Shadow Puppets: Scarecrows of Minnow Ranch

by Carver Pike

  Her heart rate picked up as she imagined her mom standing over her bed as she slept. Would she tuck Dawn in and make sure she was warm and safe? Or would she run a long kitchen knife over her throat?

  What the fuck is wrong with me tonight?

  She’d been staring at her bedroom door when she heard the scratch on the window behind her. She jumped and turned to look over her shoulder. The window was free of blinds, something she thought was odd considering all the windows at the front of the house were covered with tacky green and orange, 70s looking, flowered drapes.

  She covered her breasts with her right arm and crept closer to the window. The scratching continued. The glass reflected her own image and the bright room around her. She leaned over to twist the plastic knob on the old nightstand lamp. The room went dark.

  She leaned closer to the window, her face an inch from it.

  SLAM!

  A tree branch bounced off the glass, sending a jolt of fear through her bones. She flinched and her breath caught in her throat. The branch swung out in the wind and returned, banging the surface again.

  For fuck’s sake.

  Lightning streaked across the darkening sky and lit up the cornfield.

  And she saw him.

  The outline of a man standing at the edge of the corn, looking up at her. The sky went dark and he disappeared. Then another crack of light and there he was, his head held up toward the window, his features hidden in the shadows of night. But he was definitely watching her.

  Dawn backed away from the window. She was freaking out. She considered turning on the lamp but that would give him a better view of her. What if he hadn’t seen her? What if he’d been spying on the house and hadn’t known she was there? If she turned on the light, he’d know she was there. But he must have seen her turn it off in the first place.

  Another bolt of lightning. He was gone.

  She moved to the edge of the window and looked out at the ground below, hoping she’d catch a glimpse of the man.

  Then she heard the knock on the door. Two knocks. One…two…with a long pause between. They were faint but she’d heard them and to hear them all the way up where she was meant someone with a heavy hand was down there…waiting. Waiting for her to open the door.

  She wasn’t about to open that door.

  She glanced around the room and wished she’d brought her cell phone up from the living room. It was there next to her book on the couch. Somewhere downstairs. She’d have to get closer to the door to find it. Even then, who would she call? The police? How long would it take them to get to her way out there in the country?

  KNOCK…KNOCK…KNOCK KNOCK.

  The last two pounds came quicker than the rest. Whoever was responsible was getting impatient.

  Dawn reached for her jeans and T-shirt. No way was she putting on the baby doll pajamas she’d considered wearing. Who knew who was downstairs and if it was some deranged country bumpkin, he’d have to work to get a piece of her. She wasn’t giving him any easy access.

  The thought brought a lump to her throat. This wasn’t a joking matter. She was alone.

  She was afraid.

  Nothing in the bedroom would work as a weapon. Not unless she was going to pillow fight her way out of this. Then she saw the naked curtain rod above the window. That would have to work. She reached up and pulled hard, once…twice, finally it came free in her hand and she held it up like a baseball bat.

  She’d taken a few martial arts classes at the gym and was damn good at Tae Bo. That would do no good against a country boy with a shotgun.

  KNOCK…KNOCK…KNOCK KNOCK.

  Dawn steadied her nerves and left the comfort of the bedroom. She didn’t want to confront whoever was outside the door. She wanted to get to her cell phone and call the cops. Every second counted when living so far out from the town center.

  She was a couple of steps down when her foot landed on a squeaky plank. The stairs whined. She stopped, her eyes glued on the front door.

  KNOCK.

  One knock. Only one this time.

  She took two more steps and another squeak.

  KNOCK.

  “Who’s out there?” she called.

  No answer.

  Maybe if whoever was outside thought she had a big husband on his way home with the cops right behind him, they’d hightail it out of there. Maybe.

  “Honey? Is that you? Thank God you’re home. I didn’t think you’d get here this fast! I thought the cops would get here first!”

  It was all she could think to do.

  Silence.

  She took the remaining stairs quickly, no longer caring if they squeaked on the way down. Then she realized the window to the right of the door, the one between the door and the couch where she hoped her phone lay, was open. Not open as in ajar, but the drapes were open wide.

  Through the porch light she saw the figure of a man walking away from the house. She crept close to the window and stood outside the frame, watching as the shadowy figure made its way to the edge of the house and turned the corner, headed back toward the field and the barn. He was leaving.

  Maybe he was a neighbor boy fucking with her. Who else would leave by the backyard?

  Barely visible from the window sat a small, wooden, antique-looking box. It sat in front of the door. A corn husk sat atop it.

  Dawn glanced around once more and considered opening the door, but that’s how horror movies start, and she wasn’t that stupid. She played the whole thing out in her head. She’d open the door and a second man would be waiting just out of eyesight. He’d grab her and drag her into the house and they’d have their way with her. Then, after being brutally raped and left for dead, she’d pull herself together, find a rusty machete, and go on a vengeful killing spree, hacking up every man in town until she got the culprits.

