by Shawn Jolley
"Eden? Where are you?" That voice was familiar. It was his friend’s voice….
Eden closed his eyes and tried to figure out what was real and what was fake. When he opened them again the vortex was gone, and the hooded figure who was pinning him to the ground was also watching someone through the corn, waiting for them to leave.
In the maze, Dustin took a step toward the exit then turned around. He took another step the other way and stopped. "Eden!" he shouted.
Eden panicked. He didn’t want Dustin to leave. Using his last ounce of strength, he rolled to the side as hard as he could; the hooded figure, in his distraction, tumbled off of Eden and dropped the knife. The hooded figure said something under his breath.
The cornstalks near the path swayed in the wind and Dustin finally looked toward where Eden lay, but he didn’t see the shadowy form standing next to him.
The Death figure quickly grabbed Dustin’s legs and pulled hard, bringing him crashing down on his back. Eden forced the rag out of his mouth, took a deep breath, and kicked the Death imposter as hard as he could in the gut. This gave Dustin enough time to grab the knife and stand back up.
Eden watched from the ground as the hooded figure fled, hobbling, through the corn. Dustin came over and helped Eden stand up. Eden wanted to chase after the shadowy person, but he was barely strong enough to lean on someone's shoulder.
"The rag," Eden croaked.
"Rag?"
Dustin looked around, but he just shook his head. "I don’t see anything."
They stood there breathing heavily for a minute, and Dustin continued to hold the long hunting knife out in front of them. Eden tried to shift his weight from off of his friend so he could walk back into the maze, but he couldn’t. They walked together through the mowed-over cornstalks toward the maze exit in silence.
Not more than ten feet later Dustin stopped and Eden looked over at him. His face glistened from what Eden at first thought was sweat, but it was tears. Eden felt a little like crying too, but he wasn’t about to let anyone see that. He didn't mind when other people cried; that was different to him. He could understand it.
Instead, Eden let numbness overcome him, and he simply stared at the ground, waiting for Dustin to calm down. Dustin rubbed his eyes after another minute and looked at the knife he had picked up and forgotten about.
"We can’t be seen with this." He dropped the knife and kicked some foliage on top of it. "We’ll come back for it later."
They walked to the end of the path, but when they got there Eden realized they had gone the wrong way. He recognized the place immediately, but Dustin obviously didn't. There was no time to warn him before the ghost jumped out of his hiding place.
Dustin punched the ghost square in the face. Eden was glad Dustin wasn't still holding the knife. The ghost fell to the ground without making a sound. A few seconds later he pushed himself up and looked at Dustin. "What was that for?" His voice sounded nasally.
The ghost threw off his bed sheet cover, and they were met by the angry face of Sammy. Eden was still leaning on Dustin, but he didn’t want Sammy to think something was wrong, so he pulled himself away and managed to keep himself upright despite his pounding headache.
Dustin walked over to Sammy and looked at his bleeding nose. "Sorry. You scared me."
Sammy looked at him like he had a railroad spike jutting from his ear. "That’s the point," he said in his nasally voice. He was holding his nose and had his head turned upward. "I think you two have had enough, come on." He led them to the exit, constantly glancing at Dustin like he might punch him again for no good reason. Eden looked over at Dustin when Sammy’s back was turned and raised his eyebrows while nodding toward the cashier.
Dustin shook his head rapidly as if to say, "Are you crazy? We can’t tell him. Remember last time? Of all the people to want to tell someone. No." The dialogue was unmistakable.
Eden rolled his eyes and stared ahead until they came to the maze exit on the other side of the church lawn. Only a few people were still there, and most of them were helping clean up. All three of them walked to the front steps and sat down.
The apple cider was gone, and two ladies dressed as fairies were folding up long tables. Eden recognized one of the fairies as Ms. Kozi. She kept glancing toward them as she helped clean up the rest of the maze decorations. Sammy got up and walked to the bottom of the stairs before turning around.
