The Scarecrow: A Supernatural Thriller (Solom)

by Scott Nicholson

  “More chores,” Gordon said. “That’s what builds character. Hard work will keep you out of trouble. Speaking of which, you’ll need to feed the goats after dinner.”

  “In the barn?” Jett looked at mom. Mom wore a faint smile, her lips stiff like those of someone sitting for a painting.

  Gordon focused on the last of his pie, shoveling it down in gooey white lumps. He scraped his fork across the plate and licked it clean. “Sure. Just throw down a couple of bales from the loft. The grass isn’t growing as fast with winter coming on.”

  “But it’s almost dark.”

  “There’s a flashlight in the hall closet.”

  “What about the man—”

  Gordon looked at her, his eyes like lumps of cold coal behind his lenses. “What man?”

  “Never mind.”

  “It’s a rite of passage,” Gordon said. “If you’re going to live on the farm, you’re part of the farm. Persephone’s about to go back to Hades and winter’s on its way.”

  “Who is Persephone?” Jett didn’t really want to sit through a lecture but figured she might as well stall for time. Anything to put off a trip to the dark barn.

  “Persephone was the daughter of Demeter and Zeus in Greek mythology. Hades, the king of the Underworld, fell in love with her and dragged her to his realm. Demeter, who was goddess of the harvest, was angered and hurt. She punished the world through cold winds and freezing weather.”

  “Sounds like a bummer for all concerned.”

  “Especially the poor humans, who thought they had lost Demeter’s favor. Hades eventually agreed to let Persephone come up to the world for half the year, giving us spring and summer.”

  “Why didn’t Persephone just run away?”

  “Because she had fallen in love with Hades.”

  “Some people just fall in love with the wrong person,” Jett said, giving Mom a bloodshot stare. Mom smiled blankly.

  “Okay, chores now,” Gordon said. “Just don’t try to sneak a puff of drugs while you’re out there. I know what that stuff smells like. Those hippies in East Dorm crank it out like a steam train.”

  “Mom?” Jett looked to her mom for any sign of concern, but Mom could have just as easily been watching television on the dining room wall. Jett had almost blurted out to Mom about seeing the man in the black hat, or being touched by the creepy thing in the attic, but she hadn’t, and now it would sound like the ultimate case of crying wolf. Or else the ranting of a deranged dope fiend. Besides, she didn’t want Gordon to get one over on her. She’d show the bastard, even if it killed her.

  Well, maybe that was a little extreme. Stoner paranoia. She pushed her pie away and limped upstairs. She grabbed her favorite leather jacket, slipped the baggie of pot into one pocket and cell phone in the other, and went back down to grab a flashlight out of the kitchen. At the door, she paused and said, “If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, tell them my merry-go-round broke down,” she said.

  Gordon paused with his goblet to his lips. “Some kind of drug slang?”

  “A Tommy Keene reference. Get it, Mom?”

  Mom gave a Stepford grin. “No, dear. Who is Tommy Keene?”

  Freaky. She’s forgetting her favorite music. Who IS she?

  Before Jett could dwell on the shadowy man who no doubt awaited her, she burst out the front door, gripping the flashlight as if it were a billy club. “Don’t let Hades come up and grab you,” Gordon called after her, with a little snicker.

  She should have told Gordon to go take a flying fuck at his precious goats. Maybe a good, old-fashioned blow-up would shatter the melodramatic comedy that the Smith House had become, maybe even yank Mom out of Stepford mode. If Jett and Gordon got into a knockdown, drag-out battle royale, surely Mom would take her side. Wouldn’t she?

  Dusk was settling in the east as she made her way to the barn, the sky gone as purple as a Goth’s eyeliner. Crickets chirruped in the cool night air, but the forests were still. The lights of a few houses cast solid sparks against the darkening slopes, but they seemed miles away. The creek gurgled like a hundred men with cut throats.

  I can do this, she thought as she opened the gate. I can feed Shadrach and Nebuchadnezzar and whatever the hell else Gordon named them, then walk back in the house whistling. That way I can score points on Gordon. I won’t let that asshole win.

