Shadow Puppets: Scarecrows of Minnow Ranch

by Carver Pike

  Now, with the sun beginning to set in the distance, Dawn slept soundlessly. Daisy wondered how long it had been since her sister’s last good night’s sleep. Seeing the innocent face of her older sister as she blew raspberries out with each exhale, she couldn’t help but feel sorry that they’d lost touch over the years. Sure, they still spoke on the phone, and every once in a while they’d get together for a beer, but they weren’t besties or anything. She wished they could be again. Maybe this trip would be good for them both.

  Chapter 5

  When Daisy was sure that her sister was okay, she went downstairs to hang out with Matt and Harvey. The guys had been so patient and had been so helpful with her sister. She couldn’t ask for better people to have around at a time like this. They were both so wonderful.

  She found them at the kitchen table playing cards and drinking beer.

  “This fucking floor is crooked or something,” Harvey said. “I mean, I know I’ve had a few beers but hell, it’s slanted, right?”

  “I think you’re right,” Matt agreed.

  Neither of the men had seen Daisy approach. She stood there for a second watching them and wishing she had a video camera to record them and show them later how easily they’re entertained. Sometimes a man has to see it to believe it.

  She’d once witnessed Matt lying on his back on the living room carpet, tossing a baseball into the air and letting it fall on his stomach, so he could tighten his abs and stave off the pain. He laughed with each toss. Daisy didn’t want to stop him. There was such a quiet, childlike innocence seeing a man not worry about bills or protecting his woman. Sometimes a man needs to drop baseballs on his stomach. Yet, when she’d mentioned it to him later, he acted as if he had no idea what she was talking about. A camera would have come in handy.

  Daisy finally cleared her throat to let the men know they were no longer alone. Matt jumped up and pulled a beer out of the fridge, popped the top, and handed it to her. She took a long pull from the bottle and embraced the burn of the cool amber liquid.

  “We cleaned up a little,” Harvey said.

  “Yeah,” Matt added. “You should have seen some of the shit she had in the fridge. I think I tossed out a bowl of spaghetti sauce. And I’m sorry, but I actually tossed out the bowl with the sauce. I don’t think any amount of cleaning would have made that thing sterile.”

  Daisy felt the sudden urge to kiss him. She leaned up on her toes, grabbed the back of his head, and planted one on his lips. He sunk into it. The kiss was long, pleasant, and apparently quite awkward for Harvey to watch as he walked past muttering something about going outside for a smoke.

  When the kiss ended, Daisy looked up into Matt’s handsome, bad boy face and said, “I feel like I’ve seen a different side of you today.”

  “And what side would that be?”

  “A very loving one. You were there for me today like nobody has ever been before. Thank you for your help.”

  “Always,” he said.

  “You mean that?” she asked, not sure she liked where the conversation was going, but unwilling and ultimately unable to stop it.

  “I love you, Daisy,” he said. “I’ve told you that before. You might not be ready to say it back and I totally get it. You’ve seen and have been through some shit. You have daddy and mommy and probably grandmamma issues.”

  She laughed.

  “One day you’ll tell me all about it,” he continued. “Or you won’t. Whatever. Just know if you want to I’m here. But in the meantime, if I could have another one of those kisses, that’d be great.”

  How could she say no to that? She reached up and kissed him. When she felt his tongue graze her bottom lip, she opened her mouth and let him in. Matt was a damn good kisser and within seconds she was tempted to lead him upstairs. She knew how that would end up. They’d fuck for hours. Then, they’d rest, wake up, and do it some more. The guy had stamina that never ended. She was surprised she hadn’t already ended up pregnant again.

  As much as she wanted to go through an all-nighter with her boyfriend…

  Fuck, there I go again. Dammit, okay…you know what? Fuck it. Yes, my boyfriend.

  …she knew she needed to be there for her sister, especially if she woke up and did any more harm to herself.

  “I want you,” Matt said.

  “Oh, babe. I want you too,” she admitted. “But tonight needs to be about Dawn. What if we’re busy and she hurts herself again?”

  He nodded and she knew he was disappointed but he agreed with her. It was the right thing to do.

  Twenty minutes later, Daisy and Matt sat on the living room couch. With no TV to watch, Matt had decided to read one of Dawn’s books to her. He found something about outlaw bikers mistreating their old ladies, except this one who had a soft spot for the lonely suburban housewife. The blurb got Matt all worked up as he hoped it would be a mix between Sons of Anarchy and The Gilmore Girls.

  Daisy didn’t ask how familiar he was with The Gilmore Girls. This trip was turning out to be quite enlightening. She’d always imagined that before she met him all he did was go out to underground rock clubs and down beer with his buddies outside tattoo parlors. Apparently he watched old TV chick shows too. Nice.

  They hadn’t so much as cracked open the book when Matt asked a quite reasonable question that probably should have been asked long before then. Where was Harvey?

