The Academy: Book 1 by Chad Leito

his huge hands. They were swarming him, thousands of crows were flying around his body, landing, and pecking at any surface they could find. For some, they got beakfulls of Kevlar and clothes and boots, while others found soft, penetrable flesh. Blood was falling to the grass in drops from the black, sharp beaks. He lifted his firearm and tried to pull the trigger but it wouldn’t budge. “The safety,” he muttered. He kept his eyes shut tight, and swatted away two birds that had perched on his face. He disarmed the safety, and at the same time, a crow stabbed a sharp beak through his eyelid.
    Harold was crying and screaming, and the gun went off, putting a bullet through his left foot. He collapsed to the ground.
     
    Asa’s eyes shot open and his heart was pounding. A second gunshot rang out through the night and he stood up from his bed.
    Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap!
    He split open his blind and saw three crows perched atop the bushes, tapping frantically at his window. By now, he knew to listen when the crows tried to communicate. Behind the birds, a cop car was parked crookedly in the street with one wheel on the curb. Asa’s mouth opened as he saw a bloody figure rolling over the grass, being attacked by crows. The person stood up, swatted the crows away, and for a fleeting moment Asa could recognize the face of the man who had been sent to kill him—Officer Harold Kensing.
    Harold Kensing collapsed over his own feet while he was running blind through the cloud of black wings and beaks and talons. The birds were relentless, and even more came down from the sky to attack.
    “No,” Asa said. The birds had to be telling him something; something bad was out there and he had to run.
    He opened the door to his bedroom and dashed out into the living room. Through the back windows he saw a sea of black, with crows covering every surface in the backyard. He threw open the door and stepped outside.
    As always, the crows were staring at him, their tiny black eyes were drawn to something about Asa’s face. Something that he inherited, perhaps. He ran across the back lawn and heard another gunshot erupt from the front of the house.
    Asa jumped the back fence, and started out for the woods. The crows moved out of his way as he ran, and thousands followed him. In all the commotion, he didn’t see the huge, black thing flying through the trees above.
    He sprinted, dodging trees in the dark and trying to wake himself up enough to make a plan.
    I can’t go to the police; there’s not a proper law enforcement agency in this town. And when they find Harold dead in my yard
    (please don’t let him be dead, please don’t let him be dead)
                  that Amanda Pearson girl will come in and testify that I brought the crows. They’ll believe her, won’t they? Why not, it’s true, isn’t it? Everyone at school knows that the crows treat me differently. And there probably won’t be an appeals case either: In Dallas a week ago, an officer killed a man accused of murder in a holding cell. No trial or nothing. The officer died a week afterwards: he had the Wolf Flu. They’ll do the same to you. They’ll get some guy who’s just about gone to do the job. Why not? It’d save a broke government a lot of trial money.
                  As Asa ran, it grew even darker in the forest. The birds covered each of the spidering webs of branches above, and they flew overhead in such thick, dense groups that it blocked out the moonlight. The sound was unbelievable; there were millions of crows screaming right at Asa. Asa moved forward, and a crow stomped its talons into his chest. Asa ran to the side, and another crow stepped out in front of him. He tried to go back, and found a blanket of crows blocking his way.
                  They want me to stay here.
    The crows overhead grew so thick that Asa had to stop running; it was too dark ahead to dodge the trees. The sky above was so