  She shuddered as she walked through the spot where she’d seen the Scarecrow Man earlier, when he’d lifted his hand and waved those gloved, stiff fingers. She thumbed on the light and played the beam in front of her, watching for piles of goat goodies. She reached the barn without incident, and took a last, longing look at the lights of the Smith House before she entered.

  Part of her expected to see Mom at the kitchen window, watching after her, but all the curtains were drawn. Figured. Mom was Gordon’s now, for whatever reason. Gordon’s little love slave, a possession in more ways than one. This seemed like something Jett was supposed to do alone. So much for getting through things together.

  She had to throw all her weight against the barn door to slide it open, the little wheels creaking in their metal track. Her ankle throbbed like a sore tooth. The inside of the barn was nearly pitch black, the chicken-wired windows leaking the last of the dying daylight. The odor of manure, animal hair, and straw filled her nose and nearly made her sneeze.

  The goats must still have been in the fields, because the bottom floor appeared empty. She played the cone of light over the stairs. The scarecrow was in its usual place, hanging from a wire tied to a fat nail. Straw bulged from the seams in the clothes, and the cheesecloth face was expressionless. As the flashlight beam swept slowly over the wall, Jett paused. The wicked-looking scythe was gone.

  Something stirred just outside the barn, and Jett told herself the goats had decided it was feeding time. She went up the stairs, carefully adjusting her weight with each step to protect her sprained ankle. The wood groaned and squeaked like a beast with an arthritic spine. The door leading to the loft was shut, with the hasp in place, but the lock hadn’t been snapped. Just like the first time she’d seen the Scarecrow Man.

  If she’d even seen anything at all.

  To hell with it, just get it over with.

  She could hear the goats milling below, calling out in anxious voices with their peculiar bleats. They must have been out in the barnyard the whole time, as if expecting her. It seemed crazy, but it sounded like there were lots more of them. They had somehow multiplied in number in the last couple of days.

  What was it the Bible said? Be fruitful and multiply? Did that apply to goats or just to people? I’ll have to ask Gordon. Strike that. I could never ask Gordon anything that would make him even more smug than he already is.

  Jett eased into the loft, her footfalls hushed by the scattered hay. The air was as thick as snuff, and golden motes spun lazily in the flashlight’s beam. The bales were on the far end of the loft, and even dry, they weighed about forty pounds each. She couldn’t lift them, especially not while holding the flashlight. She rested the light in the crotch of an angled support beam so that it cast a spotlight on the area in which she would be working.

  She grabbed a bale by the twin strands of twine and yanked it toward the hole in the floor of the loft. She should have worn gloves. The twine gave her rope burns and cut into her palms. By the time she’d dragged the first bale over the square hole and shoved it to the nattering creatures below, her palms were wet with blood.

  The animals drummed their hooves on the packed earthen floor of the barn, thumping against each other in their lust for hay. She wondered if Fred was down there, the one who had eaten her stash the day before. Maybe the next bale would fall on him and break his freaking neck. She had dragged the next bale halfway to the hole when the flashlight fell to the floor, bounced, and went out.

  Damn almighty midget Jesus on a toothpick.

  Jett was so pissed off, she forgot to be afraid. For at least three seconds. Then she heard the soft shuffling of rag
feet on the floorboards, and a whispering rush that was too small to be the wind, although it was loud enough to carry over the bleating goats. She backed away, toward the opening on the far end through which the bales were loaded into the loft.

  She tripped and fell into a suffocating stack of hay, kicking and choking until she scrambled to her feet, awaiting the embrace of flannel arms, the crush of a cheesecloth face against her cheek, the singing of a grinning sickle as it swept in a grim harvest.

  She felt nothing, though, only the sickening pull of gravity as she slammed against the loading bay door. It gave way before her, spitting her out into the moist darkness with its faint dusting of stars. She fell, spinning as awkwardly as a merry-go-round broke down, and, even if she had thought to scream, she wouldn’t have had time.

