the diner. I dumped the plastic bottles filled with red tasty sauce in the trunk and drove back towards town.

-M-

I knew that I'd pass by the house on my way back so I stopped by to check the mail. I didn't tell Jay because he didn't have to know. I knew that there wasn't going to be a ketchup revolt anytime soon. Well, there could be if those two guys had stuck around.

I didn't park up on the drive but instead parked on the sidewalk so I could take off without having to reverse out into the road. I got out and locked the car up. Before I walked up the untidy path to the house I got the mail out of the mail box.

The house was an average two storey with three bedrooms and one bathroom. The garden was over grown because neither me nor Uncle Jay had bothered to mow the grass or pull the weeds from the flower beds. I walked up the path up to the wooden porch with the letters and bills in my left hand. The stones that made up the path were uneven and out of place. I tripped on one close to the porch but steadied myself before I hit the floor.

I promised myself that I was going to put them right as soon as it came around to Sunday- my day off.

My house keys were attached to the chain that it shared with my car keys and I had to open the thin wooden door covered in mesh before I could get to the door that would let me into my home. I put the large old fashioned key into the door and turned it twice and pushed hard. It gave way and I was allowed into the house.

My home was an organised mess. The carpets were clean and the bathroom and kitchen were cleaned regularly but beyond that it was honestly a mess. Coats were thrown on to the table or the rack where they were meant to go if we weren't in a rush and laundry was piled up at the bottom of the stairs ready to be put in the machine late at night or over the weekend.

I closed the door behind me and began to sieve through the enormous amount of letters from the past week that the post man had kindly decided to leave until today before delivering. It was known to almost everyone that we didn't get along.

"Bill, bill, junk," I only looked at the front of the envelope knowing just be the size, weight of the envelope and the various stamps printed onto it what it contained. I paused when I saw something addressed directly to me and walked into the kitchen to put the others down so I could open it without dropping the others.

I started to rip my way into the white letter from upstate New York. When I managed to get the letter out of its envelope I heard scuttling on the roof. It sounded like something was scrambling on the tiles.

I brushed it off, it's just a crow.

I pulled the letter out and read it. It was an old friend from high school who had moved and gone away to college. She told me that she wanted to meet up again and catch up because she was coming down to visit old friends and family. There was a list of various other details.

I smiled to myself at the thought of seeing one of my closest friends again and the scrambling carried on. Then there was a smash causing me to jump. I noted that one of the tiles had fallen. It must have.

"Damn crows," I muttered and cast a scornful look up at the ceiling.

Suddenly my cell phone started buzzing in the pocket of my pants. I'd placed it on silent since I had started work that morning and guessed that it was probably Jay calling to check up on me. I lifted the black and battered Nokia out and looked at the flashing screen. It was a text from an unknown and untraceable number.

It wasn't Jay so who was it?

Maybe it was one of those banks or insurance companies trying a new approach. I'd heard that that they were trying to reach a wider market by using cell phones as a way to contact customers.

I opened the text and read the two words out loud, "Not crows."

Someone was messing with me, they had to be. I put the cell down on the side board and looked around warily. No one could have heard me, could they?

No they couldn't. That was absurd and there wasn't even anyone outside the house. What the hell was going on?

I sighed pushing the situation to the back of my mind for the present time. I'd figure it out later along with a bottle of good wine and a box of chocolates. I walked out into the yard to see what had happened to those tiles. I saw that not only one but five slate coloured tiles had come free from the roof and were lying smashed up on the ground. They were scattered across the un-mown grass in tiny pieces. When I looked up I realised that they had left a large hole in the roof.

"Great," was all I could seem to say, this day was really starting to get on my nerves.

Well the text had been right. There was no way a crow could do that sort of damage. Maybe some kids had been messing around up there and then tried to screw with me although it didn't seem plausible.

I walked back into the house and picked up the black telephone in the hallway and dialled the number of a good friend who just happened to be good at fixing things like this. He was a real handy man and had never turned me down.

"Hey," he answered in his husky tone. I got the odd impression that he was holding a pencil between his teeth, "Robby 'ere. What can I do for ya?"

"Hey Rob. Its Rox Scavo," I replied and heard the tone in his voice lift almost instantly.

"Rox!" he exclaimed and I heard something clatter on the floor on this end. I guessed that it was the pencil, "How's it goin'?"

I allowed myself a short burst of laughter, "it's going good I guess."

Not strictly true but he didn't need to know that. He wouldn't think I was mad or anything. He would just get me to report everything strange to the police who would write me off as a nut case. Then probably do something stupid to prove that I wasn't.

"But?" he asked. Whenever I got in touch with him now it was often over something that needed his handy man skills or his dark sense of humour that never failed to make me smile and sometimes double over with giggles.

"But," I almost teased him with what I wanted but thought better of it. That just wasn't fair. We were friends now not lovers, "some of the tiles in the roof have gotten loose and smashed."

"Oh yeah, are you still out on Berkside?" he asked if I was still living at the house I'd always lived at after the fire, I knew what he was doing. He was wondering if I'd moved in with a guy. It had been years since we had dated but he still had a soft spot for me. He had never taken another woman out on a date.

"Where else could I go?" I joked, "So I was wondering if you'd be good to me and Uncle Jay and come out and fix the roof before it decides to start raining and we end up with a swimming pool in the guest room?"

I heard his rasping laugh on the other end of the line, "For you no way but I'll do anything for Jay, I'll be there in ten."

"Charmin'," I said and placed the receiver home.

I remembered what it had been like between me and him. I had been engaged to Robert Hollins once but that was a long time ago when I was the tender innocent age of just twenty. Maybe in the big cities I would've been wiser to what I really wanted but when you're brought up in a country town where everyone knows everyone all you really want is the family life. He offered me that.

Jeez, I could still remember the day that we met at middle school. We just bumped into each other in the hallway and were inseparable from then on. That was until I was twenty two. A date was set for the wedding and the honeymoon was already paid for. Everything was perfect.

I shook my head to rid myself of those dark and miserable thoughts and waited for him to appear and fix my roof before it rained.