The Cornfield Read online

with the same ferocity in which he gobbled up Paul, and with a hunger that only children’s souls can satisfy.

  I would always wake in a cold sweat and wonder if I was somehow getting a glimpse of what really happened to Paul. I prayed to God that they were just nightmares. I would rather a train had hit Paul or that he drowned in the river than to have gone through what I saw.

  We moved from that house when I was nine. My mother feared that Paul’s fate would become mine. I don’t know if she knew what evil lurked in the cornfield, and I don’t know that she would believe it if she was told.

  I couldn’t have been happier the day we loaded our belongings and left that house for the last time. I stared at the seemingly normal cornfield once more as we slowly backed out of the driveway and drove off. I felt a pressure lift from me as the house faded from sight.

  What I hadn’t known or expected was that the creature in the cornfield would follow me, watching and waiting for his chance to strike again.

  When I was sixteen, I was at a party where everyone was drinking and smoking. I shouldn’t have been there, and I knew it. My best friend, Leslie, had drunk too much and had passed out in one of the bedrooms.

  Cigarette smoke clouded the house like a thick fog. I went outside to get some fresh air. I sat down on a swing that hung from a tree branch in the front yard. I held onto the dry, brittle ropes that threatened to give way at any moment and turned around in circles, then lifted my legs. When I stopped spinning, a man stood in front of me.

  I jumped back and nearly fell out of the swing.

  “What are you doing out here all alone?” he asked.

  Chill bumps sprang up the length of my arms, though he didn’t seem threatening. He wore overalls and a straw hat and had a handkerchief hanging from his pocket. He looked like a farmer, like a regular man, except for his black eyes.

  Was he a neighbor? No parents were supposed to be home, that’s why they were having the party there.

  “It was too smoky in there, so I came outside.” I watched with my peripheral vision for signs of other people. Where was everyone?

  “You don’t want anything to drink?” He shifted slightly, but kept his distance.

  “I don’t drink.”

  “Well, aren’t you a good little girl.” A crooked grin crept across his face. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up.

  I forced a weak smile, but said nothing. He gave me the creeps. I wasn’t sure what it was about him, but I wanted him to go away immediately. I was sure I hadn’t seen him before, but for some reason, he seemed familiar.

  “If you don’t get in there to your friend soon, someone’s going to take advantage of her. You’d hate that to happen, wouldn’t you?”

  I stood up then. Did he know that Leslie passed out in one of the bedrooms? Of course not, he was just speaking in general, but I wanted to get inside.

  “I’ve got to go.” I started toward the house.

  “You go, Annie, and tell your friend to behave herself or she’s going to end up just like Paul.”

  Electricity shot through me, and I froze in my tracks. How did he know my name or about Paul? There was only one way. My whole body trembled, and I bolted up the steps, onto the porch, and jerked the door open. I pushed it closed and locked it. I pressed my forehead against the cool wood as I tried to catch my breath.

  When my heart slowed and the faint feeling subsided, I ran upstairs, going to each room until I found Leslie strewn across one of the beds. I shook her hard until she groaned loudly.

  “What? Leave me alone.”

  “Get up. We’ve got to go.”

  She groaned again, but I managed to get her to her feet. I wrapped one of her arms around my neck and led her from the room. She could barely stand, staggering and falling against almost everything and everyone we passed.

  Outside, I found her car and shoved her in the passenger seat. I felt as if someone was watching me. I hurried around the car to the driver’s side, scanning the yard as I went, but saw nothing but darkness and shadows. Still, I felt a heavy presence around me. I swung the door open and slid behind the wheel. I didn’t have my license yet, but I cranked the car and maneuvered it out of the tiny hole, around the other cars, and out onto the road.

  Leslie fell over onto me as I drove to her house. In her sleep, she moaned and cuddled against me like a child to her mother. My eyes grew heavy as I drove. There was nothing but pasture on either side of the two-lane road. I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw nothing but darkness. Still, I felt as if someone was watching me.