  Nothing like DYING to kill a good buzz, she thought, then had no thoughts at all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Katy was elbow-deep in dirty dishes when the back door swung open, letting in the night.

  Gordon must have forgotten to lock it, and the wind was picking up, skating leaves against the side of the house, sending cold air against her bare legs. She realized with a start that she wasn’t wearing panties, and she must have changed into the autumnal print dress sometime after dinner. She put a soapy hand to her forehead. What was happening to her memory?

  The wind skirled the pantry curtains. The pantry. What about it? Something had happened in there. Not just broken pickle jars and hidden recipes, but a secret as old as the Smiths.

  Yeah, sure, sounds pretty melodramatic.

  But she was attuned to melodrama. After all, she’d married a man on what amounted to a whim, she’d tossed away her past and her career and settled for a housewife role in a mountain community where the women were valued as good cooks and compliant bed partners. Not that the bed part had been much of a challenge, with Gordon content to fall asleep reading research books while she waited for him to doze. Something was wrong, a deep part of herself knew, but she was caught up in the small rhythms of daily life and had surrendered herself to them. Surrender was good, surrender was easy. A man to provide, leaving her free to focus on raising a family ...

  Jett.

  She flung the suds from her fingers and went to the back door. Jett should be upstairs studying. Had Gordon sent her out to do chores? Surely not on a night like this, not when Jett was acting so strangely.

  She stepped out on the back porch and looked around the farm. The barn made black angles against the purple sunset. A white shape moved beyond the fence, then another. Goats. Gordon’s damned goats. She shuddered and stepped inside, drawing the door tight and fastening the deadbolt.

  “Katy.”

  She spun, looking toward the foyer, which was the only other entrance to the kitchen. “Gordon?”

  But it couldn’t have been Gordon. This was a female. And the voice was near.

  Coming from the pantry.

  Katy yanked the curtains, nearly pulling down the bar that held the checkered fabric. The smell of crushed lilacs overwhelmed her, intoxicating enough to make her head spin. “Who’s there?”

  “Come inside.” The whisper was an Arctic breeze, a frozen scalpel, a long, cold fingernail down the nape of her neck.

  The pantry was empty. Katy wasn’t sure whether she was imagining voices or whether a ghost lived in her kitchen. The imaginary voice sounded like a more practical, though possibly more unnerving, option. Because how would a ghost know her name?

  A pint jar of stewed tomatoes fell on its side on one of the waist-high shelves, rolling with gritty purpose. Katy reached to catch it, but it slipped between her fingers, shattering on the floor, throwing the seasoned smell of basil and oregano in the air to join the lilac. The sprayed viscera of tomato pulp glistened against the broken glass. Among the wreckage was a white object, smeared red by the juice.

  Katy knelt, careful not to cut herself on the glass, and fished out the object. It was a bronze key, pocked by the acid from the tomato juice. She could imagine a ring, or perhaps a measuring spoon, being accidentally dropped into a jar during high-pressure canning, but a key?

  “Katy?” This time the voice was Gordon’s, booming from the living room. For some reason, Katy felt the key held a secret meant only for her. It was such an obvious metaphor, and she had come to think of the pantry as her domain, part of the kitchen she’d come to love.

  “Yes?” She clutched the key in her fist so that it was hidden.

  “Where’s that daughter of yours?”

  “Isn’t she upstairs in her room?”

  “I didn’t hear her come in from feeding the goats. She’s probably out there messing with drugs.”

  God, how long had it been? She tried to remember Jett going out the front door, but her mind was blank. Considering the stack of dirty dishes and the leftovers being put away, Jett must have been gone at least half an hour. “Will you go check on her?”

  “I’ve got a faculty report to get to the dean tomorrow. Departmental politics. I don’t have time for miscreants.”

  Katy wiped her hands, opened the odds-and-ends drawer, and slid the key into an envelope of pumpkin seeds. She pulled out a penlight and went out the back door, the wind chilling her legs. The goats were gathered at the back side of the barn, probably eating the hay Jett had thrown down from above.

