Valraven

It started off to be a bad day when Lynette drove to work and a freakin’ flock of ravens flew up from the roadside pasture and shit all over her car. “Goddamnit,” she mumbled under her breath. She turned on the windshield wipers and realized her mistake as bird shit was smeared across her entire window. She flipped the wipers on and off to activate the washer fluid, only to get a few measly dribbles of cleaner, which did little to nothing to clean the smearing across the window. She left the wipers on until the crap dried up enough and then was scraped off little by little by the wiper blades.

She pulled into the parking lot and encountered the first smart ass of the day as one of her coworkers asked about the car.

“Did you drive through a shit storm?” Tommy asked.

“Yes, a big flock of ravens just flew right up out of the pasture and shit on my car as I was driving by.” Lynette answered.

“Congress.” Tommy replied.

“What?” she questioned irritably.

“It’s not a flock of ravens, it’s a congress of ravens.” He told her.

She just looked at him and rolled her eyes, she didn’t care, she just knew she needed a car wash now.

Lynette sat at her console and plugged in. She liked her job most days, it was just a split second before her first call rang in.

“Valraven police department, what is your emergency?”

“These birds are everywhere!” Said a very loud and screaming feminine voice.

“Calm down ma’am. What is your emergency?” Lynette asked again.

“These birds flew up and caused a head on collision on route 8, they need help.” the calling lady said more clearly.

Lynette stayed on the phone and got all the information she needed to send help.

“What is with all these damn birds?” Lynette asked to no one in particular.

Tommy was there, he heard her question. “This is Valraven, Valfuckingraven,” he said, ‘don’t you know the stories?” he asked. “I’ve never heard of the raven flying during the day though, the ones I know of just roamed at night.” he added.

Lynette just shook her head and was typing a report at the same time, just haphazardly listening to him ramble.

“Back in the day the ravens ruled this land, don’t you know?” He asked but she didn’t answer. “The old story goes that when a knight was killed and left on the battlefield, unburied, the ravens would fly down and eat the heart out.”

“That’s sick, just quit talking.” Lynette said as she took another call. A call, about swarming birds. This time they were attacking a wedding party. She sent a patrol car, but she couldn’t think of anything the police could do, but maybe scare them off with a siren or something. Lynette sat and did her job and completed the reports and sent the dispatches out. She picked up bits and pieces of Tommy’s crazy fairy tale.

“Once the raven ate the heart of the knight, it would gain all the human knowledge and then take that knowledge and perform great malicious acts, leading people astray and causing mistrust among the citizens of Valraven. The raven would become human size and would barter and trade with the rich folk to get all the things he wanted.  When the raven learnt that if he was ever fortunate enough to consume another heart, he would himself turn into a knight, he then turned down the offered riches and refused to take them. He instead made a deal with a lovely maiden, by offering to introduce her to her one true love, the only thing she would have to pay is, only the heart of her firstborn child.” Whether no one was listening or not, Tommy continued. “Seriously, though, we are talking Rumplestiltskin shit here.” Tommy said. “Instead of taking the chance of ever finding another dead knight, the raven made a deal to ensure he would have a future heart to eat to become the knight.”

Throughout the day Lynette answered the calls, five of them being about birds. She did notice that though the birds were harmless the sheer number of them was freaking the people out.

  

The day turned into evening and Lynette was still sitting at the console, she had a few minutes left on her shift when the phone call came in.

“911 what’s your emergency?” Lynette asked.

“uh, uh, there’s a massacre off of the freeway” a shaky voice relayed.

“Is this a medical emergency?”

“there’s people scattered all about, I don’t know”

“Ma’am what’s going on, do you need help?”

“It’s like a camp of people, they are all dead.”

“I will dispatch the police and ambulance. What freeway ma’am?”

“just off of route 8, my husband and I were coming back from a hike”

“what’s your name?”

“I’m Marilyn”

“Ok Marilyn, can you tell me where on route 8?

“Just south of the park entrance.” She sniffed. “It just got dark so fast, we were trying to walk as fast as we could, but the sun went down and then there was no light. Both Jackie and I saw the glow of a campfire so we headed over to the camp site and, and there was just carnage.”

“Ok Marilyn, both the police and ambulance are on their way. Are you safe?”

“I think so, when we were walking up, I thought there was a party going on, with loud music, but it wasn’t music at all, it was this loud shrieking and popping and crackling. It was the most awful thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I hear the sirens.”

“That’s great Marilyn, stay there and someone will get with you quickly. Did you see who did it, any one?”

“Oh, yes.” She sniffed again. “I took a picture with my cell phone, it’s not very good because of the dimness but I still have it.” She said.

“that’s great, just give it to the police officers.” 

Lynette filed her report about the incident and gladly hung up her headset for the night. “good night”, she said to Tommy on her way out the door.

“Oh hey, oh my god, did you see that picture that lady, out on route 8, gave to the police? Tommy asked her excitedly.

“no, I’m leaving. I’ll look at it tomorrow.” She said.

“Wait you have to see this,” he told her as he handed her his phone.  “Uh, huh…Valraven!” he said as took his phone and walked away.

In a few towns over...

"Carolyn you can run all you want, you can't hide. I will eventually find you Carolyn" the menacing voice screeched in her ears.

"Please just go away, just forget it." She said as she rolled over and covered her face with the pillow. 

She suddenly rose and ran through the house screaming..."Jacob? Jacob? where are you?"

"What's going on?" her husband Bill asked her.

"Where's Jacob?" she asked frantically.

"He went camping with his friends...at the park off route 8." He told her.