The Hanging of The Iron Crows – Horror Story. This hanging of the iron crows story takes place in the harsh era we call the Second World War. This was a time of misery, lies, and corruption. Any man with a grain of salt or sanity would tell you that war was beyond a bloody one. In those desperate days, it wasn’t unheard of for people to go missing. It wasn’t unheard of for people to turn up dead without a mark or a scratch. Such was the suffering of those during the war, that fresh terror that seeps into a person’s very heart and soul; it wasn’t uncommon for a healthy man to die from nothing but a loss of hope. Some people cannot imagine a future and so they give their lives and spirits away for nothing.
Sometimes it’s all in the wings, all in the movements, all in the rust, the mechanical beast with gears that drive their wings, those rusty Iron Crows, those bastard Iron Crows
Life is too hard to live they say, no more, please no more
Sometimes that suffering wakes up a demon in a person. That demon lives on cruelty, on a sadistic drive to watch a dead man squirm. Well, this demon had just woken fresh from its long nap and woken inside the body of a young father. Mark Ranisteri be the man’s name. I remember him like it was only yesterday I saw him.
Alas when I spoke to him all those years ago, he seemed like nothing but a good man. An honest man seemed to him. I had no idea he was a devil. No one could ever think such a thing, but its human nature to inherit our animal ancestor’s brutality. You see Mark was a father for the second time, and it was this month, august in which his son was born. I could see how the boy had changed him, it wasn’t an easy thing to see but it was that blur, which flickers behind his eyes that told me all I needed or really wanted to know. Mark was a completed changed man after his son Alfred was born. He loved his daughter differently, punished her for the tiniest of things yet cared nothing for bad school reports or school incidents. It was the cruelty in his eyes that spoke sometimes, the way he hurt his animals, his pets.
It was here in his basement he kept lots of birds, namely crows. So fascinated by them was he, he tried to replicate them with mechanics. He failed every time, leaving nothing but soulless, rusty projects that spoke with no love, simply staring away as they rusted, those rusty Iron Crows, those empty, lonely Iron Crows.
Those bastard Iron Crows!
Jayne was such a sweet girl, such a beautiful little flower in a sea of copycat petals. She began to act differently to her father, so damn defiant, so angry. Her screams would echo some days from the house, but we chose to ignore them as old fools do. Oh lord, she so loved those birds. She hated her father all the more for the beatings, the breaking of their wings. She hated those iron and steel imitations of life, to her those Iron Crows were nothing but devils in the form of toys, she so hated those Iron Crows, those Bastard Iron Crows.
I guess at the end of the day, we old fools, we ignored her and for that, we will be forever sorry.
I remember one day the screaming started again, high pitched, angrier than I’ve ever heard before. This time I couldn’t help myself. I told my wife I was heading out to see the fuss and something in her eyes told me I should go prepared. So that’s what I did. I loaded my six-shooter and headed out onto the porch to get a glimpse. Well, that was all I really needed to understand the situation.
Fear the Iron Crows!
It was worse than I could have possibly imagined. Jayne lay on the living room floor, covered in blood. Her screaming was so alien, so full of rage. The cawing of a raven was the only thing I could think of, that indignant, malicious crying. Blood covered her face where she’d been beaten. But that was only the true tip of the iceberg.
Stop watching me, please stop watching me! I can feel the pressure, I can feel the fear, I can feel them coming, those bastard Iron Crows!
I saw her father there, hanging from a noose tied to the rafters in the ceiling. He jerked and kicked as he did the last man’s dance, but the most terrifying was the look on his eyes. That inhuman hate, that power knowing he had just destroyed his own daughter’s soul and filled the void with a rage none would understand. I shot his rope and untied her bonds but he was gone to this world. She chose to turn those eyes on me instead and that was enough for me. I ran as fast as an old bugger could run. That was enough for me.
Those iron feathers, those cawing cries, those rusty Iron crows!
After the incident with her father, well… Jayne changed, of course, any kid would after such a thing but this… this was different. She grew so much angrier. Many days and many nights I’d hear her crying, screaming and every time it was the sound of a crow cawing. That maddening, deafening noise that those bastard birds make when they don’t agree or simply you have what they want.
Some days I’d visit the child; fore she never left the house after the incident with her father. Her brother passed away not long after, her more even before that. There was no one left for that lonely, frightening child. Her one suitor after the death of her father left her with his eyes bloody, blind as a bat ‘fore she clawed ‘em out as soon as he said he was leaving. That’s a rage that won’t ever die, that’s a rage that won’t ever be forgotten; not by us and never by her.
Those days I did, I saw more evidence of my fears than I had ever before. Long, black feathers would blow away in the breeze that filled the open windows. Sunlight streamed down on those greasy, darkened daggers. Her beauty changed, and I beg your forgiveness in my saying but the child grew ugly. Her features decayed, becoming more alien. That rage ran behind her eyes in ugly blood-colored rivulets, always behind her dead brown eyes. It was if you were looking through a window, a thin film of rust flecked over the glass and behind it dark, featureless figures always arguing, always fighting like puppets on strings. Her face became like a thin sheet of rusty iron, so damming – the Iron Crows are coming.
Her voice became more and more like a caw. Eventually, that’s all it became. Her face never moved beyond ugly, not quite raven but not quite human. Those feathers coated her arms from her shoulders down and I know now if she had the strength she would have flown away, maybe freed herself from the pain of it all.
She died in the house, died a lonely, angry soul. She hung herself; in fact, she used the exact same rope her daddy hung himself from, the same rafter and all. The irony is a bitter flavor in that respect.
Somehow I think she’s still there, I think she always will be. Christ knows that no one wants to be anywhere near that house. It wasn’t till long after her death, I found out the terrible things her father had done to her. Things I will not speak of here, lest I insult the poor child’s memory. She deserves to keep her memory at least, she deserves that much.
Those Iron Crows watch me, they watch me! Some days I see her sitting on her rocked chair, cawing away. You see it through the window, the one that has been smashed. Some days all you see is a dark blue and face. Sometimes on a clear day, I can still hear that cawing. Some days I can hear scratching on my door at night. Maybe she’s come back to say hello, maybe she’s come back to attack me for my history lesson on the child. I don’t know and I hope I never will. I’ve woken with the feeling of a noose around my neck too many times to count now. I guess she’ll never be at peace. Those crows so still like rusted steel, like rusted iron., they watch me, oh those Iron Crows watch me.
The funny thing is that since her death, the crows come in many a murder and they all sit, and they all stare. Neither a muscle nor a move; not until you hear the cawing, that awful murderous cawing. Yet I’ve never seen them voice a sound since moving there.
Maybe they’re scared too?
They won’t stop watching me, those bastard Iron Crows.
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