Page 10 of Curses and Cornstalks
I keep walking, following the dirt pathway for a few minutes before hanging a left and squeezing through several rows to another aisle. I take a right, then another left. It doesn’t take long to start feeling hopelessly lost.
Everything is identical, no matter which direction I look, and when I start to feel the tease of anxiety brewing again, I look up at the smear of sky overhead. The faintest wisps of white break up the otherwise flawless patch of blue, and I take several deep breaths to calm my nerves.
When I was plotting this excursion, I considered all my potential outcomes, even the highly unlikely ones. However, claustrophobia never crossed my mind; I’ve never felt this confined before. It’s proving to be another wrench in my less-than-perfect plan, but after a long minute of rest, the tension in my chest finally subsides again.
“For fuck’s sake,” I grumble as I keep walking.
I’m not sure how much longer I can go on before I need to turn back. The last thing I need is to have a full-blown panic attack in the middle of nowhere because I can’t convince my brain I’m not trapped and going to die.
Who knew you could feel completely caged in an open space? Not me before today.
I press on, desperate for any sign of something unusual. So far, this entire trip has been a letdown. I haven’t heard or seen anything out of the ordinary, and the farther I walk, the more I’m convinced of what I already knew: this is a regular cornfield and the Watcher isn’t here.
I still haven’t seen anything to suggest he’s even real.
Glancing up, I notice the sun has sunk lower in the sky, and I have no idea how long I’ve been walking. While it only feels like a half hour, the drastic difference in the orb’s position says otherwise.
Curious, I shrug my bag off my shoulder and rummage through the contents until I find my phone to check the time.
My eyes widen when I see two hours have passed.
“What the—” I stare at the phone screen in disbelief. “Two hours?”
I know I’ve been walking for a while, but the jump in time doesn’t seem feasible. Surely I would have gotten tired by now or had to take a break. I’m not even thirsty yet.
My mind reels, attempting to trace back my steps, but I can’t remember how many turns I made along the way. I can’t even guess how many rows of corn I’ve seen. Hundreds? Thousands?
Everything since stepping into the field is a chaotic blend of browns and green. No beginning and no end; just a blur.
If I’ve already been walking in one direction for two hours, now is the time to turn around and head back. Four hours is a good chunk of time to be gone without a trace, and if I take much longer, my aunt and uncle might start to worry.
Will they come looking for me?
Will they send a search party?
Surely, they’ll start to panic if they see my car sitting abandoned outside the cursed field of corn.
I swallow hard and toss the phone back into my bag, reaching for the compass again. As uneventful as this trek was, I can at least confirm the field doesn’t seem to be haunted. Whatever made the farmers go missing can’t be in here, or I would’ve found it by now.
Or it would’ve found me.
I hold the compass flat on my palm, waiting a moment for the needle to spin into place. Once it shows northwest, I’ll start the long walk to my car and hightail it back to the farmhouse before anyone has a chance to worry. I might even work up the courage to tell them about my adventure, but I’d like more evidence to disprove the Watcher conspiracy first.
One trip into a field doesn’t prove anything either way.
He could still be out there, somewhere.
I wait, my eyes glued to the compass in my hand, but the needle never stops spinning. It continues moving steadily, around and around, like a sped-up second hand on a clock.
My stomach pitches toward the ground, and I give the compass a little shake. There’s no telling how old the thing is. I found it in an old desk drawer at the farmhouse, but it seemed to be working earlier.
I even checked it against my phone’s GPS before packing it. Maybe being jostled around in my pocket threw it off.
I jiggle it again, temporarily disturbing the easy movement of the needle, but after a few seconds, it’s back on track, spinning out of control.
A shaky breath passes my lips, and my heartrate kicks up as panic ensues. I’m lost in a prison of plants with no sense of direction to find my way out.
Up until now, I’ve managed to keep my cool and work myself down from panicking, but it’s official now.
