Flying Crows Read Online Free PDF

is a person prone to fits of fear or screaming when confronted with tales of savagery, gore, and horror, I would advise them now either to leave the room, which they can’t do without permission, or close their
eyes and ears, which they can do on their own. Because I hereby forewarn
everyone present that what you are about to experience, through the
straightforward, unembellished, true, and accurate recitation of my experience as a small boy in Centralia, is something that can only bring you to the
outer limits of your ability to tolerate savagery, gore, and horror.”
    The words and sentences came out like they were part of sharp turns at
the corners of a box. If the people in the audience hadn’t known for sure already who he was, they might well have thought Josh, this man onstage
dressed like a kid, was really somebody else.
    â€œLike the radio show or a burlesque moving picture, only everybody
dies!” one of the patients yelled, as was usual at this point in the program.
    Josh did not respond. He acted, as always, as if he had not heard.
    Then he slowly, deliberately, turned his back on the audience, which momentarily created absolute silence. The new patients who were seeing this
for the first time were shushed silent by fellow patients and bushwhackers.
    That was because Josh’s about-face signaled that his Massacre Act was
about to begin. Silence, everyone!
    â€œLet me out of here! Please! Let me out!”
    That was Lawrence of Sedalia in the front row, where the bushwhackers
always made him sit. Lawrence was simultaneously trying to hold his hands
over his eyes, his mouth, and his ears while screaming and crying and sobbing. He pleaded with the bushwhackers not to make him see Josh’s show
again, but they always insisted that he do so. It’s good therapy for you,
Lawrence, they said. Witnessing Josh getting over his problem will give you
the strength and hope to get over
your
problem someday.
    Nobody seemed to know exactly what Lawrence’s problem was, but they
mostly called it civilian shell shock. Lawrence walked around the asylum almost always naked because clothes reminded him of something awful he
had witnessed in Sedalia, a town in central Missouri. Supposedly, what he
saw was his uncle, a Holiness preacher from Texas, tear the clothes off his
wife and two infant children and then drown them in a lake to protect them
from the spirit of the devil that was moving toward Sedalia from Durant, Oklahoma. To Josh, Lawrence mostly seemed shy and withdrawn and off in another world, except when he was watching Josh’s Massacre Act. Would being
scared cause him to put his clothes on, rid him of his shyness, and chase out
his demons?
    Josh was sure the bushwhackers permitted his regular performances because it gave them pleasure to watch him terrify Lawrence and the other lunatics, but he hated to think about that. He wasn’t onstage tonight or any
other night to understand or feel guilty; he was there to be the star, to entertain, to be a swell example, to be the patient who had made the greatest
progress in overcoming his lunacy by standing up in front of a group of fellow lunatics and scaring them out of their wits.

III
    RANDY
    KANSAS CITY
    1997

    Randy was working an overnight armed robbery at an apartment near the Country Club Plaza. A uniformed patrol squad had brought in a thug to city jail this morning they thought might be good for it.
    The man in custody was somebody Randy had encountered more than once. He was not only willing to talk about last night’s robbery but would also implicate others in exchange for a break on a possible habitual-criminal charge. Randy said he would pass that on to the district attorney’s office. And that was that.
    On his way out of the small jail conference room, Randy passed by the Cage, one of the holding cells where as many as twenty or twenty-five prisoners were kept temporarily while their cases were processed. It was a