  Yeah, I am not opening that fucking door.

  She didn’t open the door. She checked to make sure every door and window in the house was locked and then spent the rest of the night upstairs. Not even Radcliff’s erotica could get her out of her funk. She called her sister and got the recording, a loud screaming voice over a hard rock tune, yelling, “I’m not here, bitches. Call back in the morning, after the ecstasy wears off.”

  Her sister was bad but she wasn’t THAT bad. She knew most of it was a façade. She had to play the disgruntled younger sister with daddy (and mommy) issues.

  At some point, curled up in a ball in bed, she finally fell asleep.

  Chapter 2

  Even with the window covered by her robe, Dawn couldn’t sleep with the sun forcing its way through the charcoal colored fabric. She’d managed to push the screws far enough into the wall to get the rod to hang lazily under the weight of her robe, but it was something. She couldn’t handle the thought of someone out there watching her.

  She’d considered calling the cops. That’s what any sane person would do, but once the immediate threat was gone, she felt silly. She knew it would take forever for them to reach her and she imagined the youth in the area played all sorts of games on new arrivals. It was probably some horny teenager trying to catch a peek.

  The time on her cell phone read 12:08. She’d slept until noon. Now that was country living. She could get used to this. No real need to wake up. She knew it wouldn’t last long. She needed to make some money and that would probably mean scooping ice cream at the local dessert shop. And local meant no less than a twenty minute drive into town. Her mom sure knew how to live the reclusive lifestyle.

  I’m practically a hermit.

  Her reflection in the bathroom mirror was pretty. Dawn knew she was an attractive woman. Daisy was sexier but Dawn had the natural beauty in the family. She had the old fashioned attractiveness and with her strawberry hair up in a bun, she thought she looked the country girl part. She imagined, with the right dress, she could pull off Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.

  Well, the sporty version with her T-shirt and jogging shorts. She adjusted her tits in the mirror, propp
ing them up, and wondering if she should hit one of the local bars tonight. She hadn’t been with a man in a long time, since the divorce, and she wasn’t ready to rush into the sack, but the thought of a man buying her a beer and pouring out his affections for her sounded quite alright.

  That was the beauty of being a single woman with an entire ranch of her own. She was a catch in more ways than one. She couldn’t wait for her sister to arrive so they could hit the town together.

  Ha! The town. Like it’d take longer than fifteen minutes to hit all of it.

  She’d driven through the town center a few times and had stopped off at the largest grocery store in town, the Mega Max. It wasn’t all that mega and definitely wasn’t much max. The Mini-Maybe should have been the name since half the stuff she’d hoped to find she was told “Might maybe be here by the end of next week if ya order it now.”

  For some reason the end of next week seemed way too far off in the distance. She supposed she should get used to waiting for things if she planned to live here long term. The nearest mall was over an hour’s drive away so she’d be making a day trip of it or doing a lot of online shopping if she wanted anything she couldn’t “might maybe” get by the end of next week.

  She should have looked for pads or tampons while she was in the store since that’s something she’d most definitely need in the next couple of weeks. Might make sense to order some now. She decided then that she’d drive into town later on and check.

  Dawn was downstairs putting on a pot of coffee when she remembered the box sitting outside her front door the night before. Would it still be there?

  She went to the door, did a quick look-see and unlatched it. It’s funny how easily she would do something during the day that she wouldn’t at night.

  Outside, the birds chirped happily and she took in other indistinguishable sounds of farm creatures hurrying back and forth across the ranch. Dawn breathed deep and enjoyed the feeling of the pleasant country air settling down deep in her lungs. It was wonderful. She looked out at the corn and wondered what went on behind that first wall of stalks, too far back for the eye to see.

  She imagined animals moving to and fro, insects buzzing, birds landing, scarecrows…scaring. She didn’t like the scarecrows. They creeped her out. She was glad she couldn’t see them at night. During the day they looked kind of menacing and she was sure at night they would look downright insidious.

  Her eyes fixed on the scarecrow nearest the driveway and she nearly tripped over the box.

  “Woop!” she cried out as she stumbled and regained her footing.

  She instinctively looked around to see if anyone had seen her. Of course no one had. No one except that damn scarecrow. She walked to the end of the porch and called out to it.

  “Did you see that? Please, don’t tell anyone about that. What’s your name, fella?”

  As soon as the words escaped her mouth she prayed that he wouldn’t answer. She wasn’t losing her mind. She thought it was funny, the way someone talks to their dog or cat and asks it questions as if it’ll actually say, “I don’t know who’s at the door. You’re gonna have to go and check.”

  “Well my name’s Dawn,” she said, continuing her one-sided conversation.