"You two alright? You don't need a ride, do you?" They mumbled that they were alright and said they didn't need a ride. Sammy went back the way he had come.
Eden was feeling better now, although his head still hurt. He wished his mom would hurry up, but she was usually late (despite all her talk about punctuality), so it wasn’t new to him.
"Dustin?" asked Eden.
"Yeah?"
"Ms. Kozi keeps looking at us."
Eden looked away from the clean-up crew so it wouldn’t look suspicious when Dustin looked up. Dustin watched Ms. Kozi for a few seconds and went back to staring at the concrete steps. "Ms. Kozi isn’t looking at us," he said.
Eden knew from Dustin’s tone that he didn’t want to talk. He guessed that Dustin had seen Ms. Kozi looking at them, but he didn’t want to admit it.
A few minutes went by and Dustin started shivering even though he was wearing a jacket over his sweater. Eden, who was slightly cold himself, stood up and walked to the base of the steps so Dustin would follow and they could warm up a little.
The volunteers were done cleaning, and they stood in a circle talking and laughing with each other. Ms. Kozi was smiling and eating a caramel apple. She laughed at something one of the old scarecrows said.
Eden and Dustin were the only two people left who weren’t part of the volunteer committee, and it looked like they weren’t about to be invited to have a caramel apple. Ms. Kozi glanced at them one more time, and Eden kicked Dustin’s leg. "Fine. She keeps looking at us. But I would keep looking at us too since we’re the only ones still here."
"That’s what you’re going to say after what just happened?"
Eden’s mind raced trying to put together who the Death figure was, and why he had tried to kidnap or kill Eden. Dustin didn’t say anything and Eden's mom finally pulled up in her car and honked the horn. They started walking toward her but stopped when Ms. Kozi ran over and motioned for Eden's mom to roll down the window.
She made a sour face and rolled down her window. Ms. Kozi said something which caused her to scrunch up her eyebrows. Eden's mom uttered a short reply. Ms. Kozi nodded her head, smiled, and walked back over to the rest of the volunteers.
Eden and Dustin started walking again, and just as they got to the car, Ms. Kozi waved to them. They both hurried to leave without waving back.
"What did Ms. Kozi want?" asked Eden.
"Everything." Her lips curled in the rearview mirror. "Everything to do with your homework. I'll have to make sure you're actually doing it."
Eden looked over at Dustin who raised his eyebrows. They both knew that wasn't it. Eden had only missed one assignment since Ms. Kozi had started teaching. His mom floored it and they went speeding back home.
Somewhere in the cornfield, there was a man dressed as Death. Eden wondered where he was going now. He imagined him stalking his way back to the maze in hopes of finding his knife, but Eden couldn’t imagine where he would go next.
7
The following morning, Eden rolled out of bed after a night of being unable to sleep. Standing there, in the middle of his room, he closed his eyes and pretended he was anywhere except where he most obviously was.
He told himself that the dream he had been dreaming for the past three months had to come to an end eventually. It all just seemed like a dream. He wasn't sure if it was his back hurting or his bad dreams that made him toss and turn all night. The latter seemed like the more serious of the two problems.
He looked outside at the still-dark world and wondered if the knife was still lying in the cornfield where he and Du
stin had left it. The black handle stuck out in his memory for some reason, but a moment later he couldn't decide what color the knife really had been. His neck had a new soreness to it that he hadn't noticed before; perhaps, the pain was simply a continuation of that from his back.
Shaking his head, he went to the kitchen and poured himself a bowl of cereal. As the pieces struck the side of the bowl with what seemed like a deafening clank, he gritted his teeth and hoped his mom wouldn't wake up. As long as he didn't make too much noise she would stay asleep for hours. That was how things were on Saturday mornings. He finished pouring his milk and relaxed a little in the renewed silence.
Looking through the window, he saw Dustin jogging along the frosted-over dirt road toward the backyard. Eden tried, without success, to think of why he would be coming over so early without any warning. He wondered if he was unable to sleep too.
