“What story’s that?” Billy Ray asked.
Henrietta smacked him on the top of the head, just lightly, not enough to hurt, and in a fun-hearted way. “Cinderella, you big lug.”
“You can have him tonight,” Bonnie said. She latched onto Old Man Goodson’s arm and walked on.
“I don’t want him. I hear he’s turning into a rat,” Henrietta cried as she waddled after her friend.
“A mouse,” Billy Ray said, lagging behind. “She said a mouse. Wait for me, Henrietta. Wait for me.”
We all laughed.
* * *
We made it through another portion of the maze without seeing a single decapitated scarecrow, but I did cling to both Belle and Dylan, and yes, even Matthew twice because of several random scary creatures jumping out of the corn and scaring me to my near death.
The clown was the absolute worst.
Whoever thought clowns were a good idea really needed to be institutionalized. Put a bunch of obnoxious makeup on someone to cover their own features, give them large clothing, big floppy feet and an oversized wig, make them stay silent and insist on them being all touchy-feely and then wonder why kids cry around them? Really?
No wonder every single corn maze had one running around with a fake knife in their hand. They were scarier than scary.
I’d just got my heart rate back to normal again when another scarecrow head came tumbling from the top of a haystack, landing at Belle’s feet. At least she was the one to scream that time. She jumped straight up, probably a few feet in the air, and Matthew grabbed her on the way down.
Two bales of hay fell from the top of the stack and knocked into my cowboy boots. I kicked them aside. Dylan bent down, pushed them over and grabbed the head. There was blood all over it. I bent down and wiped a few pieces of hay from my boots. As I straightened up, I noticed a shadow wisp by.
“Did you see that?”
“What?” Dylan asked.
“There was something on the haystack. A shadow or something. Like a…a…I don’t know, something. You didn’t see it?”
He shook his head.
“This place is really starting to freak me out,” Belle said.
“It’s supposed to baby, it’s a haunted corn maze,” Matthew said.
“Not like this, it isn’t.”
“Something’s going on,” I said. I glanced up at the top of the haystack just in time to back up and yank Dylan out of the way with me. Three more scarecrow heads spilled from the top, bouncing down the alternating levels of hay bales like balls down stairs. Belle shrieked and clutched onto Matthew. Dylan caught a head, and Matthew and I stopped the other two with our feet. I had a feeling I’d be chucking my favorite cowboy boots in the trash when I got home.
“Okay, this isn’t good,” I said, as if they might actually have thought it was.
The shadow passed over us again.
“Look.” I pointed above. “Did you see that?”
They raised their heads toward the darkened sky.
“There’s nothing up there, Lily,” Belle said.
“Yes, there is.”
“Maybe it’s old Woody Harvey,” Belle said.
“You’re funny,” I said.
And just as I finished speaking, a crack of lightning lit up the sky in a blaze of glory, followed by a boom so loud and fierce the ground shook.
Patrons of the festival screamed throughout the maze. Children wailed and cried for their parents. Teenage boys laughed, though it was apparent by their tones, the laughter was nervous. Several people ran past us. One teenager tripped and Dylan helped him up.
“Be careful, buddy. It’s pretty dark out.”
“Thanks, man,” the kid said.
Belle clung to Matthew with the jaws of life. “Did you see that?”
“See what?” I asked.
She pointed to the haystack next to us. “The scarecrow?” She waved her arms up and down. “It was right…right there.”
“There’s nothing there, Belle.”
“Not now, but I swear there was a scarecrow there, and I kid you not, it looked just like Woody Harvey.”
I brushed a strand of stringy, matted zombie hair from Belle’s face. “You do know Woody Harvey is a myth, right?”
She headed toward the direction we were going, hesitated, and then flipped around mid-stride and jogged the route we’d come from. “I think I’m going back.”
Matthew grabbed her arm. “Belle, it’s okay. It was probably some video camera set up to do that. It wasn’t real.”
