Autumn's Breath

by Michael Robb

  Autumn's Breath

  Autumn's Breath

  Midpoint

  Autumn’s Breath

  by Michael Robb

  Copyright 2015 Michael Robb Mathias Jr.

  All Rights Reserved

  October 21st

  “Quit it, Craig. I told you I’m not ready yet,” she pushed his hand out from between her legs.

  “But I love you, Autumn,” he said huskily into her ear.

  “Here,” she opened her blouse a little more, letting him unsnap her bra. Up until that moment she’d been embarrassed to let a boy see her body, but Craig was so excited, and the way he was touching her felt amazing.

  “Please,” his voice was deep and hoarse.

  “Just be patient, baby.” She unfastened the last of the buttons on her blouse, and let him have his way... above the belt. She hoped this was enough to keep him from pushing toward going all the way. She wanted to, and with Craig, but not yet, and definitely not here.

  “I love you,” he mumbled as he kissed her chin. He then forced his body to spread her legs. She was wearing jeans, so it wasn’t a big deal, at least not until he started grinding.

  “No, I said,” she growled as his hand slid down under her belt line. “I said, not yet.”

  He hesitated, and she thought about squirming away, or putting her heel to his jaw, but remembering something her mom once said, she shook her body side to side so her boobs wiggled back and forth.

  His eyes grew large, and the look on his face turned to that of a boy in awe.

  Mom was right. Boobs will hypnotize a boy faster than anything.

  Immediately, both of his hands found them. Then, just as he put his lips to her breast, the car shook violently.

  Aaaaarrrghhhshallalalalalalala! Barely distinguishable, a pair of sounds erupted. The deeper of the two was an angry roar, like that of a bear. The other was high pitched and kept going a few heartbeats longer than the other: La, la, la, la, la!

  “What the hell was that?” Craig asked as Autumn pulled her shirt closed.

  Craig didn’t look too scared. He pulled back and tried to see out of the fogged windows. Reluctantly situating himself back in the driver’s seat, he took a deep breath, and started to put his mom’s minivan in gear. Before he could, the roof of the vehicle dented in, almost hitting him in the head. His cool demeanor disappeared then, like water from a sieve, and he screamed.

  It was cold outside, really cold, and they could hardly see out, but when Craig turned on the headlights, something flashed through their beams. A shadow. A shadow of something big. For a fleeting moment, Autumn saw a girl. Maybe it was a woman? Whatever it was, its eyes twinkled and some sort of recognition passed between it and Autumn. It was as white as the frost covering the rows of corn she quickly receded into. Then Autumn saw something far too large to be a human man, and it was wearing a mask as ugly and terrifying as anything she’d ever seen.

  Craig floored the minivan, driving it even deeper into the cornfield. He then whipped the wheel around, carving a new path through the stalks, taking them away from that part of the field.

  “What the hell?” he said.

  Autumn had no response. She doubted she could speak if she had to.

  The sound of the heavy ears of feed corn slapping the hood had her heart thundering. She saw a glimpse of the woman running in a nearby row, trying to catch up, but Craig was driving fast. Then she thought she saw a few men in yellow biohazard suits, a few more rows back, coming to intercept the woman. A few seconds later, the corn disappeared. They went down into an irrigation ditch and came up its other side as if it were a ramp. When they hit the blacktop at an odd angle, Autumn’s head whipped violently sideways against the window. Then the world around her went black.

  *

  “I’m telling you, Sheriff,” Autumn pleaded across a desk covered by files and paperwork. She looked at Craig for support, playing with her hospital wristband out of sheer nervousness. She wondered just what he’d done to her while she was unconscious. Her body felt different, but she wasn’t about to bring that up here.

  Craig’s mother didn’t seem as mad as Autumn would have thought she’d be about the smashed roof of her car. Autumn was hoping to get a nod of confirmation from Craig, but he was acting as if nothing strange had happened out there. They were all waiting for her to answer a question, so she did: “I saw what I said I saw. He saw it, too. Did you see the roof of their car?”