Eden undid the lock on the door and caught Dustin's eye through the window before sitting down. He took a bite of cereal and decided it wasn't soggy enough. When Dustin walked inside a few moments later, he was breathing hard. The door closed and Eden watched as he tried to catch his breath.
Eden nodded his head to the chair next to him, and said, "Try not to be too loud. My mom's sleeping." Dustin sat down. "Want a bowl?" Eden pointed to the mushy, colorful mess of sugar he was eating. Dustin looked like he was about to say yes, but he shook his head and continued to slow his breathing down. Eden shrugged his shoulders and took another bite.
Dustin was wearing the same clothes he had been wearing the previous night, and he also stank a little. How he could have gotten so out of breath by jogging over from his place, Eden wondered. He watched Dustin wipe the sweat from his forehead and put his head down on the table. The salt and pepper shakers moved slightly to the right.
Nobody said anything while Eden ate. Dustin's breathing calmed over the next few minutes. After finishing the last bite, Eden stood up and put his bowl in the already crowded sink. How so many dishes could make their way out of the cupboards and under the faucet with only two people living in the house was beyond him.
With his back turned, Dustin finally spoke; but, before he did, Eden thought he already knew what he was going to say. He could tell by the way he didn’t make eye contact and how he looked pale, just like the first time they had met.
"The knife isn't there anymore." Dustin's fingers stretched and relaxed in his lap, hooking and unhooking with each other. "I went back last night because I couldn't stop thinking about it. I know it was stupid, but nothing happened. I brought a flashlight and everything."
Eden was dumbstruck. The last thing he had expected Dustin to say or do, he had said and done. "You should have at least gotten me before going. What were you thinking going back? I thought we were in this together."
Dustin shook his head. "You're the one that crazy person is after. He only fought with me because he had too. I figured it was safer this way. I really am sorry, but like I said, the knife wasn't there, so you didn't miss anything."
Eden was mad, but he didn't want to jeopardize the plan they had made last night after returning home from the corn maze, so he didn't say what he was thinking. "Did you check on the other thing?"
"No. I was going to, but I couldn't. Do you think we really need to?" he asked. A new line of sweat had broken out across his forehead.
Eden smirked and he said, "I'm more sure now than last night. This person—he is obviously cleaning up any evidence. We need to check." He stared at Dustin and sat back down at the table. "Don’t you want to know if it's still out there?"
Dustin let out a big sigh and moved his hands to the table slowly. "I don’t need to know anything about any things," he muttered. "I don’t care because I don’t want to become one of those things. The knife was one thing. But, I shouldn't have even done that."
Eden let Dustin ramble on for another minute or so in the same way. He knew he could push him to see things his way if he let him have his say first. He glanced toward the living room to make sure his mom hadn't woken up during their conversation, and he leaned forward. "You agreed to this last night. You went and checked on the knife without me. You owe me. And we need to know. So, that's that."
Dustin moved his head up and down mechanically but said nothing. They sat there in silence for another minute until Eden's patience wore out and he stood up. Dustin stood up as well, placing his hands back in his pockets.
"Go change, then wait for me in the treehouse," said Eden. "I'll get ready. And don't let my mom see you. She'll think you're up to something." Dustin opened the sliding door and Eden began walking toward the living room, but he stopped and turned around and added, "You’ll be fine. You’re just the lookout. Remember?"
"I know. I’ll be the one who survives and has to live with regret if something goes wrong. But, like you said, we're not up to anything, so that's how I'm acting."
Eden watched him walk into the backyard. The sun had finally risen over the mountains but it wasn’t a nice yellow summer light, it was the white, blinding light. He went back to his room and laid out new clothes before taking a quick shower. He got dressed and went to the treehouse. Dustin was already there, asleep on the floor. Eden didn't wake him, and by the time he got up again, the sun was low in the sky.
