Corn Maze 44

A man finds himself in a world beyond his understanding

Corn Maze 44

    I love Halloween. I look forward to it each year with great enthusiasm and excitement. The weather turns crisp, the leaves start to change, and the holiday buzz begins to vibrate once more. It’s a catalyst, a kickstarter for the final stretch of another year. Nature slowly exhales color in a glorious flourish of red, orange, and yellow as the days begin to shorten, summer clothes are put away, and the apple cider makes its inevitable comeback.

     Unfortunately, I’m the only one in my friend group who enjoys the darker side of Halloween. I’m talking about the scary aspect: horror movies, haunted houses, and ghost tours. Now, my friends like the concept, the theme that hangs over this time of year, but when it comes to actually participating in these events, well...they are usually nowhere to be found.

    Each year I tolerate their cowardice and typically end up joining the group in whatever activity they decide upon. But this year...this year I wanted more. This year I finally decided to go out on my own and really embrace the scary side of Halloween. I pleaded, begged a couple of my friends to join me in this endeavour, but they backed out apologetically claiming they weren’t interested. And so I set out alone.

     I scoured the internet and local paper, searching for something that would satiate my horror hunger pains. I didn’t want some dumbed down haunted house filled with giggling, screaming children. I also didn’t want anything that was too crowded. After much fruitless searching, I saw an advertisement for something called Corn Maze 43. There was very little information about it and when I checked the address I saw that it was in a very rural part of the state. It promised scares unlike anything ever seen before. With such confident boasting, I decided to give it a try. I checked the calendar and decided I was going to go on Halloween night. If it bored me, I could always join my friends somewhere and engage in whatever lame activity they were doing.       

    I didn’t particularly care that I was going alone, but some company to share the experience with would have been nice. In any case, once Halloween night rolled around, I was tingling with excitement.

    That night, around eight, I hopped in my car and headed for the the attraction. The countryside blurred past the windows, illuminated by a full moon. I rolled down the windows and let the cool air in.

     After about an hour, I checked my GPS again and saw that I was getting close. The road continued to twist and wind through uninhabited country, a rolling, silent expanse of grassland, rolling hills, and peaceful serenity.

     As I got closer, now only half a mile away, I wondered if I was going the right way. I didn’t see any signs of life, nor any signs of the corn maze. Just as I was about to give up, utterly disappointed, I saw a single wooden post hammered into the earth along the roadside. Written vertically along it in black paint were the words “Corn Maze 43” with an arrow pointing down a dirt road I had almost missed.

     Rejuvenated, I turned the wheel and began to bump down the narrow road. Gravel crunched beneath the tires and I left a trail of dust in my wake. I scanned my surroundings and realized that I was entering a massive cornfield. The stalks rose high around me and the road continued to snake erratically through the rows of still farmland.

      I rounded a bend and hit the brakes, heart leaping into my throat. My headlights illuminated the end of the road directly in front of me. A wall of corn boxed my car in on all sides and I saw that I was not the only visitor tonight. Another car was parked in front of me, unmoving and dark.

     Where was everyone though? I at least expected some kind of attraction center or booth, but there was none in sight. I turned off my car and got out, slightly confused. My boots crunched over the gravel as I wandered over to the car parked in front of mine. I glanced inside and saw that it was empty. I scratched my head and gnawed at my lip.

      I scanned the walls of corn around me and something caught my attention. It was a divide, a narrow rectangle of darkness that led into the field. Impaled in the earth next to this entrance was another wooden post that read “Maze 43”.

      If another car hadn’t been there, I would have gone home. This seemed like an old attraction, some relic of a previous year, but since I knew I wasn’t alone, I decided to check it out. If I entered the maze and realized my assumptions were correct, then I would just leave.

      I went back to my car and retrieved a flashlight. Clicking it on, I swung the beam back to the entrance and almost suffered a heart attack.

      Standing directly in front of the maze, was a person clothed in a red cloak. A hood was pulled low over their face and jutting from the oval of darkness was a long, black beak. I placed a hand over my chest and slowed my racing heart. A mask. It was a man wearing a mask. The orientation manager. Had to be.

       “Hello,” I said raising my hand to him. The man didn’t move.

       “I saw your ad,” I continued, staring at the odd bird masked man, “Is this the right place? For the haunted corn maze?”

