The Scarecrow Snuff Out

by Carolyn Ridder Aspenson

  Dylan gripped the metal badge clipped onto his belt and glanced down at it. “This answer your question?”

  As he lowered his eyes and saw the badge, his mouth softened. He stuffed the keys back into his pocket. “Uh, I…”

  “A taxi is an excellent suggestion, sir,” Dylan said, and then we walked away.

  “A taxi is hard to get around these parts,” I said.

  “It won’t be tonight.”

  “I hope not, or that guy’s going to be in trouble.”

  “The county jail’s going to be busy tonight. It’s pretty standard for the festival.”

  “Really?”

  He nodded.

  “Wow, that’s sad.”

  “It’s a celebration. Happens everywhere.”

  I hadn’t really thought about that.

  Dylan commented on a row of zombie-like scarecrows with their heads still attached. “That’s surprising.”

  “But it’s a good sign, right? Maybe Nicholas, or whoever is doing this, figured out we’re onto them and stopped?”

  “Doubtful. Someone wouldn’t go to all this trouble and then just stop.”

  “Even if they thought they’re close to getting caught?”

  “We’re not at that stage on the game, not with Nicholas anyway, if he’s the one doing this. Right now he thinks we think it’s Luke Sawyer—”

  “Which we kind of do, or at least we did.”

  “Exactly. So, to him, he’s in the clear. What would be his reason to stop then? If anything, he’d step up his game to prove he’s smarter than we are.”

  “That makes sense, I guess.”

  A witch crawled out of the corn and stretched across the ground in front of us. I jumped out of her way. She cackled and her wicked sneer after we walked past her made me shudder.

  “She was freaky,” I said. I held onto Dylan’s arm a little tighter than before.

  “I can’t disagree with you on that.”

  A branch of lightning took flight above the cornfield and hissed as it trailed across the black night sky. Following in its afterglow, a vibrating clap of thunder boomed so loud my stomach ached. As if perfectly timed to follow the thunder, several of the heads on the zombie-like scarecrows fell to the ground in one swoop and rolled down the sloped path and into the corn rows.

  Dylan marched over to them and flashed his cell phone light behind them. When he saw nothing, he cautioned me to stay where I was. “There’s someone back here. I can hear them running through the corn.” He shut off his light.

  “See that?” There was a faint light in the corn rows behind the headless scarecrows. “Back that way.”

  He nodded. “Stay here. I’ll be right back. Keep your cell phone on and ready to call me if you need me.”

  I wrapped the long strap of my purse over my left shoulder and across my body, wondering why I even brought the thing in the first place, and took out my cell phone. Some time ago Belle, God love her, set Dylan up as an emergency number in my cell phone, and all I needed to do was tap a few buttons to call him if I couldn’t direct Siri to do so verbally. I typed out a quick text to Belle letting her know what was going on, though I couldn’t give her specifics of where we were.

  I also sent William a message, detailed out a description of my location, explained the situation and described the direction Dylan headed. I knew the sun set in the west, but I had no idea what the moon did, and I berated myself for not paying attention during fourth grade science, the only time I recalled learning about astronomy.

  He responded, letting me know he’d send someone out, but I told him it wasn’t necessary. I just wanted him to know. Belle replied, too and said she and Matthew had experienced something similar near them, so she had been told to keep her feet glued to the ground, also.

  Neither of us was all that excited to be stranded in the middle of a haunted corn maze.

  In the dark.

  Alone.

  With creepy rolling scarecrow heads and shadowy figures floating around us, whether fake or not.

  Scary was scary regardless of how it came about.

  The number one rule of the maze was no touching, but some of the employees didn’t abide by that rule, most of them, really, and I’d already been touched several times throughout the night. A whisper of a finger gliding across my arm as a ghoulish figure dragged a leg past me. A tap on the shoulder so I’d turn to see a disfigured facial mask with bloodshot eyes and ratty, tangled hair filled with black spiders an inch away from my face, sending me back a few feet at a time, usually screaming and then laughing at myself for it.

