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Authors Note: The top half of the story is not mine, so please read past it and also check my comment at the bottom.

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I always used to think that horror was some-thing that happened at night. You know the sort of thing. It's dark and cloudy and maybe there's a storm trembling in the air and you're lost in the middle of the countryside and suddenly, somewhere a wolf howls ...

By the time I was 14 I'd read all of Darren Shan and I'd even started on Stephen King although my mum didn't like that because of all the rude words. The sort of horror stories I liked best had ghosts and vampires and hideous monsters that jumped out at you just when you weren't expecting them. I once saw a film about a man being chased by cannibals and I swear I didn't sleep for a week.

But as I discovered, real horror isn't like that.

Real horror is worse.

For me, it all started on a beautiful September afternoon. It was the end of our first week at school and I was walking home down streets that I'd known all my life. I remember hearing the chimes of an ice cream van. A bunch of little kids ran past me, chasing after it. There were a couple of workmen painting one of the houses and one of them raised a hand in greeting as I walked past. In other words, everything was normal. It was so normal that I didn't even notice how normal it was, if you know what I mean. No. That's not quite true.

There was one thing.

I live with my mum and dad in a sort of crescent. All the houses are modern and to look at them you'd think they were all competing to have the prettiest front gardens. We're right in the middle and as I approached the front door, I noticed a crow, perched on the roof. It would have been hard to miss. It was a great, fat thing, almost twice the size of any bird I'd ever seen. And it was very black. Its feathers could have been dipped in oil, the way they hung off it. Its eyes - also black - were as bright as diamonds.

There was something pink and nasty, writhing in its beak. The crow was eating it. But as I approached, it stopped and for a moment it seemed to stare right at me. I don't know how long I stood there, looking at it - probably just two or three seconds, although it felt longer. Then, acting on impulse, I leaned down, picked up a stick and threw it at the crow.

"Shoo!" I shouted. "Buzz off!" The crow lurched into the sky and disappeared. And that was it. It was just a bird, eating a worm and I had scared it away. That was what I thought.

I'd already forgotten about it as I fumbled for the keys and opened the front door. As usual, I threw my bag down in the hall and went straight into the kitchen. But nothing was ever going to be "as usual" again. I smelled it first. Sweet and sickening.

And then I saw it.

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The crow was back. On the kitchen table, without the worm now, it looked at me intently with its beady black eyes. The musty stench of its greasy feathers was overpowering. I froze in cold surprise, my mind racing. How did it get in? The window! It was open, but how? I slowly stepped back, towards the hallway and shut the door as quietly as possible before kneeling down by my school bag and fumbling for my mobile phone. When I was little, about five or six a tiny little sparrow had flown into the kitchen. At first it just looked around before flying back to the window but it missed the opening, it couldn’t tell where the glass was. It hit the window hard and fell down before trying again, and again until it fell into the soapy water of the kitchen sink. I was in tears by that point and ever since I’ve been afraid of birds getting trapped inside the house.

“Mum?” I said, a little shaken, into my mobile.
“Hi, David. What’s up? Have a good day at school?” She replied warmly.
“School was fine, yeah but, listen, we must have left the window open! There’s a really big crow in the kitchen!”
“Oh, well no need to panic. Just shut the kitchen door and stay out of there till I get home okay? I’ll deal with it.”
“Okay, just get home soon mum. Freaked me out a bit, It’s massive!”
“No need to worry about it sweetie, I’ll…” The phone went dead.
“Mum? Damn.” I looked down at my phone, I had forgotten to charge it last night.

I sighed, pocketing my mobile. No way was I going into the kitchen to get the home phone. I picked up my bag and walked upstairs and into my bedroom. I froze for the second time since arriving home. My room was a mess, more so than normal. DVDs, CDs gone, along with my playstation games. The open window, a robber? was he still in the house? I breathed heavily as I dropped my bag and walked over to my desk. Snatching up an old wooden ruler, feeling marginally better with that in my hand before walking slowly over to my parents bedroom. No one in there, though it was obvious the burglar had been, from the empty jewellery box. I ran down the stairs, focused on making sure there was no one in the house. It didn’t look like anything in the living room had been touched, maybe he couldn’t take big stuff like the TV. Feeling slightly better now though quite violated in a way as well, not liking the thought of someone in my house at all.

I turned around, looking at the kitchen door for a moment. I need to call my parents, the police. No, they should be home in an hour. I’ll just watch TV, no I’ll fix my room up. I don’t want to go to sleep tonight with it looking like that. I went back up to my room. Was that a creak in the attic? That was definitely a noise! Someone must be up there, or it could just be the wind. I swallowed, looking at the trap door with the rope hanging down that mum always complained to dad about. I grabbed a torch and stuffed a can of deodorant (for want of a better weapon) in my pocket. Tightening my grip on the torch I pulled down the rope, a wooden staircase descending in its wake. I climbed up slowly, shining the torch into the attic and looking around. A man ran towards me and I screamed in fright, dropping my torch. I scrambled down the attic stairs, pulling the deodorant out of my pocket as he tackled me to the floor.

“Get of me!” I yelled, kicking out against the strength of the man.
“Shut up if you don’t want to get hurt!“ The man snarled, holding into me tightly.
Just reacting on instinct I managed to spray the deodorant in his face.
The man yelled, his hands going to cover his eyes, letting go of me.
I ran down the stairs, adrenaline pumping through me and out into the welcoming sunshine, racing across the lawn, trampling flowers. I heard an agonising scream from the house.

The man had stumbled down the stairs, not looking where he was going. He had burst into the kitchen, one arm still over his eyes and stumbled, falling onto the kitchen table, onto the crow. The crow cawed in distress, pecking wildly at the man’s face. Even more so when the man screamed in pain. The police found him on the kitchen table, the crow with its wings bent beneath him, an eyeball in its beak.