“Connor!” Megan stopped running and called out, concern for her brother evident in her cracking voice.
But Connor barely heard her. His attention was focused on the creature that lay sprawled across the dirt path. It was motionless, like nothing more than an ordinary scarecrow. Connor crawled backward into a sitting position, only a few feet away from the lifeless husk. Then the thing sat up and turned its head to look at him. Connor screamed in terror.
The scarecrow picked up the fallen shovel and rose from the spot where it lay. Its shadow fell on Connor as it loomed over him, only to lift its gaze and start in Megan’s direction. Connor fumbled for his pocketknife, but the scarecrow picked him up and hurled him against the fence. The impact knocked the breath out of him, and he fell to the ground, gasping for air. The scarecrow turned and advanced on Megan, who remained fixed in place. Connor lay there helplessly, unable to reach her in time.
Dust, accompanied by the sound of tires spinning over gravel, rose in the distance, where a familiar camouflage truck returned to the farm with trailer in tow. Connor’s heart soared as he inched forward in the dirt. The scarecrow looked from Megan to Uncle Buddy’s truck before stepping back behind the rows of corn, out of sight.
Megan fled in the truck’s direction and waved wildly to get Buddy’s attention. He must have spotted her because the truck veered off the road in her direction. The truck door flew open and Buddy hurried out of the vehicle, pausing only to gaze at the abundance of crows spread across the sky. He took off his hat and ran to Megan’s side, clearly concerned.
“What is it, princess?” Connor heard him ask.
Something rustled in the stalks behind him, and Connor’s face went white with fear. Buddy glanced up at the cornfield briefly and watched the stalks sway in the wind before returning his focus to Megan. “What’s wrong?” He kept his back to the cornfield. “Where’s your brother?”
“Over here,” Connor attempted to say. The words came out as a hushed whisper. He tried to cry out to Buddy—to warn him—but his voice, stolen by fear, refused to respond. As he looked on in terror, he glimpsed the scarecrow moving toward Buddy like a phantom. “Uncle Buddy,” he said weakly. “Buddy!”
Finally, Buddy noticed him. “Connor?”
The flat of the shovel hit him in the face. Buddy tumbled back and landed on the ground, blood streaming from his nose. The scarecrow stepped over him, toward the girl who stood petrified in its wake. The thing raised the shovel and swung it down at her head, but Buddy reached up from the ground and caught the handle at the last moment.
“Megan, run!”
Connor was already on his feet, sprinting toward his sister.
“Go!”
They bolted toward the house. Behind them, Buddy tussled with the scarecrow for possession of the shovel, a contest he came closer to losing by the second.
“This way.” Connor led Megan to the cellar door outside the farmhouse, opened the latch, and lowered his sister inside after glancing back one last time at his uncle.
The scarecrow hit Buddy under the chin with the shovel’s handle and pried it free of his grasp. The next blow knocked his uncle again to the earth, where he lay still. Connor couldn’t tell if he was dead or unconscious. Then the scarecrow grabbed Buddy by the ankle and dragged him into the cornfield. Connor descended into the blackness below and slid the padlock into place before the scarecrow could return.
He fumbled around in the dark until he found the light switch. Even under the glow of the overhead bulbs, the cellar was dim. Shadows played tricks on Connor’s mind, each taking the form of something monstrous in the darkness—all while a true monster roamed the farm beyond the cellar walls. Get a grip on yourself, he told himself, but he was drowning in fear, in dread of each sound outside the light bulb’s range. He squinted, barely able to make out his sister’s shape in the muted light.
“Connor?” she said, and he stepped into view. “I’m afraid.”
“Me too.” Unable to tell if they were alone, he glanced about the room.
“Where did Uncle Buddy go?”
He grabbed his sister and held her tight. “He’s gone.” Connor’s eyes burned from the sting of Buddy’s loss. It’s my fault. If he hadn’t been too scared to cry out, the scarecrow wouldn’t have taken Buddy by surprise. Everything that had happened was because of him—because of his fear. It was the same fear that had woken the scarecrow from its sleep and given it strength, and now it threatened to destroy everyone he cared about.
