The water rippled on the lake. Joseph watched the ripples in agony as he thought of what had happened the previous days. The days that changed his life. The days he started to noticed the man with the crow.

Three weeks prior

Joey was angry. He was angry at his parents and angry that they were so unfair. They wouldn’t let him go to his best friend johns. They had promised that today he could go

“You guys said I could go over to johns” Joey said.

“How many times do I have to say no” joeys dad said frustrated while reading the newspaper. “And no means no.”

“But da-. “He was cut short by his dad

“I SAID NO” his dad always yelled at him, so did his mom. They were probably the angriest people he knew. He ran out of the living room and into the kitchen were his older brother Kevin and his younger sister Emily were eating lunch. He was about to run upstairs when he heard Emily call me.

He ran upstairs to the attic and opened the hatch to the roof. It was foggy out but Joe didn’t mind. He always came up here just to think. He sat down and looked down to the roof of his 3 floor house and looked out at the scenery. The lake, the forest and the path to the highway. He had no neighbors; he lived in a lake house out by the forest. He never had very many friends, just his brother and sister.

While trying to get closer to the edge he hit a crow. It flew away toward the dock and Joe almost thought he saw it land on a figures arm. He didn’t get much company out here he wanted to meet the person.

He ran down past he attic through the 2nd floor hallway and out the kitchen door. He ran as fast as he could to get to the docks. He ran to the very edge and nearly fell off. He was glad he didn’t he couldn’t swim, no one in his family could. He didn’t see the figure but he did see the crow perched on a nearby tree. He got angry at the lack of company and threw a rock at the bird. He ran back to the house and decided to stay in his room the rest of the day while keeping an eye out for the figure.

Joe didn’t see the figure the rest of the day but he did see him in his dreams. He was playing cards on the dock with his brother when he noticed a gun wound in his head. He screamed and nearly fell in the water.He was about to vomit over the dock when he saw his mother underneath dead.

He ran up over the hill to his house. On top of the hill he saw his father in his armchair his throat slit. He looked beyond his father’s corpse to the house, it was on fire. He ran so fast he tripped and rolled to the foot of the hill. He could hear the screams of his sister from inside the house. He looked up and saw the silhouette of a man with a crow on his shoulder reaching for Joe’s throat.

Joe woke up sweating; he looked around him, no fire. The dream was realistic. “Could it be a vision” he thought. He dismissed the thought. It was just him being spooked by the figure. Then he looked out the window. He saw a man with the crow again, this time on top of the hill. This time john could see some of the man’s features.

He was bald and wore a brown pinstripe suit. He stood upright with his thin frame and just stared with hollow eyes into my room.I got dressed and ran down the stairs past the kitchen where everybody was eating. My dad was about to yell at me to sit down but I bolted out the door up the hill.

The man was still there but when I got halfway up he turned and started walking down the hill. I sprinted up as he disappeared over the top of the hill. I got to the top looked down and saw……………… nothing. No one was there and he couldn’t hide anywhere. There was one tree next to the lake but it was too thin to completely hide anyone. I looked at my feet and saw a crow feather. Disappointed I walked down to the house where my dad was getting in his car to go to work.

“What’s with you lately?” his dad asked. “You’ve been running out of the house a lot”

“I saw somebody the last two days” he replied “first on the docks then on the hill.”

“Nobody comes here its private property” his dad said with an annoyed look. “Besides there is a better lake in town.” His dad got in the car to go to work at the barber shop in town “your mother said she’d take you fishing later.” Then he left.

Three hours late he and his were gathering the fishing rods and bait to go to our lake. His mother was always was the outdoorsy type, his dad hated nature (why he decided to move to the edge of the woods I’ll never know.) they headed for the lake. they fished for an hour when I noticed the figure in the distance slowly walking towards them.

He could only watch as he approached the crow on his shoulder. he was so shocked he dropped his rod in the water.

“Look what you did now” his mom yelled at him. She jumped in the water and started fishing for it in the shallow water. Then I looked back at the man. He had a brick in his hand holding it above Joe’s moms head. He dropped it before I could react. It hit her head with a CRACK and she fell face first in the water.

The man turned to me and I almost screamed. The man was pale, almost albino. He didn’t have empty eyes he had no eyes in his head. Joe tried to catch his breath and reached for something but only found the end of the dock. He looked down and saw his mother stop breathing, she was dead.

Joe ran straight toward the house not looking back. He ran in the front door to the living room and looked around for his brother. “He must be upstairs” Joe thought. He ran upstairs and ran past his dad’s room. Then Joe remembered the gun. His dad kept a gun in case of emergency. He ran in and saw the revolver cabinet opened and a crow flying out with the gun in claw.

Joe guessed were the gun was going and went in his brother’s room to warn him.

“What is it?” his brother asked as Joe burst in.

Joe tried to tell him but then he heard the door open downstairs. Joe panicked and ran down the hall to protect his sister. He looked in and saw his sister sleeping. He decided to leave her there where the man couldn’t find him. Joe snuck downstairs with his brother. He saw the man searching the living room feeling around for any people.

Joe thought maybe if he was extremely quiet the man would leave. Then he sneezed. The man’s head turned toward Joe and his brother and shot the gun. John closed his eyes and prepared for impact but nothing happened. Joe opened his eyes and saw his brother face down on the floor. The man walked toward Joe an evil smile on his face.

Then his dad’s truck pulled up in the gravel driveway. The man turned his attention away from Joe and grabbed a large carving knife from the knife box. He ran into the living room with the knife in his hand. Joe peaked in as his dad entered the house. He didn’t see the man anywhere, he was gone.

“What’s with the worried look on your face?” his dad asked. Joe didn’t respond instead he looked around the room for any hint of the man.“Maybe he left” thought Joe. Just as he finished the thought his dad sat down in his armchair and the man popped out with the knife in hand.

With one quick motion he slit his dads throat as the crow on his shoulder cawed with happiness. Joe ran into the kitchen and grabbed the gun where the man had dropped it. He turned just in time to see the man throw the knife at him. The knife slid across Joe face taking away a lot of skin from the right side of his face. He also heard it hit something behind him.

Joe ran out of the house as his face was bleeding. He took hold of the gun and turned to face the man who was walking toward him slowly. Joe shot at the man. It hit him but it did absolutely nothing to him. The crow started cawing as Joe shot at the man again this time in the head. The man stopped for a second before he started walking toward Joe again. The crow cawed louder as Joe shot at the man again to no effect. The crow was making him angry. He shot at the cow and watched it drop dead.

The man stopped dead in his tracks. He knelt down and grabbed the crow in his hands. He looked at it for about five minutes before sand started slipping through his fingers. No, not sand ash his fingers were turning to ash. His entire body started falling apart turning to ash. In 5 minutes only his suit remained. Joe couldn’t take it he fainted.

When Joe woke up he was being lifted into and ambulance. He looked up and saw his house ablaze being put out by firefighters. The paramedics told him to calm down. They told him an electrical fire killed his family. Everything Joe had was gone. His family and all his stuff just gone.

The state gave Joe’s uncle the responsibility of taking care of Joe. It took 3 weeks for his uncle to get to Missouri from Germany. Once he got to Missouri he decided to go down to the house to see if any of Joes stuff survived.While his uncle was inside Joe grabbed a cinderblock and coil of rope from the side of the house. He went down to the lake and took an old rowboat to the middle of the lake.

Joe couldn’t take it anymore. He took on end of the rope and tied it to his neck and tied the other to the cinderblock. He cried and the tears dropped into the lake creating ripples. He had nothing left, his family was dead. He took the cinderblock in hand and jumped into the water his last sight being the bottom of the lake.