by Joe Zito
The Garage 2
Deep In The Corn
Joe Zito
Rotting Barn Press
Copyright © 2016 Joe Zito
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978
ISBN-13: 978-1533399731
Breaking News from Channel 13
Monday June 20th, 1994
“Good evening, this is Jessica Barnes with channel 13 news and we’re cutting in to bring you this top story. Police have just confirmed that the perpetrator of the Bludenhale Massacre of 1974, Angel Larson, has died. She was found dead in her room early this morning by her longtime caretaker and nurse Mrs. Anita Simpson. Authorities are suggesting foul play and that indeed this was a murder with intent. Reporter Bob Roberts is on the scene at the Indiana State Mental Hospital right now.
Bob, has there been any new developments?”
“Hi Jessica. There have not been any new developments or any suspects as of yet. They’re still trying to piece it all together. What we do know is that the security system in this building has failed the last two tests, mainly faulty camera’s, none of which caught any kind of intruder or any incident near Ms. Larson’s room.”
“Bob, this has been a shocking turn of events. You were just there three days ago covering the 20th Anniversary of the Bludenhale Massacre of 1974.”
“That’s right Jessica. It is very shocking. Just only two days ago I was standing right here in this very spot with a mob of angry protesters displaying their hatred for Angel Larson. I’m guessing some of those protesters will sleep better tonight.”
“Bob, have you been able to speak with any of the staff of the Indiana State Mental Hospital, mainly Ms. Larson’s nurse Anita Simpson.”
“Jessica, I have not spoken with Mrs. Simpson. We were barely able to get inside the front entrance due to the police barricade. I did however speak with Detective Monroe who as you know was the head of the Bludenhale Massacre investigation back in 1974. He told me that they were still in the process of gathering evidence and it is too early to pinpoint what exactly happened.
“Thank you, Bob. We will keep you the viewer informed on any new developments concerning this bizarre story. We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.”
The sound of her footsteps was deafening as darkness fell all around her like a heavy damp blanket. Still, she searched for her daughter in the corn but there was no answer as she yelled out her name over and over. “Heather, where are you? Please come back Heather!” The moon hung in the sky and cicadas buzzed in the cornfield and the air was hot and thick yet she called out with an ever increasing feeling of defeat because she knew her daughter was gone and was never coming back. She was buried in the corn a long time ago. Then, something moved in the corn. The woman lost in the black of the cornfield stopped where she was, startled by the sudden rustling of corn nearby. Her heart beat quickened. What is in this field of death? A sense of dread fell upon her as she looked all around her seeing only darkness. Slanted stalks of corn looked like upright knives in the night. The startling movement came again and she gasped. It was out there, lurking somewhere in the corn. Then a growling that was deep and threatening sifted through the tall stalks, making its way right towards her. She inhaled a breath of terror and began to run. She stammered through the dark cornfield trying to run as fast as she could but the low end death tone was just behind her, weaving its horrid sound through the corn. She could hear a distant voice calling out to her but couldn’t make out who it was. She ran through the corn and then stumbled and fell to the ground. Panic engulfed her. She was for sure death was near but the growling sound had gone away. Now she could smell the raw, pungent odor of something burning. Smoke. The crackling of fire ripped into her ears. She pulled herself up and started to run again. The tinge of damp smoke crawled into her nostrils. She gagged and then saw a bright orange glow reaching high above the corn in the distance. She ran toward the fire. As she ran, the slow hiss of a young girl’s voice trailed behind her somewhere in the corn. The voice turned into a scream and was getting closer. She was running toward the fire with the terror still fresh in her mind of the growling tone and now the screaming girl. And then it all stopped. She was standing in the cornfield with the darkness surrounding her. The fire and sounds of treachery were gone.
Susan!
She turned around and the girl with long black hair was right behind her with glassy eyes of terror. “It wasn’t me”, the girl said, followed by a sharp intake of female breath laced with fear.
And then the woman woke up.
Part 1
The past at her doorstep
1997
It was almost dawn when Susan Smith awoke on what was going to be another warm September day. She had grown accustomed to that frightful feeling of cold terror when waking from the horrible dreams that haunted her sleep. Her eyes felt heavy as she stared at the ceiling. Then the tears came but not because of her dream but rather because it was going to be another lonely day in an otherwise lifeless and empty house. Her husband Mark died a year earlier of a heart attack. He had been out in their barn feeding the cattle and collapsed on the floor after a sudden sharp pain in his chest. Susan had yelled three times that lunch was ready and when he hadn’t come in through the kitchen door with that warm smile of his, she had gotten worried and rushed outside to the barn where she found him dead on a blanket of straw. She tried to convince herself that the one and a half packs of cigarettes he smoked a day was the cause, but deep down she knew the real reason and it was Amy, their only granddaughter. When she was murdered three years ago in the back parking lot of the strip club where she worked, Susan and Mark’s lives were truly never the same. It had sucked out the last bit of life they had in them.