“What are we going to do now?”
Connor shook his head. “I don’t know.” They couldn’t wait in the cellar forever. He knew that much at least. The scarecrow would find them eventually. Their only hope lay in escaping the farm altogether, but the crows watched their every movement outside the house.
The cellar door rattled violently above as something tried to get inside. Still holding onto each other, Connor and Megan backed away. After a few minutes, the latched door fell silent, and Connor allowed himself to breathe again. Then, they heard floorboards creaking above, inside the farmhouse. It’s in the house. If they went outside the cellar door, the crows would see them the moment they stepped out. But if they remained where they were, it would get them from that direction.
“We have to hide,” he whispered to Megan, but it was too late. The door leading upstairs swung open, and light poured into the basement. Connor put himself between Megan and the staircase and held out his hand as a ward against the overpowering light.
Instead of the scarecrow, it was his father’s voice that floated down to him. “Connor? Is that you?”
Connor had never been so glad to see anyone in his whole life. His grip fastened tightly around his crutch, Russ eased himself down the stairs. The moment he reached the bottom, his children threw themselves around him.
Russ embraced Megan. “It’s OK.” He wiped the tears from her eyes. “Daddy’s here. You’re safe now.”
“The scarecrow took Uncle Buddy,” Connor said mournfully. “It dragged him into the cornfield.”
Russ covered his face with his hands and shook his head. “You were right. I should have listened to you from the beginning.” He lumbered to the safe, where he entered the combination and took out his shotgun. “We’re getting out of here—together. Go upstairs and pack as quickly as you can. My truck is waiting outside.” Megan and Connor ascended the stairs side-by-side with Russ leading the way. He held the shotgun at the ready, as if danger lurked around every corner. “Go on.”
When they reached ground level, he motioned them toward the stairs to the second floor, but Connor stopped dead in his tracks.
“Dad,” he whispered from the parlor, facing the door.
“What is it, son?”
The crows were waiting outside—all of them. The swarm had grown so large it was as if a black veil had fallen over the farmhouse. At the sight of the Stevens family ascending from the basement, their shrieks rang out across the evening sky, and the birds descended on the house. They smashed through the windows and poured inside, feathers flying everywhere.
“Run!” Russ knocked open the screen door but stopped at the edge of the porch.
The scarecrow stood in the front yard, blocking their path to the truck. It held a scythe in its hands.
“Kids,” Russ said, propping the shotgun against his arm to steady it. “Get back.” He took aim at the scarecrow, which remained where it stood and watched them as Russ’s finger tightened around the trigger. Then the whispers came. Russ’s arms began to shake, as if he could not bring himself to pull the trigger.
“Dad!” Connor hurried to his father’s side. “Shoot it!” But when he looked again, the scarecrow was gone. In its place stood Liz Hayes.
“Liz?” Russ murmured, as if in a daze. He lowered the shotgun, dropped his crutch, and limped toward the cornfield.
“No!” Connor ran after him. “She’s not real!”
Russ either didn’t hear him or didn’t care. He was trapped in a dream, just as Connor had been so many times before. Connor grabbed his father’s sleeve and tried to pull him back.
Russ walked closer to the cornfield’s edge, where the phantom lingered. “I’m sorry, Liz.”
“Wake up,” Connor begged, but Russ paid him no heed. He stepped forward to embrace Liz, and in her place the scarecrow reappeared and slashed him across the chest with the scythe.
Russ screamed in pain and fell back. Blood spurted from the ripped hole in his torso and stained the ground. “Where am I?” After a brief moment, his eyes widened in recognition.
“Come on.” Connor, a few steps away, reached for his hand.
The crows burst out of the house as one, flocking toward the cornfield. Connor looked around for Megan and their father, but they were lost in the dark cloud and driven inside the rows. The whispers grew louder, until they suddenly stopped.