        After a moment, the masked man stepped to the side and pointed a red gloved hand at the entrance. His robes fluttered in the wind and he remained silent. I saw dark plastic eyes glitter out at me from the shadow of his hood. A crow mask.

        “Do I need to pay you anything?” I asked. The man just pointed down the long, open throat of corn.

        “Ok…I’m going in,” I said, making my way towards it. I kept the light off him, but as I passed the man, I couldn’t help but look at his face. The long beak and beady plastic eyes stared back.

         With the man behind me, I entered the maze. The walls of corn rose over my head and shifted in the wind. It sounded like dozens of people were sprinting past me mere feet away, unseen. I felt the first pangs of excited fear, but knew it only stemmed from the total isolation I was encased in.

        I continued my trek, twisting and winding through the maze, passing intersections and bends, turning abrupt corners and choosing new pathways. As I walked, I kept expecting something to jump out and scare me, but nothing did. In fact, I hadn’t stumbled across anything remotely frightening.

        After about thirty minutes, I was ready to leave. Frustrated, I turned around, determined to piece together from memory the path back to my car. As I turned, I noticed something just off the beaten path inside the cornfield. I squinted and shone my light on it.

        It was a double door vault, much like an weathered bulkhead. Painted across the rusted doors were the words “Corn Maze 44”. Intrigued, I left the path and pushed through the corn towards it. What was this all about? Was this part of the attraction? It had to be. But why was it so hidden? It didn’t make much sense, but I was so desperate to discover something exciting, I decided to inspect it.

     I tried the handle and found it opened easily. I shone the light down into the gaping mouth of darkness before me. Concrete stairs descended to an equally unimpressive hallway composed of the same plain faced concrete. I thought for a second and then shrugged. Screw it, let’s see what this is all about. If nothing else I might get a good story to tell my friends.

    I crept down the stairs, shining my flashlight ahead of me. The air smelled moldy and stale, like no one had been down here in years. I reached the bottom of the stairs and my light was swallowed up by the long expanse of the hallway. I started to walk. My boots echoed off the walls and everything was suddenly very quiet.

    I kept walking. There were no branching passageways or alternate routes, just the continuous tongue of barren concrete stretching out before me. After ten minutes of walking, I was starting think this was a waste of time. Seconds before turning back, a repeating instinct tonight, my light caught another door. It was at the top of another small flight of stairs leading back to the surface. Curious, I ascended.

     I placed my hand on the cold iron and pushed. With a great, creaking groan, the door opened. I blinked as light flooded inside, a dim, gloomy wash of dull color. I clicked my light off and stepped out into the other side.

     I looked out onto the world and my breath was robbed from my lungs. I felt a depth charge erupt in my stomach as my senses were overloaded with the impossible.

     Endless cornfields stretched as far as the eye could see, disappearing over the overcast horizon. Jutting from the earth, littering the cornfields, were enormous structures of pure black. They rose up like faceless skyscrapers, windowless and perfect in their slick design. They were rectangular and appeared to be made from some unknown rock. They towered over the fields, their summits nothing more than blank, flat surfaces.

     Perched atop the dozens of looming formations were hundreds of motionless birds. But they were huge, easily reaching six or seven feet in length. Their long beaks and folded wings were the color of midnight, their bodies sicky thin.

    I traced the birds down across the sky, catching a few in mid-flight. They were flocking towards the great structures from the cornfields. I felt my stomach turn as my eyes settled on the expanse of swaying stalks.

    Littering the earth were endless wooden crosses, erected without order. Nailed to the crosses were men and women, bloodied and in agony. With terrifying realization, I saw that each person had a pumpkin shoved over their head, completely encasing it. They looked like crucified scarecrows, alive, and squirming in torment.

     But it didn’t end there. Impregnated in each pumpkin was some kind of hose. I could see orange fluid pulsing through it, a continuous flow. I traced the hoses up to their origin and felt my blood turn to ice.

     Hanging from the sky was an absolutely titanic human body. It was upside down and naked, its male sexuality shockingly visible. It was wrapped in thick chains, the iron crisscrossing over the enormous being’s chest. Binding it’s ankles was a second coil of chain. I craned my head back, mouth agape, and traced the endless links into the cloud filled sky where it disappeared. Whatever this nightmare hung from, I couldn’t see it, the overcast heavens obscuring the source.