  Being scared with Dylan or even Belle was one thing, but standing there alone, that was different. I was scared. I wanted to shrink to the size of an acorn, to be unnoticeable to everything around me, be invisible.

  I pressed my elbows into my sides and stayed as still as possible. The only part of me that moved was my chest, and only because I couldn’t stop my rapid breathing. Nearly hyperventilating from fear, I focused my thoughts on breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth in slow, deep breaths to maintain as much calm as possible.

  I heard my momma’s voice tell me not to be scared. I let her tell me that over and over, her soothing voice calming my racing heart.

  My breathing normalized, and I finally reached a point of calm. I paced a small path in the area around me just to keep myself busy. The area was awfully quiet, and I suddenly realized not one single person had come that way in at least five minutes. Had it been that long? I hadn’t thought to check the time when Dylan left.

  I glanced down at my phone and a low light appeared out of nowhere on the ground. The shadow of a scarecrow walked into my view, but when I glanced upward, nothing was there.

  Without warning, a hand covered my mouth and wrenched me back, dragging me into the corn stalks. It smelled wretched, like the disgusting deer blood. My stomach twisted in knots, and I swallowed back the bile in my throat. I pulled at the hand, dropping my phone in the process. With all of the strength I could muster, I dug my nails into the skin of the hand wrapped around my face, only the hand was gloved in a thick, suede work glove, the kind my father used to wear for yard work. I tried to scream, but it was useless. Whoever owned the hand just tightened their grip on my face and covered my nose, too. I closed my hands into tight fists and pounded them into the person’s legs. When that didn’t work, I grabbed them but all I found was denim. I dug the heels of my cowboy boots into the ground. It slowed us down but not enough to stop us, so I twisted and punched and kicked and smacked and fought with every ounce of my soul to escape the clutches of whoever it was hauling my weakening body through the cornstalks.

  I wasn’t all that heavy, but my fighting must have exhausted the person because he grunted, and I instantly recognized the voice. I stopped moving and did my absolute best to calm myself. I needed to put him off guard so he would relax enough for me to do something. I wasn’t sure what, but I hoped I’d figure that out eventually.

  He threw me to the ground. I landed on something hard and pointy and winced. I tried to stand but he shoved me back down. “Stay down,” Luke Sawyer said.

  I wiped the sweat dripping from my forehead. “They know it’s you, and Dylan knows where to find me.” Part of that was sort of true, kind of, I hoped anyway.

  “Dude, what’re you doing? Why’s she here?”

  Nicholas. Wait. Nicholas?

  “What’re you doing here?” I asked. I pushed myself from the ground and Luke knocked me down again.

  “I told you to stay put.”

  Nicholas helped me up. “Dude, she’s a friend of my Meemaw. Don’t do that to her.”

  “If she’s a friend of your meemaw, then you know who she’s dating, right?”

  Nicholas didn’t back down. “She’s a nice lady. She won’t cause us any trouble. I told you to leave them out of this.”

  “Her boyfriend is the County Sheriff. She can cause us all kinds of trouble.”

  “You’re alread
y in all kinds of trouble, Luke. What you’re doing is wrong, and now you’ve…” I wasn’t sure exactly what he’d done but it had to be something close to kidnapping. “You’ve kidnapped me and that’s a felony, so you’re in even bigger trouble.” I appealed to the kinder of the two; Nicholas. “Your grandmother is going to be a wreck. If something happens to me, she’ll never forgive herself for introducing you to me. You know that Nicholas. You can’t let this happen. You can’t.”

  He bowed his head and his shoulders sank. “Man, this ain’t the way this was supposed to go down, Luke.” He paced a short strip of the dirt path. “You know that. We were just goin’ to mess with a few stupid people. That was all. Scare them with some video projection, throw some deer blood on the scarecrows, cut off a few heads. No big deal. But this man, this ain’t good.” He shook his head and ran his hand through his greasy hair.

  I almost felt sorry for the kid.

  Almost.

  “Nicholas. You can still fix this. All you have to do is call your grandmother. Tell her what’s going on. She’ll get in touch with Dylan. They’ll find us. He’ll help you. I promise.” Or at least, I hoped he would.