  “Look, Autumn,” Sheriff Taylor, who was sitting opposite her, held up a hand to keep her mother from defending her. He was big, coffee black, and had a deep, southern drawl most of the time. “No one is saying you didn’t see anything. But Craig said he didn’t see a snow-white girl in front of the car or a giant bear wearing a mask.” He shrugged. “You hit your head. You hit it pretty hard if the doc says you can’t go to sleep for the next six... ” He looked at his watch, “ ...four hours.”

  “I saw them.” Autumn was starting to get mad, which was good, because she’d been terrified to the point of pulling out her own hair up until the frustration took over. Now, she was just plain mad. “I didn’t hit my head that dang hard!”

  “You were knocked out,” Craig argued, looking more than just a little nervous. “You sound crazy.”

  Autumn almost started crying from the pain his denial caused. It hurt far worse than the knot on her skull. He wouldn’t be her first, unless that was why she felt so funny. After seeing him deny what they both clearly saw, she knew he was just the type to do stuff to her while she was knocked out cold. Craig would never get near her again. She wouldn’t let him. She couldn’t believe he didn’t have her back. And the sheriff? He was making her out to be a loon.

  She craned her neck back and up to look at her mother, who appeared uncertain but still wasn’t doubting her. “Mom, I want to go home.”

  The sheriff started to say something, but Autumn cut him off. “Go run a DNA sample on that roof. Go check the area for footprints or evidence. That is what a TV cop would do.” She then looked at Craig while the sheriff tried to hide the deep redness that had overtaken his dark-shaded cheeks. “And check that chickenshit’s underwear while you’re at it.”

  “Chickenshit?” Craig snapped. “I saved you.”

  “What did you save me from, Craig?” Autumn pointed at him as if she’d just tricked the truth out of him, which she sort of had. “Go on, tell the sheriff. If there was nothing out there, how did you save me? Why did you tear up your mom’s car?” She eased out the door her mom had opened for her. “I told you he was a chicken shit, Sheriff. A stupid one.” She said this over her shoulder as her mom let go of the door.

  “Hey, Autumn,” the sheriff’s deep voice carried through the closing glass panel. When she stopped and turned, he spoke through the glass. “In the morning, I will have a car go out there and look around for you.”

  Autumn’s sense of satisfaction was nearly overwhelming, but it was snuffed out like a candle at bedtime when they got into the car and her mother started in on her.

  “What were you doing out in a cornfield with that little turd? Are you… Were you?”

  “No, mom. He tried, but I’m not ready.” She decided to keep it honest with her mother, save for her ugly suspicion, at least until she knew. “We were just talking and sort of making out. I’m not a slut.”

  Her mother seemed satisfied with the answer but still said, “Watch your potty mouth, Autumn.”

  October 25th

  “They cut this year’s haunted corn maze,” Brian Reeger said, a hopeful look on his plump face. “Want to go check it out with me?”

  Autumn didn’t want to, but she didn’t want to hurt the boy’s feelings. He was an invisible junior, and she was a popular senior. It looked as if he’d
summoned all the courage in the world to even speak with her. He was cute. He’d be hot if he lost thirty pounds, though. Either way, he was nice, and right now a nice boy suited her.

  School had just let out for the day. It was chilly outside; cold enough to see their breath when they talked. The sun wouldn’t go down for a few more hours, so she decided to go walk the maze with him.

  The thing about the annual corn maze was, even though you may have walked it in the daylight, it was like a different, much scarier place in the dark. When you went through it at night, the students from the community college came at you from out of nowhere, wearing some of the most terrifying costumes ever made. The money from the tickets went to fund one of the university’s drama groups, and maybe the marching band. Around Halloween, a lot of people paid twenty bucks each to walk through it and get the crap scared out of them.

  For Autumn, who used to love the Halloween corn mazes, the thought wasn’t appealing now at all. Even in the daylight, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to be near the corn.

