Dark Dreams
"What do you want?"
Silence.
"What is it!"
Silence.
"Godammit, answer me!"
Brian Callahan stood in the dark bedroom, staring at the dark bird perched up the bedknob. His fists were clenched, his breathe rose in shudders. Silent it sat. He growled. The mute messenger tilted its head in blithe curiosity.
"Get out! Shoo!" and he struck at it, flailing with visible restraint, merely trying to scare the bird. It flinched, then fluttered to regain its balance and cawed.
"Yaaah!" he screamed, and he tried to grab the hateful creature, to wring its neck and break its wings. It fluttered away and landed on the dresser.
He sunk against the wall, defeated. He sobbed. He held his hands over his hot eyes, boiling with tears.
A flutter. The raven now sat at his feet.
"What am I to do? WHAT AM I TO DO!"
"Brian!"
He looked up. The world was the feint grey of the predawn hours.
"Brian…" it was Lisa. She was looking at him, looking with her simple, affectionate gaze. Her turned his gaze, his fierce, hawklike, piercing look towards her. She knew that his frantic mind never ceased to analyze, to study. She was concerned for him, and still tired, he could see.
"You were dreaming…" she hushed.
"I was…dreaming…"
"A nightmare."
"A nightmare…a nightmare…" he looked at her. His look was soft now, no fierce analytical trance. This was Brian as she had never seen him, frightened and needy.
"You had a nightmare too!"
She nodded.
"A big, black bird…"
Again, she nodded. And she remembered what Mercury had said.
"The crow turns left…"
"Wha-?"
"Nothing," she lied, aware that he could tell when she was hiding something.
The sun rose after a few hours, and slowly and groggily did the others wake. Eric remained asleep, rigid and frightened. Maggie was quiet, and in a mood of deep contemplation.
Wearily, they made their way down the stairs. Brian helped Marge with the breakfast while Lisa called the others and Homer went to talk to Ned.
Halfway through breakfast, Bart, Millhouse, Ned, Nelson, Kearney and Jessica came, looking rushed and ready for a fight. Marge assured them that the crisis had passed, and Nelson set to explaining to his fellow officer Kearney what their situation was.
"And so, quite simply, we're in the middle of a desperate struggle between good and evil," he concluded,
"And I get to shoot people in the head?"
"Yup."
"I'm in."
"Sideshow Bob wants us to go to Professor Frink's later today. He says that he has something to show us."
"Okay, but I'm missing school!" said Lisa.
"So am I," added Brian.
She smiled.
"And Jess' an' I are missing work!" Bart said happily.
"What about the radio station?" Marge asked.
"No worries, mom. I got a replacement.
(We see an iPod plugged into the sound system at the radio station.)
After they breakfasted, the haggard band began preparing for their trip to Professor Frink's. Bart dropped Maggie and Eric off at school, telling them to climb in through the windows and hope no one noticed. Eric went to the office, said that there was a break-in at their house and that they could call his parents to verify if they so wished, and was excused. Maggie, having received a great deal of the Simpson devilry in her heritage, tried, but was caught and received a week's worth of detentions.
Lisa stepped out into the cold morning, her pack over her back. She looked at her parents packing their bags. She heard the scratch and bleep of the radio as Nelson and Kearney radioed in to headquarters, claiming to be escorting a motorcade. Brian walked up beside her. He set his hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently.
"CAW! CAW!" came a quick burst. Slowly, they both turned their heads. A fat, black crow was perched in a nearby tree. The winds had ripped the tattered leaves from its branches, and there sat the ominous bird, in the skeleton tree. It croaked its long, morbid song, and then took flight, flapping its glittering wings. It flew low over the lawn and into the street. It veered left, then out, over the neighbourhood and out of sight.
" 'The crow turns left'" she whispered.
Brian nodded.