  Nicholas paced around the path mumbling to himself. It was too dark to see what he was doing, but I thought he might be texting someone. I wasn’t quite sure.

  Luke kept his eyes pinned on me. “We’re in this too deep now, Nicky boy. I can’t lose my son because of this,” he pointed at me, “this girl had to go and mess up our little game. We need to shut her up.”

  “I messed up your little game? How did I mess up your little game?” I screamed. I was mad. He’d scared me half to death, covered my mouth with a nasty, deer blood-soaked glove that made me sick to my stomach and dragged me through the dirt for no good reason, but I’d messed up his little game?

  The two argued, and I wanted to run, but Luke had something shiny and sharp in his hand, and it was awfully close to my stomach.

  Nicholas pushed Luke’s hand aside, and the sharp, shiny object went flying.

  Luke pushed out his chest. “You don’t want to mess with me, kid.” He squatted down and yanked another sharp object from his other leg.

  I caught a glimpse of that one. It was a knife. The other was round, and I couldn’t distinguish what exactly it was.

  I couldn’t say how much time passed, but it felt like forever. I knew we were somewhere near where Dylan had left me, but I couldn’t hear anyone around us.

  “I’m ending this now,” he said, and charged me.

  Nicholas stepped in front of him. “Back off, dude.” His voice was strong and steady.

  “I’d listen to him if I were you.” Dylan pushed through the corn stalks, his gun pointed at Luke Sawyer with Matthew and Belle right behind him.

  Belle ran and hugged me. “Oh sweetie, are you okay? You have got to stop getting yourself into these kinds of messes. You’re scaring me.”

  I laughed. “I’m fine, and yes, ma’am. I’ll try. I promise.”

  Dylan and I made eye contact. He mouthed, “Are you okay?”

  I smiled, nodded, and mouthed back, “Do your job, Sheriff.”

  I watched his eyes soften and knew he felt as relieved as I was.

  Matthew handcuffed Luke and placed him under arrest. When I realized he didn’t do the same with Nicholas, I asked Belle what was going on.

  “William’s on his way with Bonnie and Henrietta. I suspect he’ll get a serious whooping from her and that’ll be punishment enough.”

  “It’s so quiet here. How did you all find me?”

  “William closed the festival. He had to. The heads and videos were too much, just freaked everyone out, so his staff directed everyone to the exits through shortcuts—which I never knew there were by the way—and thankfully, you still have your location services turned on for Snapchat, and we found your phone.” She took it from her purse and handed it to me. “The screen’s cracked, but that’s an easy fix.”

  I hugged her again. “Oh, thank goodness. I never appreciated a silly app so much in my life.”

  “Well, even if we hadn’t used that, Nicholas texted Bonnie and told her what was going on. She called me, and I told Dylan where you were.”

  “Bonnie texts? That’s a miracle.”

  “I know. She’s got one of those senior phones from those commercials. She said her daughter bought it for her a few months ago, and Nicholas taught her how to text when he moved in with her.” She hugged me again. “He had no idea Luke was crazy like this. He said he thought it was all just in good fun, but Luke had something to prove to his ex-wife or something. When he saw the knife and other thing, he said knew he had to do the right thing.”

  I sobbed, and I had no idea I needed to. “I guess he does have manners after all.”

  Belle laughed. “He does, doesn’t he? Bonnie will be thrilled to know that.”

  I laughed, too. “Maybe she won’t beat him with a corn stalk.”

  “Goodness, I hope not. That will definitely hurt.”

  William pulled up in his four-wheeler, and Caroline jogged over to us. “Oh dear Lord, what in the heavens happened to you? I cannot lose you when I’ve just found you again. My baby needs his momma’s friends.” She wrapped her arms around Belle and me.

  “His momma’s?” I asked. “You’re having a boy?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, but I sure hope so. I’m already too much girl for the likes of the Abernathy family. Can you imagine more drama than me?”

  Bonnie finally made it out of the four-wheeler and marched over to Nicholas ready to send him flying into next week. “Listen here sonny, after I’m through with you, you’re going to wish the sheriff had decided to arrest you.”