  She doubted she’d be out there in the dark this year. Already, Craig’s best friends, Jake and Derek, were mocking her in the halls between classes. Her friend Morgan said it would be worse if she wasn’t so pretty. Morgan said that any girl with boobs didn’t have to worry about much. Morgan’s boobs were pretty small though, so Autumn knew she didn’t know what she was talking about. She was right, though. Boobs could rule the world.

  Autumn decided that maybe she had hit her head too hard. The sheriff said they had found a tree limb, a big one, right where Craig had been parked. They’d found two size-thirteen boot prints, too, and a smaller set of prints, most likely from a barefoot female. Deputy Bielawski, one of the smartasses who interviewed her in the emergency room, deduced that a big man may have been standing on the limb when it broke. The sheriff decided it was probably just the college students out there testing out their costumes, but he did bother to apologize for doubting her. He also said that Craig was in a little trouble for lying to them about it when he was interviewed.

  She’d unfriended Craig days ago. Clearly, he’d tried to screw her while she was passed out—before he took her to the hospital, no less. But it seemed he hadn’t lasted long enough to get it inside. Thinking about him made her stomach roil. She looked at the sky and watched the cloud of breath roll upward from the heavy sigh she exhaled. Then she let all that crud slip from her mind.

  She took Brian’s hand because she knew he was far too shy to take hers. His lack of confidence wasn’t appealing, and she sort of felt sorry for him because of it. They walked quietly about a half mile down the same blacktop Craig had jumped them onto that night. They turned onto a tractor road, which was basically two gravel paths about eight feet apart, leading into the sea of corn. Brian tried to keep hold of her hand as they went, but she stayed centered in the right path, forcing him to stay in his own. She let go with a smile and wondered if she chose the side she was on because it was farther away from the edge of the uniformly angled corn rows than the other. On her side, there was a ditch with an irrigation pipe running along the tractor road, leaving ten feet between her and the corn.

  “Look,” Brian said and quickened his pace. When Autumn looked up and saw two black-and-white cars with red and blue lights flashing on them, she was reluctant to follow. She saw a deputy she remembered from the sheriff’s office and decided that it had to be safe. Zipping her hoodie to hide her bouncing boobs, she jogged up to Brian’s side, forcing him to quicken his pace. They were both startled when the sheriff stepped out of the corn right in front of them, holding his arms out as if to warn them away.

  “I am going to need to see you and Craig again, Autumn.” He put his hands on his hips and looked at Brian.

  “You should probably go on home, son.” He pointed back the way they’d come. “You can catch up with Autumn at school tomorrow.” Then, looking at Autumn, he asked, “Can you get your mother on your cell, please? I need you to identify something, and I hate to even ask it of you.”

  “Is it a body?” Autumn started to follow Brian, but the sheriff’s heavy hand found her shoulder. Poor Brian looked as intimidated by the sheriff as he was curious about what was going on.

  “There is a body, and it has been identified,” Sheriff Taylor said flatly. “I can’t tell you who he is, but he’d been wearing a mask before—before, never mind. I just want to know if it was the mask you saw or not.”

  “I don’t want to see a real dead body, Sheriff, please.” Autumn had a cold, shivery feeling inside her. Part of her did want to see a real dead body, though, and she thought that was scary in itself.

  “The mask is a good way from the body,” the sheriff shrugged and forced a smile. “I just need your mother’s permission to have you look. There’s a little blood, but that’s all. I wouldn’t let you see that body even if you were an adult.”

  Just then, a man in a green- and red-stained white coat walked briskly to a dark car marked “County Coroner” and put his hands on the hood like he was being arrested. Autumn cocked her head, wondering what the heck?, but the man started vomiting, and she was forced to turn away before she puked just from seeing him heave out his half-digested lunch.

  “Is he a big guy?” Autumn asked after gathering herself. “Was the guy wearing the mask big?”

