Chaser's Stalkings

The pacing Ghost of the Old Silo shuffled widdershins around the yard nightly, now, and not a soul would go near. No one except the crows of the Farmland Flock, and their leaders, Chaser and Gretel.
Chaser and Gretel, on their third clutch of eggs, watched the ghost together most nights. The pale old girl seemed sad...too sad for any living creature to have to endure, let alone a dead one who should have passed on into paradise by now. Or, whatever it was that People, with a capital P, believed. They had some awfully strange notions about life and death, and often led their lives according to someone else's notion of religion.
They were a baffling lot.
Chaser and Gretel, however, found her fascinating. Her reactions to the other People, when they would come near for some unfathomable reason, were different for each. And yet, they were all profound in their own right. The youngling, the girl child of the Farmland, for instance, elicited a sweet smile of forlorn love from the pale old girl, who would stop her shambling roaming around the old yard to hum a sweet lullabye to herself whenever she saw the growing child, swaying back and forth like a corn stalk laden with fruit and silk. It was a blessing that she sang to the young girl, who could neither see nor hear the ghost who so obviously yearned to hold and sing to her. A blessing to Kokopelli, the People's god of Growing Things. This was love, between this ghost and that child, who had no idea why the hairs on her arms would stand up whenever she came close to the old silo. Or why she would suddenly feel warmth, like the sun was shining on her face.
Chaser had, at first, believed that the old girl's ghost was hanging around the old silo and its yard because of the girl child. The youngster was the only one of the People who felt no fear coming around the old grain barn's yard.
Now, however. Now was different. The big, squint eyed fellow was back.
Morg, remembered Chaser. This man-Person's name was Morg, and he was a monster. Whenever Morg came around the old silo, the old girl's ghost had gotten downright agitated, gnashing her teeth, and tearing at her hair. But now, she stood stocks-still, staring dagger at squinty Morg. For his part, Morg began looking over his shoulder, and even searched the empty water barrel under what used to be the silo's rain gutters, but all he found was a half a dozen large snails. He moved past the silo to the old well, looking over his shoulder the whole time, with the old girl's ghost staring daggers at him the entire time.
She was following him as surely as the snails eyes were all following him on their stalks. He was someone to fear, and his demeanor was proof enough for most creatures, Chaser assumed. Morg obviously could not see the old girl's ghost, but she did not fear him. In fact, she was furious with him, screaming at him silently, the way ghosts do when they get worked up. She did not let up, not until he shivered and walked away toward the Big House. The old girl's ghost disapated the farther she got from the Old Silo, until finally she disappeared. Chaser and Gretel looked at each other.
Something was about to change.

---

Chaser spent the next few days hopping about the Farmland. There were some interesting things happening, and the crows had decided that watching the People, with a capital P, was more interesting than chasing bluebird bullies away from whatever stash they had stolen. Morg, the squint-eyed farmhand, had begun to experience terrible nightmares, and walked around doing his chores with an expression of disbelief and deep set fear. Things had begun to fall, around him. Quite close to him, very often. And people swore they could hear strange noises at odd hours of the darkling night. 
Of course, the crows could see the old girl's ghost as she threw clods of horse shit at him when no one was looking. The time she tipped a jug of paint off of a scaffolding platform onto the top of Morg's head got a full on cheer from the assembled murder of crows. She got more and more devious as the year wore on into winter, and Morg found himself the unfortunate victim of a slip-and-fall on the far side of the barn, near to where the Old Silo had stood. 
Morg had needed stitches in the back of his head, that time. The old girl was not messing around. But all of this had piqued Chaser the Crow's curiosity, and he began to follow the old girl's ghost as she picked, poked and prodded at Morg all night and day. Chaser just had to know why. He had figured out some time ago that Morg had caused the old girl's death, but he had not really cared why. Anyone who said they could fathom People, with a capital P, were beakless liars, so Chaser usually paid very little attention to the boorish and brazen folk.
The ones like Morg.
Chaser began to shadow Morg as silently and cleverly as only a crow can. Wherever Morg seemed to be doing chores, there was Chaser and the old girl's ghost. Random clods of earth, or rotten ears of corn, would pelt the by now sorely spooked Morg randomly, and no one but Morg ever saw or felt it happen. His fellow Farmlanders were starting to think he was touched in the head, which enraged the already sour man even further. Finally, one day in the deep of winter, the wind changed.
Chaser knew it when it happened; he could see the wind as clearly as he could see ghosts. And he could sense danger. It was a talent he and Gretel used to great success growing their brood, and adding to the farmlands Flock. So now, as he sat grasping at his favorite scarecrow's now empty stalk, he could sense Morg's anger, frustration, and fragile hold on reality all coming together to form a violent rage that saw him killing all of his fellow field hands as they slept.
Then, he turned his attention to the house, and the sleeping family inside.