by Michael Bray
“Hey, what the hell...”
Dwayne’s protests were cut short by the double-barreled shotgun which was pointing at his face.
He looked beyond it to its owner and raised his hands.
“Get the hell in here, boy, and pick your damn friend up off the floor.”
Dwayne did as he was told, and the farmer ushered them in, the gun still trained on them.
“Take a seat.” He said as he closed and locked the door.
***
Jorell Samsonite looked almost exactly like Randy had envisioned him. He was old and wiry, and peered at them with mistrustful eyes from a face hidden by his dirty white beard and knotted unkempt hair. Jorell glared at the two intruders, who were pale faced and sitting at the kitchen table in silence.
The farmhouse was minimal, and designed for the single life. Jorell glared at the two intruders, licking his lips as he swayed from side to side.
“What are you doing here? Why did you come?” Asked the manic old man.
“Hey, take it easy,” Randy said. “We had no choice. Your scarecrows…”
“Stopped you, didn’t they?” Jorell cackled. “Stopped you from leaving.”
“Look pal.” Dwayne said, “I don’t know what the hell kinda game you think you are playing here...”
Jorell lowered the gun and began to cry. He sat on the wooden chair by the door and put his head in his hands.
“You don’t get it, do you?” The old man said. “None of this is me. This isn’t my fault.”
“Look, Mr. Samsonite, if we could use your phone, we'll be out of here and leave you in peace,” Randy said, keeping a close eye on the shotgun.
“No phone, haven’t had one for years.” The old man muttered.
“You can’t just keep us here,” Dwayne said, his eyes flicking for a split second to the shotgun held in the old man’s hands.
“You don’t get it, do you, son?” Jorell repeated, flashing his toothless grin. “You’re free to go whenever you like as far as I’m concerned. But them.” He said pointing to the closed door. “They won’t allow it. They’ll make you stay.”
“You could call em’ off,” Dwayne said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Call em’ off and let us go, we won’t tell anyone what you’re doing out here.”
The old man grinned and shook his head.
“You don’t get it, do you, sonny?”
“What do you mean?” Dwayne asked.
“You’re trapped here too, aren’t you Mr. Samsonite?” Randy said quietly.
The old man looked at him and then lowered his gaze.
“Yes, yes I am.” He said, exhaling and relaxing his grip on the gun.
“What do you mean? What are you saying?”
Dwayne was close to losing it, and Randy didn’t like to think what might happen if he did. The old man must have seen it too because he stood and walked to the fridge and pulled out a jug of cloudy moonshine and grabbed three glasses from the cupboard.
“Relax, son, you’re safe enough here in the house. Drink?”
“What is it?” Randy asked.
“Moonshine. Brew it myself here on the farm. Not bad stuff if I say so myself.”
“I’ll take one,” Dwayne said.
Jorell poured them both a drink, then returned to his chair, propped the shotgun against the wall and lowered himself down with a sigh. They sat in silence in the grimy kitchen, and without warning, Jorell began to speak.
“Thirty-seven years ago, I came here to this farm. I was a young man, and back then I thought the world was at my fingertips. My father had bought it and put it in my name. He wanted me to learn the family business. To earn my way in the world. That first year was a tough one, and the learning curve for those intending to live off the land is a high one. I enjoyed it, though and got to be competent. I grew everything I need right outside my own door, Fruits and vegetables. Out back, I have a coop with chickens and a few cows for milk and cheese. I have my very own little food chain.”
The old man smiled and began to pick the thick dirt from under his overgrown fingernails.
“Two years went by, and I was doing fine. My wife was with our child, and I loved my job. First time I thought something might be wrong was the summer of '57. I was out front there, ploughing the earth. I had this idea to grow wheat and thought it was just about the perfect place. I was out there digging, and the sun was fierce on my back. That’s when it happened.”
“What happened Mr. Samsonite?”
“Well, sonny, I don’t rightly know for sure. All I know is that there was something in the dirt. Something foul and evil and forgotten, and I was unlucky enough to find it. I don’t know what it was, and I ain’t about to speculate, but whatever it was, I had a desire, a compulsion to protect it. Built my first scarecrow out there later that week. Called it George after my father.
My wife asked me what the hell I intended to frighten away from an empty field, and I told her to leave me to my work.
Well, it turns out whatever was in the dirt was a powerful thing, and I took to going out there as often as I could. I would sit all day at that damn scarecrows feet, and these ideas of what I had to do came to me. That week I built two more ‘crows, planted em’ right out there next to George. By now, of course, my wife was startin’ to think I needed to see a doctor, and so I took fists to her and put her in her place.”
Randy and Dwayne shared a quick glance, and Jorell smiled. “You boys don’t have to judge me; I have punished myself enough for that and more over the years. I don’t want to get distracted if I can help it.”
Randy and Dwayne nodded, and the old man licked his lips and continued.
