Autumn's Breath

by Michael Robb

  “I can’t believe they haven’t found him, Mom.” Autumn was so upset she was sick. She’d been crying on the sofa in front of the TV for two days, mostly from worry, but part of her felt responsible. Brian hadn’t been seen since he was sent home by the sheriff. Now, news of his disappearance and of the murdered college boy, who’d been wearing the mask she’d seen with the sheriff, was on every channel. They said that boy’s half-eaten heart was found in the center of a perfect circle of knocked-down corn. One old guy in a white lab coat told the reporters that the radius of the crop circle was exactly six hundred and sixty-six inches. He claimed this had happened many times before. He started to warn people about exposure to the white-skinned woman’s breath, but was cut off by the mayor before he could elaborate. The mayor bumped him right out of the frame, and started encouraging people to come on out to the newly relocated corn maze, while the crazy-looking doctor tried desperately to get back on camera from behind. It was insane.

  Autumn wanted to go out and walk the rows with the other volunteers looking for Brian, but her mother wouldn’t allow it. She wanted to see Brian’s shy smile again, and she absolutely did not want to hear the television telling her that he’d been found all torn apart and half-eaten, like Scott Bell.

  The college students paid a different farmer to cut a new corn maze. It was in a section two miles away from the area where the killer had struck. After the mayor’s endorsement, everyone started showing up. Now, sick, twisted people and news crews were coming in droves from other states to walk the deadly haunted maze or to interview folks about poor Brian Reeger’s disappearance and Scott Bell’s dismemberment.

  “Someone they interviewed actually said they think it’s just a Halloween hoax to get people to come to the maze,” her mother said from the sliding glass door. “I bet they wouldn’t tell Scott’s mother that.”

  Her mom’s front half was outside smoking a cigarette, her back half still inside where it was warm. She stepped all the way out then, and Autumn felt the frigid air she’d been blocking flow into the room. She was just about to complain, when her mom’s cheery face popped into the opening.

  “Get your coat. It’s snowing!”

  “Mom, Brian is still missing.”

  “There is nothing we can do right now. Come on. It’s snowing.”

  Reluctantly, Autumn grabbed her hoodie instead of her coat and joined her mother. For a few minutes while staring up at the slowly drifting flakes, she forgot about the murder and her missing friend, but it passed quickly. To punctuate the loss of momentary joy, a deputy’s car went speeding down the next street, sirens blaring, red and blue lights reflecting eerily in the snow-filled sky.

  “Maybe they’ve found him?” Autumn ran back inside to watch one of the news channels covering the murder and the disappearance twenty-four hours a day. She hadn’t missed the look on her mother’s face. Her mother thought Brian was dead or had been taken by a creep, for good. Autumn wasn’t ready to face that reality yet, but on the inside she knew it, too. It had been near freezing the last two nights. If he wasn’t somewhere indoors, he’d frozen to death.

  October 29th

  They hadn’t found Brian, but one of the volunteers had been chased from the cornfield by something right after the snow started last night. He’d fallen into an irrigation ravine and broken his leg. He was missing most of the night because his still form was hidden from the searchlights by a piece of equipment that pumped water from somewhere to the field. He was found in the early morning, though, and was now on the TV, talking to a newswoman from his hospital bed. He said he’d been chased by some starkly white-covered, woman-like thing. It was the same thing Autumn had seen. She was sure of it. Then the guy held up his hands and Autumn retched. He had a thumb and a ring finger left on one hand and the ring and index finger left on the other. The rest of his ruined digits and most of his hand were discolored and gross. Frostbite, Autumn knew. Then they showed a close-up of the man’s ears. Both were blackish-purple.

  The sympathetic female reporter then broke Autumn’s heart.

  “—surgeons will be attempting to trim the deadened parts from Mister Sullivan’s frostbitten body, but the intense search for Brian Reeger has been called off. After the freeze last night, the sheriff said through tears that, if he was in the cornfields, there is no way he could have survived this long in these conditions. We can only hope he has just run away or is hiding with a friend,” the reporter finished. “Now back to you, Jim. I hear the college is raking in a ton of money over at the new haunted corn maze.”