She laughed but there was a shakiness to it. “Oh, bless my heart. I hadn’t thought of that. William has really taken this to the next level, hasn’t he?”
“Probably,” I lied. I didn’t want to alarm Belle by mentioning the discussion I’d had with William earlier. I did wonder though if the kid with the drone had something else up his sleeve. Maybe he was the one with the video?
It couldn’t have actually been Woody Harvey’s ghost.
Or could it?
“What should we do with the heads?” Matthew asked Dylan.
“Just push them to the side behind the corn and take a photo of the area so we can let William know where they are.”
Nicholas appeared from a row of corn a few feet ahead of us. “Oh, hey,” he said.
“What were you doing in there?” I asked.
“Nothing. Just had to, uh…had to take a, uh…you know, relieve myself.”
Belle winced. “That’s disgusting.”
“Animals do it, so what’s the difference?” Nicholas asked.
“For starters, you were taught manners, and I don’t think your grandmother would appreciate you behaving like that,” I said.
“Have you seen the way she behaves?” he asked.
A loud buzzing noise zipped by Belle’s head. She ducked. “Gracious, what is that?”
Nicholas laughed. “That’s my drone.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You’ve got a drone here?”
“Yeah, I’m recording the maze. Figured I’d put it up on social media. Maybe the farm will pay me to make them for ‘em or something. You know anyone that works here?”
“Do you have a scarecrow controlled by a drone?”
“A scarecrow? No. I’m not into that kind of tech. I’m a producer. Plan to make movies one day.”
“Any of your friends bring drones here?” I asked.
Dylan whispered in my ear, “Why’re you asking?”
I held up my left hand index finger as a sign to give me a minute.
“A few people brought them, but I wouldn’t call them friends. I’m new in town. I just found a message board and a bunch of people set up a plan to bring stuff to the festival. They said it’s low tech and they wanted to make it better I guess.”
Dylan pulled out his cell phone. “What message board?”
“Don’t remember the name, but it’s a sub-Reddit I think.
“A what?” I asked.
“Lily’s not a big social media person,” Belle said.
“Apparently, neither am I,” Dylan said.
“You don’t know what Reddit is?” Nicholas asked.
“I know what it is, but I don’t know what you mean by sub.”
“It’s a section for a specific topic.”
“Oh. So, can you get me that specific topic?”
“Like, now?”
“Yes, like now.”
“I mean, I guess I could find it on my phone.”
Dylan stood there, staring at the kid.
Nicholas tapped his fingers onto his phone screen. “It’s Make Abernathy Farm Festival Cool.”
Dylan put it into his notes section on his own phone. “Pull it up for me, please.”
“Now? I’m going through the maze.”
“Isn’t your father in the military?” Belle asked.
“Air Force.”
“Then I’d expect you to use words like, please, thank you and yes, sir or ma’am.”
“Yes,
ma’am.”
Belle had a thing with manners. Mostly, she expected other people to use them properly. She didn’t, however, always abide by that concept herself.
Dylan scanned through the various posts on the thread. “Do you know how many of the posters are actually here tonight?”
“No, sir.”
“Any way to find out?”
“No, sir.” He chewed on his right pinky fingernail. “But I guess I could ask in the thread.”
Dylan handed him his phone. “How about you do that? Maybe suggest everyone meet up somewhere or something? I’d like to see who’s all here.”
“In the maze? That might be kind of hard.”
“He’s got a point,” Matthew said.
Dylan agreed. “Just find out how many are here, and find out if any of them are cutting off the scarecrow heads.”
“Or casting shadows,” I mentioned.
“And ask if they’re doing any random videos of images of Woody Harvey or anything.”
“Who’s that?” Nicholas asked.
“Did you listen to the presentation at the opening of the maze?” Belle asked.
“No, I had my music playing in my earbuds.”
She shook her head. “Kids today.”