  When the scarecrow didn’t answer, she stepped off the balcony and made her way across the warm, soft grass and over to the edge of the corn. She was barefoot and thought nothing of it. She’d grown up playing outside with no shoes on. Kids these days had no idea the freedom of running with naked feet until you cut yourself bad and run crying to Mama to fix it.

  Those were the days. Wait, was that a memory? Did she remember running barefoot around this property and running to her mother for help? Shit, she was pretty sure she did. She’d tried so many times to think of a single thing that had taken place on this land and suddenly she’d come up with something.

  She reached out for one of the corn stalks and as she did, a new memory flooded over her.

  She couldn’t have been older than five or six which means Daisy was closer to four. They were playing hide and seek and her sister was “it.” Dawn had hid right here, beyond the first row of corn, behind the scarecrow. She’d squatted down and watched as her sister counted to ten from the front porch.

  “Shh. You don’t tell her where I am, now,” Dawn had warned the scarecrow. “You let her find me on her own, ya hear?”

  “Ready or not! Here I come!” Daisy yelled from the porch.

  Dawn squatted lower and listened to the pitter patter of her sister’s little feet trotting through the grass. She knew her sister was afraid of the corn and wouldn’t dare come in there to look for her. Yet, she was too afraid herself to go any farther into the field than she already was.

  The sound of her sister’s steps faded away. She’d run toward the barn.

  “Hee hee,” Dawn chuckled to herself. “She ain’t never gonna find me here. What do you think?”

  She heard something like the sound of stiff leather, like the sound Papa’s boots made when he forced them onto his feet. Or the sound of the rope going taut as the horses moved forward to pull the wagons. That’s the closest thing she could compare to the sound of the scarecrow’s head moving.

  She’d looked up, right into its face, its hard, rough skin like that of an animal’s flesh dried into jerky. The jerky Papa sometimes made. Its nose was missing, two dark gaping holes carved out from brittle cartilage. Its eyes larger pits of blackness. The hay sticking out of its hat gave the appearance of hair.

  It was the mouth that scared her most. The mouth looked like real human lips but stitched together.

  The scarecrow didn’t speak. It couldn’t. It only stared at her.

  She ran screaming toward the house.

  Dawn let go of the corn stalk and the memory faded from sight. The wind seemed to kick up a notch, throwing dust into her eyes which she hurriedly wiped away. She squinted through the fast coming tears and looked into the face of the scarecrow looming over her. It was as she’d remembered. The rough skin, the brittle nose, the dark eyes, the stitched lips. Only, this time it didn’t seem quite so scary.

  “I remember,” she said.

  She half expected the scarecrow to lean forward and look at her, but of course it didn’t. That would be absurd. Her memory was ludicrous, the result of a kid’s overactive imagination. That’s all. Her sister had never experienced anything out of the ordinary.

  “You protected my mother, didn’t you?” Dawn heard herself ask.

  She wasn’t sure why she said it but it felt right, like the straw gargoyle of sorts was there for good reason. She didn’t feel afraid of the thing, but then again, she was talking to it in broad daylight. She wouldn’t be having this conversation after dark.

  Conversation. Ha. As if they were discussing the weather or what the scarecrow thought about global warming.

  Dawn remembered the box and bid the scarecrow adieu before making her way back to the house. She found the box right where her clumsy feet had kicked it. She should have picked it up before walking out to the scarecrow, but deep down, she thought she might be afraid to see what was inside. Why would someone have scared the shit out of her last night and left behind a present?

  What if it was a friendly neighbor stopping by to drop off a “welcome to the neighborhood” pie? That’s what people did in the movies.

  Yes, Dawn, a pie in a box. A pie in an ancient looking wooden box. Geez, Louise. Could you be more stupid?

  She scooped the box up in her hands and looked once more at the cornfield. Was she imagining it or was the scarecrow slanted a little more than before, tilted in her direction, as if positioned to watch her as she made her way into the house. She chalked it up to paranoia and headed indoors.

  In the kitchen, she adjusted her mom’s makeshift dinette table, really nothing more than a vinyl covered card table on aluminum legs. No matter how many times she repositioned it, the table never seemed straight. Finally, she realized it was the tiles on the linoleum floor. T
hey weren’t lined up straight but instead had been sloppily done. Man, it drove her crazy. Things out of order tended to do that.

  Just like her marriage.

  The box. Back to the box. She sat down at the table and hesitated for a moment before opening it, afraid that a tarantula would pop out. A sigh of relief blew from her lips as she lifted the lid and saw nothing but glimmering jewels and shiny metal. She gasped.

  These can’t be real.

  She was suddenly a pirate with a secret treasure box. Surely none of it was real. Why would someone scare the shit out of her and then leave her a gift like this? Her hand hovered over the box. She was so tempted to scoop up a strand of pearls and roll the lustrous beads around in her fingers but she was afraid, as if they might be cursed or something. Where had it come from?