Investigate the Missing Scarecrow

The manor lights glow through the storm ahead of me, warm and distant beyond the endless rows of flooded corn. Every instinct I possess screams at me to run toward them and never look back. Instead, I slowly turn toward the empty scarecrow post standing crooked in the mud behind me while rainwater streams down my face and neck beneath the collar of my leather jacket.

Because scarecrows do not simply vanish. I already know that if I start running now without understanding what is behind me, I will spend the entire sprint imagining hands reaching out of the dark to grab my throat. The flashlight beam trembles slightly as I sweep it across the corn, finding nothing.

Dead stalks sway in the wind while rain hisses through the field hard enough to drown out everything beyond a few yards in every direction. The corn closes around me in narrow suffocating walls that block the manor from sight almost immediately once I step deeper between the rows.

The bell tolls again somewhere behind me. I move slowly toward the empty post. Mud sucks at my cowboy boots with every step while the flashlight beam cuts through curtains of rain and tangled stalks. The deeper I push into the rows, the more claustrophobic the field becomes.

Corn presses against my shoulders and arms from both sides, wet leaves dragging across my bare legs like fingers in the darkness. Something crunches behind me. I spin instantly, flashlight whipping through the rows.

I spin toward the sound with the flashlight beam cutting wildly through the rain, but there is nothing waiting for me between the rows except dead corn swaying beneath the storm. Darkness presses tight around the narrow path while water streams down my face and soaks through the thin white fabric clinging to my skin beneath the leather jacket.

The field suddenly feels impossibly cramped, the towering stalks hemming me in from every direction until it becomes difficult to shake the feeling that something is standing just outside the reach of the flashlight watching me breathe.

My pulse pounds hard enough to hurt as I slowly pull the Colt Peacemaker from beneath my jacket, the familiar weight grounding me slightly despite the fear tightening in my chest. Rainwater runs down the polished barrel while I keep the revolver low at my side and continue deeper into the field toward the empty scarecrow post.

Every sound now feels amplified beyond reason. The crunch of my boots in the mud. The hiss of rainfall against dead leaves. The scrape of corn stalks brushing against my shoulders behind me after I pass. Somewhere behind me, the bell tolls again through the Blacklands while something unseen shifts softly in the darkness between the rows.

The empty scarecrow post finally emerges from the darkness ahead, leaning sideways in the mud where I left it. Torn black fabric still flaps from the wooden crossbeam while lengths of twine creak softly in the wind. Up close, I can see deep grooves gouged into the soaked wood near the center of the post.

A cold knot tightens slowly in my stomach. Then my flashlight catches something in the mud beneath the post, footprints. Large ones, feet pressed deep into the flooded earth leading away from the post and deeper into the cornfield. I crouch slowly beside them. Whatever made them weighed far more than a human being should.

The beam of my flashlight flickers once, then again. “Come on,” I whisper. The light dims briefly before stabilizing. During that brief flicker, I hear breathing directly behind me. The breathing behind me is unmistakably real. It is wet and slow, dragging through the darkness close enough for warm air to brush the back of my neck beneath the rain.

Every muscle in my body locks instantly while the cornfield seems to collapse inward around me, the dead stalks suddenly silent except for the pounding of rain and the violent hammering of my own heartbeat. I freeze in place with the Colt clenched in my hand, too terrified for one horrible second to turn around and see what is standing directly behind me.

The flashlight trembles violently in my hand now. I turn slowly. At first I only see darkness between the rows. Then lightning flashes overhead. The scarecrow stands less than six feet away from me. Its body towers above the corn, draped in black cloth and rotting straw.

Mud-caked fingers hang unnaturally long at its sides while rainwater pours from the brim of the cracked black hat shadowing its face. Except it is not a burlap sack anymore. The thing beneath the hat has eyes, clouded and dead and staring directly into mine. My body finally unlocks all at once.

I lunge backward through the mud while raising the Colt, but the scarecrow moves first. It explodes forward with horrifying speed. One massive hand slams against my throat hard enough to crush me backward into the flooded earth. The flashlight flies from my hand and spins wildly through the mud, its beam flashing across rows of corn and sheets of rain before coming to rest sideways beside us.

I scream, or try to. The sound barely escapes my throat beneath the creature’s grip. Up close, the smell pouring off the creature is unbearable. The stench of wet straw and rotting meat mixes with mud, stagnant water, and the sickly sweetness of something long dead left to decay beneath the summer heat.

Beneath the hanging strips of soaked black fabric, I can see pieces of something horribly human stitched deep inside the thing’s chest and neck. Pale skin stretches tightly between bundles of roots and straw while crooked human teeth protrude unevenly from the darkness beneath the brim of its hat.

Its dead eyes remain fixed on mine the entire time, emotionless, hungry and ancient. I claw desperately at the hand crushing my throat while rain blinds me and mud fills the back of my dress. My fingers brush the grip of the Colt for one **** second before the scarecrow slams my arm back into the earth hard enough to send pain exploding through my shoulder.

The flashlight beam illuminates its face one final time, the stitched skin and the wet straw writhing beneath it. The dead human eyes stare into mine from beneath the dripping hat. And then the scarecrow lowers its face close enough for me to smell the grave dirt packed inside its mouth. It is the last thing I ever see.

THE END