  “He said he was going out for a smoke,” she reminded him.

  “He smokes, but damn, not a whole pack an outing,” Matt said as he stood and went to the front door.

  He swung it open and stepped out. Daisy went over to join him. Matt scanned the darkness beyond the porch light and called out to his friend.

  “Is it like him to go wandering off in the dark?” Daisy asked.

  “Depends how much he had to drink.”

  “And how much did he have to drink?”

  “Maybe three…four beers…not enough for an adventure.”

  Daisy walked to the far end of the patio and looked out at the cornfield. She could barely see the edge. She definitely couldn’t see the scarecrow. Something rattled the corn and shook the husks. It sounded a lot like tissue paper being stuffed into a gift bag.

  “Harvey?” she called out.

  “Harvey!” Matt shouted behind her.

  No response from Harvey.

  “The doctor told me to be careful around here,” Daisy said.

  She’d considered telling Matt about it earlier but they’d been too busy taking care of her sister and she’d forgotten about it. Now the doctor’s words kept repeating in her head.

  “What do you mean?” Matt asked.

  “He’d said something about people being afraid of the ranch. That workers refused to come out here or something. They were afraid of the corn.”

  Matt scoffed.

  “I didn’t believe it either,” she said. “That’s why I didn’t say anything.”

  “Are little kids gonna run out of the corn and hack us up into little bits?” Matt asked.

  She understood his Stephen King reference but she didn’t find it the least bit funny. Now all she could imagine was little kids running out of the corn with knives and axes and pitchforks. Little grotesque looking kids, covered in mud, shit, and blood.

  “Can we go inside?” she asked.

  “I need to go look for Harvey,” he said. “This isn’t like him.”

  “Maybe he met a neighbor girl,” she said and as soon as the words left her mouth she realized how stupid she sounded, but everything seemed stupid right now. A grown man had wandered off at night.

  “He’s probably taking a piss,” Matt said, “It’s kinda what guys do when they’ve been drinking. A real man will skip the toilet and go for a tree every time after he’s had a few beers.”

  It was his turn to feel stupid as it was clear from the look on his face that he wasn’t buying his own assumption. No man would be out there wandering out of earshot to take a piss.

  “I ne
ed to find him, Daisy,” he said.

  “Can’t we go back inside, cuddle up on the couch, and wait till morning?” she begged. “He’ll show up. You’ll see. He’ll come back later with some crazy story neither of us will believe.”

  “Would you leave your sister out there?” he asked.

  “Out where? We don’t even know where there is! And he’s not your fucking brother.”

  “Go inside and lock the doors. I’ll be back. I promise.”

  No amount of arguing with him would change anything. He was going out there in search of his friend and she had to either go with him and leave her sister alone, or go inside and let him take care of it by himself. She decided to go with him. Her sister had survived, although barely, on her own before she’d arrived, and she’d be ok a little while longer. Daisy went inside real quick to get a flashlight and the house keys and locked up before joining her boyfriend out on the front lawn.

  “You sure you wanna do this?” he asked.

  He’d tried to talk her out of it before but she was not easily swayed. It was one of her downfalls. Once she had something in her head, she couldn’t seem to turn it off. She was going with him whether he liked it or not.

  “Yes,” she said. “Let’s go, quickly, and look for him. If he gets here before us he’ll have to sit out on the porch.”

  Matt took her hand, held onto it tight, and flipped on the flashlight. He moved the beam across the corn and as he did, the wind seemed to pick up, shaking the leaves as the beam shone across them.

  Behind them the large trees near the house swayed in the wind too.

  The sounds of nature at night can be terrifying. It sounded as if the entire ranch was antagonizing them, amplifying their fear, mocking them for having the guts to search for their friend so late in the evening.

  As Matt’s beam crossed the corn, Daisy shot out a hand and stopped his arm.

  “The scarecrow!” she said.

  “What scarecrow?” he asked.

  “Exactly. There was one right over here earlier today. I saw it. I stared right at it. I’ve always hated that thing. It’s not there now.”

  “That’s not possible,” he said.

  “I know what I saw.”

  He seemed to brush off her fear as he walked forward, making his way toward the side of the house and back toward the barn. She tugged on his arm and led him farther away from the corn. She wanted to be nowhere near it after what the doctor had said earlier. She had a few memories of her own about the corn. She was terrified of it as a kid. She did everything in her power to stay away. Why, she couldn’t remember, but she didn’t like it and now she felt the same dread she did as a young girl.

  Something moved quickly to their left, through the corn. It seemed to be shoving its way through the stalks, racing alongside them.

  “I wanna go back to the house,” she said.

  “Harvey?!” Matt yelled. “Are you out there?”

  “It’s not Harvey,” she said. “It’s not Harvey, Matt. Please. Let’s go back to the house.”

