The Crawlers In the Corn

A Halloween story by David Surface

It was half-past five when Danny got on his bike and started the long ride toward Carl’s house. The sky behind the trees was a bright red glow darkening around the edges like someone slowly turning down the flame of a lamp. Dry leaves crackled and whispered under his tires as he rode through them, making them scatter and swirl.

All around, the ghosts were coming out, little gangs of them hurrying along like packs of dogs, low to the ground. He could hear their high-pitched, excited voices pierce the darkness as he pedaled past them. The first grinning jack o’lantern he saw flickering on someone’s doorstep made him feel a rush of the old mystery and excitement, then another pack of children running through the leaves in their costumes and masks sent a small stabbing pain through his chest. Last year, that had been him. And all the years before that.

We’re too old for that shit now. That was what Carl had said last year when they’d gone trick or treating. Carl had made it plain that this was the last time. Thirteen was pushing it, he’d said. Fourteen was out of the fucking question.

The red glow was almost gone from the sky when Danny turned onto Carl’s street. On his right was a row of new houses with their lights just coming on. Across the street on his left was nothing but farmland, stretching for miles and miles. On the horizon, a single red light at the small airport far away slowly blinked on and off. In between was the cornfield. It had always been there, as long as Danny could remember. Probably longer than Carl’s house, longer than any of the houses on this street. They’d never played in that cornfield or explored it. There was something about it that kept them on their side of the fence, something that was more of a feeling than anything they could put a name too. Until they did.

It was Danny who’d thought of it. The crawlers in the corn. As soon as he said the name, it was like he could see them. Dry, stick-like things moving through the stalks like long-legged insects. Taller than a man but low to the ground, keeping hidden. Coming close to the fence but not crossing over. Peering at them through the stalks with their hollow eyes like dark shadows between dry ragged husks.

When they were little, Danny would dare Carl to stand close to the fence where the crawlers could reach through and touch him. They took turns daring each other, pressing their backs against the fence until they couldn’t stand it any longer and ran away screaming and laughing. Later, they made up stories. Danny said the crawlers were the spirits of a Native tribe who’d been slaughtered by settlers and were coming back to wreak vengeance on their murderer’s descendants. Another time, he’d said they were the ghosts of murdered children who’d been buried in the corn by a serial killer. When there was a rash of killings in town by a local organized crime mob, Carl had said it was the victims whose bodies had been dumped there, coming back to take their revenge. And though the stories kept changing, one thing that didn’t change for Danny was the idea of what lurked on the other side of that fence, the feeling that he got whenever he looked at those endless rows of dry stalks, especially at sunset. He could still feel a trace of that feeling, even now.

Danny rang the doorbell and waited. A minute later, he heard Carl unlock the door from the inside. Danny knew Carl’s parents were out of town for the night––that’s why Carl had asked him to come over. But the locked door was a surprise. Why would Carl lock the door this early, at sunset?

The door swung open and Danny had to laugh. There was Carl, wearing his jeans, no shirt, and a fancy-looking silk bathrobe covered with red flowers that looked like it might have belonged to his mother.

“Holy shit,” Danny laughed, “I thought we weren’t doing trick or treat.”

“Come in, Mister Bond, come in,” Carl said in his best British accent, waving Danny in with one hand.

Danny stepped into the brightly lit foyer with its black and white checkerboard floor and chandelier gleaming high above, and followed Carl back to the kitchen. He’d been coming to this house since he was six years old and he knew every room, every twist and turn, from the basement all the way up to the attic where he and Carl had played imaginary games when they were smaller. Carl had no more patience with imaginary games; these days he was more interested in other things.

“Look what we got…” Carl said, opening the refrigerator. Danny saw a six pack of Budweiser, the white and red cans illuminated by the lightbulb inside.

“Seriously?” Danny asked. “Aren’t those your Dad’s?”

“Who cares?” Carl said. “He won’t miss ‘em.”

“I don’t know, Carl…”

“What… you gonna chicken out again?”

Danny felt a surge of anger rise in his throat but he choked it back. He’d tasted beer before, last summer when Carl had stolen a can from his big brother’s supply. They’d brought it out to the back yard after dark and took turns passing it back and forth, taking nervous, eager sips. The sour, bitter taste had shocked Danny, and he’d almost spit it out. Carl had called him a wimp. I didn’t go to the trouble of getting this so you could act like a fucking wimp.

Both of them stood there in the refrigerator glow, staring at the gleaming white and red cans. “We’ll save ‘em for later,” Carl decided, shutting the refrigerator door.