“So, it went on like that for weeks. I didn’t sleep, I barely ate. All I did was sit out there in that damn field and soak up whatever was down in the dirt, and do as it told me. By that winter, the field that was intended for my wheat held just short of sixty-five crows. A little after Christmas of that year, I came back to the house to find a doctor waiting for me, wanting to examine me. Well, I chased him out of the door and told him not to come back. My wife threatened to leave me if I didn’t explain, so I dragged her out there to the field, and showed her.”
His smile faded, and he swallowed as he recalled the memory.
“Crows took her that night. Part of me knew it was gonna happen, and yet I dragged her up there anyway. There was a lot of blood, and I knew they liked that, they liked the blood soaking through the dirt. Later, where that blood had flowed, smaller ‘crows started to push through the dirt. You probably saw some of the juveniles when you snuck in.”
Randy nodded, and the old man shrugged his narrow shoulders.
“Well, that’s how they grow. Come up fully shaped like that. Don’t ask me how or why, because I don’t know. They just did. You gotta remember, I was just a young fella back then and scared of what would happen to me if I told the police. Without my wife to keep me in check, things got worse. I stopped looking after the farm; I stopped spending time in the house. I would either be sitting there, cross-legged in the dirt, or I'd be building crows and planting them. By June of '59, I had planted over three hundred of them all around the perimeter of the house. Another hundred and a half had sprouted out of the ground of their own accord. I think even then, on some level, I knew what they were doing, and what they were making me do, but I was scared, and so I did as I was told. Took me a further year to fence myself in, by then I was lost anyway. I was a slave to whatever it is that lives in the dirt out there. They forced me to get off my ass and make the farm self-sustaining. They…”
The old man grimaced, and ran a dirty hand through his hair.
“They feed on things, living things. I lost count of how many corpses I found out there in the fields. Always drained of blood, always at the feet of one of the crows. At first, I used to burn the corpses, then they told me it was safe to eat them, and being a man who likes meat as much as anyone, I did. Mice, rabbits, foxes, badgers. Anything that the crows killed and drained, I finishe
d off. We helped each other.”
“Why didn’t you try to leave?” Randy asked as he sipped his drink.
“I did try, once. It was back in '63. I don’t know what triggered it, but I decided one day that I had had enough, and that I would leave the crows and whatever lived down in the dirt to its own devices. I set out from here and made for the main road, the same one I suspect you came from. I didn’t make it even half way through the field before they stopped me. Blocked me in, stopped me in my tracks. Seems they needed me after all, to tend to them when they were blown over in winter, or one of the straw bags that I used for the heads and bodies split and needed to be repaired, or if they needed fresh clothes when the others had rotted off them. And of course, to dispose of the corpses. They told me then that I wouldn’t be allowed to leave, and even though I cried and begged and screamed, they didn’t listen.”
“What happened then?” Dwayne asked.
The old man sighed and shrugged his shoulders.
“Then, I did as I was told. Fast forward thirty something years and here we are today with you kids breaking down my door to get in.”
The old man grinned and stood, wincing as his knee joints popped.
“You kids just made the biggest mistake of your lives.” He said as he shuffled out of the room, leaving Dwayne and Randy alone.
***
The following morning was overcast, and a light drizzle fell. Jorell had made breakfast (which both Randy and Dwayne were grateful to see, contained no meat) of porridge and jam, and then told them they could have the run of the house apart from his personal rooms, which were on the top floor.
The two friends sat opposite each other at the kitchen table, neither having slept. Randy glanced out of the window at the vast ocean of scarecrows, which had thankfully returned to facing away from the house.
“How’d you sleep?” Randy asked as he rubbed his stubble fluffed cheeks.
“I didn’t. You?”
Randy shook his head, and the two were silent. They could see Jorell out in the fields, walking amongst the scarecrows and making sure they were tidy and in good order.
“So, any ideas?”
“No, I’m still struggling to come to terms with this,” Randy said as he drummed his fingers on the table top.
“I think I have an idea if you want to hear it.”
Randy looked at Dwayne, expecting to see the hidden craziness, but he saw only his friend, and for that he was glad.
“What you got?”
Dwayne reached into his pocket, and set his lighter on the table.
“We can burn our way out.”
Randy looked out of the window, and the driving rain which showed no sign of slowing down.
“It’s too wet, nothing will burn.”
“No, I know that. So we wait until it dries out.”
“You wanna wait here?”
“No, I don’t want to, I just don’t see any other choice.”
“Maybe the old man’s story was a way to keep us here,” Randy muttered.
“What about Kenny?” Dwayne shot back.
Randy was silent. He had forgotten about Kenny and felt ashamed for it. Kenny was always more Dwayne’s friend than his, and Randy only knew him by association, but he acknowledged that even so, it gave him no right to have forgotten about him so completely.
“We can’t help him now. We have to look out for ourselves.”
“That’s what I’m doing,” Dwayne said. “It just might take a little time.”
“We can’t stay here.”
“I don’t like it either, and I sure as hell don’t intend on trying to walk my way through those things again.”
That was enough to bring silence back to the table, and for a time, they simply sat there.
“When were you thinking of doing it?” Randy said, nodding towards the lighter.