     The hanging giant was unmoving, it’s colossal body a living statue of human flesh. I ran my eyes along the length of its upsidedown body and felt my knees tremble as I gazed upon its head.

     It was a pumpkin, a fat, orange thing that wedged itself atop the man’s shoulders. Protruding from the ridged exterior were countless hoses, snaking, swaying, descending from the thing in the sky. Each hose ended at the crucified humans, the tubing rammed into the pumpkin headed people, pumping them full of that foul orange fluid.

     I saw all of this in an instant, a freight train of horrified amazement that slammed into my eyes with the full force of a locomotive. I stepped back, swinging my gaze from the upside down giant in the sky to the crucified humans in the fields and then over toward the towering black constructs that held the massive birds.

     All sense of reason and logic was eradicated in an instant, a sledgehammer obliterating the fragile glass orb that had once been my mind. I fell to my knees, unable to hold myself up, everything I had ever understood rushing out of me in a bluster of disbelief and crippling impossibility.  

     And that’s when I felt something grab me by the back of the neck. I tried to scream, but the pain was too great for such a natural escape. I was lifted off my feet and turned around to face my captor.

    I recoiled as I gazed upon the thing that held me. It was an ogre-like creature, a pale, gnarled thing with meaty hands that gripped me like a vice. It was easily three times as tall as myself and it's drooling, crooked mouth leered down at me. Rising from its back was a net filled with a mountain of pumpkins of all shapes and sizes. Their weight was so great that it forced the creature to bend over, pressed down towards the earth.

    Again, I tried to scream, its bulbous, slightly pink eyes staring down at me. I raised my hands to try and pry its fingers from my throat, but it was useless. The ogre gurgled something and then began to walk, taking me with it. We were going into the cornfields.

    I was held clumsily at its side, my body smacking indifferently against its legs. I struggled to squeeze air down my throat, each breath a battle. I blinked back tears of pain and turned to see where this monster was taking me.

    As I did, I saw a flock of new birds rise from the fields. They cawed loudly, their great wings taking them high into the sky. I saw them climb the heavens and soar towards the great faceless constructs of black rock that jutted from the land like rotten teeth. When the murder of crows landed at the top of one such edifice, I noticed something I hadn’t before. The protruding mass of rock sank, ever so slightly, back into the earth. And as it did, a great clanking rattle shook the sky. My eyes tore over to the hanging giant and I saw that it had descended by a fraction, bringing it closer toward the earth.

    And that’s when pieces began to click in my mind, fractured formations slowing taking shape in the form of grim understanding. Whatever this horrible place was, wherever it sat in the multitude of unknown nightmares, these creatures, these birds, were trying to free this titan in the sky.

   The jutting black rocks were some kind of counterweight to whatever the giant’s chains were bound to. With each new flock of massive birds, the structures sank, bringing the chained monster in the sky closer to the earth.

    But the birds...where did they come from? As this question shuddered through my mind, my captor reached the fields of endless crucifixion. The wooden crosses rose around us and I stared up at them with bloodshot eyes. Now that I was closer, I new realization rippled through me like a bolt of lightning.

    The humans upon the crosses were changing. The pumpkins encasing their faces continued to fill with the orange fluid that pumped down from the giant in the sky. And as they did so, I could see physical mutation begin to blossom.

     With disgusted horror, I saw beaks protruding from the pumpkins, each at varying stages of growth. They jutted from the orange flesh, covered in a viscous neon ooze. As we continued to pass the crucified, I saw something I would never forget.

     A cluster of three crosses stood in a semi-circle and as we approached, the skin of the hanged people exploded with shocking violence. Emerging from the ruined remains were massive crows, unfurling and expanding to their full height. They screeched loudly and flapped their wings for the first time, taking flight and rising towards the great rock structures.

     Before I had time to process this new display of unsettling terror, the ogre was spinning me around, the world a blur of dull gray and green. The grip around my throat was temporarily removed and I gasped, but only had time for a single breath before I was clutched around the waist. I was being raised.

     The creature pinned me against something, stretching me out above its head. My back slammed into something and I felt splinters of wood claw into my shirt.