  My stomach knotted up again, and I was glad Leslie’s arm rested on mine, providing comfort in some small way. Her breath blew onto my arm and I tried to relax. She was okay and I wasn’t alone. I tried to concentrate on the road. Then there was a quick movement in the rearview mirror, and my eyes flew to it. Nothing. It must have been a deer running across the road.

  The hairs on my neck stood up and chills ran down my arms and back. I realized my hands were trembling on the steering wheel. What was happening to my body? There it was again, something in the mirror. I was afraid to look this time. I stared into the darkness at the road ahead, and the man from the party came into focus. He could have seen me with Leslie, saw that she’d passed out. He could have heard someone call me by my name, but there was only one way he could have known about Paul. He was the one from my nightmares. He was the one from the cornfield. He was the devil.

  “Annie,” Leslie said almost inaudibly.

  I sighed with relief. “Leslie, you’re awake.”

  “Where are we?”

  “On our way to your house. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  “I need a cigarette. Where is my purse?”

  “Oh no. I didn’t get it.”

  “You didn’t get it? We’ve got to go back,” Leslie said, still slurring her words.

  “We’ll get it first thing in the morning. I can’t go back tonight.”

  “Turn around. We have to go back.” She grabbed for the steering wheel.

  I pushed her away. “No. Sit back. I can’t go back tonight. There’s a weird guy there that gave me the creeps. Let’s just get it first thing in the morning.”

  “I can’t. I need my stuff. I’ll go myself. Just drive to your house, and I’ll go by myself.”

  Dread overcame me then and I knew if she went back alone, I would never see her again. This is what he wanted. He didn’t want me. He wanted Leslie, and I couldn’t let him have her. “Okay, we’ll go back.” I slowed down and pulled onto the shoulder of the road. I looked to make sure nothing was coming even though the road was deserted, then slowly accelerated onto the road. As I did, I saw something on the side of the road almost out of my view. It could have been my imagination or just a trick of the mind, but I thought I saw something standing there. As I forced my eyes to focus on the object, it stepped into the shadows. Pinpricks danced along my spine, and I pressed my foot to the floor. The car lurched then shot forward, speeding past the spot as fast as I could make the Honda go. I didn’t dare look to the right.

  Leslie gripped the dash, furrowed brows questioning me. “What’s wrong with you?”

  I couldn’t speak. I just wanted to get the purse and go home. I wanted to crawl into my warm, soft bed and forget that horrible night. I wanted to rest with no dreams of cornfields or beasts swallowing boys whole or of things watching me from the side of the road.

  We made it back to the house and got Leslie’s purse with no other incidents. She was safe that night and for years to come, but I knew if I had let her go back alone, she would not have come back. I don’t know if she would have disappeared, if she would have wrecked her car, or what would have happened, but I do know I would never have seen her alive again.

  Over the years, I have caught glimpses of him on the street, or going through a revolving door, or even in a crowded elevator. At first glance, I may not realize it, but then the pinpricks come or the hairs on my neck stand up. So
metimes I feel as if he’s watching me from the backseat of the car, and when I see flashes of movement out of the corner of my eye, I don’t dare look in the rearview mirror. Other times I see the inky black eyes, the ones from my nightmares, and sometimes I feel a tremendous pressure pushing down on me until I feel as if I can’t breathe, and I know it’s him, waiting.

  THE END

  About the author:

  Anne Nowlin grew up in a small town in NC where she lived with her mother and grandmother. As a child, she loved to play in the cornfield behind her house and fish with her uncles in the Mayo River. And at night, she would lie in bed listening for the clamor of the not so distant trains careening through the countryside. She would snuggle deep under the covers, comforted by the predictable shaking of the house and rattling of its windows, and fall asleep to dream of the places those trains could take her.

  Anne now lives in Winston-Salem with her family, three dogs, and demonic

  cat. Anne is the author of several short stories and one novel awaiting publication. She is currently working on her second novel, a psychological young-adult.

  Other works by the author:

  Short Stories

  The End

  Mommy

  Connect with Anne:

  Website: https://annenowlin.com

  Blog: https://annenowlin.com/blog

  Twitter: @annenowlin

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