  Suddenly, the direction of the thing in the corn changed and it was coming right toward them. Daisy stepped backward, moving away from the corn, trying to pull Matt with her. The thing was only a few feet from the corn and was about to come barreling out at them when suddenly it stopped.

  Daisy screamed and fell back onto the ground on her ass. Matt had accidentally knocked her over. He shined the beam at the corn and illuminated the round figure of a head. Someone was in the corn but stood hidden in the shadows of the stalks, watching them.

  “Harvey?” Matt asked.

  “It’s not Harvey,” Daisy said again.

  Matt’s beam had fallen slightly below its head and Daisy saw the red eyes. It watched them, staring at them with its evil gaze.

  She’d seen those eyes before.

  Dawn and she were playing hide and seek. It was Dawn’s favorite game and whenever Daisy was “it” she was forced to search forever. Dawn was such a good hider. The one rule they’d made was to stay away from the corn. She hated the corn and her sister always wound up using it against her, hiding deep enough in the stalks so that Daisy would never find her.

  Not now.

  Now Dawn couldn’t cheat. And Daisy WOULD find her.

  She searched around the side of the house and in the small shed where Papa kept the lawnmower and some of his tools.

  She searched behind the large stack of firewood out back.

  She searched high and low until the sun began to set and there was only one place left to look. It was the one place she should have added to the “stay away” list, the Dawn-can’t-hide-there list. But she hadn’t and the only way she’d end the game was to go in there and hunt her sister down. By this time she wanted the game to be over so they could go home and she could watch her favorite TV show while she ate dinner.

  Bravery had always been one of her strong suits. Daisy was a lot tougher than her older sister. She might be smaller, younger, and quieter, but she was super brave. That’s what Papa always told her and she kept that in mind as she entered the dark, dirty old barn.

  She hadn’t made it more than two feet into the barn when she heard the sound of moaning, like someone was in serious pain. Then a woman screamed. She knew her mother’s voice and Mama seemed to be in trouble.

  Or maybe it was Dawn. She considered running back to the house to get Mama but maybe it would be too late then. Maybe her sister was in trouble. Maybe she was hurt real bad.

  “Dawn?” she whispered. “Is that you?”

  As she made her way deeper into the barn, the sounds got louder. It didn’t sound like Dawn. It sounded like a woman. It sounded like a woman she saw on a TV show having a baby. Daisy turned the corner into one of the horse stalls and as she was about to push through the tiny metal gate, she stopped in her tracks and held onto the bars. She was mortified.

  Mama was naked, completely stark naked, except for her favorite locket. Her boobs were shaking and she was all sweaty. Her hair clung to her face and she gritted her teeth. She was backing into a man, a big man with curly blond hair. The man’s arms were tied to a wooden post.

  What were they doing? What was he doing to Mama? Why was Mama smiling?

  Then Mama let out a scream and laughed hysterically while shouting, “Yes, yes, yes!”

  “Mama?” Daisy asked.

  Mama’s eyes opened and then she glared at her.

  “You shouldn’t be in here!” she yelled.

  She was so angry, but she kept backing into the man on the post.

  “Goooo!” the man yelled.

  “You shut up,” she said to the man. “And don’t you dare stop.”

  She turned her attention back to Daisy.

  “Go to your room and don’t come out until I tell you!” her mom yelled at her.

  The last thing Daisy remembered was the man’s eyes. As he looked down at her naked mother, his eyes glowed red.

  Red eyes, like the ones she saw in the corn a few feet from Matt.

  “Get away from him!” she yelled. “Run, Matt! Run to the house!”

  She got to her feet quickly, grabbed Matt’s hand, and ran. As they made their way toward the house, the corn rattled to their side, and she knew the red-eyed creature was following them. Through the shadows they ran until something caught her foot and she tripped. Daisy fell to the ground hard and slid through the grass. She lost her grip on Matt’s hand in the process.

  “Daisy!” he yelled and pointed the flashlight down at her.

  There, no more than a foot from her face, was Harvey. His lifeless face was tilted to the left so that he was face to face with her. His head was nearly severed from the rest of his body by the pitchfork jammed into his neck.

  “Harvey?” Matt asked, looking confused and afraid.

  Daisy knew they didn’t have time to mourn. She pulled Matt toward the house. They made it to the front door and she fumbled for her keys. The corn went wild behind her, like a hundred angry men were s
talking toward them.

  Then the sound of rocks on concrete, the snapping and crackling of bones. They were coming and she knew it. They were right behind them, their bodies awkwardly making their way out of the corn and toward the house. The scarecrows were coming.

  “Go, go, go,” Matt told her.

  Matt snatched the keys out of her hand and tried a couple of them. She looked over her shoulder and watched as, out of the corn, shadowy figures emerged. Each had glowing red eyes. Some were taller than the others but all looked menacing, sliding forward slowly, waiting for the time to pounce. One walked ahead of the others, its shoulders jerking as it stepped forward, its legs snapping with each step.