     No...oh no please no…

     The dawning horror of what was about to happen released a shriek of throat tearing fear and pleading desperation.

     This monster was going to crucify me.

     I struggled frantically as the ogre held me up against the cross, splaying my arms out with its massive, prodding fingers. Tears poured from my eyes as I watched it reach down and retrieve an enormous nail from a pouch along his waist.

     With the precision of a surgeon, the ogre drove it through my arm at the wrist. It happened in the blink of an eye, the beast mauling me with horrifying quickness. The pain was immediate and terrible, a rod of fire pinning me to the wooden cross-beam. Blood erupted from the punctured flesh and it dripped lazily down my arm, soaking my clothes.

      Before I had time to recover, the ogre slammed another nail into my other arm. A cry shattered my vocal cords and the world shook and my vision blurred, tears running down my face.

       Gasping, sobbing, I watched helplessly as the monster reached behind itself and retrieved a pumpkin from the colossal heap on its back. Through gritted teeth, I begged uselessly, watching as it raised its arm and prepared to bring it down over my head.

      But something stopped it. A sound, soaring across the sky. Someone was screaming. A woman. I blinked away tears and stared past the ogre. From this height I gained a new perspective of the cornfields.

      Littering the land were dozens of bulkheads, some closed, most open. Wandering out of them were dazed, confused people, sharing the same horrified wonder I had felt. The woman who was screaming stood a couple hundred yards away, watching as my captor nailed me to the cross. The ogre, one of many I now saw, all with mountains of pumpkins on their backs, turned to the woman. She took a step back, shrieking. Deciding it could finish with me later, it lumbered towards her, grinning through a mouthful of fragmented teeth.

      I turned away. Pain ran through me like currents of electricity. My pierced flesh boiled with constant pain. I looked at the nails driven through my skin and felt as if they would tear away, taking chunks with it.

      I needed to get out of here. I needed to escape before the ogre came back to finish the job. It was hard to concentrate, hard to think through the wall of pain that slammed into my senses with every beat of my heart.

      I rolled my head back against the wood, trying to steady my shuddering chest. I stared out at the field of crosses, my eyes bloodshot and moist.

      And then I squinted, the pain vanishing for a moment as I spotted something. It was a massive circular plate of iron, a hundred yards in diameter. It rested on the surface of the earth, some kind of enormous vault or gate, it’s hinges the size of houses. It looked like a manhole, the biggest I had ever seen.

      Etched in black across the surface were two words.

      Christmas Land.

      It was nonsense to me, but something told me that whatever was happening here had something to do with that great covered hole.

      Get out. Stop wasting time and get out of this place, I thought, the pain returning in a wave of furious violence.

       I looked at my impaled flesh once more and prepared myself for the inevitable pain. I shut my eyes and grit my teeth so hard I heard my jaw pop.

       And then I began to pull myself off the cross, a gory, bloody act of desperation and survival. I screamed until I tasted blood. I arched my back and pushed away from the cross with my feet, pulling my arms out and over the nails.

       With a sickening tear, I felt myself pull free and I plunged to the earth. I smacked into the dirt and stars exploded in my head. I gasped, scrambling to my feet, fighting off a threatening blackout. I looked at my mangled wrists and winced, swooned, and gagged. I tore my shirt into strips and bound the wounds as tightly as I could, stemming the flow of blood.

       And then I ran. I ran as hard and as fast as I ever had. Cornstalks whipped my face as I plunged through them, tongues of heat licking my cheeks. I didn’t slow, I didn’t falter, I didn’t wince. Hell was on my heels and I knew I didn’t have long before it caught up.

      I snaked through the corn, heading back toward the bulkhead I had emerged from, breath hissing from my lungs like gusts of hot steam. My head thundered and I felt an inferno pulse through me with every heartbeat.

      I tripped, caught myself, and plunged forward. I could hear a great screech of crows coming from the cornfields, a deafening cry louder than anything I had ever heard before. I chanced a glance over my shoulder and saw the sky go dark as a flock rose from the crosses. There had to be thousands of them, a mass of ungodly creations birthed from the bodies of the taken.

      They ascended as one and then dispersed, settling on top of the great stone towers. Still running, I saw them sink into the earth, and then the rattle of chains followed, an echo of massive iron.

