“So really, can we talk about you walking around in a cornfield? Because that’s a little troubling.”
“I’ve got to admit, I can see where you might think so.”
“Yeah. Where’s our car?”
“Parked it next to a bridge.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t worry. I locked it.”
“That’s good. That makes everything all right.”
“I’m glad. I was worried this was going to be an awkward conversation.”
“Why would you think that? You just abandoned our car and decided to take a walk in a cornfield. There’s no reason at all to doubt the soundness of your mind.”
“I have the most patient wife on the planet.”
“Yes you do. Now please explain the cornfield to her.”
“That’s going to be tricky.”
“I was worried it would be. What are you doing?”
“I don’t know. Really. I have no idea what’s going on. All I know is the farther I drove, the more sure I was that I was doing what I needed to do. And when I finally pulled off the road, I felt just as sure that I needed to get out and walk. I followed the river to a little path in the woods and I found my way to this house…”
In as much detail as he could recall, he described his encounter with the old woman and the enigmatic things she’d said to him.
“That’s so weird,” Karen said when he’d finished.
“I know.”
The road curved to the right, winding ever deeper into the field, and again he was struck by that strange sensation of something changing. It happened only briefly this time, for merely a second or two, but the cell phone crackled in his ear as if he’d passed quickly through a tunnel.
“Do you think she really knew you were coming?”
“She couldn’t have. I didn’t even know I was coming.”
Karen was quiet as she contemplated the idea.
“I don’t think she was entirely there. She probably thought I was somebody else.”
“Maybe… That stuff about the half-there man… That’s creepy.”
“I know. Kind of gave me a chill.”
“I can believe she might’ve just been crazy, but it’s really weird that she said she expected you two days ago.”
“I know. That was a spooky coincidence.”
“It was.”
Again, something changed. At the same moment, the phone crackled. He stopped and began to walk backward. After a few steps, everything suddenly seemed normal again.
This was interesting.
He began to walk forward once more. It seemed that he needed to walk almost twice as far as the first time, but that queer, shifting feeling came back as reliably as he could have hoped. There was a definite chill to the air here. And although the sky and the corn and the weeds and the earth remained unchanged, something about the underlying quality of it all seemed altered. It wasn’t as if it had grown darker, exactly. It was, as crazy as it sounded, as if everything had grown deeper.
He couldn’t wrap his head around it.
“Listen,” he said as he glanced ahead and saw that the corn was becoming shorter again. “My phone’s been cutting out a little in this field. I lost the signal completely just before you called. So if you lose me, don’t freak out, okay?”
“I don’t ‘freak out.’”
Yes, she did. She simply managed to do it with considerably more grace than most. But he decided not to tell her this.
“You just worry about yourself. Don’t get rattlesnake bit or anything.”
“I’ll watch where I step,” he promised.
Karen’s next words were gnarled into a sputtering of disjointed sounds.
“Karen?”
Another quick burst of noise crackled in his ears and then there was nothing.
“Karen…? Hello…?”
He ended the call and glanced around. Again, he had that uneasy feeling. On either side of him the corn became shorter and shorter until it was little more than sickly sprigs jutting out of the cracked earth, most of them half wilted, some completely dead. He found himself in an odd valley of pathetic stalks barely clinging to life and was unnerved by how silent it was here.
What was killing the corn? Was there something in the soil? Pollution, maybe? Or Radiation?
A hard shiver raced through his body as he imagined himself being slowly irradiated by something buried in the ground beneath him. Was he being exposed to something? Would it kill him if he remained here long enough?
Countless old movies began to surface from his memory, gleefully filling his head with thoughts of crashed alien spacecrafts that oozed terrible chemicals into the ground and filled the air with strange fumes, transforming harmless wildlife into gruesome and violent freaks of nature.
Why did it have to be a cornfield? Aliens loved cornfields. They were drawn to them like toddlers to coloring books.
He stepped up his pace to a near jog and soon the corn began to grow taller again, but the queer deepness remained.
Something rustled in the corn again. Something big. Something definitely not restrained to his imagination. He turned to face it, ready to defend himself, but he could see nothing. He was standing in an open strip of stunted stalks, completely exposed, searching the taller corn farther out.
“Hello? Is someone out there?”
Of course there wasn’t. If there was, it would be someone with a chainsaw and a shirt made out of human faces. Why would such a person reply to a stupid question like that? It would spoil all the fun.
Eric began to run.
The corn grew taller and his visibility dwindled. He thought he could hear things moving all around him. An odd, chittering noise rose from somewhere nearby.
Then everything abruptly became normal again. That strange depth was gone from his surroundings, the chill vanished and everything seemed once more to be perfectly fine.
He turned and looked behind him, but there was nothing there. It was just an ordinary dirt road winding through an ordinary cornfield. Again, the only thing out of the ordinary was the sickly-looking corn.
The cell phone buzzed to life in his hand, startling him so badly that he almost dropped it.
He took a moment to curse at the stupid thing before answering it.
“What happened?” asked Karen.
“Nothing. I just lost the signal for a minute there. Like I told you would happen.”
“That was kind of scary.”
“Just a lost signal,” he repeated. He had no intention of telling her about hearing something in the corn. He didn’t want to worry her. Besides, he still had no idea what it was or how much of it had only been his imagination. It was probably nothing more than a deer hiding in the field.
He turned and began walking again. Ahead of him, the road was curving to the right and beginning to slope a little downhill.
Despite the chill he felt when he was in the strange area with the sickly corn, he now found himself sweating a little. It was going to be a very warm day.
“How goes the cake?” he asked.
“Still cooling. I’m getting ready to whip up the frosting. Strawberry pies are done. I have three caramel apple pies just about ready to come out of the oven and two blackberries ready to go in.”
“See, it’s probably good I’m not there. I can’t behave myself around your blackberry pie.”
“It does have an effect on you.”
He followed the road around the curve, his eyes still searching the corn for signs of movement. Why didn’t he hear it anymore? Where had it gone?
“I kind of wish I’d come with you.”
“You have pies and cakes to make. And you hate long car rides. They make you sick.”
“I know.”
“I don’t think you’d like cornfields, either, actually.”
“I guess I probably wouldn’t.”
“Besides, I’m on an adventure, remember. You can’t expect me to take a girl on an adventure.”
“Oh, right. What was I thinking?”
Eric emerged from the corn into a wide, weedy clearing and stopped, his eyes fixed on the structure that stood before him. All at once, the mysteries of the field were forgotten.