FALL 2017

I was walking up the road one night in the farmland of Lindenwood–out there, you can walk for an hour and all it would get you was an hour up the road. There were maybe three or four houses along the route, but mostly it was cornfields. These fields were almost ready for the mowdown, and the stalks stood higher than I was tall (I’m only five foot, but still). My walking buddies were two barn cats who would wait patiently at the porch steps for me to leave my grandparents’ house–we three would walk up the road, reach the turnaround, and go our separate ways after I made it back to Grandma’s place. These walks always took place after dark so I could see the stars and listen to the sound of the fields–crickets, frogs, a distant and sleepy moo or two. I never worried, since it was just us three on the road that time of night and if you screamed, at least one house would hear it with all the emptiness around. One night, me and the cats only made it about five minutes out of the driveway when one of them stopped still in front of me. She was looking to the right side of the road, into the corn, and her tail was doing that twitchy-tip thing they do when they can’t figure out what they’re trying to listen for. I stopped too, and in that moment the corn stalks moved–windless night with only moonlight above, and something was moving in the corn. I didn’t catch sight of the thing itself, but the way the corn was moving, it was TALL. At least the height of a man, and headed our way. The cats bolted one way, I bolted back the way I came and straight into the house. Something in my gut said “bolt every door, close every curtain, don’t you dare look outside until morning”. It was weeks before I felt safe so much as peeking through the blinds after sundown.

Submitted by Farmland Lass