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Boyd felt war pendulously from the slats of the splint, and as he watched, one broke loose and splashed onto the dirt
"Oh, that’s just fucking great!" Boyd snarled He probed the rough bandages Karl had wound around the shattered leg, and his fingers caers for a long ti with fear and fever the next He half turned and swung his good right arm at the crow "See what you made me do, you worthless piece of shit!"
The crow shuffled sideways just a few inches and the blow ain uttered that strangewould allow hiers were inches short of the liest bird Boyd had even seen: dirty and disheveled, with greasy wings that shone with oily scu his buttocks to his right just a couple of inches and then beat once more at the bird The crow took another delicate sideways step, but this tiers clawed at hi, sharp beak
"Ow! Shit!" Boyd howled, whipping his hand away and jaer into his mouth He could taste the salty blood, and when he held the finger out for inspection, he was appalled to see an inch-long gouge, quite deep and ragged, running from the outside of the nail down past the knuckle Fresh blood welled froers, onto his pallared with naked hatred at the bird "Youkill you, you shit-ass bitch! I’ll fucking bite your head off and piss down your neck, you little shit bag!"
Indifferent to the threats, the bird just watched hiaries of the wind
A fresh wave of chills swept over Boyd, as if the wind itself had blown its cold breath on him He shivered so violently that he could hear his teeth actually chatter Forgetting the bird for the moment, Boyd tried to huddle into himself to keep warm He yanked his left ar of his jacket and then wrapped hiht Blood continued to drip slowly and thickly fro and then fading as the hungry soil sucked it down into darkness More blood dripped frolearound with the salty seeds of his life
The croatched hi minutes, but then slowly raised its head as the clouds overhead were clawed open and the accusing eye of the lared down at Boyd and the crow and the endless ranks of silent corn Boyd becaht, and for a while he thought that he was beco sohter when you were really losing it Before he could work up a good terror over that thought, he saw the shadow stretched out before hiround
The world once more froze into a microsecond of total terror Boyd could see his own sluht--but above his shadow and spreading out beyond hi, arms outstretched to seize hi as he did so to see as lunging at hi for a kick
Of course it was only the scarecrow
It hung there, arms supported by the crossbar of the post, faded old work clothes fluttering and snapping in the freshening breeze, jack-o’-lantern head s emptily as it stared out over the field The croed ironically at hi, crippled Laughing
He felt it rising within his chest, and before he knew it, before he could stop it, the laughter bubbled up out of hi hi his chest It boiled quickly to the level of sihed until tears welled from his eyes and snot bubbled in his nostrils and blood splattered the ground as he beat it with his fist He shook and shivered and rocked fro and soaked the greedy dirt
He couldn’t stop laughing He would look at the scarecrow and laugh; he would look at the crow and laugh He wood look at the wide, flat disk of the h would soar up into the ether Every once in a while the laughter would be punctuated with a snort, oreven when the scarecrow turned its lurinned darkly at his as he took the curve on theels, feeling Missy lift and tilt and hold in perfect balance, ball joints be daracefully around the curve like a racing sloop rounding a point Croas alive with the feel of power and control as he let the steering wheel drift slowly, delicately through his fingers, paying her off into the end of the curve, getting ready for the drop down to all fours
Which is when the kid on the bike appeared out of nowhere
"Holy shit!"
The kid was just suddenly there, frozen like a startled deer in the splash of Missy’s headlights, and within the split part of a second he seerow from half-sized to a di out a string of curses, Crow gave the pedal a hard stoht just as he reached the boy, and then steered even smaller as he swerved to the left as he passed The upraised tires swept along about a yard froround Missy landed heavily and sped on for a hundred feet, and Croas pu
Missy skidded to a halt on the verge as dust swept up around her flanks Crow threw her into park, killed the engine, and leaped out and sprinted toward the kid
The boy had barelyto watch the car soar by
"Jesus Christ, kid!" Crow yelled as he sprinted up "That was the stupidest godda," he bellowed, "that I’ve ever done!"