The sounds of Old Tom slowly dying on the front porch, and bits of rusty tin fell from the collapsing porch roof into the yard, rolling down the hill and splashing in a pond.

For some reason, in all this, the crows were silent, as if they were all dead, too.

Bill walked out onto the porch, looked at the crows, then looked at me.

"What?"

I said.

"Don't you want to go down and see what I found?"

Bill said.

I glanced back at the house and the crows.

Bill said, "Look at the bodies."

I looked at the crows, which had gone quiet.

"What about them?"

"They're still there, aren't they?"

"Yeah," I said.

"They're still there."

"They look dead to me," he said.

"You don't know what they look like when they're alive."

He came closer to me, to the porch, and when I didn't move away he put his hand over my mouth, and told me he was going to put his hand over my mouth to silence me because I was giving him the willies.

I swallowed.

He kept talking.