For Lucy and Annabelle, and for Stephen King, for making corn scary

Fallon put the car in drive and winced at the sore spot left behind by the medical test she had had the day before.

It was a beautiful fall day, and she loved the season and Halloween.

However, a mysterious finding in her regular mammogram resulted in the need for a biopsy.

Her doctor assured her it was unlikely to be an issue, but the cold, sterile room and her white knuckled hand over the nurse’s made it hard to remember that.

Regardless, Fallon was seeking to clear her head with a drive through beautiful New England fall scenery in search of some rustic autumn décor. Rather than go for the Home Depot or supermarket choices, she sought out cornstalks from a real farm. She contacted a farm about an hour away and secured some stalks. Fallon also hoped to find some hay bales.

Only the most eager of leaves had started to sprout colors, but it was enough for her to clear her mind. The mild weather prompted her to keep her windows open.

Fallon loved Halloween. She had already been digging out her holiday decorations. It was funny, she thought to herself, how you get a slightly different twinge looking at skeletons, shrouds and gravestones when faced with the fleeting drift of your own mortality.

Again, she thought of the cold testing room. What’s the expression? Feeling a goose walk over your grave. That was it, Fallon thought.

She continued her drive until she was near to the farm. Fallon thought to herself this wasn’t the smartest move. A middle-aged woman driving out alone into the middle of nowhere.

“I’ve seen this episode of 48 Hours and it didn’t end well,” she mumbled to herself.

She jokingly told a friend the address she was headed for “just in case I don’t come back.”

Sort of jokingly.

Fallon listened to classic radio horror tales as she drove along. She clasped a crystal she’d recently discovered at a thrift shop. Her youngest daughter loved thrift shops as much as she did. Fallon was what one might call a “flake,” as she self-described often.

She believed there were many things one cannot see around us, and she believed in the energy from things like crystals. The moment she saw the pale pink crystal on a thin rope necklace, she had to have it.

Fallon clasped it for, real or imagined, strength, comfort and protection.

The road finally turned into a farm that was less rural storybook than she had hoped. There were unpleasant looking chickens and guinea hens walking about.

Dirty milk crates piled in a corner. And there, on top of a tattered bench, were her corn stalks.

The stalks were fine, Fallon thought, but they were clearly out of the ground for a while. Deader than dead. But then again, she thought, what better for Halloween décor?

“Something wrong with the stalks, lady?” a voice commented behind her.

Fallon turned, startled.

“No, no. Not at all,” she said.

The man was tall, with a scruffy beard. His jeans were ripped, and mud caked. His flannel shirt looked like the first flannel shirt ever made.

This is where I die, she thought to herself.

“That’ll be $20 bucks. Five dollars a stalk,” he said.

She nervously pulled the $20 out of her pocket and he took it in his gnarled hand.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Need help getting ‘em in the car?” he said, as she popped the back open.

No thanks. I’ve seen Silence of the Lambs, and I have learned from it, she thought.

Out loud, she said, “No, thank you. I’m fine.”

She dragged the musty corn stalks into her semi-clean car and shoved them in.

“Funny, ain’t it,” he said, watching her.

She closed the back and turned to him.

“What’s that?” Fallon asked, keys in hand, eager to leave.

“It’s funny how you rich ladies from downstate want to come up here and take our hard-earned work and crops to use for your ‘decorations.’ God forbid you grow things yourself. Might dirty up your manicure,” he said, barely concealing his disdain.

“I’m not rich,” she said, barely concealing her own. “But thanks.”

+++++

Fallon shrugged off the dirty farm and attitude as she continued her drive. Along the way, she stumbled upon another farm, one with the storybook farm atmosphere she had hoped for.

Driving down a sunflower-lined dirt road that led to a cheery tent filled with Halloween pumpkins, haybales and corn stalks that were still green and lustrous, Fallon wished she had waited to shop there.

A middle-aged woman with piercing and pretty blue eyes asked if she could help Stella.

“I was looking for some haybales,” Fallon said.

“Oh, we got ‘em. Drive up there and my husband will get ‘em into your truck for you,” she said.

Fallon drove up further to the tent and asked the man lugging bales around for two.