Carl grabbed a box of Pizza Spins and brought them into the living room where he and Danny sat on the long white sofa, eating the Pizza Spins and trying not to get the red powder on the cushions. After a couple of minutes, Carl got up and put a record on the turntable. The sound of a lone trumpet playing over a wash of violins filled the room. It was one of those soft jazz albums Carl liked to play these days and Danny didn’t like. He figured it was Carl’s way of feeling grown up and sophisticated.

So, Danny thought, this is what Halloween is going to be like from now on––soft jazz and Pizza Spins. Danny would have laughed if it hadn’t felt so goddamn sad.

“It’s kind of weird, isn’t it?” Danny said.

“What.”

“I don’t know. This. Not being…out there. Tonight. You know.”

Carl sniffed derisively. “What’s weird about it? Why should it be weird? Tonight’s just the same as any other night. Why should it be any different?”

Danny looked out the window in silence. He could see that small red light blinking far away across the cornfield, the way it had been doing for years. But it is different, he thought. It’s not the same as any other night. Or why would Carl be working so hard to prove that it’s not?

When Carl went to the kitchen, Danny got up and walked over to the turntable and turned down the soft, jazzy noise oozing from the speakers. The quiet that rose up around him to take its place was a relief.

The red airport light blinking outside caught his eye. He looked through the window at the cornfield across the street. He thought again of all the stories he and Carl used to make up about the crawlers in the corn. It was a childhood game, and that was all it would have been, if Danny hadn’t seen what he saw one night.

Danny had been about eight or nine years old when it happened. It was Halloween, and he was spending the night at Carl’s house. They’d been trick or treating since sundown, running from house to house under the full autumn moon. Carl was ready to call it quits and go in, but Danny didn’t want to stop. It wasn’t really the candy that he wanted. He never ate more than half of what he brought home anyway. What he wanted was more of this night, more running through the dark with the full moon flying over their heads, the feeling in his veins that he could fly if he wanted to. He didn’t want it to stop. Carl went inside but Danny stood alone in the front yard, just breathing-in the cool October air, watching low flying clouds passing over the face of the moon above, imagining he was one of them.

A cool wind rose up from the far side of the field and passed over the corn, setting it into motion. A loud rustling and rattling sound washed over Danny like the sound of the ocean. Stalks and tassels waved and nodded like rows of people bowing down and waving their hands. All except one. One dark shape stood tall and still among all the others. A cloud passed over the moon, throwing the cornfield into darkness. Danny strained his eyes to see the dark thing that was standing there, not moving. A feeling came over him that he didn’t like, a feeling that the thing was watching him. Then he saw it take a step forward.

The rest of that night was a blur to him now. He remembered trying to explain to Carl what he’d seen, and then to Carl’s parents. Their impatient, uncomprehending faces. He remembered waking up screaming in the middle of the night, the feeling of shame and the long ride home in the dark when his dad had to come to take him away.

Crybaby. Chicken. Had Carl really called him those things? Or did he just imagine it, like other people told him he’d imagined the whole thing?

In the years that followed, Danny tried to understand what he’d seen that night. Was it a person, someone standing out there in the corn, playing a trick on him? A Halloween joke? He might have believed that if he hadn’t seen the way the thing moved––the awful, spindly motion, the impossible stick-thin legs reaching and feeling their way across the ground like a spider’s.

Of course, Danny knew he couldn’t have seen that. It was impossible. But the picture of it was planted deep in his brain, as real as anything ever was.

The sharp crack of Carl setting something down on the glass coffee table in front of him brought Danny back to the present. He looked down at the white and red Budweiser can and felt a quick rush of fear and excitement. He remembered the last time they’d done this, how he’d held his breath and choked down one swallow. Then the tingling sensation that rose up inside of him, and how the world started to go loose and warm. He remembered laying on his back in the summer grass, laughing uncontrollably and shouting things at the stars.

“Well?” Carl said, raising the can he’d brought for himself from the kitchen. “Let’s make a toast.”

Danny picked up the can Carl had brought him. It was cold and sweaty and felt slippery in his hand. “To Halloween,” Danny said, raising his can toward Carl who scowled.

“Fuck that,” Carl said, then raised his can even higher. “No more Halloween!”

Danny didn’t want to drink to that, but he decided he could drink to his first toast in secret, or to any damn thing he liked. The first sip was just as sour and bitter as he remembered, but he held his breath and swallowed it down. Another couple of swallows and the hard edges of everything around him started to soften.

