Chapter 3:
Sonny pulled into the grocery store, checking for the list Grandma Jody had instructed him to use, he began his shopping. Helping out his grandma was the least he could do considering how she had taken him and his brother in after his parents accident. His Grandmother's health was declining ever so slowly and now little trips like getting groceries or putting gas in the car have become too much for her. Sonny imagined her the way she was in the pictures hanging on the wall in the hallway. Her with long dark hair, a wide beautiful smile and dark skin, holding up a surfboard on the beach. Now she can't hardly walk down the hallway. He knew that was part of the reason she cried late at night when she thought the rest of the house was asleep, that and Sonny's parent's--her daughter's-- death.
Slowly picking out the food items to make sure everything was correct--because although his grandmother couldn't drive to the store herself, she insisted on doing the cooking every night for dinner. So he windined up and down the aisles carefully selecting the various items from the list and trying to hurry. It was Friday night after all and tomorrow he was accompanying Olive to see the psychic she wouldn't stop hassling him about.
He chuckled looking down at a can of cream of mushroom soup, his mind imagining what crazy story the psychic would come up with to explain his dream. He somehow kept coming back to his parents and their accident. He heard the story a million times: from family, the police report, the school counselor who kept insisting he needed to "talk about it" and anyone else who even remotely knew his parents.
The police report became the only way Sonny liked to remember it, all facts and none of the "If you need to talk" or "how are you holding up" rhetoric he received from everyone else. It read like this:
Both vehicles were traveling south on Rd 224 near mile marker 71.7. At the time of the crash vehicle #1, a white 4 door sedan (Sonny's parents car) was traveling south at approximately 55 mph in lane #1. Vehicle #2, a red escalade, failed to adhere to the stop sign at Addison Rd crossing Rd 224 and collided with vehicle #1 on the front passenger side. A witness driving behind vehicle #1 states she saw vehicle #2 hit vehicle #1 and continued to drive straight, pinning vehicle #1 into the barrier in the median. The driver and front passenger in vehicle #1 were pulled from the vehicle by paramedics and died on scene. The passenger in the back driver side was evacuated using the jaws of life over 45 minutes after the crash. The passenger was still living and was sent by ambulance to St. Francis Hospital where he made a full recovery.
Sonny, being only four at the time, remembered very little from the accident. Most of his memories he made from the police report and family reenactments. He wasn't even sure if any of the memories he had were even real or just put there over time through the stories. Not only just the car accident, but he remembered very little of his parents at all. His brother Beau liked to ask him to tell stories of their parents and so Sonny would. Most of them he just made up or copied from his Grandma, but he did have 3 or 4 very real and vibrant memories of them. He sometimes envied Beau for never really having known their parents, but Sonny knew that to be cold hearted.
His cart turned down the aisle for pasta sauces and halfway through turning he felt a thump as something stopped his cart. Then a crash. Then the sound of cans rolling on the ground. Sonny cringed, his eyes halfway shut, not bearing to look at what he just did. His eyes opened slowly revealing the face of a girl around his age, sitting sloppily on the ground with her groceries half ruined everywhere around her. Her piercing blue eyes, made more vibrant by her dark black hair, stared almost through Sonny.
"I am SO SO SO sorry." Sonny was already bending down piling things up and separating the broken glass pasta sauces into a pile. He glanced up at the girl. She was also picking everything up that had been in her hand held basket. She didn't say anything back. Sonny wished she would acknowledge him. He felt so bad and her remaining silent just made it worse.
He spoke to her again. "Do you want me to go get you a shopping cart to put all this in or are you ok with using that basket?"
She nodded, still giving Sonny the silent treatment. Grabbing for an apple that sat between himself and the girl they touched hands. She ripped her arm back as if Sonny had burned her with his touch.
She looked at him, her pitch black hair lying disheveled down her cheeks, her eyes wide with a mixture of fear and intrigue. Her lips pursed together in a fighting expression. Sonny got the hint.
"Oh umm. I'm sorry. I jus-I just was trying to help." Sonny got up, stumbling a bit as he reached back for his cart to help stabilize him. He turned and fled to the checkout stand, knowing he'd missed half the list. For a second he thought the girl had said something to him, but when he turned back toward the aisle she, and her groceries, and the broken pieces of glass and spilled spaghetti sauce were gone. It was as if Sonny had just made it all up. He closed his eyes and shook his head and when he opened them, she was still gone.
Shaking, he wondered if he should finish shopping, but his racing heart told him he needed to just get home. His grandmother would be mad, but he couldn't shake the eerie feeling inside him. Did he make it all up? So many thoughts were running through his mind as he almost forgot his change after checking out. He shook his head not knowing what was going on with him. He felt different. He felt strange.
Getting to his car, he shoved the groceries in the backseat not caring how they laid, milk on top of the bread and he cared not that the pasta would be in crumbs by the time he reached his house. He was simply relieved to be away from that situation and about to go home. He started the engine in his Jeep that was so old occasionally it wouldn't start on the first try. It revved right up as a song he liked came on the radio. He reached to turn it up, glancing down at his radio. His eyes shot up to the windshield as he moved to put the car in reverse.
THUD. Sonny nearly jumped out of his seat when a crow landed on the windshield. Immediately his mind raced to his nightly dreams. "squaaaaaak" The crow seemed to be yelling at him. Sonny felt more calm as he noticed the eyes of this crow weren't sinister like the one in his dream. He raised his hands trying to shoo away the crow. Instead the crow turned away, ignoring Sonny's gestures.
In the background behind the crow Sonny spotted another crow. It was flying right toward Sonny's car, or so he thought. Yep Sonny was right, as another crow landed on the windshield. Then another. Then another until there was about 10 crows piled between the hood and the windshield.
"WHAT the heck is happening?!" Sonny screamed. He pressed the lever for the windshield wipers, panicking with nothing else to do. The wipers ran and for a second it seemed the crows would leave as they flew away but more came back and landed where the others left. The squawking continued from nearly every crow now. Sonny contemplated getting out of the car and running inside, but the fear from his dream left him envisioning them attacking him in various ways.
He closed his eyes as he put his hands up to cover his ears. He couldn't take it anymore. He screamed "SSSSSSTTTTOOOOOPPPPP!!!!!!" Letting go of his ears and opening his eyes he realized, the crows have vanished. Or maybe they were never there to begin with. Sonny sat frozen in place, wondering if he was going crazy or not.
"What is happening to me today?" He looked around, not sure if he wanted to start driving or not. "What else is gonna happen to me?!" He laughed as a woman exiting her car next to his caught his eye. "Aaaaand now I'm that crazy person who talks to himself. Wonderful."
The entire drive home and even later that evening, he could swear he would see a crow out of the side of vision, but when he would turn to check there would be nothing.
Sonny went to bed that night more nervous than he'd ever been. Seeing the crow in his dream that night was the last thing Sonny felt like doing. Then his head hit the pillow as the moon shone through the window casting a soft light on his face. He was asleep.