“No problem,” he said, a glint of good humor in his eyes. “Open up the back and I’ll put them in,” he said.

His overalls had what her mother would have called “clean dirt” on them, earned by working the land.

The farmer noted her corn stalks critically.

“Where’d you get those?” he said.

“Oh, another farm down the road,” she said, sheepishly, gesturing the direction.

“Up there? That old guy still trying to make that ‘farm’ work, eh? I thought he’d about quit. And you got the roots on ‘em too? Never seen them sold like before,” the farmer said.

Fallon blushed mildly.

“Yes, I clearly should have just done my one-stop shopping here,” she said, smiling. “I’ll make a note for next year!”

The farmer smiled.

“You do that, ma’am. Safe travels,” he said.

Now, THAT is what visiting a farm should feel like, Fallon said to herself.

With her successful road trip completed, Fallon turned the car to home. It was about 45 minutes and she hoped to get home before her daughters, a freshman in high school and a seventh grader, got off the bus.

She happily gazed at the fall colors, with the windows half open, and drove in the southern direction toward home. She opted to take backroads vs. the highway to make the drive more scenic. Also, the slower pace would make the wind rustle the corn stalks less.

The sound was unnerving.

She was not driving fast, yet Fallon continued to hear the rustling of the stalks in hear ear. She should have loaded them the opposite way with the roots by her head, but she was trying to keep the dirty root ball out.

The yards she passed were littered with inflatable ghosts, skeletons dressed in a variety of undignified outfits, including one set up with a full poker game.

“Now that’s a poker face,” she said to herself, giggling.

Still, the rustling in the back continued. Fallon unconsciously took hold of her crystal. She knew there was nothing wrong, but the uneasiness of the unpleasant corn stalk salesman along with her lingering uneasiness over her medical testing continued to plague what she had hoped would be a distraction.

“Asshole,” she mumbled, cursing the negative vibe the man had left her with.

Still, the corn shook and shivered with her every turn.

Maybe if I just close the windows, she thought to herself. Reluctantly, she locked out the pleasant fall air in the hopes the noise would cease.

Stephen King would be so into this road trip, Fallon thought. The Children of the Corn had to come from somewhere.

He who walks behind the rows indeed, she thought. That guy probably bbqs squirrel behind the rows.

Suddenly, Fallon felt something touch her ear. She gasped and nearly drove off the two-lane road. A searing pain hit her fingers as she reached for it. She stopped the car almost on someone’s lawn, and opened the door and leaped out, the car still running.

Fallon stood in the road as the lumbering yellow jacket that had stung her hand drunkenly flew off.

Several choice words left Fallon’s mouth and as she turned, she screamed as an oncoming car screeched and swerved quickly to avoid her.

“Trying to get yourself killed!!!?,” the driver screamed out the window, leaving Fallon in the dust.

It is surely starting to feel like it today, she thought.

Fallon nursed her stung hand as she reluctantly got back into the car with the stalks. She was certain the yellow jacket had hitched a ride in her unpleasant cargo. Fallon was nearly tempted to dump them on the side of the road and not look back, but she’d already paid, and it wouldn’t have been very considerate to leave them on someone’s lawn to clean up.

She put the car back in drive, leaving the windows open now, and instead turned on the radio. The rustling was only louder with the wind whipping through them, but she tried to concentrate on whatever the latest pop song was blasting from her speakers. Fallon clasped her crystal in her injured hand, hoping whatever healing it emanated was also physical.

Nearing home, Fallon was relieved the trip was over.

She drove up her rocky driveway and the corn stalks were in their full rustling glory, leaving its of their dried tops in her hair. She swatted it away, wondering if maybe they’d be better for a fall bonfire at this point.

Fallon pulled into her driveway and popped the back hatch. She went into the house for some ice for her hand. Then she looked at the clock and realized there wasn’t much time before her girls got home. She had hoped to have her fall accoutrements set up to surprise them when they got off the bus.

She went back out to the driveway and winced as she lugged the heavy haybales out of the truck. Between her hand and her incision, it was not pleasant.

With the haybales set up, she amusingly tapped her Halloween witch and chuckled as it let out its animated screech as its eyes glowed red.