I laughed. She sounded so old.
Nicholas did whatever it was they did on a sub-Reddit thread, and within a few minutes several people had responded, but not one person offered any information regarding videos or decapitated scarecrows.
“Well, someone is snuffing out the scarecrows,” Belle said.
“Technically speaking, they’re not being snuffed out. They’re being head sliced,” I said.
“Yes, but scarecrow snuff out sounds scarier, don’t you think?”
“It does have a certain ring to it.”
“I thought you two were realtors, not news reporters,” Matthew said.
“You never know when a new career might take root,” I said.
He rolled his eyes.
“Well, that was a bust,” Belle said.
Dylan disagreed. He’d signed up for Reddit with an alias log in—because doing so as a law enforcement officer was never a good thing—and into that sub and noticed something interesting. “Check this out.” He angled his phone in our direction. “See that photo? It’s hard to tell, but check out the face in the background. Look familiar?”
“Lucas,” I said.
He nodded. “And notice what the man in the scarecrow mask is holding?”
“Looks like a drone,” Matthew said.
“I have a feeling someone didn’t head home like he said,” I said.
“Maybe it’s time we finish this maze and find out?” Dylan said.
And that’s precisely what we did.
We even enlisted the help of the gangly and malnourished looking teenager, Nicholas. It took a bit of convincing, but the threat of telling his grandmother that he’d brought his drone when he’d accidentally admitted he’d been told not to was enough to gain his assistance. His job was to monitor the sub-thread, make contact with the adult Lucas Sawyer and do his best to uncover his location. Dylan would try also, but his talents were best utilized elsewhere.
He’d made a few quick calls to the office and set up a few plants on that sub-thread also, so, hopefully, someone would figure out what was going on and put a stop to it.
We soon realized we weren’t the only ones freaking out. William caught up with us and let us know people were leaving the maze by request for assistance in droves. “We’ve had over seventy-five emergency calls so far. The heads are scaring people. There’s talk of Woody Harvey’s ghost floating around threatening to kill patrons. We’re giving refunds left and right.” He took off his cowboy hat and rubbed his head. “Caroline’s freaking out, and my dad is a nervous wreck. This is my first year running the show on my own, and I’m failing.”
I held William’s hand. “We’re not going to let you fail. We’ll figure out what’s happening. I promise.”
* * *
Determined not to let a floating shadow, lopped off head or potential ghost get in our way, we maneuvered through the rest of the corn maze with logical, rational thought. Well, actually, me and Belle went through it attached like glue to our significant others, screaming at everything that either jumped out at us, rolled near us, touched our shoulders, or whispered nearby. Belle even screeched when a toddler waddled near her, almost kicking the poor kid thinking it was a runaway scarecrow head on the loose. Thankfully, I stopped her in time.
When we were what we thought was three-quarters of the way through, and with no sign of Luke at all, a group of teenagers sprinted past us screaming that they’d just been chased by the ghost of Woody Harvey. Dylan ran up to them and asked them where, and one of the girls—obviously the bravest teen alive—slowed to a jog and threw her hand to the right, letting him know the direction.
“That way. He flew off into the corn. Said he had some scarecrows to kill and then he’d be back for us if we didn’t get out of the maze quick enough.” Her entire body shook. She wiped a tear as it fell down her cheek. “I have to go. I need to get out of here before it finds me.”
Dylan held her arm. “Let me call the owner. He’ll send a four-wheeler for you. What’s your name?”
Her bottom lip trembled. “Daisy Mableton. Wait, you know the owner?”
I wrapped my arm around her shoulders. “Sweetie, this is Dylan Roberts, he’s the County Sheriff. I’m Lily Sprayberry. We’re friends with the Abernathy’s. We’ll make sure you get out of here right quick, okay?”
She leaned into me. “Yes, ma’am. Thank you.” She glanced behind her. “But what about my friends?”
