The Black Crow of Purgatory (Part 1 of 3)

Draft for a 3 part short story

The Black Crow of Purgatory

It is said that a crow can transport souls from the next realm back to the land of the living. This is particularly the case with those who have endured a tragic death and seek revenge.

The graveyard seemed to have been there since the dawn of time. Decaying bones underground where tombstones of granite declared the dead in etched names and distant dates. Epitaphs remembered husbands and wives, father and daughters, children of all ages. Death eventually came for all: from new-borns to centenarians. Today was overcast and gloomy. The grey sky lamented its very existence as a seeping, palpable sadness was only upstaged by the sense of stillness. Faintly coloured flowers and sedentary, green weeds battled for ground amongst the worn spaces between plots, the earth a harsh, red-brown clay that added to the sense of despair permeating the whole place.

Overlooking the cemetery was a pair of wrought iron gates standing sentry at the entrance. Ornate curves and a symmetric arch heralded two parts secured in the middle by a chained padlock. Perched at the summit of the left hand side was a crow. Its inky-black eyes stared soullessly out into the ether. It blinked occasionally revealing milky white eyeballs for fleeting moments. It sat and waited patiently for the next visitor to purgatory.

****

Thick fog choked the day in every direction. Visibility was a chore as a man with clothes covered in dried blood stumbled about. His suit was spattered with visceral red patches, haphazard and a testament to a violent encounter. His trousers were ripped and torn, his shirt shredded, his shoes strangely still intact although covered in muck and dust.  He didn’t know where he was; he couldn’t even remember his name. All he could see was mist that looked like it could be cut with a knife. He stopped for a moment, the futility of moving around was apparent. How did he get here? Where was this place? Who was he? He racked his brain for answers. And finally it filtered back. Only one memory and the most recent.

John Thomas was a busy man. Up at 5am, he fought the good fight with all of the other commuters each and every day at the subway station. Platforms thronged with multitudes travelling to workplaces like soldier ants scurrying about a nest. He checked his mobile phone for the time to ensure that he was on schedule. Human traffic flowed around him briefly turning him into an island of sorts. Newspapers folded under arms. The national debt ceiling was the story on front pages. The Republicans were insisting on concessions to vote it through, once more. He would often attract admiring glances from mainly women; the occasional man. John was handsome with chiselled jaw line, strong, flowing black hair, eyes of cobalt blue and noble features that made him a ringer for Christopher Reeve of bygone Superman fame. 

John was bedecked in his customary sharp suit and tie, his shoes gleamed as much as his white shirt dazzled from its latest wash. He was a shining beacon of the banking system. Life was good, what with his girlfriend back at the apartment waiting for him when he got home and a job with prospects. The future was bright. His first meeting was at 9am sharp. He heard the familiar roar and rumble of the 06:38 tube train destined for Manhattan approaching from inside a semi-circular, white-tiled tunnel. The waiting crowd shuffled forward, encroaching on the white safety line that demarcated the concrete platform. There was a man in a rain mac, wearing glasses and a fedora hat to John’s left blocking his path so he edged in front to make sure he got a seat. The man with a successful life ahead of him didn’t notice the shove that someone gave him from behind; the momentum taking him towards the precipice of the platform edge and the tracks. If his luck had been in, he would have managed to stop himself in time. Unfortunately, his legs tangled and the resulting trip took him onto the rails and right into the pathway of the steel leviathan.

Now he remembered. He had no idea why someone would want to propel him to his death. Maybe it had been an accident and someone had bumped into him? He didn’t know but his immediate concern was where he was now. He looked down and was shocked by the ripped and torn, pinstriped suit that made him look like a dishevelled hobo; like one of the unlucky down-and-outs from the movie “American Psycho”. There were blood stains all over his clothes. His head pounded and his confusion remained. Was he still alive after being smashed by a subway train? Had he been hit at all? He recalled a blinding light and then….this. The only way to find out anything at all was to get out of this featureless fog that he found himself in. John looked forward, pointed randomly, slowly nodded his head and started walking.

