The Crow Massacre

Once upon a time there was a group of crows. They were numerous, and had been established in their community for quite a while. They had a fairly well developed relationship with the surrounding farmers. They would refrain from picking the crops while they were growing, and hunt for food elsewhere. The when harvest time came, they were allowed to pick up all they could eat so long as they didn’t interfere with the harvesting process.

In turn for their cooperation, the farmers agreed not to shoot the crows for sport while they were getting close to harvest time. Crows are very easily hypnotized, and when the season is getting close to harvest time, there is something in the air that transfixed the crows. They begin to gather in mass hordes just outside the crops and wait for the harvest. This makes them easy targets for farmers with shotguns.

Once in early fall, before this rule had been established, several farmers, decided after a night of heavy drinking to have some fun with the waiting crows. They loaded up their shotguns and went out one night, and had a contest to see who could kill the most crows.

What happened after was disastrous. Very few people recalled exactly what had happened, but they all agreed that it was so horrible they should never repeat it. After several rounds of negotiations, they agreed that the crows would be protected during their hypnotic waiting for the harvest, and they would restrain themselves during their furious scavenging after the harvest.

This went on for several generations. The crows would hunt for squirrels and small rodents, and they could steer clear of the farmer’s crops. Then the weeks leading up to the harvest, the crows would slowly gather and watch, transfixed as the farmers prepared their instruments of harvest. The farmers learned to regard the gathering crows with a detached disinterest, not unlike a stronger predator barely acknowledging a lesser animal, waiting in the background for scraps.

Then one day disaster struck. There was a solar eclipse, which sent down a strange combination of solar radiation, and the strange feeling of night during the day. And few people know that the feeling of night during the day is one thing that can send the crows from a lazy feeling of desire into a ravenous blood lust for flesh.

Which is exactly what happened. Nobody knows why, but the solar eclipse was not predicted by any meteorologist, nor written about the much relied upon farmers almanac. It came completely without warning. It didn’t help matters that the frequency of the accompanying solar radiation was similar to that of the brainwave frequency of the crows.

What happened next was unimaginable. Crows swept down upon the harvesting farmers as one, instinctively plucking out there eyes, creating immediate and deadly fear and panic. With the farmers suddenly running around in a chaotic frenzy, the crows began plucking at their throats with almost surgical precision, ripping open carotid artery after carotid artery. Soon all fields were running with the blood of the slowly dying blind farmers.

When all the farmers were dead, the crows turned on each other. Before long, crows and farmer alike lay in the yet to be harvested fields, dead.

It took several days for the neighboring communities to realize there was a problem, as they weren’t expecting any harvested corn or wheat for some time. By the time a delivery truck happened through the community, the site was completely void of life.

No one has ever been to those fields since.