  “That is right, Janet. We have one of the costumed — what?” he put a finger to his ear and listened to someone. “That is not a Halloween costume. Ladies and gentlemen, that is Iroquois Chief Degonna Weedah. Here is what he has to say.” A microphone was handed to the white-painted face of an American Indian man wearing a fully feathered headdress.

  “It is the spirit of Onatah who has taken the children. She will eat their souls because the chemicals and insecticides you’ve saturated the earth with, are worse than any evil--”

  Laughing, the anchorman broke over him. “Excuse the interruption. There is breaking news.” His voice turned serious, the humor gone in an instant. “They are telling me there is a new development. We have some film.” Autumn pulled her face right back out of her pillow to look. “This is exclusive footage, just released to us, and to the police, minutes ago by a local helicopter pilot who’d been aiding in the Brian Reeger search. I have to warn you, it is mildly disturbing.”

  The picture went to a badly filmed overhead scene of a spotlight moving over rows of corn. “Keep in mind this isn’t a news chopper, just a local pilot and a man with a GoPro camera trying to help. As I understand it, what you are about to see— yes, there it is —”

  The edge of a crop circle could be seen in the spotlight shining down.

  “—is a crop circle, very similar to where Scott Bell’s half-eaten heart was found.”

  Even the newscaster stopped talking as the light found the center of an area about a hundred feet in diameter.

  “My God,” the newsman mumbled as a dark stain was revealed in the center. The shaky GoPro image showed it well enough, but the image cut away.

  “I’m being told that we have better footage coming just after a report from Maggie Gale, who has made it from the haunted maze over to the new scene.”

  The TV cut to a now familiar lady, who clearly hadn’t had much sleep in the past few days.

  “The local police won’t give a statement because this is all outside of city limits, but one of Sheriff Taylor’s deputies told us unofficially that there was another half-eaten heart in the center of this crop circle. We are all hoping and praying that it isn’t Brian Reeger’s, but we won’t know until we get a statement from the coroner, who arrived just minutes ago. Here is the footage our chopper shot moments before the county commandeered the helicopter.”

  There was a moment of silence as the news lady put her finger in her ear and then looked confused. The camera moved to show the bright spotlights of a helicopter shining down into an area a few hundred feet behind her.

  “Here is that footage now,” the anchorman said, and the screen changed to a far more stable and clearer view of a spotlight easing over a perfect circle of downed corn. Then the image zoomed in quickly to the center, and for the briefest of seconds, Autumn saw the heart.

  She suddenly felt hope, for it was huge compared to the few ears of corn she could make out. She couldn’t imagine that heart fitting in Brian’s chest. He was plump but on a small frame, and she just couldn’t envision that terrible hunk of bloody muscle pumping inside Brian.

  As if to confirm her deduction, the green-faced coroner appeared again before the camera. Reporters asked a dozen questions at once, and there were as many microphones and digital recorders pushed at his face.

  “I’m only here to say this. This is not Brian Reeger’s body. It is a human body, so if you have an adult male loved one, Ca
ucasian, and possibly just over six feet tall with dark hair, who didn’t make it home last night, please call Sheriff Taylor’s office immediately.”

  “You said possibly over six feet tall,” Maggie Gale’s familiar voice asked demandingly. “Is this body dismembered like Scott Bell’s was?”

  The coroner turned to glare at her, and even through the flat screen, a little bit of frightening anger showed in his eyes when he answered. “We just found a heart in a cornfield, and you showed it on television, you stupid bitch. Of course, the body was mutilated. How else would the heart be torn out and chewed upon?”

  Maggie didn’t seem to be bothered by being called a bitch on national TV, and her next question was asked to a man walking swiftly away into a steamy background of red and blue police lights that reflected like rubies and sapphires on all the frost and ice coating the area. “You said the heart was ripped out? Not cut out? Is this true with the other victim?”

  The only answer she got was a distant middle finger. And then the camera cut away.