"I told my mom we'd be sleeping up here tonight," said Eden. "She made me bring all these blankets up but said that we could. It's supposed to be a pretty warm night anyway."
Day gradually turned to night. A completed puzzle lay on the card table in all its pastel-painted glory. It had taken the last few hours of daylight, but it had also helped time to pass. The pieces made up a picture of a cabin in the woods during autumn, and because of the reflection in the lake and the sunset in the sky, everything blurred into the same group of bright yellow and red colors, making it one of the hardest puzzles Eden had ever done. Not that he had done many puzzles.
Junk food wrappers and soda cans were spread around the puzzle, a few on the floor, some in a garbage sack in the corner. A random burst of wind blew through the window causing them to shiver as they sat in their lawn chairs. Eden climbed back down and came back five minutes later with even more blankets.
Dustin, being awake this time, was able to help him hoist them into the treehouse with the rope and pulley system. They nailed one of the older and itchier blankets over the window, leaving the bottom undone so they could still look out.
The last bit of daylight ebbed away and Eden broke the silence that had fallen. "Here’s the flashlight." He flashed it once to show Dustin that it worked. "Super bright, huh?"
Dustin took the flashlight from him and placed it on the card table. He rubbed his chin for a moment then turned his head. "Do you ever think about…?" Eden waited for him to finish but he didn’t.
"What?" He wondered if he was talking about the woman's body, or the person with the knife in the corn maze, but if he was, he would’ve just said what he was thinking. Dustin was always quiet, but he never beat around the bush. He pretended to, sometimes, but he never really did. Eden honestly had no idea what he was talking about.
"Girls?" Dustin blurted.
The question caught him off guard. Eden grabbed the flashlight from the table and pointed it across the room to see if he was being serious. His face was red as a cherry tomato and he looked more serious than ever before. Eden flipped the flashlight off to preserve his night vision and thought for a moment.
He couldn’t remember ever having a crush on a girl, but at the same time, over the past month he had found himself waking up from nightmares where the Veres twins vanished before his eyes. He lost himself for a moment. The dreams were ambiguous for the most part, and all he saw were their blurry faces for a moment; but, other times, he saw them vividly fall into a dark space. He thought it resembled an old well, but he wasn't positive.
He came back to himself. Dustin was eagerly waiting for an answer. Eden knew what the question meant and that it had nothing to do with nightmares, but he
figured he had thought about girls. "Sometimes," he said. He got up and put on his black hoodie and a ski mask to avoid answering any more awkward questions.
The floor creaked underneath him as he made his way over to the corner of the treehouse where the rope ladder was rolled up. He rubbed his sweaty palms on his pants and turned back around. Dustin was still sitting in his chair. "Can you see me?" asked Eden.
"You’re a ninja." Dustin got up and grabbed the flashlight.
Eden watched him walk over to the window overlooking the field, then he put his hands flat together and bowed, like a ninja might, and stealthily opened the trapdoor. Once the rope ladder had unrolled all the way, he crept down.
This was the first time he had climbed the ladder in the dark and it disoriented him. Halfway down, the wind picked up a little and pushed him against the tree, but he hung on and continued climbing. When he reached the bottom and felt solid earth beneath his feet his vertigo and nausea went away.
He crouched down and made his way across the yard toward the house to make sure his mom was asleep. The porch light was on as usual and Eden could see her bedroom window was dark. Satisfied, he made his way back across the yard toward the dirt road. All was quiet except for a low whining that came with the occasional gust of wind.
He followed the fence with his eyes as he walked up the road, looking for the place where they always made their way into the field. Eden thought he was getting close when he stumbled over something. His heart hammering, he looked back expecting to see the person who had tripped him, but all he saw was a long piece of wood jutting out of the ditch.
He bent down to get a better look; his heart skipped a beat. The long piece of wood turned out to be the handle of the shovel they had lost in the field. The same one they had sworn on the night they had met.
