Authors: Mandy Hubbard
I open my mouth to warn her, but the scarecrow puts a finger to his lips, and against all logic, I snap my mouth shut. I want to tell her—some part of me is screaming at her—but I just stand there frozen as he creeps forward, and
then, very slowly, extends one finger and gently touches her shoulder.
She screams at the top of her lungs and leaps forward, crashing straight into Adam’s chest.
He’s trying really hard not to laugh as he wraps his arms around her. Allie turns around to see the scarecrow, and then
she
laughs too. Logan wraps his arms around me from behind, and I can feel him smiling against me as he nestles his lips against my neck.
For a moment, I forget we’re in this maze, the sprinkling raindrops returning as I lose myself in his touch.
Having determined that there’s nothing to be afraid of, Adam and Allie begin scampering down the path again, and I pull just far enough away from Logan to walk without us tripping over each other. The path narrows, and there’s no way to walk side by side, so Logan slips behind me, releasing my hand.
And then there’s a weird black tunnel ahead. Screams drift out with the fake smoke.
I stop. “Oh hell no, I am not walking into there.”
“Come on Harper, buck up,” Adam says, smiling at me over his shoulder.
Maybe it’s that simple to him, but I can’t silence my fears so easily. They whisper through my veins. I take in a long, shaky breath and follow him and Allie forward, to the black structure. I see they’ve put strips of plastic at the door, so that once you pass through, they slip shut behind you, swallowing you up like the mouth of something ferocious. Allie steps behind
Adam, her hands on his waist, and I put my hands on Allie’s shoulders. Behind me, Logan grabs my hips. And we enter the pitch-black like that, linked together in a row.
I know it’s a tunnel, but it may as well be a mineshaft a thousand feet below the earth. I see nothing—no glow of the moon, no shadows, nothing but black. I would wave my hand in front of my face—just to test whether I can actually see it—but I’m afraid to let go of Allie.
A shuffling noise raises the hairs on my neck, and Logan’s hands tighten on my hips. “Don’t worry, I’ve got you,” he whispers, his voice steady.
I blink, but I still can’t see three inches in front of my face. All I have is my hearing to rely on, and the hope that Adam is leading us toward the end of this. Can he see any light? Does he even know where he’s going?
And then I feel someone’s breath, hot on my ear, and somehow I know it’s not Logan. I duck away as the person—it’s a him—whispers something, so low and guttural that I can’t make it out. A chill winds its way down my spine. I lose my grip on Allie and find Logan’s hand in the darkness, pulling him along toward a faint yellow glow in the distance. I trip on something and he barely holds me up.
And then we stumble out of the darkness, and the moon seems unreasonably bright in comparison. I blink.
Allie’s a little pale, now, but Adam is grinning.
“Did someone whisper in your ear? God that was creepy,” Adam says.
I laugh, masking the shakiness I feel. “Uh, yeah.” I roll my
shoulders, trying to loosen up the tightness in my neck and back.
Luckily, the path has widened again. We step forward, deeper into the maze, when a giant black creature drops in front of Allie.
She screams, an ear-splitting scream, and jumps backward, knocking me down into the gravel at the exit to the tent.
It’s a giant rubber spider. I look up and can just make out the pole supporting it extending out over the tent exit. We
totally
should have seen it coming.
I laugh. “Okay, that was stupid.”
Allie stands and helps me to my feet. I wipe the dust off my jeans and we set out again, surrounded by the eerie music being piped in from somewhere.
And then we emerge from the corn maze, and relief floods through me. That was quick. I made it.
But then I see the cones, guiding us across a short open field and to a second corn patch, and I realize that the pain isn’t over yet. We set out across the expanse, and for a moment, I’m just happy that we’re back in open space. No one whispering in my ear, no one dropping giant spiders on our heads. I relax a little bit, taking a deep breath, as the sprinkling of raindrops thickens to a steady drizzle.
Logan frowns and looks up, opening his mouth as if he’s about to speak. But then an engine screams out into the silence. I whirl around to see a man in a white mask standing at the edge of the first cornfield, staring straight at me with dark, hollow eyes. He revs a chainsaw and we all freeze, stare back.
And then he bursts into a dead run, glaring right at us, his chainsaw roaring into the night air.
“Holy—”
We take off, racing for the security of the cornstalks. I skid across a slippery spot of grass, and Logan’s at my elbow, catching me before I fall. The chainsaw guy gets closer, but we’re at the entrance to the second maze now. We flood into it.
The maze forks to the left, and I race in that direction, turning right and left again, until the sounds of the chainsaw drift away, and the maze falls silent. I slow to a walk, panting for breath and turn to speak to Logan—to beg him to just
leave
with me, but he’s not there. My stomach plunges. No one is. I’m alone, surrounded by nothing but seven-foot-tall cornstalks. I stop and twist around, trying to figure out where Logan went, just as the sky really lets loose, rain drops darkening the ground around me.
I’m cold suddenly, acutely aware of the way the shadows bend and move with the breeze, the cornstalks rustling. Above, dark clouds build, blotting out the stars and the moon. A shiver rolls down my spine.
I force myself to focus. My friends must have gone right at the entrance to the maze. I blink, fear tightening in my chest as I twist around, desperate for them to appear, to round a corner.
I don’t want to be alone in here.
Something rustles behind me and I turn around, praying it’s Logan.
It’s not.
A man in a gruesome mask steps out. The mask makes it look like his face is melting off, showing off pieces of his skull.
I step backward as he inches closer to me, and we maintain just a dozen feet between us. As I step back again, fear coiling in my stomach, my heel catches on an uneven spot in the path, and I go down, slamming into my elbows.