Danny saw Carl peering at the turntable with a suspicious look. “Did you turn the music down?”

“Yeah,” Danny shrugged.

“What. You got a problem with it? You don’t like jazz or something?”

“No, it’s alright…”

“You think the fucking Rolling Stones can play like that?” Carl got up, walked over to the turntable and turned the music up. “Don’t touch it again.” Carl glared at Danny. His face was flushed bright red and his green eyes looked bleary and strange.

They both sat there, not talking, listening to that awful music. Danny glanced out the window at the red light winking on the horizon.

“So,” Danny said. “How about a ghost story? It was long ago, on a night like this…”

“No!” Carl said, raising his voice. “We are not telling fucking ghost stories tonight! What’s wrong with you? You want to be a little kid forever?”

Maybe because the beer had loosened Danny’s brain, the answer was right there behind his clenched teeth. Yes. That’s what I want. I want to be a little kid forever. You got a problem with that?

“Here…” Carl was thrusting a plastic bag toward him. “Put your can in there.”

Danny had only drunk about half of his can and wasn’t sure what to do.

“What’s the matter?” Carl smirked. “Can’t finish it?” Danny felt his face burn. “You can pour the rest out when you go outside.”

“Outside?”

“Yeah. I can’t throw these away in here. Just take these across the street and throw them over the fence.”

Danny felt a twinge of annoyance.“Why do I have to do it?”

“I got the beer, didn’t I? The least you can do is clean up.”

You didn’t do anything but steal it from your own refrigerator, Danny thought. He sighed and took the bag from Carl’s hand. Then he walked through the dark kitchen, opened the door and stepped outside.

The chilly October night wrapped itself around Danny’s skin, making him feel a little more awake and alert. There was no moon, only the single streetlight at the far end of the street casting its weak glow, so it was hard to see. The only other light was the tiny red one blinking off and on far across the cornfield. It made Danny think of a lighthouse far across a dark and dangerous ocean.

Danny walked across the street and stepped up to the long wooden fence. He could sense the tall shapes of the corn stalks rising above him against the dark sky, and fought against the familiar feeling that they were watching him.

Moving quickly, he tossed the bag over the fence, turned around and started walking away before he even heard the clanking sound of the cans hitting the ground. As he walked back toward Carl’s house, he heard something else, a dry rustling sound like paper on paper. The wind, he thought, just the wind in the corn. He looked up at the oak trees, tall and motionless against the sky, and saw that there was no wind. The dry, scraping sound at his back wasn’t fading behind him. It was getting closer.

A blind panic flooded his brain, but he somehow managed to keep walking. Don’t run, the two words hammered in his head like a heartbeat. If he ran, it would make what he was thinking become true. The dry, scratchy sound behind him rattled and clacked. The light on Carl’s porch looked far away and somehow felt like it wasn’t getting any closer. When Danny couldn’t stand it anymore, he broke into a run. Stumbling onto Carl’s front porch, Danny dove inside, pushed the door shut and turned the lock.

“What the hell happen to you?” Car was still sitting on the big white couch, already working on his second beer and staring up at him.

“Nothing…” Danny said, still trying to catch his breath. His heart was pounding in his chest. He moved closer to the window and reached up with one hand to part the Venetian blinds. He didn’t want to see what might be out there, but he had to look.

“Don’t open that!” Carl shouted at him. “There’s nothing out there!”

Danny slowly moved his hand away from the window and kept his eyes on Carl’s face. There was something in his eyes and his voice that Danny recognized. The longer Danny looked at him, the clearer it became. Carl was afraid.

“I know what you’re trying to do,” Carl said. “You’re just trying to freak me out. The way you freaked out back then when you said you saw those things out there…”

The words were pouring out of Carl in a panicked rush, but that look of fear was still in his eyes. It all made sense now; Carl not wanting to be alone tonight, the closed blinds, the locked door. He knew. He was still trying to act like he didn’t, but he knew.

“You should have seen yourself,” Carl kept going. “You woke up screaming like a fucking girl, and your daddy had to come and get you…”

“Shut up…”

“You even wet the fucking bed. It smelled like your piss for a month after that…”

“Shut up…”

“Or what?” Carl got up from the couch and took a step toward Danny. “What are you gonna do? Are you gonna fucking cry? Like you were gonna cry last year because we weren’t gonna go trick or treating? I just went because you wouldn’t stop bugging me about it. Jesus, do you know how fucking embarrassing that was? How embarrassing you are?”

