Cemetery 1 “A Murder of Crows”
In the main graveyard of Wellington Street is a large sinkhole, the formation of which managed to take with it a large number of graves. It is assumed by many that this has made the graveyard unusable, but the truth is that there are still a few who choose to be buried there. There is however one grave in particular that stands out among the rest. This is mostly because of the fact there is no name on the tombstone, even though there is a confirmed date of death. Yet even more peculiar than that is the fact that a large number of crows often frequent the site.
Great efforts have been made to identify the man, including investigations into medical records from across the country. However, the identity of the young man buried there has remained a mystery. This is strange as his “condition” would have required significant medical treatment in order for him to have reached the age at which he died. In the end, all that is known about the man are the events between his arrival on Wellington Street, and his death later the same day.
At around nine in the morning police received numerous calls from local residents. They said that they had witnessed a strange looking man walking down the sidewalk. They were concerned as the man was wearing nothing save for a pair of white medical pants and seemed to be very ill. He seemed to be stumbling as he walked, and he seemed to be bleeding from several places. By the time police had arrived on the scene, several concerned citizens had collected around the him, wrapping a blanket around his reddish shoulders and giving him warm water.
All attempts to communicate failed as he seemed to be unable to speak or understand English, speaking a dialect that no one was able to discern. The bleeding was only slight, though there were severe separations in the skin. His eyes were a cool blue, and his face and tongue were swollen. His skin was hard and without flexibility, and within moments of the polices arrival he was brought to the hospital. After his arrival he was immediately placed in the ER on the verge of falling comatose.
After a litany of tests, it was determined that the young man was dehydrated and was suffering from an astonishing number of infections. He was placed on an IV along with a wide range of drugs. His kidney's and liver were failing, and a catheter was required to help flush his system. A closer examination of the skin revealed thick, diamond shaped scales. His ears were malformed, and lacked a nose. By all understanding, the mere fact he had been walking was incredible.
Based on the blood tests along with various other factors, it was determined that he was suffering from a terribly rare genetic disease known as harlequin-type ichthyosis. The disease is characterized by the thickening of the skin, along with a severe inability to maintain hydration and temperature. Upon this understanding, the drug isotretinoin was added to their treatment, one of the few known treatments of the disease.
Despite a great amount of investigation, all forms of identification proved futile. This included dental and DNA. Attempts were made to bring in a linguist to help communicate, however within hours of the young man's arrival at the hospital he dropped into a coma and died.
Despite the condition of the patient as well as the lack of known family, he was not without visitors in the closing hours of his life. Many of the people who first placed the calls, along with those who tended to the him initially, remained at the hospital. As the hours passed, gifts and cards filled the space outside of the room, though due to his state of infection none of these gifts were allowed in the room. Upon his death a priest was brought in to deliver final rights. His body was then removed from the room and moved to the morgue for the performance of an autopsy.
Not much else was discovered from this, though as expected his lungs were weak, likely due to their inability to inflate properly against the hardened skin of their chest. In the days that followed, well-wishers and other persons provided scores of leads in an effort to help aid in the identification of the young man. Unfortunately, this proved fruitless as all of the leads failed to produce an identity. As is normally the case, at first the body remained in the morgue in the hope that someone would come forward. Yet as time passed, it became clear no one was going to.
In one of the stranger events of the case, one of the last remaining members of the Wellington family offered to have the young man buried at his own expense. When asked about his action, and his later insistence that he be the only one to pay for the burial he said “The outpouring of support for this poor soul is tremendous. I wish only to help them find peace, while honoring the commitment my family made to the community so long ago.” When asked to explain further, the man refused to comment.
At the funeral, a large number of people came to honor the memory of the man, and after a short ceremony the body was interred in the ground in a mostly unmarked grave next to a large oak. Truly queer was the large number of birds in the graveyard that day. By some estimates there were over thirty crows in the tree in addition to those on top of the surrounding graves. This is especially strange considering the fact that the burial occurred in late October, with the population of crows there normally migrating south during the winter.
It has been over a year since the death of the young man, and it is not infrequent to find small tokens and gifts left near the grave. Yet more frequent than any of these things are the large murders of crows that seem to frequent the site during most of the year.