Dylan turned around and made a call. Less than a minute later he told the girl not to worry, that William would send someone to find a group of scared, running teenagers. “What are some of their names?”
She listed off a few of them. “Emma Ellsberry, Sammie Castleberry—”
“As in the park?” I asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Dylan knew that meant these teens were politically connected, so he let William know that, too. Bramblett County wasn’t Atlanta, but politics was still politics, and Dylan knew when to play the game.
A four-wheeler arrived already filled with sweaty teens in skimpy Halloween costumes, and a relieved Daisy climbed in beside her friends. She smiled at all of us and waved. As the four-wheeler headed away, she tapped the driver on his shoulder. It stopped. Daisy climbed out and ran back to us. She hugged Dylan and then me.
“Thank you. Please be careful. That ghost is terrifying.”
“Or really fake,” Belle mumbled.
Daisy shook her head. “I saw it with my own eyes. It’s definitely not fake.” She rushed back to the four-wheeler, hopped back on and off they went.
“Considering the fact that we haven’t been able to find anyone or anything with a drone video that’s actually here, I’m inclined to believe her,” Belle said.
Matthew dragged his thumb and fingers down the sides of his mouth. “It’s the season for scary stuff, babe. Plus, there are several people on that sub-thread saying they planned to be here tonight with some kind of technology to scare attendees.”
“Okay, but where? We haven’t seen one actual drone or one person with some kind of controller in their hand.”
“Actually, we have,” I said.
“Who?” she asked.
Both Dylan and Matthew responded at the same time. “Nicholas.”
Belle agreed. “And he was willing to take off and search for Luke without a complaint like that—”
I interrupted her. “Oh no. Poor Bonnie. All of these people are leaving, and it’s because of her grandson?”
“Anyone remember what he was wearing?” Dylan asked.
“An AC/DC t-shirt,” I said. I rubbed my shoulder. “Oh, and a faded pair of skinny jeans.”
“I really hate those. They’re so unattractive.”
“They don’
t look good on anyone,” I said.
“Not even those skinny models.”
“Ladies?” Dylan asked.
“Oh, sorry,” we both said.
“I think we should split up,” I suggested.
“What do you mean, split up?” Belle asked.
“Like split up. You know, go separate directions. You go one way, I go another, that kind of thing.”
“Oh, bless your heart, but you’re nuttier than a five-pound fruitcake if you think I’m going to walk through the rest of this maze by myself.”
Matthew laughed. “I think she means we go in pairs.”
“That’s exactly what I mean. The two of you, and me and Dylan.”
Belle blushed, or at least I suspected she had. It was hard to tell under all that zombie makeup. “Thank goodness, because there was no way I’d go through this thing with just Lily.”
I pursed my lips. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, honey, I adore you, and you know that, but when you’re put in a stressful situation, there’s no telling what you’ll do. You’re like a fly trapped in a garbage can—all crazy and emotional.”
Dylan coughed, and Matthew glanced around the cornfield as if he needed to find something.
“Me? Have you been paying attention this whole time? Who’s been the crazy and emotional one?”
“We’ll take this route,” Matthew said. He pointed to our right. “Text me along the way, or call me if something comes up and I’ll do the same.” He did a dandy job of cutting off our hissy fit.
Dylan agreed. “Watch the stalks. I’ve got a feeling Nicholas isn’t actually taking care of personal business in them after all.”
“At least there’s that,” Belle said.
* * *
Dylan and I walked through a group of middle-aged couples enjoying the challenge of the maze. Unfazed by the decapitated scarecrows, they laughed and made fun of them instead.
Clearly, they were drunk.
“Y’all have transportation home?” Dylan asked one of the men.
The man pulled his keys from his pocket and wiggled them in Dylan’s face. “What’s it to you?” He practically hissed when he spoke, and he bared his yellow stained teeth.
I prayed things wouldn’t get ugly.
The Scarecrow Snuff Out Page 4