“A few days. The weather report says it should brighten up tomorrow, so allowing for a couple of days for the bastards to dry out, I’d say four days. Five tops.”
“We don’t even know this guy, I mean, surely he would have thought of this idea, why is he still here?”
“Come on Randy, you heard his story. He’s frightened, and I guess now he’s just too old to do anything about it.”
“I suppose we have no choice, do we, assuming he even lets us stay.”
“I don’t see how he has a choice.”
“Can I ask you something Dwayne?”
“Shoot.”
“His story… do you believe him?”
“I don’t know,” Dwayne said. “All I do know is that those things out there were moving, and that’s enough for me to not want to be out there.”
“That’s good enough for me,” Randy replied. “Let’s see if the old man will put us up for a few nights.”
“He will. He’s too old and weak to stop us.”
“Should we tell him about our plan?”
“No, absolutely not, under any circumstances.” Dwayne snapped, and there, just for a split second, Randy saw the dark thing that lived inside his friend.
“Why not? What harm can it do?”
“You ever heard of something called Stockholm Syndrome, Randy?”
“No, I can’t say I have.”
“Back in the early '70's, '73 I think, it was, two guys robbed a bank in Stockholm. Things got a little crazy, so they take the bank workers hostage, and hold them in the vault for six days. Anyways, things came to a head, and the police talked the two guys into surrendering and freeing the hostages. The funny thing is, the people who had been held captive, sympathised with the guys who had held them there and tried to stop them from being sent to jail.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Who knows, they say the hostages formed a bond with their captors and a relationship built between them. My point is, this old man has been here for so long doing the will of these damn scarecrows, that I don’t think he would leave now, even if he could, which means that he could be dangerous if he gets wind of what we plan to do.”
“So what do we do until then?” Randy asked as he watched the old man fuss around the scarecrows through the kitchen window.
“Play nice, offer to help him out around the farm. God knows, the place could use it.” Dwayne said, looking around the dilapidated kitchen.
“Okay, but I want us out of here as soon as we can do it safely.”
“You don’t need to convince me of anything. As soon as those damn scarecrows are dry enough to burn a path through; we’re getting the hell out of here.”
***
Randy tossed the twin armful of carrots into the wheelbarrow and wiped a dirty forearm across his brow.
Jorell had been happy for them to stay and had put them to work on the farm. For the last three days, Dwayne had worked on the inside, tidying the house as Randy picked and tended to the crops.
Despite the weather reports, the rain had continued in spotty showers, and the dry periods that did come were few. Frustration was starting to set in, and Randy glared at the ocean of wooden effigies which stood between him and freedom.
The old man spent most of his days out in the fields. Randy watched him as he walked among the scarecrows, adjusting their clothes, talking to them and repairing any damage. It was obvious to see that he was quite mad, but both he and Dwayne chose to ignore it, as it made the wait to escape easier to bear. It was then, as he was watching Jorell in the distance, that he saw a second figure standing in the field speaking to him.
It was Dwayne.
Randy watched from afar and wondered why the situation tugged at his guts and made him feel as if he were being left out of whatever conversation they were having. Randy looked on, and a few minutes later, Dwayne began to head towards the house. Randy walked to meet him, unsure why he was so angry.
“What was that about?” He asked as Dwayne neared.
“What?”
“You and the old man.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
/>
“Why were you over there in the field? I thought that would be the last place you would go, considering what happened to Kenny.”
Dwayne looked at the ground, then at his friend.
“It’s nothing to worry about; the old man just wanted help planting one of his scarecrows, that’s all.”
“And you did it?” Randy spat. “I thought we were trying to get out of here, not build up the defences.”
“Jesus Randy, it was one damn scarecrow and nowhere near the route where we will be leaving. Just relax. I know what I’m doing.”
“I just don’t think we should be going out there in those fields, especially after the old man’s story.”
“Okay, take it easy, if I had known you would start acting like my mother I...”
He trailed off, and looked at the dirt, then continued. “Just relax that’s all. I know what I’m doing. Okay?”
Dwayne didn’t wait for an answer and went back to the house.
Randy watched him go and then turned to the field of scarecrows. They were still facing away from him, and he couldn’t see the old man, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that they were watching him, and that, on some level, he now stood alone.
The rest of the day passed without incident, and their routine was as normal. Randy worked outside, bringing the crops back into some kind of order whilst Dwayne worked on tidying the house. The light of the day began to fade, and as Randy stood and stretched, trying to ignore the agony in his back, he smiled, because even though the day had been overcast, it hadn’t rained, and so they were a little closer to their escape.
The three of them ate in silence at the kitchen table that night. The old man came back after sundown and didn’t say a word to either of them. He finished his meal, and then went upstairs, leaving Dwayne and Randy to tidy away the dishes.
“How does tomorrow look?” Randy whispered.
“Possible, although it might be worth waiting another day just to be sure. We really need those damn things to burn.”
Randy glanced over at Dwayne and saw that his friend was distracted. He seemed to have the weight of the world on his shoulders, which, under the circumstances was understandable.
“You sleeping alright?” Randy asked.