Blake Crouch - Birds of Prey

Then its light bar lit up, flashing blue and red.

The cop crossed over the yellow line and pulled onto the shoulder in front of Kork’s Honda, its tires crunching over the gravel.

Kork saw him get on his mike, no doubt calling in his plates.

Fuck fuck fuck.

“Keep calm,” said the tan one. “You aren’t the only one with things to hide. We don’t want this cop to stop any more than you do. So let me do the fucking talking, or we’re all going to be screwed.”

The cruiser was a Crown Vic, and as the trooper swung open his door, Kork could see the blue and white Indiana State Police logo emblazoned on the black paint of the door.

The trooper must have been six-five. He was corn-stalk thin. A miracle he could even fit in the cruiser. He wore blue pants, a long-sleeved black button-up, and a straight-brimmed hat that hid the color of his close-cropped hair.

He strode up to the driver-side door of Charles’s car, his attention divided between the three men near the flat tire and the veritable swarm of crows just off the road. His right hand rested on his holster, the leather safety snap already unbuttoned for a quick draw.

“Afternoon, Officer,” said the tan one.

The officer stared at them through a pair of reflective Ray-Bans. “Everything okay, sir?” he asked.

“Just getting a workout, changing this flat.” The tan one patted the shredded rubber.

“Is this your car, sir?”

“No, Officer. We’re just being good Samaritans. Helping out a fellow traveler in need.”

“It’s my car,” Charles said. He felt ready to jump out of his skin, and fought not to pull his piece and fucking shoot all of these assholes.

“You’re lucky these gentlemen stopped to give you a—”

His voice trailed off, the trooper’s attention once again distracted by what was happening in the field.

The crows were screaming bloody murder.

“You ever see so many crows in one place?” he asked.

“Damnedest thing, ain’t it?” said the tan one. “We checked it out before you came. Dead coyote. They’re having a good, old chowdown on the poor critter.”

The trooper smiled—a flash of perfect, straight-white teeth. “It’s like that Hitchcock movie,” he said. “God, I can’t remember the name of it. You know the one I’m talking about. All these birds go crazy and start killing people.”

“Psycho?” the pale one said. “Loved that one.”

“What’s your name, sir?” the trooper asked the pale one.

The immortal whore was waving an arm again, and Kork could swear he heard her screaming, but it was almost impossible to pick out amid the cries of the feasting crows.

“I’m Luther,” said the pale one. “That’s Orson.”

“So that must make you Charles Kork.”

Kork panicked for a split-second, then realized the cop must have gotten his name from his license plates.

“Yeah.”

“You staying out of trouble, Mr. Kork?”

“Doing my best,” Kork said through clenched teeth. The gun pressing into the small of his back felt enormous, and he ached to pull it out and start shooting.

The trooper said, “Well, that’s all we can do, brother. Our best. Lord knows.”

He looked over at the crows again and tugged his sunglasses down, squinting in the afternoon light. The field seemed to stretch on forever. Silos loomed several miles away and the sweet, rotting scent of a dairy farm was on the breeze.

“A coyote?” he said finally. “No, that looks too big to be a coyote.” Then he turned and walked around to the front of the Accord, shielding his eyes from the sun as he gazed with a heightened intensity into the field.

Charles felt the moment slipping out of his control, a mad rage building inside his head, a sound like white noise getting louder and louder, demanding an explosion of violence.

The trooper said, “Could it be a dog?”

“Looked like a coyote to us,” Orson said.

“If it’s a dog, maybe I should check the tags. Could be someone’s pet.”

The trooper had begun to walk off the shoulder into the field.

Charles looked at Orson, who gave him a little nod. Charles reached back, put his hand on the .45.

The trooper walked ten steps into the field and stopped.

He stood just a short distance back from the crows, so many of them now that Charles could only see fleeting glimpses of the purple and red underneath.

The trooper unholstered his firearm

What the fuck?

Raised it toward the sun and fired a shot.

The crows dispersed in a riot of squawking and flapping, like a black cloud rising into the sky.

Orson walked around to the front of the car, motioning for Charles to follow.

The trooper stood with his back to them, staring down at what the crows had left.

He was shaking his head, saying, “That is positively the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen.”

Kork stared, too.

The whore was unrecognizable as anything human. Especially with her insides pulled out and strewn over the cornfield like a massacred piñata.

But she must’ve been delicious.

Because almost as quickly as they’d fled, the crows descended upon their meal again, blanketing the body in an instant.

“If you want to go hunting through that mess for a dog collar, you’re a braver man than I am,” Orson said.

The trooper looked indecisive, chewing his bottom lip.

Radio chatter squeaked through the mike on the trooper’s lapel.

He tucked his chin into his collarbone, said, “Roger that.”

The cop turned and headed back toward his car. “You need me to call a tow truck for you, Mr. Kork?”

“I think we got it under control, Officer.”

“Then you gentlemen have a good day.”

Kork watched the trooper climb into his cruiser and crank the engine.

It whipped around in a one-eighty, slinging dust and gravel, and then the tires bit into the pavement and it screamed off down the road, the deepest tones of the turbo-charged V8 audible long after the car had disappeared from view.

Orson smiled at Kork.

“Well played. So, Charles, why don’t you tell us about the coyote out there in the field. The one with the human arms and legs.”

Kork pulled the .45, pointing it at Orson’s face.

Simultaneously, Luther pulled a gun of his own.

“I’ll bet,” Orson said, “that when you were a kid, you were the type of little shit who played in his own corner of the sandbox and didn’t share his toys with anyone. Am I getting warm?”

Kork didn’t like having a gun pointed at him, but it did have the effect of capping his boiling temper. “Who the fuck are you?”

“We’re just a couple of guys heading to a mystery book convention in Indianapolis. Looking for a little fun on the way. To be honest, we were kind of hoping your name was Ben. Because we have Ben’s partner in the trunk.”

Kork couldn’t tell if Orson was kidding or not. The man was seriously hard to read. “You’ve got a man in your trunk?”

“Well, I’m not sitting him in the back seat where he’ll bloody up the leather.”

“You’re bullshitting me.”

Orson raised an index finger and drew an X across his chest. “Cross my heart. Winston and Ben were a couple of predators. Like Luther and I. And like you, judging from the corpse in the field. Only they made the mistake of hurting Luther and his family when he was a kid. So now Luther’s exacting a bit of well-deserved revenge.”

A faint smile curled across Charles’s mouth. “Prove it.”

Orson nodded to Luther, who walked to the rear of the Lexus.

“Keys,” Luther said.

Orson slowly took a key ring out of his pants and tossed it to the pale man. Luther caught the keys and tucked the gun away. Kork walked over, covering Orson, who had his hands at his sides.