  October 30th

  Even though she looked and felt like shit, Autumn went to school via the sheriff, who kept the photographers and news crews from getting to her as she exited her house. Since the story was getting bigger, there had been a minimum of three news vans and a car with a national news radio logo on the side all parked on her block. When her mom went out to get the mail, they all got out and started yelling questions, but they were never fast enough.

  “I told your mother, and I’m telling you,” the sheriff said before she got out of the car. “When you get home from school, go visit Grandma or Uncle Earl, or whoever. Just get the hell away from here. At least until after Halloween is over, and the fields are harvested.”

  Autumn didn’t know what to say or to think about that.

  Everyone in the school cafeteria, eating breakfast or milling about waiting for first period, stared at her. School was not a good idea. She just wanted to be in her bed with her pillow wrapped around her head. There were cliques of kids snickering and giggling at her, even freshmen. It was like she was a crazy person or had three eyes. Oddly, it was Craig who approached her. His usual cockiness was absent, as was the group of mindless jocks who followed him around most of the time.

  “I can’t believe you got out of the house,” he said, with sincerity starting to form in his expression. “I’m sorry for denying what we saw. I just didn’t want people to say I’m crazy.”

  “I saw you out looking for Brian on the news.” She didn’t smile. “That was brave, but I really don’t want to talk to you anymore. I can’t believe you tried to mess with me while I was knocked out. Ughh.”

  Craig sighed and shook his head. “Look around. They are all staring at us like we are aliens or something. I’m the only one you have left to talk to. And I just looked. I mean, you are sooo beautiful, Autumn. I just had to see, but I’d never do that.”

  Pulling down her pants and looking was gross enough. She wanted to slap his eyeballs out of his head, but he was right. Even her best friends, Morgan and Katlynn, were sitting at a different table than usual, and with Linda Lee and a handful of other girls they usually gave the snide.

  “I’m not letting you off the hook for leaving me hanging or being a nasty, creepo,” she said flatly. “But we can talk at lunch.”

  *

  For no apparent reason, school was let out early. Everyone supposed it was because they’d found another body.

  It happened just before lunch. The principal announced over the loudspeaker that everyone was to go straight home. No explanation was given, but Craig found her in the chaotic hallway, and after he got off his cell phone, he asked if she wanted him to walk her home. She didn’t, but she let him anyway. She wasn’t about to get trapped in a bus or bother the sheriff, and Craig wanted to avoid the reporters just like she did.

  “I think someone else went missing,” he said as they exited the doors on a far less crowded side of the school. They both knew there were news people out front waiting for them. They could hear not one, but two, helicopters over the school. Autumn didn’t want to think about it. She followed, more than walked with, Craig. The fact that they were walking down a section road was unnerving, but a van was coming toward them from the distance and it was broad daylight, so she wasn’t freaking out.

  She was cold and had only worn a t-shirt under her sweater, and her favorite hoodie over both. This was heavy coat weather, so she didn’t mind when Craig picked up the pace. When he started waving as the van grew nearer, she grew concerned. By the equipment mounted on the top, she knew it was another news crew.

  The van stopped, and Craig talked to the driver as the sliding door was opened on the far side.

  That jerk had made a deal with someone to interview her or something. She was now fuming mad at Craig, but angrier with herself for trusting the slug.

  Then, Maggie Gale rounded the van. She wasn’t smiling, but she did have a microphone in her hand and a cameraman behind her. Craig seemed miffed that they were dismissing him and only wanted to talk to her.

  “Hi, Autumn,” Maggie Gale said. “Can we talk for a minute? The world wants to know what you saw that night—you and him.” She nodded back at Craig, as if his selling Autumn out wasn’t cool with her, even though she was the one who clearly talked him into it. They both knew Craig was too stupid to trick anyone like this on his own.

  Maggie motioned to the cameraman to turn away. “Did you know this is the first time in thirteen years it will be snowy and frozen on Halloween?”

  When Autumn didn’t respond, Maggie went on. “They found three crop circles that year. There was an arrest, and John V. Howard went to prison for the crimes.”