  Passing through the gate, she called Jett’s name, but the wind and the low murmuring of the goats smothered her voice. The penlight did little against the darkness, and she dreaded climbing the narrow wooden stairs into the loft. The hens clucked uneasily, disturbed in their nests.

  “Just like last time,” came the voice she’d heard in the pantry. Or it might have been the breeze whistling under the eaves of the tin roof.

  “Just like last time what?” Katy thought.

  “The time Jett freaked out, and you found her in the barrel.”

  Maybe she was imagining a voice, but this voice was insistent, and the words tugged at her memory. The barn door was open, which probably meant Jett was inside. Gordon was a stickler for closing gates and doors, and hammered his point home at every chance. Jett wouldn’t have left the door open despite her rebellious streak, because the bitterness of the punishment more than offset the pleasure of the crime.

  Although the inside of the barn shielded the bulk of the wind, the open room was cold. She ran the penlight over the wall. The scarecrow hung on its nail, grinning in sleep. The back door was open as well, and the cluster of goats gave off a strong, musky odor. She hesitated, afraid of them, the moon shining on their curled horns.

  “Get the hell away me, Fred!” Jett yelled. She must have risen to her knees because the top of her head was on level with those of the goats. One of them pulled away, a plastic baggie in its jaws.

  Katy ran among the animals, flailing the penlight as if it were a weapon. “Shoo, damn it,” she said, pushing at the animals, careful of the flashing horns as the animals bucked and started. There were so many of them. It seemed as if the flock had swelled dramatically in just the last few days. She finally reached Jett and pulled her to her feet, and they backed away from the goats.

  The animals fell quiet and still, all eyes on Katy and Jett as they retreated into the barn. The goats stared with interest—hunger?—until Katy threw her weight against the barn door and it began its groaning path along its track. The goats hesitated, and then moved forward as one, not in a rush but with purpose. The one with the baggie in its mouth held back, as if it had secured a treasured prize. Katy slammed the door and took Jett’s arm.

  “Are you okay, honey? What happened?”

  “I fell. I don’t know. I saw something up there.” Jett’s gaping, tear-flooded eyes rolled toward the loft. “The Scarecrow Man ...”

  “The scarecrow’s hanging on the wall, honey. See?” Katy directed the light toward the spot near the stairs. The scarecrow was gone. “Let’s get out of here before the goats come around front.”

  They linked arms and jog
ged out of the barn, not stopping to close the side door. Let Gordon be pissed. He could come outside and deal with it himself. They were his damned goats, after all.

  They reached the gate and Katy fumbled with the latch. The goats had come around the barn, but were not in pursuit. They stood in that mocking, silent way, working their hooves back and forth under the moonlight.

  “Jeez, there’s so many of them,” Jett said.

  “I shouldn’t have let you come out here alone.”

  “Mom, I’m freaking out.”

  “I know, baby. We’ll get you tucked in and everything will be all right. We’ll get through this together.”

  “What about the scarecrow? He was walking around, he smiled at me, he—”

  “There’s no Scarecrow Man, honey.”

  “Then where did it go? It was there one second and then it was gone.”

  They headed to the porch, the scent of manure and brown oak leaves riding the wind. Katy looked back at the barn. The goats still watched, their dark noses lifted and ears twitching as if they were awaiting some unspoken command. Katy shivered and led Jett into the house. As soon as the door closed, she was overcome by the scent of lilacs and tomatoes and forgot all about the goats.

  They belonged here. Why did she ever question it?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Jett had the blankets pulled up to her chin, but still she shivered. Katy put a hand to her forehead, a typical Mom thing, but Jett didn’t have a fever. Unless you counted Boogieman Fever. She had that big-time.

  She closed her eyes and saw the burlap face, the stitched grin, the burned holes of eyes, and the wicked curve of the scythe. Worse was awakening among the goats, who had milled about her sprawled body, nudged her with their horns, and pressed wet noses against her flesh. She had planned to use the pot as a decoy—they really seemed to dig the stuff—but one had stolen it before she could bait them.