There was a heavy thud from outside. They both turned and stared at the door. At first there was nothing. Then there was a brittle sound of something scraping and scratching on the other side. Danny looked over at Carl, and no longer recognized him. The features of Carl’s face had been wiped away and replaced by a mask of terror.

Danny saw something flicker across the window in the horizontal slits between the half-closed blinds, partial shapes moving back and forth. Trying to look in, Danny thought.

Danny heard the pounding sound of Carl’s feet running up the stairs. Danny followed him up, and Carl pulled him into the spare room and shut the door behind them. The dry, scratching sounds seemed even louder up here somehow.

“You locked the front door…” Carl whispered. Danny nodded. He couldn’t speak.

Like a wind dying, the noises outside stopped. Danny looked at Carl, neither one of them daring to say a word. Then Carl’s eyes grew wide and he turned them on Danny.

“Did you lock the kitchen door?”

Danny’s thoughts froze for an instant––then he remembered, and felt the floor fall away beneath him.

“Fuck, Danny!” Carl hissed. “You…” Carl choked on the words. “I’m not fucking going down there!”

“Why should I go down there?” Danny said.

“Because,” Carl hissed at him, “This is your fault!” The hatred in Carl’s eyes stunned him. It was true. It was his fault. He’d left the kitchen door open. But it felt like Carl was saying more than that, like what was happening was because of him. And now he had to make it right.

Cursing, Danny opened the door and ran down the stairs and through the empty living room toward the kitchen, praying it wasn’t too late.

When Danny reached the entryway to the kitchen, he stopped. The door was standing wide open, and the kitchen was flooded with cold night air from outside. He could see the dim grey light coming through the kitchen window, and the thing that was standing there in the middle of the room.

Danny couldn’t see all of it, only the upper parts silhouetted against the window. It was tall, taller than he’d imagined it would be, its head or the thing that must have been its head nearly scraping the ceiling. It moved the way he’d once seen a praying mantis move, with long, impossible jointed arms bending and unbending, feeling the air. It stiffly turned its head toward him––mercifully, it was too dark to see its face. Danny felt sure that not only did the thing see him, but that it recognized him. It shook itself, and Danny could hear the rattling and thrashing of cornstalks in the wind, like the entire field was here in this room.

Danny started to make a break for open the door––then he saw more stick-like shapes clustering in the darkness outside, long, thin arms feeling their way inside.

With a loud cry, Danny ran past the thing in the kitchen, though the dark living room and up the stairs, two at a time. When he reached the door to the spare room and twisted the handle, it wouldn’t turn. Carl had locked it. Before he could shout Carl’s name, the door swung open and Carl pulled him in.

“Did you…?” Carl started to ask. Danny could only shake his head. Carl’s face went pale.

There was a small white door in the back wall that led to the attic. Carl pulled it open and called to Danny, “Come on…”

The heat of the attic, even in October, hit Danny in the face as he followed Carl inside. “Hold the door!” Carl shouted. Danny took hold of the doorknob and leaned against the door just as he heard the room behind it filling with rustling, rattling shapes.

There was a creaking sound, and Danny suddenly felt cold air at his back. He twisted his head in time to see Carl raising the trap door in the roof that led outside. Danny could see the stars in a black sky and the tops of trees.

“Come on!” Carl shouted.

“No,” Danny said, “It’s too high…”

“You want those things…” Carl started to say, a look of rage and disbelief on his face. The door rattled and shook. Carl turned and stepped out into the night and was gone. Danny shut his eyes, listening for the sound of Carl’s body hitting the ground––when it never came, he thought of all those long, dry arms waiting for him down below.

Danny felt the pressure on the other side of the door grow greater like the pressure in his head before a thunder storm. He didn’t understand how he could be holding all of it back by himself. Then the thought came to him––maybe he wasn’t doing it all by himself. Maybe they were letting him. But why? Why didn’t they just push their way in and end it now? They were waiting for something. They were waiting for him to do something. Something only he could do.

This is your fault. He remembered what Carl had said. You did this. He didn’t understand, but he knew it was true. They were here because he had called them. Since that night long ago when he’d stood at the edge of that field and looked out over it and felt something. Even before that. This was what he wanted. This was what he’d always wanted.

Danny let go of a deep breath that felt like he’d been holding it for a long time. Then he stepped back, opened the door and let Halloween in.

‘The Crawlers In the Corn’ first appeared in ‘Literally Dead’, an anthology of Halloween stories from Alienhead Press, edited by Gaby Triana. (Thank you, Gaby, for giving this story a good home, and for your kind permission to share it here.) To learn more and order, click here.