Shining smiles from the immaculately presented presenters who sat on the eye-wateringly bright sofa.

​

The studio was baking in the heat of the giant lights in the rafters above them.

​

"So why do you think that you got the level of publicity that you did?" Paul asked. His gushing and simpering face seemed to drip foundation as he spoke.

"We know it had something to do with social media, right?" said Andrew, on his left. 

​

Abigail nodded emphatically, and the crow with the bandage on its wing wobbled on her shoulder.

She gave it a quick pet, making sure to angle her body so that Camera Two could get the perfect angle.

​

"Well," she said. "I just started filming Facebook Live videos of poor Edward Crowdon here as he got better, and people started to respond."

​

"You had quite a following on Instagram and Twitter because of your fashion model snaps just before this, didn't you?" said Paul.

​

If the question had thrown Abigail, she didn't show anything outwardly.

​

"Well, I'd hope that people would be tuning in to look at the poor bird, Paul!"

​

The studio audience chuckled as Paul grinned sheepishly and raised his arms in a comical 'alright, alright, I'm backing off' gesture.

​

Abigail kept chatting happily, until the plastered smile on her face made her jaw ache and sweat clung to her fake hair extensions. Then the cameras dropped and the stage lights clicked off and the audience shuffled out of the studio lot and Abigail breathed a sigh of relief.

The Paul and Andrew Show had been the ninth in the circuit of publicity after the original news story of 'the young woman and the injured crow' went viral.

She shook the hands of the two men and then Abigail headed backstage to her little dressing room. 

​

​

​

"It's not fantastic."

"You're damn well right it's not fantastic, Sidney!" she yelled down the phone.

​

Sidney Cobble, a fat man in his thirties who wore eccentric t-shirts, shrunk away from his mobile as the voice continued hammering away. He'd overseen many media personalities in his time as a talent agent, including Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton, but had never met a woman with the short fuse of Abigail Tomlin.

​

"Just fucking see to it that I'm on Channel Four next week! You're making a lot of bloody money here, Sidney!"

​

She tore her black extensions out that she'd worn because she felt it made her seem like she was much more of an animal rights activist as she continued screaming down the phone, pulling out hanks of real hair alongside the synthetic fibres.

​

She gripped her hand around the crow on her shoulder. The creature gave out an outraged squawk as she hurled it into a filthy birdcage in the corner.

She closed the little cage door and latched it. The crow hopped around the cage in small and languished hops.

The cage itself hadn't been cleaned out properly since the beginning of her little publicity tour.

​

In truth, she hated the thing. With it's beady eyes and tilted freaky black head. The bandage on its wing needed changing, but she didn't want to do it herself.

​

There was a knock on the dressing room door.

​

As Abigail went to open it, she wondered if she could bribe another vet to take the bandage off on her way to her next broadcast.

​

They had a tendency to refuse putting a bandage on after stripping the previous one off of the wing.

After all, the bones had more or less healed up.

Two vets had even yelled at her for keeping the bandage on.

​

Because the crow was fine.

​

​

Abigail opened the door, and was greeted with both hosts standing outside the door.

​

They'd both taken off a lot of the makeup they had worn on set.

​

But they both kept on their glistening presenter smiles.

​

"A wonderful show today!" said Paul.

"It was!" agreed Andrew.

"And we were just wondering-" began Paul.

"If you'd like to consider coming back next month to give us a crow update!" finished Andrew.

​

Abigail smiled, but seethed down inside. Of course those damn queers wanted her back. She was hot property, and their stupid little show barely brought in ten thousand viewers. But still, she smiled.

​

"I'll have to talk to my agent." she said, closing the dressing room door.

​

Andrew swung his leg into the door frame as the door was pulled shut. The door whacked his leg with such force that Andrew felt his eyes water. But his smile never once dropped.

​

"Perhaps you could just save us time and tell us now." said Andrew. "You can save us time for scheduling and you can work out the details with your people later."

​

A thin tear ran down Andrew's face and landed in Andrew's widened gumline. "We'd be more than happy to have you back."

​

Abigail Tomlin smiled back at him. "As I said, I'll have to talk to my agent."

​

She gestured for Andrew to move his foot and he reluctantly did so.

​

Abigail closed the door as Paul led his limping partner away.

​

At the end of the corridor, Andrew stopped and turned back for just a moment.

​

Then he continued on his way.

​

​

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

​

The rain clattered.

​

The Crowman huddled in a gigantic nest he'd made for himself, just above a residential housing block. 

It was easily ten times the size of the television satellites that encircled the building like tiny metallic warts.

He pulled in his wings, the two blankets of feathers warming him against the cold night wind.

​

Certainly, he thought, this country is much colder than America or any of the others I have travelled through. 

​

The wind continued howling as the nest quivered in the breeze. Two small crows shot out of the clouded night skies and landed inside the nest.

​

They cawed and crowed and he listened. He had been patient, but now he was tired of waiting. It would seem, the crows told him, that the young lady and abuser is nearby. 

And your quest, Crowman, is almost at an end.