 John noted the firm soil underfoot so he was most likely outside somewhere, this deduction compounded by the sight of an occasional tree, always bare of leaves with branches and a trunk gnarled and ancient. The odd toadstool appeared as he ambled along, their familiar dome shape multiplied by the small clusters that sprouted here and there. His tattered and torn demeanour would make him look intimidating to anyone that he came across. As he peered ahead, it looked like the fog was finally about to give way. The damp mist parted and John was confronted by what appeared to be a cemetery with large, iron railed gates and a brick wall either side. The masonry stood to a height of a couple of feet with rusted, metal railings on top taking it to something like four feet overall. He stopped to take stock and decide what to do next. After walking for what felt like hours, going back into the fog was an unappealing thought. John looked left and right but the only thing that was visible was the graveyard ahead. With a feeling of minor dread (and, by now, hunger) in the pit of his stomach, he paced gingerly towards the entrance. The padlock dangled from its chains, the gates slightly ajar evidently inviting its visitor to come inside.

Breathing in, the banker squeezed between the two mighty iron gates and slipped inside. There was yet more mist but here it wasn’t quite so impenetrable and, in fact, low lying only. It wisped around old, weatherworn grave stones like feather boas adorning a dancer’s neck. It sat at the head of the numerous plots laid out in roughly horizontal rows. A gravel path ran between the tombstones for as far as the eye could see. Still unsure of where he was or where he was heading, John struggled on, his legs aching from the effort. His gaze took in the myriad of burial sites, beds adorned with overgrown weeds and an absence of fresh flowers. He noted numerous names and dates along with messages chiselled onto rock. Often indecipherable due to the eroding effects of time, some could still be read and one stone monument had been chiselled to say “Malcolm Grey born 1^st August 1901 Died 30^th September 1942 loved and missed by his dearest wife Rebecca and his children Jonathan and Louise. With God now.”

There didn’t appear to be anyone else around. No visitors standing quietly over places of rest, no cars bringing arrivals to make a solemn trip to see a departed love one, nobody working by digging new holes or reading words of comfort from a bible. Nobody at all.

After a while of what felt like absent strolling with no purpose, the desolate newcomer noticed a bird out of the corner of his eye. It was sitting on top of a large, granite tombstone at the head of a grave, several plots to his left. He stared at the creature. The black harbinger seemed to be looking straight through him. With a feeling of unease, he stepped off the path and made his way across the grassy ground towards the crow. Standing at the foot of a grave bed, he noticed that a hole was dug into which, presumably, a coffin would be lowered. Glancing up, he looked in all directions to see if someone else, anyone else, was around.

“Am I dead? Is this place Heaven?” He enquired softly. John’s usual confident tone spoken in a light, New York accent was shaky after all of the recent exertion. He rubbed his eyes, fatigue now riddled his body. It wasn’t that he expected a reply but more a longing for some kind of normality. The crow just glared back.

John felt a sense of realisation. He was meant to get into the grave. He wasn’t sure how he knew this. He just did. The headstone was draped in lichen and green creeping tendrils of plant life intent on making the monument its own. There were words etched onto the granite but they were worn and faded. John couldn’t decipher any of it. He leaned forward and glanced over the edge, looking down. Where normally the depth would be six foot, it was pitch black and appeared to be bottomless. He looked up and caught the gaze of the peering bird, once more. He scratched the back of his head as he ruminated.

“Where is this place?” he implored. “Whatever this is, I don’t think I’m ready for it.”

The feathered creature continued with its stoical glare.

“I need to know what happened. Why? I….I…can’t remember. Not everything.”

Silence.

A breeze blew up around the two figures, making the fog swirl and the temperature drop. The silent stand-off continued for several minutes longer. Eventually the crow started to blink once more and its sharp beak delved into his feathers, preening itself. So tired by now, John sat down on the moss covered ground next to the plot and closed his eyes.

Part two at https://www.abctales.com/story/marandina/black-crow-purgatory-part-2-3

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