“Hello?” Connor peered around amid the last vestiges of light. He was alone again, trapped in the cornfield. Something moved behind him, and he spun around. A figure was visible, running in the next row. Connor pushed through the stalks and saw Tommy Evers watching him, a dead smile on his face.
Gasping, Connor fled, dimly aware of the mist gathering at his feet, and almost ran into the specter of Liz, who reached out as if to take his hand. Connor ducked under her grasp and came face-to-face with a leering Keith Evers. He went deeper, pursued by phantoms, until at last he found himself standing once more in the cornfield’s heart.
The ghosts loomed at the edges, blocking his retreat. And in the center of the circle, wreathed in ethereal blue light, stood the last person he ever expected to see.
“Hello, Connor,” Jezebel said. “Welcome back.”
Chapter TWENTY-ONE
Darkness crept over the face of the cornfield as the farm yielded to the dominion of night.
The cornstalks appeared black in the gathering fog. Their shadows slithered across the ground to converge at Connor’s feet as if reaching out for him.
The ghosts, their shadow bodies barely visible in the dark, pressed themselves against the corn. Keith and Tommy Evers, Liz Hayes, and Jasper Blackwell—the unearthly sentries blocked his path. The shapeless forms of crows were interspersed over the cornstalks between them. But Connor’s eyes were drawn instead to the jack-o’-lanterns. There were seven in all, monstrous faces strung across the cornstalks in a circle. Angry orange light burned inside four of the carved pumpkins—the remaining three were still dark.
He stood facing Jezebel in the center of the circle, under the specter of the deserted cross. A hint of red glowed from behind her green eyes.
“I don’t understand.” He tried to wake from the vision without success. “I went to your house, but you weren’t there. My dad says I made you up. You’re not real.”
She laughed—a shrill, cold sound that sent a chill running down his spine. “I wouldn’t say that, exactly. In fact, in this place, I’m as real as you are. We all are.” She gestured to the ghosts that surrounded them. “I can wear any face whose spirit I’ve taken. I chose this one because it would appeal to you.”
Aware of the ghosts at his back, Connor took a step away from her. “You’ve been lying to me all along?”
Jezebel’s lips curled back in a cruel smile. “You were so eager for a friend. It was easy to get you to do what I wanted. Take these jack-o’-lanterns, for instance.” She held a hand under a lantern’s orange light. “With each one that comes to life, my power grows.”
His eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Who are you, really?”
“You should know better than anyone. After all, it was you who woke me. You and your delicious fear.”
“The scarecrow,” he said, stunned by the sudden realization.
“A remnant. An echo of something far more powerful. Something the real Jezebel Woods destroyed. Blackwell thought he could lock me away, sap my strength and starve me into sleep, but he didn’t count on you. Your fear gave me strength again—power to walk, to control the crows, manipulate the weather. And now, my time has come at last.”
“It was you. You threatened Tommy Evers with a knife. You put Mister Bear on the well. You messed with my dad’s brakes and made it look like I did those things.”
Her laughter filled the air. “No, Connor. It was you.”
“You’re lying. I would never hurt my family.” Connor took another step back and found himself nearly face-to-face with the ghostly Liz Hayes.
“But, Connor, you already have.” She seemed to revel in each new revelation. “What did you think you were doing each time you dreamt of the cornfield? While you were here, in this place, I used your body to do those things.”
“No.” Connor found himself unable to breathe. “It’s not true. It can’t be true.”
“Maybe you just need to try a little harder to remember.”
When Connor thought back to all those events, suddenly each scene was different than he recalled. He watched himself standing over Tommy Evers in the cornfield and holding a knife to his throat. He saw himself carving pumpkins alone on the front porch as Russ walked by. He had placed Megan’s stuffed bear on the well before returning to the house to comfort her. Connor tried to stop the onslaught of recollections, but the flood proved too much to hold back. He saw himself underneath the truck, using tools to tamper with Russ’s brakes. He went outside in his sleep, taking Liz’s keys and disposing of her car to conceal the scarecrow’s misdeeds. He had dragged Tommy Evers’s body out of the forest and into the cornfield, all while possessed by the spirit of the scarecrow.
