Scarecrow

The sun sets, the brisk wind blows; and the leaves dance. Brown, yellow, and orange fill the air and scatter across the land. Darla the farmer comes by to check on her crops and to her surprise, the crows have gotten to them again. Her old scarecrow wasn’t scary enough to keep them at bay. They had been picking at her crops for weeks. She walked over to the scarecrow and stared at it. She couldn’t understand why it wasn’t working. The scarecrow was covered in bird excrement. She took the scarecrow down and took it to the shed. The crows cawed, it was like they were mocking her. Once inside she placed the scarecrow on the workbench and cut off the old clothes, pieces of straw fell onto the floor. She searched around for clothes for it, but all she found were her husband’s old clothes. She hesitated, she was still very attached to her husband’s things even though he’d been dead for almost three years now. He got sick and by the time the doctors found out what was wrong, it was too late. She pushed her sad thoughts to the side and grabbed a pair of pants, a shirt, and a hat. She quickly dressed the scarecrow and took it back outside. The hat kept falling off while she was carrying it back to the post. Each time she picked it up she felt like the scarecrow was moving on its own. Twitching and wiggling. She chalked it up to it just being the fierce wind. She sat it on the post and weirdly enough she thought she should name it.

“Charlie”

She tied his hat down. “Keep the crows away charlie.”

Charlie gently blew in the wind. Darla thought that if she added something like a gardening tool it would make him scarier. She placed her landscape scythe in its hand and tied it with string. She stood back and admired Charlie. After a few seconds, she headed to the house, hoping Charlie would scare some crows. She took in a deep breath and sat on the porch in the rocking chair with Charlie in the distance. She struggled with keeping her eyes open until she drifted to sleep.

She woke up to the sound of screaming and jumped up. She saw Charlie was not on the post and immediately ran over. She looked around and saw nothing but dead crows. Blood and feathers everywhere left her speechless. The screaming continued, it sounded like it was coming from her neighbor's house down the road.

Darla ran down the road, every step brung more panic and her imagination ran wild. She didn’t know what to think, was there a serial killer loose, or were her thoughts from earlier true? Did Charlie move? Was Charlie running around the neighborhood? What was doing?

She came to a complete stop when she saw the blood on the steps of the Greer house. She slowly pushed open the cracked door and stepped inside. She inched her way in and saw a trail of blood leading to the kitchen. She saw Mr. Greer lying on the floor with his throat slit open. She screamed. She heard a creek in the floor coming from the laundry room and headed over to the backdoor where she saw Mrs. Greer pinned to the wall in fear. She was too afraid to open the backdoor right next to her. Her face looked pale, her eyes were wide, and her lips quivered. Charlie was standing upright, he lifted his hand ready to slash Mrs. Greer’s throat. The farmer couldn’t let Charlie hurt anybody else.

“Charlie!”

Charlie looked at her. She couldn’t believe she was talking to a scarecrow.

“Stop! What are you doing? Please… Please don’t hurt Mrs. Greer.”

Mrs. Greer, still frozen in place, looked at the farmer like she was the last person she was ever to see. Charlie brought his attention back to Mrs. Greer.

“Charlie don’t!”

Charlie swiftly slit Mrs. Greer’s throat. Darla watched Mrs. Greer slowly slide down the wall holding her neck, blood shot out from between her fingers and splattered on Charlie.

Charlie ran off out the back door towards the Patterson’s.