A pair of morning birds was singing their duet as the first rays of sun peeked through the curtain in Susan’s room. Still, she laid there staring at the ceiling in an empty bed and warm tears streaming down the sides of her still pretty as ever sixty one year old face. She could pass for being forty nine or fifty but the hard life had begun to show itself years ago. The air conditioner kicked on and began to blow cool air through the vent. She suddenly remembered she had to call Dreyfuss Heat and Air because the unit was leaking. Usually Mark would take care of those big jobs around the house. Susan had no idea how to fix something like a leaking ac unit and part of her could really care less if she burned up in an old, hot farmhouse. It’s just me, here all alone.
Slowly she sat up in bed. The room was still dark despite the sun peeking in through the partly opened curtains. C’mon old man. Get up and make mama some coffee. This thought went through her mind as she glanced over at Mark’s pillow that she still kept on the bed next to her. She covered her face and cried; her almost now white blonde hair falling over her hands-hands that use to lay on Mark’s chest at night when they slept and hands that would hold her three year old granddaughter and hands that would wrap around her daughter who has been dead for twenty three years.
She drew her hands down over her face once she stopped crying. Her fingertips pulled at her skin under her eyes. Her dresser mirror was in front of her bed across the room. She thought she saw a ghost in its reflection but she realized it was her.
Susan didn’t bother putting on her robe that she use to wear every morning when Mark was alive because it felt so comfy and warm. She went down the hallway in just her underwear and a tattered Indy 500 t-shirt from 1990. She use to primp and curl her hair all the time. Now it’s just hangs lifeless, almost like she is. She had been letting it grow out since 1995. It was down to the middle of her back but was stringy and dull and of course greying. She went into the bathroom and blew her nose with that last of
the toilet paper. One roll had lasted her almost two months. It was cheap living all alone but also very lonely and sad. As she sat and used the toilet she couldn’t help but laugh when she thought that maybe she should get a cat. “I hate cats,” she said to herself. She sighed, letting her face fall sleepily into her hands and then she realized she had used the last of the toilet paper. She flushed the toilet and let it finish running before she turned on the shower. When it stopped, she undressed and stepped into the shower. The rush of warm water felt good. Almost too good because it was putting her in a mood that she hasn’t felt for a while. She had not made love for a whole year, much less touch herself. The idea of her masturbating at her age made her feel silly and embarrassed, but mostly guilty. Stop it you ol’ gal. You ain’t a girl anymore. She still had feelings and urges even at sixty one. She had unwillingly lost twelve pounds in the last year. So she was ‘skinnier’ and would have felt good about it if she had someone to share it with. It was all stress related weight loss anyway, so about one percent of her felt good about slipping into her ‘thin’ jeans she hasn’t worn since the late seventies. As she stood in the shower with the warm water running down her back and contemplating touching herself just to relieve some sexual frustration, she wondered how she went from being a girl to an old woman. How did she go from having sex literally every day in her twenties and thirty’s to maybe three times a week in her forties and then once or twice in her fifties and now nothing. She was fifteen when she and Mark started dating in 1952. He was eighteen and her parent’s hated it. She didn’t care though even at that young, tender age. She knew she loved him and would be with him for the rest of her life. And never once did she ever think about what it would be like to be with another man or kiss someone else other than Mark. He was everything to her and now he was gone.
Susan turned the hot water on a little more and then gave in to her needs. She cried as she did because she felt guilty. In her mind she knew that if Mark was still alive, they would be in the bedroom right now with the window cracked just a little and she would be on top of him and his arms would be wrapped around her back and her head nestled into his neck and him smelling her hair, and when they were done making love they would sit on the porch and smoke cigarettes and drink long island ice tea’s and then maybe go to the flea market and hold hands and smile at the twenty something couples holding hands also and go home and make love again.
She held her forehead against the shower wall and finished up crying as she watched the water swirl down the drain.
As she stood in front of the bathroom mirror brushing out her damp hair, she couldn’t help but see her daughter’s face. But then she realized it was her own face and she cried at how much she looked like her daughter Heather, the daughter she hasn’t seen in twenty three years. She brushed her hair until it was somewhat dry and she wiped the tears from her face. She thought of getting the curling iron out because she hasn’t used it in over a year but decided she kind of liked having straight hair and that it looked good on her. Maybe it was her way of being close to Heather. She dropped the curler back into the drawer and closed it.
Susan hasn’t been ‘Susan’ since Mark died. She knows that she’s let herself go and has made attempts at changing that in the past few months but has not been successful. Today felt different though. She didn’t know why, but it did. Maybe she did need that private female moment in the shower to knock her back into the world of the living. It was a start at least, but she still had that lingering thought in her mind all morning, just as she has had every morning for the past three years. What’s on your mind Susan?
