Touch The Sky..

Friday, October 27th, 2006.
For as far back as she could remember in her young life, sixteen year old Alison Davies loved birds, especially the Crows. She lived her whole life here in Cantorville just one and a half miles from Crows Crossing Road. She lived to watch them, lived to be near them, she lived to sit and idly draw pictures of them at every given opportunity, she even dreamed of them, and would often be found sitting near the woods on Crows Crossing Road, talking to and watching them. Unfortunately for Alison, her love for the Crows earned her the label of outcast amongst her high school peers. She was a very beautiful young girl, and a lot of the boys could be found sneaking glances at her, but most found her obsession with the birds to weird for their taste’s. Cantorville was also not far from a place born of dark legend, where young people would steal away to in the woods to try to catch glances of the supposed evil spirit that lived in the old mill.


It was on this Friday that a classmate of Alison’s would approach her with an invitation to a Halloween party where some of the popular kids were going to be at. It was set to be held in the deep woods up at the old Mill, Alison against her better judgment agrees to go along. Unaware that some of the kids just wanted to play a joke on her. She knew about the disturbing legends of the Mill and all of the supposed murders that happened there, all of the kids at the High School did, but it was the season of All Hallows Eve, and the thought of seeing a ghost roaming the woods was too much for them to resist.

Touch The Sky.



Tuesday, October 31st, 2006. All Hallows Eve.
She met them there, three miles outside of town near the winding pathway that would take them another two and one half miles into the deep wooded hillside to where the supposed haunted mill was hidden from the roads view. There were three boys and two other girls going besides herself, out of the sixteen people that said they were going, the rest had chickened out. Seventeen year old Brad Downy would lead them, he was the only senior of the group, the rest were Alison’s age, except Tim Branson, a young African American boy who was one year younger. Samantha Swathert and Jennifer Rogan, were the two girls the third boys name was Mark Todd. Samantha Swathert Walked along the trail along side of Alison, but rarely spoke through most of the hike, the boys carried the backpacks with the beer and the party supplies.



they made it to the Mill just one hour before dark and the boys found a place for them to set up a campsite, the boys more so than the girls obviously were there because they thought that they might get lucky, the girls however couldn’t take their thoughts far from the Mill’s legends and when the fog rolled in it did little to improve the atmosphere of the surroundings, and it didn’t take the whole group including the boys long to figure out that maybe they shouldn’t have come. They took a quick inventory and found that they also had two flashlights, but no weapons. The darker it got the more serious the mood got, every noise that they heard seemed to be more ominous than the last, and before long all six of them were sitting in a small circle back to back praying for the light to return, even Alison was a little frightened until the feeling that something was there with her took away her fears.


“They’re here.” she told her companions. “ nothing will happen to us as long as we stay right where we are until morning, they will protect us from whatever is out there if anything.” all five of them without looking to one another turned to face Alison. “Who’s here Alison?” she smiled. “The Crows.” they all backed away from her, Mark gave her an odd look up and down, “You know Alison, you’re an odd duck.. No really.. The only reason we invited you is because we wanted to see who could do you first!” she looked at the ground. They all backed away from her, “Really Alison.. What is it with you and those stupid birds. Girl, you‘re just strait up freaky.” the unpleasant mood was interrupted by the sounds of what appeared to be footfalls echoing from the woods, they arguing stopped at once, and to each the thought of ghosts came to them. Brad was the first to get brave and he took one of the flashlight’s to go investigate the sounds with Mark Todd in tow. Jennifer was the first to speak up, “When they come back we should take the flashlights and head back to the road, we could be there in about three hours.”



hearing this Samantha snapped at her in an angry tone of voice.
“Jen? Are you nuts we could get lost in this fog.” they looked over at Alison. “They aren’t coming back.” she told them.
They all disregarded her every word, that is until they heard Brads voice screaming out in the distance, it echoed through the woods like fire through dry wood. Marks voice could be heard as well shouting out Brads name from the darkness, “where are you? Brad ?? Let me-” with one final scream from Marks own voice the woods once again fell silent. the other two girls along with Tim decided from mostly fear that they would take the remaining flashlight and try to Hike back to the road.. And all three called Alison a fool when she wouldn’t go with them. “No.” she told them. “I want to live” she looked at the three of them. Whatever killed Brad and Mark is going to kill you too.” she sat back down and watched as they one by one disappeared into the foggy woods in search of the path back to the road. Though she didn’t hear anymore screams that night Alison knew that she would never see any of them again.




She slept through the whole night peacefully, and in her sleep she dreamt of flying with The Crows. Touching the sky and being free from her earthly bindings. And when the first new rays of the sun made their way to her there at the old Mill she awaken to the sight of seven Crows all perched around her looking down on her as if smiling. She rose and as she followed the Path back to Crows Crossing Road, she thought of the fate of her classmates, and decided to tell the police what had happened at the mill when she got back to Cantorville. When reaching the road she looked back at the woods and then up at one of the crows perched on a road sign no more than six feet from her. “You know what Pretty boy? Some people just don’t know when to listen.” the crows watched her as she turned and headed down Crows Crossing towards Cantorville. She wasn’t going to make it to school today.

Scratch. A.B.T. Copyright© 2006.