  “Then go interview him.”

  “I would, but he was killed in prison because one of the victims was a young high school girl. Does she look familiar?”

  Autumn looked, and her heart went into her throat. The older school yearbook picture of the pretty girl looked very similar to her. And it sort of looked like the white-skinned thing she’d seen in the field, too.

  She thought about responding for a few seconds, then she darted off into the cornfield she and Brian had gone into via the tractor road, the one where they had found Scotty Bell’s body. The tractor road was a quarter mile back, though, so she went straight into the corn. She didn’t look back. She ran down a single, angled row, not caring if Craig or Maggie Gale followed.

  She ran and ran and ran, knowing that sooner or later she would come out on the perpendicular section road that led to her neighborhood.

  Just as her side started to hurt and her lungs began to force her to cough out the freezing air she’d saturated them with, she tripped and fell. The side of her head bounced off of the frozen ground, the side that was still swollen from hitting the minivan window. She laid there for a few moments, heaving in cold air and exhaling huge bilious clouds of breath, until she closed her eyes. After that her breathing slackened and her mind drifted quickly away.

  October 31st

  12:01 am

  Autumn woke, and she was still in the cornfield. Oddly, she wasn’t frozen but was covered by an old, heavy blanket. It was freezing cold though, and she was terrified. Out of sheer instinct to stay warm and survive, she curled into a ball and tucked the blanket in around her sides. She was more scared than she’d ever been and had no idea who would put a blanket on her and just leave her outside.

  She didn’t let herself slip back into slumber, and she had to think for quite a while to remember just how she’d gotten there. When it hit her, that she’d been duped by Craig and that her mother was probably in shambles right now, she decided she needed to go home. Yeah, that is what she would do. She started to rise, but it was so cold she immediately covered back up. She would go home, just as soon as she got herself a little warmer under the blanket.

  A few minutes later, she was asleep again, or maybe half asleep. She could hear someone whispering her name, and when she opened her ey
es, Brian was there, smiling his sweet, shy smile. He handed her a piece of candy, and she ate it. He ate one, too, and then the stark white woman she’d seen in the corn came up behind him, startling Autumn fully awake.

  She kicked off the blanket as she pushed herself away from them. The cold air sharpened her mind, and she saw that she had blood on her hand where she’d taken the candy. She could taste blood in her mouth, too, and knew she’d just eaten something awful.

  “What the heck, Brian?” she tried pushing herself farther back but found herself against a pair of legs as large as tree stumps. When she looked up and saw the giant, mask-wearing thing that had smashed Craig’s mom’s minivan roof, she screamed.

  Brian reached down and shoved another piece of bloody muscle into her mouth. “Shhhh!” he hissed. “They are looking for you and Craig right now.”

  “I mwant them tmo mfind mus, Briam--” she spoke around the morsel before finally spitting it out. “Why wouldn’t you?”

  Just then Autumn realized that Brian was still wearing the same clothes he’d had on when he disappeared. There was no frostbite, no coat, no cloud of breath coming from his mouth when he spoke. Then the moon glimmered, and she could see the corn stalks and the white-skinned woman... right through him.

  “They won’t kill you,” Brian whispered. “Just be quiet.”

  “HERE!” a man yelled from not so far away. “OVER HERE! Dear God, it’s part of the boy! Over here!”

  The sound of excited men and a radio crackling filled the air. Then Autumn heard chopper blades approaching the area.

  “We have to go,” Brian said. “Tonight’s the night. It’s Halloween now.”

  The white, crackle-faced woman blew a roiling cloud of frosty breath at her, right through Brian, and then ran her icy fingers over Autumn’s eyes. The scent of spring pollen mixed with freshly cut meat filled her nostrils, and then the huge creature behind her heaved her up and carried her over its shoulder. She tried to yell, to tell the searchers she was right there, but her mouth wouldn’t work. Her vision grew blurry, and she couldn’t seem to keep from swallowing the bloody saliva in her mouth. When she tried to struggle, she only slipped deeper into slumber until nothing made any sense at all.