“Don’t worry,” Jezebel said. “You didn’t kill anyone. I can’t make you do it. That was all me, though you were the perfect helper. But for all we’ve done, I remain bound to this farm, tethered to you—to your fear. With the jack-o’-lanterns you carved I’ve been able to trap the spirits of those I’ve killed. And tonight, once your family is dead, the three remaining lanterns will come alive, and I will finally be free to leave the borders of this farm.”
That was why the scarecrow ignored me, Connor realized. It hadn’t seen him as a threat. “How are you doing this?”
“We made a pact, remember? Surely you haven’t forgotten that day in the cornfield when you said that you would give anything to have your mother back? Anything. Tonight, you finally get your wish. I can bring her back, Connor. Isn’t that what you wanted? Just the two of you, here, forever.”
The whispers stirred, taunting him—tempting him. Connor tried his best to shut out the voices. “No. I won’t let you hurt them.”
Jezebel laughed, and her voice grew deeper and distorted. “You will do nothing. You’re trapped here, inside this nightmare, with no way to wake.” The phantoms inched forward, step-by-step, and pinned him in the center of the cornfield. One by one they surrounded him, ensnaring him in a tightening circle, their dead faces looming ever closer. They called to him, each whispering how he had failed to save them—how he would fail to save his family.
Somewhere beyond the ghostly circle, a gentle voice rang out above the whispers, like a memory he had long forgotten, unmistakable.
“You don’t have to be afraid,” his mother said.
Her words caused his head to clear, if only a little, and Connor remembered how Russ had broken out of his trance after the scarecrow slashed him across the chest with the scythe. Suddenly, he knew what he had to do. His hand shaking wildly, he reached into his pocket and took out the pocketknife.
When the ghosts parted, only Jezebel remained, and her voice became a howl. “What are you doing?”
“It’s the only way to wake up,” Connor told himself. He hesitated, the knife shaking in his trembling, uneven grip.
“Jus
t look at you,” she said. “You know you can’t do it. Think of the pain.” Connor opened the blade and held it over his outstretched palm. Jezebel’s eyes burned with fire. “You little fool. This changes nothing! You are nothing more than a scared little boy. You cannot stop me. You will die trying.”
“I’m not afraid of you.” Connor slashed across his palm, drawing blood. He screamed from the pain and dropped the knife.
Jezebel vanished, leaving only the night.
One by one, Connor smashed each of the jack-o’-lanterns and went off into the fog after his family.
* * *
Megan could hardly see through the fog. She crouched among the stalks, completely alone. Russ, Buddy, and Connor were all gone. Even Mister Bear was missing. Lost in the cornfield where the crows had driven her before the sun had disappeared from the sky, she walked slowly under the shadow of the corn.
Connor will come for me, she thought as a sound emanated from the next row. He promised. Megan hesitated, unsure of what awaited her. She crept closer, breathlessly hoping that it was someone from her family. “Connor?” She peered into the next row.
A crow burst out of the darkness and unfurled its wings as it flew toward her. Megan screamed and staggered into the row behind her as the bird vanished from whence it came. A few seconds later, she heard the sound of heavy footsteps drawing closer. A figure obscured by the fog advanced toward her. Megan lowered herself to the ground and hid on the other side of the stalks. She watched as the figure approached. Was it her father?
A hint of moonlight that stole into the cornfield revealed the threatening features of the scarecrow’s leering face. It stopped right beside the place where she was hidden. Her face was inches from its boots. Megan stifled a scream and waited until the scarecrow was gone before she dared emerge from hiding.
She let out a small moan at the thought that the cornfield was like an enormous maze built to keep her trapped inside. She went this way and that, but everywhere she turned she seemed to end up right back where she started. The house’s lights, and those of the barns, had vanished, enveloped by the mist.
The Whispers of the Crows Page 18