Back in her room, she opened the curtains and the heat of the sun rushed in filling the entire room. As she opened her dresser drawer, she felt a little excited about trying on those ‘thin’ jeans that she hasn’t worn in quite some time. It’s the little things Susy, she thought with a smile. She tried on a pair of dark jeans that were a little stiff from sitting in a drawer for five years. She doesn’t know why she kept them. They came off and she put on a lighter pair. She examined herself in the mirror the way a woman does in the dressing room at Elder Beermans or JC Pennys, turning side to side and even getting a good look at her bottom of which she was still proud to have. She felt like a young girl again around twenty three or twenty four and suddenly had a flashback when she was doing the exact same thing in the same room, but with her four year old daughter sitting on the floor, smiling up at her, watching her do these silly moves in front of the mirror.
She was so tired of crying because she’s been crying every day since Amy died, but she did anyway despite how good she felt in her ‘new’ hot jeans. Again, she wiped her face clean of her tears and went to her closet to pick out some ancient top she hasn’t worn since the early 90’s or so. She opted for a plain blue top with a V cut neck. She thought it went well with the jeans.
She flew down the stairs with the energy of a twenty year old, knowing that there would be plenty more dark and lonely days to come and that this just happened to be a good day. She just went with it.
She opened the curtains above the kitchen sink and more light flooded into the house. The sink had only a couple of dishes sitting in it. Susan was the only one living in the house, so there wasn’t much cleaning to be done. She cleaned them up and made a fresh pot of coffee. When it was finished brewing she sat down at the kitchen table just like she and Mark use to every morning and lit up one her Virginia Slims. But not without a rush of guilt going through her because she knew it was killing her slowly and that she’s just been damn lucky all these years not to have had any health problems because of it.
As she sat and sipped her hot coffee she remembered that morning Amy had breakfast with them and how good it felt to have her around at least for a little bit. Amy wasn’t around very much before she died. Susan knew she was going through something and was hurting on the inside. I should have stepped in and intervened about her life style choice. I should have been enraged with her and told her to quit that sleazy job of hers and stop doing drugs and show some hard love, but instead I’d just turn that blind eye every time she would walk into the room and I would pretend she was a normal, functioning adult just because I didn’t want to make things worse by pushing her away. So I just stay quiet. She remembered this because it was the last time Amy sat with them and had coffee at the table and laughed. And then her mind slipped even further as she sat with her hands trembling on her coffee cup.
9:30 p.m. Sunday evening, June 19th, 1994- A grey unmarked police cruiser pulls up the driveway to the Smith’s house. Susan could hear the gravel crunching under the tires and the noise of a football game playing on the tv in the background. She went to the front room window and looked out and her heart dropped when she saw the car. Her face turned to stone and so did Marks. They both ran to the front door and Susan already had tears streaming down her face because she knew what she was going to hear as soon as she opened the door. But it wasn’t until later that evening as she and Mark sat across from Detective Monroe at the Bludenhale Police Department, when their worlds would be truly crushed upon hearing the way in which Amy had left this world by a knife between her legs. Susan collapsed into Mark and screamed just like she did twenty years ago when the same detective told her the news of her daughter Heather and her bloody, bloody death.
She took a sip of her coffee and looked at the clock. It was 10:15. Her morning had started out just like it has for the past three years: waking from that nightmare of her lost in the corn. There was hope today though because she finally wore something different other that her grey sweatpants and racing t-shirts and then the thing she did in the shower. But sitting there all alone with just her thoughts of the past, a particular demon had returned. She looked at the clock again but with a nervous fluttering in her eyes because of that dreaded thought going through her mind all morning. I need to talk to Ang….stop Susan, just stop it! But it’s almost time to leave. I need to get going before visiting hours are over. But t
here are no more visiting hours Susan, you know this.
As if Amy’s death hadn’t disrupted Susan’s upward, good feeling this morning, the memory of Angel Larson would push her over the edge.
The day after Amy’s death, Susan heard the tv playing in the living room. Mark was catatonic, staring at the screen which was showing a black and white photo of a young Angel Larson. Susan stopped cold behind the couch as she saw the words on the screen, ‘Bludenhale Massacre killer found dead in her room. She was forty two.’ Susan thought she was seeing things. For years she had kept her visits with Angel from both Mark and Amy. As she watched the tv, she prayed Mark didn’t notice her standing behind him but he did and her skin turned to ice when she saw a haunted look in his eyes. Her mind froze and was at a standstill, not knowing whether to scream, cry or run out of the room. She chose to quietly leave the room without saying a word. She found herself in their barn, on her knees, sucking in heavy sobs of dismay and shock, dear god this isn’t happening, too much death all at once, and not so much because she will never see Angel again (the girl who was the link to keeping Susan’s dead daughter alive in her mind) but more so of guilt because she was going to miss Angel. It made Susan sick because as much as she didn’t want to admit it, she felt closer to Angel than she did her own granddaughter. And now they were both dead. Too much death.
