Disclaimer: All characters belong to Kitchen Sink comics and to James O'Barr, the man himself. Bless you James, for the Crow. This story belongs to me.
She rides on a white mare, he a black stallion. Her hair whips free in the wind and she is laughing because she can't believe he is finally here.
He is quiet, morose. The wind tugs his black hair and twirls the strands around its invisible fingers, trying to get his attention. But Eric Draven has no thought for the wind.
"What's wrong, Eric?" the woman asks, her voice quiet and soft.
The man shrugs his shoulders, looks up into her eyes and smiles. "Nothing, Shelly," he tells her. However, his face is ashen and the smile faked.
Shelly bites her lip, cocks her head to one side, and studies him. "You sure, lover?"
Eric only nods for he doesn't trust his voice to lie to her right now. It has been...mere days since he came here to Shelly. The memories of being the Crow are still there, black and dark and dripping with blood. He doesn't like remembering them.
The woman stops her horse, feeling the skirts come to rest on her long legs. Her lover rides on for a pace before noticing she has dropped out. He turns the horse and trots it over to hers. "See," she says, "I knew something was wrong."
"Nothing's wrong," Eric insists but he answers too fast and his voice is too sharp, too pleading. The argument he had formed in his mind slips away.
Why can't he tell her? He knew why yesterday and the day before that. He knew while he was shooting bullets at people and setting things on fire. The moment he saw through the crow's eyes, he knew. But he just forgot.
Her hands reach out, soft hands, hands that have smoothed away the darkest of dreams, the coldest of winters, and they stroke his face. Her fingers stretch over his lips, his cheeks, over his eyelids and his scalp. It is her way of calming him, of pleading with him, of asking him.
Eric suddenly draws away, pulling back from her and staring out at the woods surrounding them. Whoever thought that heaven was going to be like this? he thinks before his mind can get back on track.
"Shelly," he starts and turns to find her eyes warm and comforting.
"Go on, Eric," she says, "go on." But there is no forceful tone in her voice, no hidden motive, just the fact that she wants to know what's bothering him--so she can make it all go away.
"Shelly, I killed people," he admits, eyes once again focusing on the world around him.
She is silent for a minute, hands holding tightly to the reins as she tries to take it in. "What?" she finally breathes.
"I killed people."
"I heard you, Eric. I guess...I mean...Who? Why?" As quietly as possible, she turns the white mare away from him, just a little, a fraction of an inch. His confession has scared her, it has rattled her. Eric. Eric a murderer. She doesn't want to hear but she must.
His eyes, black like sorrow and fear, come back to gaze at her, to hold her in his mind's eye and never let her go. He loves her so much. He doesn't want to hurt her, doesn't mean to scare her. Nevertheless, she must know this. She must.
"Remember those men? The ones who broke into our apartment?" Her only response is a slow nod of the head. "I killed them and their boss. I avenged our deaths."
"Why?"
Eric laughs slightly, not a real laugh, just a shimmer of something that defies joy and happiness. He explains, "Because I was the Crow. I was brought back to seek revenge. I was brought back to kill."
Shelly brushes the hair out of her eyes, suddenly wary of her lover. Somehow, he's asking too much. He wants her to recall that night in the apartment when...she shakes her head. No, no she doesn't want to remember that.
"Shelly," he starts, "do you understand?" The hands, the long fingered musician hands and the soft singers voice hover around her, trying to trap her and force her to answer.
Eric tries again. "They paid, Shelly. They paid."
"Who gave you the right to be judge, jury and executioner?" she asks him, panicked, close to the edge of screaming.
The only answer she gets is a whisper, muffled by the sound of a large bird cawing. "The Crow." The whisper lives in her ears, drowning all the other words out and her eyes watch the black bird in the sky. "The Crow." And, slowly, the tears drip down her face as she pulls away.
The End