Fallon returned to the car for the rest of her bounty.

“Ok,” she said out loud, “Last stop, guys.”

She tried to get a grip of the stalks, but they were unwieldly. She reached in and a piece split off, causing her to sneeze.

With both hands, Fallon tugged hard on the first bunch of dried stalks. There was no movement.

“One more time,” she said, gritting her teeth.

She reached in again, and Fallon had no time to react when she felt two stronger hands within the corn stalks grip hers tightly.

And yank.

++++++

The corn had just finished its shivered rustling when two young girls climbed up the stairs from their bus.

“Oh cool! Mom got haybales!” the older one, Lucy, said.

“Mom! Mom???” both girls called.  

The younger, Annabelle, went into the house and saw the ice pack on the counter.

“Mom?” she called.

She went back outside to her sister.

“Did you find her?” Annabelle said.

Lucy had reached the back of the car.

“No. So weird. Are her keys inside?” she said.

Annabelle nodded. “And an ice pack.”

Both girls stood, puzzled.

“Where could she be?”

“Mom!” they yelled in unison.

The only noise in return was the cackling witch decoration, her green eyes glowing in amusement.

+++++++

October — one year later.

“Daddy, daddy! I want to do the corn maze!!!” a little girl shouted, holding on to her father’s hand.

“Hold on a minute, Stella,” the man said.

He didn’t like the looks of the farm. Or its proprietor.

The man looked like he hadn’t bathed this century and had a seedy look in his eyes as he regarded the smartly-dressed man and his child.

“Can I help you with somethin’, sir?” he said.

There was something sarcastic in the “sir” that further bothered the man with his daughter. Yet, the six-year-old was so excited and really loved Halloween.

“Do you have a corn maze here?” the man said.

“I wouldn’t call it a maze, but we sure have a corn field out there. You’re welcome to take a look around,” the unpleasant farmer said, again his tone mocking.

“Yay!!!” the child yelled and took off running.

The father’s innate concern rose, and he cautioned his daughter to wait. The corn field looked vast, unmanicured, and hungry, he thought.

Hungry? Where did that come from? He thought to himself.

“Stella, Stella WAIT,” he said, running after her.

He finally caught up to his daughter inside the corn field.

“This is SO cool,” Stella said. “Come on, Daddy!”

Grabbing her father’s hand, she pulled him through the dusty, dry corn, until she stopped short.

“Daddy, I see something!” Stella said, pointing to one of the stalks.

He covered his eyes from the glare of the sun and could see something glinting ahead.

“Where?” he said.

“Here!” she said.

She reached up with her little hand and clasped something in her fist.

“Look, Daddy,” she nearly whispered in awe.

She opened her clasped hand and in it was a shimmering crystal on a string.

“It is so pretty! It’s PINK, my favorite color! Can I keep it, Daddy? Can I? I found it!” Stella said.

The two nearly jumped out of their skin when a loud voice behind them said, “No, child, you cannot keep it.”

The rumpled farmer must have been following them the whole time.

He reached his hand out and the child reluctantly placed her treasure in his hand.

He held it to the sky, and they all watched it shimmering and catching the light.

Stella was crushed.

“But why can’t I keep it, Daddy? I found it. It was just out here. It doesn’t belong to anyone,” she said sadly.

The farmer clenched the crystal in his fist and leaned down to meet Stella’s gaze. Without even realizing it, Stella backed two steps into the security of her father’s body, his hands tightly on her shoulders.

With his eyes on the child’s, he said quietly, with a twisted, “Oh, yes, it does belong to someone.”

Stella gasped.

He opened his and showed her the crystal again.

“This here…it belongs to the corn.”

With a whishing sound, the farmer tossed the crystal deeper into the field.

Stella watched as the crystal’s beauty was swallowed by the rustling stalks.

Later, as the fall moon rose to its apex, the crystal caught its luminous reflection quietly in its place in the dirt —

It glimmered softy, until the jealous, suffocating stalks rustled together — to once again extinguish its light.

Thank you for visiting my site. If you like this, please check out my horror anthology on Amazon, Tales from the Graveyard. Its first entry, The Blacksmith, is free on Amazon.

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