      The titan in the sky plunged to the earth, the counterweight releasing the final distance. The earth shook as it collapsed into the field, a rolling explosion of incredible power. The chains flew from its body like an eruption of shrapnel and I heard shards whistle overhead like cannon balls.

     As the monstrous giant made contact with the ground, the mammoth pumpkin around its head shattered, casting a hurricane of wet orange across the land.

     I stood up, knees trembling.

     The colossal being stood as well, a towering creature of massive proportions. Rising from its shoulders, previously hidden by the pumpkin, was the head of a crow. It’s beak was like a scythe, a massive, dangerous thing that protruded from a black feathered face and two globe-like eyes.

     In elation, it raised its head to the heavens and screamed, a piercing, skull splitting cry. The birds on the great stone structures echoed their god’s call and took flight, swarming down from the heights. They swirled around the thundering giant like a stormcloud, cawing and calling to their master.

    I tore my eyes from the terrifying spectacle and pressed on, new fear giving me the strength I needed to reach my destination. I felt the crow-headed giant lumber behind me, it’s legs like pillars of quaking concrete that rattled the earth.

    Finally, desperately, mercifully, I found the bulkhead I had first emerged from. The doors stood open, inviting me back down into the long dark hallway.

    Crying tears of relief, I took one last look over my shoulder.

    The titan, along with its swarming congregation, was ripping open the immense hatch.

    The one that read “Christmas Land”.

    With a roar of fury, it flung the iron cover away, tearing it from its hinges and flinging it away like it was weightless.

     The crow-god stared down into the gaping hole and let out a cry of rage and anger so fierce I felt my bladder release. The great titan got down on its knees and slithered inside, roaring so loud I felt pain split my skull.

       The flock of birds rallied around their master and dove down into the hole after it, screaming and cawing as if lost in madness.

       As if they were going to war.

       I turned away, heart thundering, and sprinted down into the darkness of the bulkhead. My breath ripped past my lips as I bolted down the dark hallway, begging my body to stay conscious and in motion. Faintly, I spotted moonlight at the other end, dripping down from a dark sky to splash across concrete steps.

     I reached them and tore up them, exploding out into the familiar night. I didn’t stop, didn’t slow, didn’t hesitate. My boots churned the earth and I fled back through the corn, back to my car, and away from the nightmare hell called “Corn Maze 44.”

      

*     *     *

    I didn’t have time to reflect on my horrifying experience until after I had received medical attention from the hospital. I lay on a gurney, my arms stitched and bandaged. I had lost a lot of blood, but somehow I had managed to stay conscious until I came speeding into the nearest emergency room.

    The terrors I had seen clung to my mind like burning claws. They gripped my memory like an unflinching horror. What had that place been? Where had it been? What world had I stumbled upon? Where had the crow-god gone and what was Christmas Land?

     I didn’t have the answers to these lingering questions and knew I would never would. If I spoke to others about my experience I wouldn’t be long for madhouse. I wouldn’t blame them. What I saw was impossible and held no place in this reality.

     The only reason I myself haven’t descended into total insanity is because of the last thing I saw before reaching my car. The only thing that assured me that I hadn’t been hallucinating some horrific world. Something that made it real.

      It was the man in the plastic mask, clothed in red.

      Because you see, he was no longer a man.

      He was one of those crows. And as I punched through the last of the corn maze and stumbled toward my car, I saw him -it- shed it robes and spread its wings.

      But it didn’t take flight into the starry sky.

      Instead, it burrowed into the earth.

      Down to find its master in the tunnels of reality that run unseen beneath the world.

Reviews

[Wez Hardyn]

What a delightfully macabre nightmarish landscape. A synthesis of Hieronymus Bosch and Clive Barker. Flawless writing enables the reader to experience the terror - great stuff and I will definitely be reading more of your material.

[_Hanabi_]

OMG!!! I don't even know where to start with this. THIS was amazing!!!! I searched up the horror genre and thats what I most certainly got. This story was something of complete greatness. I read a lot of Stephen King...and by god I could of sworn this was one of his. The kind of mind it takes to think up something like this. The use of all those adjectives...the way it was worded helped me greatly to see the picture in my mind.
The only thing i was disappointed about was the fact that it ended so soon. I felt like i was watching a movie. Brilliance!!