Run to the Manor

The moment I turn away from the empty scarecrow post and start running, the entire cornfield seems to come alive around me. Dead stalks whip against my arms and face while mud splashes up the backs of my legs with every **** stride through the flooded rows.

Rain pours so hard it blinds me half the time, forcing me to navigate by the distant glow of the manor lights ahead while thunder shakes the Blacklands hard enough to rattle the earth beneath my boots. My breath burns in my lungs almost immediately, but adrenaline keeps driving me forward through the maze of towering corn.

I never actually see whatever is behind me. That somehow makes it worse. At first it is only instinct. The primal certainty that something is moving through the field in pursuit of me just beyond the reach of my vision. Then I begin hearing it between the crashes of thunder. Heavy movement forcing its way through the flooded rows somewhere behind me.

Corn stalks snap and wet footsteps crunch through mud. Sometimes the sound seems distant, sometimes terrifyingly close. Once, lightning flashes overhead, and I catch movement pacing me several rows over. Only the suggestion of something impossibly tall moving through the corn at the exact same speed I am running.

I nearly fall trying to sprint faster. The Colt Peacemaker remains clenched tightly in my hand while I shove through the suffocating rows of dead stalks. Wet leaves slap across my face and tangle through my curls while panic steadily overtakes rational thought. I stop trying to understand what is chasing me somewhere behind the walls of corn.

I stop trying to listen closely enough to identify footsteps or breathing or anything human. The only thing that matters now is reaching the manor before whatever is hunting me catches up. The bell tolls again somewhere ahead. The sound echoes through the storm while the manor slowly grows larger beyond the field.

Gothic towers rise black against the lightning while warm golden light spills from tall windows overlooking the Blacklands like some impossible refuge at the center of the storm. Then the corn suddenly ends. I burst out of the field so fast I nearly lose my footing entirely, stumbling onto a muddy stone path leading uphill toward the manor grounds.

My boots skid across wet stone while I catch myself against an iron fence surrounding the estate. For one frantic second I spin back toward the corn expecting the thing behind me to come charging from the rows, but nothing emerges.

The field sways violently beneath the storm, but whatever was following me no longer moves toward the edge. I stand there gasping for breath while rain pours off my jacket and dress in freezing sheets. Somewhere inside the corn, something shifts slowly between the rows before going still again.

The manor looms above me now in all its impossible scale. Towering Gothic spires claw upward into the storm while warm light glows behind enormous windows framed by dark stone walls slick with rainwater. The place looks ancient, isolated from the rest of the world in a way that makes the Blacklands surrounding it feel less like geography and more like a moat.

Ravens line the iron fenceposts leading toward the manor entrance in silent rows, their black feathers slick with rain beneath the constant flicker of lightning overhead. There are dozens of them perched along the fence and crouched atop the stone walls surrounding the estate, yet not a single bird moves as I approach the gate. They do not scatter. They do not caw. They simply watch me pass through the storm with dark unblinking eyes that follow every step I take toward the manor.

I **** myself through the front gate and hurry up the winding stone path toward the massive double doors at the top of the manor steps. My pulse still pounds violently in my chest. I glance repeatedly back toward the cornfield expecting at any second to see something emerge from the darkness below, but nothing does.

Lightning flashes overhead as I finally reach the front entrance. The manor doors tower, carved from black wood and decorated with elaborate patterns of ravens, thorned vines, and strange circular symbols worn smooth with age. For one long moment I simply stand there beneath the storm trying to steady my breathing. Then I raise my hand and knock.