​

After the little birdies were done, The Crowman offered out a taloned hand from within his cocoon of jet black wings. Inside the claws, a little pile of breadcrumbs.

The two crows ate greedily and flew back off into the night.

​

It was nice to have messengers, The Crowman thought. He closed his eyes as the rain poured and the lightning crashed.

​

For all the noise outside, he felt at easy and at peace. It would all be over soon.

​

The Crowman had waited. Two young children had almost spotted him, as children so often did, as he was flying over the city and trying to find the little block of flats that he eventually nested in.

Both children were tugged along by their parents on their cellphones. The adults were often too busy to notice anything of particular significance. 

​

And now the waiting was over. The Crowman jumped from the block of flats and spread his grand feathered wings, hovering down over the street.

​

He landed with a muted thump on a balcony opposite his nesting place. A group of crows had joined him, whirling in a black cloud above him in the torrential downpour.

​

They bulleted towards The Crowman and began to peck at the screws on the titanium door leading to the security room for that apartment block, overseen weekly by the police and daily by a private security firm.

From the other side, the room was near impenetrable behind double-fingerprint locks, a passcode and a card-swipe.

But not from the balcony.

​

They hadn't counted on that.

​

The snipping and twittering of birds using their tiny beaks to jimmy out the screws in the door continued for a good thirty minutes as the door weakened. After that it simply fell inwards, and The Crowman stepped into the server room.

​

He stepped around the red, blue and green wires that trailed all over the room filled with beeping machines, bright lights and whirring computers.

And there was the screen that the birds had whispered about.

​

The Crowman was not too familiar with technology, but after a good two hours of deduction, he figured out how to use the CCTV equipment. He managed to pause the footage of the alley outside and, more importantly, he learned to rewind.

​

He rewound the footage whilst the crows perched on the blinking glass servers, watching him.

​

A few crows were even set up in the rafters of the room, having made a little home due to some broken insulation allowing enough space for a bird.

And crows are clever. Crows know, and they talk to each other.

And they fly, they fly very far and understand other crows in other countries. 

​

The Crowman eventually found the footage he was looking for. He found the young woman with the blonde hair as she wandered down the alley towards a flock of young crows that were pecking around at the crud and insects between the cobbles.

​

She looked around to check that she was alone.

Then she took out her mobile, hovering her hand over the red dot to record.

She flung her leg out and stomped down, hard, on the youngest crow of the group.

The crow let out an anguished cry and the rest of the birds scattered.

​

​

The Crowman clenched his taloned fists as red hot anger surged through her body. Abigail Tomlin smiled as she mashed the wing of the crow into the cobbles, before moving her foot and pressing record.

​

There was no audio on the CCT, but The Crowman could see her feign her distress and upset as she pointed her mobile at the crow, switching between her pouting sad face and the crippled bird.

​

She collected up the animal she'd maimed with a blanket and carried it away. When she was at the end of the alley, and almost out of sight, she clicked off her camera and slung the crow into her knapsack.

​

There was a beep, and two security officers entered the room filled with beeping servers, flashing lights and coiling cables. The second officer sat down in front of the CCTV terminal, made a joke about his neighbour and made some idle conversation about the weather.

​

The first officer left the room and the second officer began his shift.

​

His first realisation was that the video surveillance was showing footage that was at least a month old.

​

The second was the trail of jet black feathers leading to the open balcony covered in screws and hinges, where the reinforced steel door had fallen in.

​

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

​

Abigail was back, sitting on the couch across from the two smiling presenters. Sidney hadn't been able to get her a slot on Channel Four, putting it down to the fact that it was just not ever going to be a major headline.

​

Abigail accused him of threatening her career, threatened to sue him twice and eventually Sidney just stopped answering the phone.

​

And as for her publicity tour, she'd only been able to salvage one more appearance.

​

On The Paul and Andrew Show.

​

Abigail discussed how Edward Crowdon had returned to good health and had finally flown away, giving a little compassionate speech to Camera One as the crocodile tears rolled.

​

"And my beautiful crow, my Edward, he flew away into the sunset to be with his other crows. I could spot him in amongst the flock as he flew. I could spot him, just out of the others. Because of the tilt of his wing."

​

The studio audience wept. Andrew and Paul had watery eyes.

​

Abigail had actually shoved her crow down the food disposal, breaking its neck.

She was bored of the damn crow, and since she had no more news coverage, she no longer cared much for the welfare of the creature.

​

But they didn't need to know that.

​

As Andrew and John wrapped up their little show, the studio fell into blackness.

 

A projection appeared on the backscreen, grainy and almost out of focus.

The projection showed some footage taken from an alley not too far away, about six weeks ago.

​

As the footage clicked off, Abigail heard a rustling above.

​

A bloodcurdling scream rang out across the TV studio as the lights flicked back on.

​

Abigail was pinned to the ground by a fallen lighting rig, which had crushed every bone in her arm.

​

The hosts saw nothing up in the blackness above them,

​

The Crowman had already flown.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​