  Nicholas’s shoulders sank and he dug his heels into the dirt. “I’m sorry, Meemaw. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

  I rushed over to his rescue. “Bonnie, now don’t you go and punish Nicholas here.” I threw my arm around his shoulder. He was sweaty and smelled like a burned hamburger with too many raw onions. “He did right by me, so you might could consider that before you get all up on him. Had he not come and saved me when he did, heaven knows what that crazy man would have done. And those scarecrows, I’m not sure those were his idea anyway.” I angled myself toward Nicholas but gave myself a little distance because he was quite stinky. “Can you explain what happened to your grandmother and to us so we all understand?”

  He nodded and told us the story.

  “We were in this sub-Reddit—”

  “This what?” she asked. “Speak English, son.”

  “Just generalize it. She doesn’t quite understand teenager-speak,” I whispered. Honestly, I wasn’t sure I did either, and I was only twenty-six.

  “A group of people decided to get together and make the corn maze scarier, so we made a plan. Chop off a few of the scarecrow heads, dress up in scarier costumes, play some videos of shadowy figures, that kind of thing. Bring in the whole Woody Harvey deal, you know? Take it to a whole new level. Mr. Sawyer decided to add the deer blood. Made me get it from work.” His hands shook, and it was obvious he was upset. “I…I’m sorry, Meemaw. I didn’t want to do that, but if I didn’t, he would have ratted me out to everyone and said I was scared, and I didn’t want that.”

  Dylan also came to Nicholas’s rescue, at least in part. “Bonnie, there will be some official consequences but given that he called us and made sure Lily was okay, I’m pretty sure they won’t be harsh. How ‘bout we cut him some slack now and see what happens?”

  She grumbled. “You throwin’ him in the slammer overnight? Might could change his attitude if you did.”

  “I can arrange that, but I’m not sure you’d want him in juvie. He wouldn’t go to the county jail. That’s not the way it works for youth.”

  “How’s it work for kids?”

  “They go to the juvie center in Forsyth County. With the troubled kids from the tri-county area.”

  She grimaced. “Oh, heavens. I don’t want that. My daughter
would have a stroke. Can’t you just take a switch to his backside?” She shook her head. “Never you mind. I can do that myself.”

  Nicholas hid behind me. “What’s a switch?”

  “You don’t really want to know,” I said.

  “I didn’t think so.”

  Bonnie grabbed hold of Nicholas’s arm and used all of her strength to lug him to the four-wheeler. “Come on you big pain in my rear. I’m taking you home.”

  “Bonnie, I need to take him to the station first,” Dylan said.

  “You can have him when I’m done with him. We’ll be there bright and early tomorrow morning, won’t we Nicky?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Caroline and William brought me to their house where Bo was crashed on their family room sofa. I nudged him awake, and with a wagging tail and a few licks to my eyeballs, he stretched himself and waddled off to the car and home to bed.

  * * *

  The next day the paper ran a front page article about the decapitated scarecrows and Luke Sawyer’s arrest. Dylan and I met for coffee at Millie’s Café, but he couldn’t stay long because he expected Bonnie and Nicholas at the station early.

  “What’s going to happen to Nicholas?”

  “William’s not going to press charges, so most likely just a slap on the hand and a stern talking to. Kid’s lucky. It could have been a lot worse.”

  “Actually, with Bonnie as his grandmother, it’s probably worse at home than anything you could do.”

  He laughed. “You’re probably right. Funny though, considering she’s a little on the wild side, you’d think she’d expect it from blood.”

  “Wild is one thing, but I think she thinks he crossed the line.”

  “He came close, that’s for sure, but I don’t think it was his fault.”

  That surprised me. Dylan wasn’t the kind of person that didn’t allow people not to be responsible for their actions. “Really?”

  “I mean, he did what he did, yes, but he’s new in town and a little socially awkward, and I think he just wanted to find his place, to fit in, and he got pulled into something that went above his head. When it came down to doing the right thing, he did. Hopefully Bonnie sees that.”