Ben Bedard: The World Without Crows

Doyle pushed himself to his feet, using his sword as a crutch. It bent under his weight, and, once he stood again, to his full height, he now flourished a sword shaped like a capital C.

Regaining his breath, Eric pounced to his feet and then moved to stand between Doyle and Birdie. Doyle lunged forward with a gurgling call, swinging his bent sword. Eric stepped back, away from the sword, and then he dove again at Doyle.

This time Doyle’s bulk held steady. Eric felt great arms lift him from his feet. Doyle had dropped the sword, and was now crushing him in a terrible embrace. His strength was massive and horrifying. Eric cried out in pain as Doyle’s grip ripped open his back again. He nearly blacked out, but he struggled back to the light, feeling sick and weak. If he lost consciousness, he would either never wake again or he would awake to find both Lucia and Birdie killed. He fought to keep the darkness from consuming him. It was like drowning in an immense inky water, in which he thrashed to keep from the darkness.

He heard a splashing sound and realized that Doyle had carried him into the lake. Suddenly his body was lifted and shoved brutally under the water. Eric saw only one glimpse of Doyle’s dark face before it dissolved into water and waves. Eric held his breath. He could feel Doyle’s iron grip now around his neck.

In a panic, he kicked out with his legs. He kicked at Doyle’s bad leg. He thrashed in the water like a fish. But Doyle was as immovable as rock. There was the pain in his chest and the swelling in his head. The soundless darkness approaching. And the final thought: I was right, I’m going to die in the lake without ever setting foot on the island.

Then the light came to him.

Eric gasped for breath at the shore of the lake. Doyle had let him go. Air pushed in his lungs and his eyes focused away from the darkness.

Doyle stood in the water up to his thighs, looking toward the island. His hands were in the air.

“So much water!” he called as if he had never noticed it before. “I never saw it so beautiful before.” He staggered forward into the lake.

Watching Doyle, Eric suddenly heard the click of a gun. He turned to see Lucia standing near him, at the shore, with the shotgun pointed toward Doyle. Eric shot to his feet and pulled the gun up toward the sky. Lucia looked at him with fury in her eyes.

“Look at him,” he told her. “It’s over.”

Doyle waded further in the water. “The island,” he said. “The island.”

“We should shoot him just to be safe,” Lucia said.

Eric shook his head. “We shouldn’t shoot anyone,” he said. They watched as Doyle began swimming in great, flapping strokes toward the island. The strokes began to slap at the water. Then they came less often until they stopped altogether. Doyle floated face down in the water. Eric looked down as Birdie joined them.

“Is he dead?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“Did you kill him, Eric?”

“No,” he said. “The Vaca B killed him.”

They were silent for a few moments, watching Doyle’s body float in the lake.

Finally Lucia said, “Let’s get him out. He’s polluting our water.”

They burned Carl Doyle that night on the shore of the lake. After covering his body with pine boughs and wood, they lit the fire and then stood back. Lucia and Birdie didn’t stay long, but went to make dinner.

Eric stayed. He listened to the fire roar as it consumed him. Eric himself was consumed by the thought, who was this man? Where had he come from? He remembered that first night they had spent with him. He had been strange but not bad. How much of what happened was Carl Doyle and how much of it was the Vaca B? Eric didn’t know how to feel about the man who now burned before him. He was relieved. He was a little sad.

That night, as Eric sat at the fire, listening to the loon, he thought about Carl Doyle, who he might have been if the world had not been destroyed.

He imagined that in normal times, if the Vaca B had never been, Doyle was the type of man to become obsessed with model trains. Eric imagined him in his garage, painting trees and houses for his train to speed by, his great paws of hands holding delicate brushes. Occasionally, he might let some child come in to see the model train, the little towns it went through, the bridges it crossed, the forests it traversed. When the child reached out to touch some intricately painted miniature, Doyle would snap at him, telling him to leave it alone. He was not gentle.

That was the kind of man he was. Everything else, Eric decided, that was the worm.

It didn’t matter if it was true.

It was the right thing to think.

On a particularly cold day in winter, bundled in bulky coats, heavy wool mittens and hats, Eric and Birdie were standing over a hole in the ice when they heard Lucia shout.

When they looked up, they saw them, in the distance. Three people: two adults and one child. One of them was holding the other up as they limped across the frozen lake.

Lucia came running through the snow and wind to stand next to Eric.

They stood together and watched the people approach them. They were the first people, Zombies or not, they had seen since they built their cabin on the island. As they got closer, Eric could see that one of the adults was hurt. Even closer and he could see they were a man and a woman. The woman was much older than the man, with white hair dangling in front of her face. The man was probably in his thirties. His pale face was full of misery and fatigue. The child was so bundled up it was impossible to tell if it was a girl or a boy. They were all starving to death.

Lucia looked at Eric with concern but said nothing.

The woman stopped in front of them. She seemed too tired to speak. Her eyes were dull and listless with suffering. The two groups stared at each other. The frigid wind blasted pass them.

Birdie was the first to act. She held out her hand toward the child. When the child stepped toward them and took it, Eric felt for the first time that everything was going to be all right.

“Come with us,” Eric said. “It’s warm in the cabin and there’s food.”

They had truly survived.

Ibegan this book several years ago and have been working on it, off and on, ever since. It has spent a long time on my computer. I tried to find an agent or a publisher who was interested in it, but with no luck. So I either had to self-publish or just let the book rot on my desktop. If it wasn’t for the encouragement of a couple people, early fans of the book, that’s probably what I would have done. Self-publishing is difficult and it takes as much time as you can give it. There’s always something more that you can do, and it’s always doubtful whether that thing will help you find readers or not. It’s enormously challenging to get the word out about your book. What I’m asking is that if you enjoyed this book, please share it with your friends. Write a review on Amazon or Goodreads. Follow my blog at https://benlylebedard.wordpress.com. Follow me on Twitter @benlylebedard. Follow the Facebook fan page for The World Without Crows . Do one of these things or do them all. It really helps me out and encourages me to get some of my other books out of the hard drive and into the light.

Your support is appreciated!

Born in Buckfield, a rural town in the state of Maine, Ben Lyle Bedard grew up in the country. One of the first in his family to attend college, Bedard studied at the University of Maine at Farmington. To see the world, he took part in student exchange programs and studied in France, England, and Australia, where he studied rainforest management in Far North Queensland. After graduating from college, he eventually moved across the country to Oregon and then California, where he studied for his Master’s Degree at Mills College, in Oakland. Here he developed his love of reading and writing and discovered a deep appreciation of music. After receiving his Master’s Degree, Bedard traveled to the midwest and then back to Maine where he worked construction while he applied for a doctorate program. He was finally admitted to and graduated from the University of Buffalo with a PhD in English. With more free time on his hands, he published two books of science fiction with the small press, BlazeVox Books, as well as numerous works in other small publications. In Buffalo he met his future wife, a Fulbright scholar from Chile. When she had to return to Chile as part of the requirements of her scholarship, he followed her, despite not knowing more than a few words of Spanish. They were married in Olmué, Chile. Together with his wife, Fernanda Glaser, he co-wrote a short biography of the Nobel prize-winning poet Gabriela Mistral, Regional Creature: An Introduction to Gabriela Mistral , which was published by LetrArte in 2017. Now they live by the ocean in La Serena, Chile, where Ben teaches English and writes novels in many genres. When he’s not writing, Ben enjoys playing video games, practicing his Spanish, listening to music, cooking, and reading.