  “He was about six-foot-three, and heavy,” the sheriff shrugged. “He was wearing boots, but they haven’t been officially compared to the photos my deputy took over in the next section where you and Craig saw something.” He was nodding though.

  “Go on, boy,” the sheriff pointed Brian away. “Autumn will see you tomorrow.”

  “I’m okay, Brian.” She noticed the way he was waiting a few steps back for her, even though the man commanding him was a cop. He was being protective, and it made Autumn smile despite her unease.

  After a return smile and a little wave, he finally turned and started back toward the way they’d come.

  This part of the state was laid out in one-mile squares called sections. They were divided by gravel or blacktop roads, and there was nothing but rows of corn filling most of them. In fact, the whole town was surrounded by a sea of corn. Eight counties full of it. It was everywhere.

  Autumn then realized what the sheriff had just said.

  “So Craig did admit to seeing something?”

  The sheriff was nodding again, but he said, “I can’t tell you what he said, but I can say again I’m sorry for doubting you, can’t I?”

  “It’s okay.” She pulled out her cell and started dialing her mother. “It seems crazy to me, too.”

  “Crazy is where this shit starts,” Deputy Bielawski said from right behind her, sending her heart fluttering through her chest, as he passed. “Jack found the other leg, Sheriff. No footprints around it at all. It was pointing south, like you guessed. A limb thrown off in each direction, now that shit is craz—”

  The sheriff nearly yanked the deputy off his feet when he turned and put his arm around the man’s shoulder and dragged him a few feet away.

  “Can’t you see I’m talking to a witness?” The sheriff’s voice was full of what sounded like frustrated anger. “That’s a little girl, dumb fuck.” He was whispering through clenched teeth, trying to keep her from hearing, but it wasn’t working.

  She disregarded the reprimand and started wondering why there would be a leg way back from where the deputy had come from, if the cars were all up here. Surely someone couldn’t throw a leg that far. She looked at her own leg and was suddenly grossed out by the idea of it being torn from her screaming body. Then the tinny voice of her mother, yelling through the cell phone, reminded Autumn she’d made a call.

  After she explained everything, she got the sheriff’s attention and handed him the phone. He handed it back a second later, wincing.

  “Do you mind looking at the mask? It will only take a second.”

  “What did my mom say?”

  “She said I was a jerk, for not making Cra
ig do this instead of you, but you are here, and if you are okay with it, she is, too.”

  “I’m cool,” she shrugged. “Let’s just get it over with. I won’t be out here after dark. I just won’t.”

  “Neither will I,” the sheriff agreed. After taking a moment to find the right row, he led her into the corn. “They are bringing lights so the forensic guys can finish up after dark, but I’m going home, tucking my little girls in. Then I’m going to eat a big ass bowl of chili while I watch college football. Black people don’t like this voodoo cult crap.”

  Autumn couldn’t help but laugh through her growing fear. It was like there was a sickening knot of dark curiosity burning inside her guts. She could see a group of men, about ten or twelve rows over, talking quietly and looking down at something. It was too far away for her to see what it was, but it smelled strange, overpowering the corn’s natural scent. It wasn’t like the rotting cat she’d found by the side of the road when she was a little girl, but like fresh butchered meat, all coppery and cloying in her nostrils. She could almost taste it.

  “Here,” the sheriff pointed down at a big mask. It was an African or maybe South American tribal-looking mask, that was certain, but it wasn’t the mask she’d seen. Even at two feet long, it was half the size of the one that giant beast was wearing when she’d seen it in the headlights. This mask wasn’t even the same shape.

  “It’s not the same mask,” she blurted, and found herself running back to the tractor road.

  “Are you sure?” the sheriff came jogging out behind her.

  After taking a few deep breaths to gather herself, she nodded she was.

  “If you give me a pen and paper, I’ll draw the one I saw. Maybe Craig can verify it.” She wiped a stray tear from her cheek, not sure why she was suddenly so overwhelmed. “I’ll draw it for you, but I just want to go home now.”

  October 28th