He chooses that moment to lunge at me. I scramble backward on my hands, like a crab, and then whirl around and bolt, slamming right into another body.
I try to scream, but it comes out as a whimper as someone’s arms tighten around me.
“Shhhh.”
The word is breathy, hot in my ear, distinctively male. He hugs me tighter. “
Shhhh,”
comes the gravelly voice again. “It’s okay.”
The panic vanishes and I melt into Logan, the relief so swift my knees almost buckle. He came back for me.
“Sorry. I just got freaked out. That guy—” I turn and my voice cuts off as I realize he’s gone, that he’s slipped back into the cornstalks to wait for his next victim.
“What guy?” he says, as the rain comes down harder. He glances up at the sky, blinking as a drop lands on his nose. His jaw clenches as he shakes his head.
“Um, nothing.” The sounds of the rain heighten, the drops hitting the leaves around us.
“Crap,” Logan says, looking up at the darkened clouds once more. “I just realized I left a bunch of my uncle’s tools on the back deck.
Power
tools. They’re probably ruined already.”
“Oh, that sucks.” I turn to him, taking in his damp, nearly jet-black hair. He furrows his brow as the rain slides down his face.
“Yeah. Maybe I can still get them. Can you get a ride home with Adam?” He steps forward, kissing me so quickly I barely have the chance to kiss him back before he steps away. “I’ll call you, okay?”
And then he jogs off, back the way he came. A bolt of lightning flashes as he disappears around the corner.
“Are you trying to get struck by lightning?” Allie’s voice calls out. I turn to see her standing at the bend of the maze, her hood pulled up over her face. “Where’s Logan?”
I swallow and plaster a smile on my face. “He had to go. Let’s finish the maze and get out of here before the storm gets worse.”
I follow them into the last section of the maze.
It’s all going to be okay
, I tell myself. But then a car alarm goes off in the distance and I run.
A
dam drops me off near the back door of my house, and I dash out of his truck as the rain pounds down around me. He waits until I’m inside, honks twice, and tears out of the driveway.
Inside the empty house, the sound of the rain is a steady hum, the drops streaming down the old aluminum windows, obscuring the view of the drenched pastures. A yellow glow emanates from the barns, where I know I’d find my dad if I suddenly got the urge to look for him.
I hang my dripping jacket up near the door, then kick off my saturated cowboy boots and peel off my wet socks before going to the fridge to grab a soda. As I take the first sip, I reach into my pocket to check my phone for messages.
But there’s nothing in my pocket. Not my phone. Not my wallet. Nada. I walk back to my jacket and strike out again—there’s nothing there but my car key.
My phone is in my purse.
Which is in Logan’s Jeep.
I sigh. If it were Sunday, I’d just wait one day and get my stuff from Logan at school. But it’s Friday and I don’t want to go all weekend without my things.
I stare at the house phone, trying to remember Logan’s phone number. But I can’t even come up with the first digit. It’s programmed into my cell, so I doubt I’ve ever dialed it.
I’ve never been to Logan’s house, but I know where he lives. All he had to do was describe the place, and I knew exactly which house he meant—the one that used to belong to the Carsons. Apparently, the whole place is a wreck—Logan’s helping his uncle fix it up—so that’s why he’s never invited me over.
But I don’t think he’d be upset if I just showed up. I need my stuff. I go to the back door and slip back into my jacket, then find a pair of rubber boots from the pile on the back porch, not bothering with socks. I’ll only be gone a minute. I dash across the patio, my head ducked to keep the rain out of my eyes. I fling myself into the front seat of the battered old Honda Civic my dad got for five hundred bucks when I turned sixteen. I yank the door shut just as another bolt of lightning flashes, followed by the growing rumble of thunder.
I start my car and head toward Logan’s house, carefully navigating the twisting, winding country roads, past old farms and sprawling pastures, until I’m at the edge of town.
As I round the final curve, overgrown bushes line the street, obscuring a black iron fence. Logan’s uncle’s Suburban—I’ve seen it once before, when we ran into his uncle in town—is
just pulling out of the driveway as it comes into view, but he goes the opposite direction.
Just as he disappears around the curve, I pull to a stop between two giant pillars, each of which is topped by a sandstone lion, its mouth open in an eternal roar, exposing white stone teeth. I stare up at them through the rain streaming down my windows, before turning back to the path in front of me. To my right, an old black mailbox sits, the door cracked open.
I wonder if Logan has ever received bloody cow bones in that mailbox. I guess he would have said something if he had.
I blink away the image of blood and bones, and drive between the two black iron gates hanging crookedly on broken hinges. I glide down the splintered concrete driveway, my tires squashing the grass sprouting between the cracks.
When I reach the front of the old Victorian mansion, one of the founding homes in Enumclaw, I stop and put my coupe into park.
As I look up at the house, all the spooky stories we used to tell each other as kids come back to me. Supposedly, the estate was built in the late 1890s for the Carson family. They lived there—here—for three generations, until they all died on a dark, stormy night back in the sixties. A married couple, their three kids, and the grandmother. All found dead, all killed in different ways. They think the dad did it, but the cops were never totally convinced. It was too bizarre. Too…twisted.
Goosebumps rise along my arms. The house probably looked just like this that night, with its rain-slicked roof, lightning flashing.
I take a deep breath, attempting to quell my nerves.
Ever since the original family’s death, the mansion has changed hands over and over again until it finally started falling into disrepair. The house is beautiful and gothic, but it began showing its age years ago. Now, the paint is peeling and the grass is too long and some of the windows are covered by dark sheets, most likely to mask cracks or stop drafts.
I glance back at the way I came. The wooded entry feels even narrower, as if the trees threaten to close up and block anyone who wants to come in—or go out.