Maize

"Not again," he said.

"Watch," she whispered.

She scooped a small ice cube from the bowl. He shuddered in anticipation of its touch. Instead, she slipped it between her lips. Her teeth crunched down. Once. Twice. Then she took him in her mouth.

The intensity of the sensation shocked him, hot and cold swirled together, bathing him in pleasure.

She maintained eye contact as she moved, relishing the ecstasy on his face. Water and saliva spilled from her mouth, mixing with the sweat on her chest and soaking through the top of her sundress.

His muscles tensed. She moaned, sensing how close he was, and moved faster. He withstood the onslaught as long as he could, then pushed her away.

"Stand up." He pulled her to her feet, hiked up her dress, and yanked her underwear to the floor. Her knees went wobbly as his fingers slipped between her folds.

"You're soaked."

She nodded, eyes glassy. He teased her until she was writhing against his hand.

"Please," she panted. "I need it."

She groaned in frustration as his hand left her. He slid aside the straps of her dress and it pooled on the floor, leaving her naked. He took her place in the chair and lowered her onto his lap. She reached down to guide him inside, but he pushed her hand away. Instead of entering her, he pinned her hips to him, pressing her sex against his shaft.

She whimpered and ground her pelvis against him. He scooped a chunk of ice from the bowl and traced a leisurely path around her areola. The skin pebbled and contracted into a tight circle around her stiff nipple.

Laura squirmed and tried to push away from the ice. He held her tight.

"Too cold?" He lowered his head to her chest and took her nipple in his mouth. She hissed and wrapped her hands around his head, pinning him to her chest. Her hips continued to grind against him, wet and needy.

He pulled away and repeated the treatment on her other breast, this time touching the ice cube to her nipple. When she yelped, he sucked the hard bud into his mouth and flicked it with his tongue.

He toyed with her breasts until she seemed to be teetering on the brink of orgasm. He slid his hands to her hips and lifted. She rose eagerly, then sank down with a guttural moan while he thrust upward, burying himself inside her.

She rocked against him with quick movements, desperate for release. The wet, rhythmic sound of their movements filled the kitchen.

"So close," she whined.

When her thrusts became erratic, he clutched her hips and helped her move, plunging himself into her.

She stiffened and threw back her head. He held her as she pulsed around him, again and again, riding one wave after another.

Watching her come was too much. With a deep groan, Andy buried himself as deeply as he could and exploded.

Laura collapsed against him. Her head lolled to the side and her mouth hung partly open. Strands of damp hair clung to her cheek. Her breath came in ragged gasps.

He kissed her forehead, the skin slick and salty.

It was a long time before she spoke. "I never thought I'd say this, but I can't wait to freeze corn again next summer."

After they'd cleaned up and showered, Andy decided to take an evening walk through the maze. He did a walkthrough at least once a week. It pleased him to see its progress.

Most people thought a corn maze didn't take shape until October. It actually began in June. He'd divide the field into a grid and lay down the design. Then, when the corn started to crop up, he'd hoe it down to create the paths.

He always carried a corn knife on his walkthroughs. The broad-bladed tool―a cross between a machete and a sickle―made it easy to remove any stray stalks. He was a stickler about keeping crisp lines.

At the maze's first fork, he veered right. The ground was soft from the recent rain. He made two lefts, then another three rights. A gust of wind swept through the stalks, rustling the leaves.

He turned left at the next junction and followed the curving path toward the maze's center. A small flock of grackles burst into the air, startling him. He turned and watched them soar through the sky.

When he turned back, he spotted an unfamiliar fork at the end of the path.

Had he somehow lost his way? He retraced his route in his mind. No, he was exactly where he should be. It was the fork that was out of place.

He walked to the end of the path and swept his hand through the corn stalks, as if to convince himself they were real. The touch of cool leaves against his skin settled it. Somewhere along the way he must have taken a wrong turn.

He decided to take the path to his right. It cut a wide, graceful spiral through the corn. The lines were sharp and crisp, just the way he liked them. There was only one problem: the maze he'd built didn't have a spiral.

A shiver blossomed at the nape of his neck and spread through his chest. He stopped and backtracked through the spiral, searching for the previous fork. It was gone. A thick wall of corn loomed over him.

His heart pounded against his chest. He considered abandoning the path and fighting his way through the corn stalks until he found the edge of the maze. Instead, he removed the corn knife from his belt loop and followed the spiral toward its center.

The spiral's curve made it impossible to see more than a few feet in front of him. He had no sense of how far he'd gone or how long he'd been walking. Maybe the path had no end. Maybe he would keep walking this spiral forever.

Just before panic overwhelmed him, the path opened into a circular clearing, a dark brown thumbprint in a sea of green. The dust in the clearing's center hovered and swirled a few inches above the ground, as though borne by an invisible wind.

Fear welled within him, but so did curiosity.

He forced himself toward the edge of the swirling dust and peered inside. The ground in the circle's center wasn't ground at all. It swelled and rippled like the surface of a lake. He could see through the ripples.

On the other side stood a young boy. The bottom of the boy's shoes faced Andy, as though they were separated by a mirror. Corn stalks littered the ground at the boy's feet.

The boy rotated in place, taking in his surroundings. Andy watched him run a trembling hand through his hair. The boy looked down at the matted corn under his feet. Even though he was now staring directly at Andy, the boy seemed to look right through him, as if Andy were invisible. But Andy could see him. And what he saw on the other side of the rippling ground was his own face, staring back at him from across the decades.

Andy stumbled backward, past the edge of the clearing, where he was swallowed by stalks of corn. He turned and shouldered his way through, searching for a familiar path. All he found was an endless field of green.

His chest felt tight. He couldn't breathe; the corn was suffocating him. He broke into a run.

Sunlight blinded him as at last he broke through the edge of the maze. He fell to his knees. Sweat soaked his shirt. With a wild swing of his arm, he drove the corn knife deep into the soil.

He'd been a fool.

He'd known what was coming. What was out there. But he'd chosen to ignore it. To pretend that everything was okay.

He'd convinced himself that what he'd felt in his soul all these years was nothing more than a child's nightmare. A phantom horror that had come and gone.

But it hadn't gone. It had been there all along. Waiting for him. And Laura.

And someone else.

The realization turned his blood to ice. He knew the reason it had waited all these years. He felt it, as deeply and truly as anything he'd felt in his life.

Laura was pregnant.

*******

October 2018

Butler County, Pennsylvania

After Andy watched Laura's truck disappear over the horizon, he closed the pocketknife and slipped it into his jeans. What he'd told Laura before she left for work that morning was true. He'd found the knife in the corn maze. But not lying on the ground, as she'd assumed. Its blade was buried deeply into the wooden sign he'd posted just outside the maze. The sign read: Enter.

Whatever it was, whatever was in there, it hadn't always taunted Andy so openly. It had started quietly, about a week after he'd seen the boy in the maze. He awoke that morning to the sound of laughter. It was no louder than a whisper, and it vanished almost as soon as his eyes opened, but he was sure he'd heard it.

The next night he dreamed he was back on his parents' farm. A tornado was chasing him. No matter how fast he ran, it drew closer. No matter which direction he turned, it followed him. This time, he couldn't find shelter. This time, there was no escape. Just moments before it overtook him, his eyes snapped open and he sat bolt upright in bed, drenched in sweat.

He'd decided it was trying to drive him mad. He'd refused to let it. He grounded himself by focusing on preparations for the Harvest Festival. He'd scoured every inch of the corn maze dozens of times, but never again found the spiral path or anything else that he himself hadn't placed there.

He'd also spent hours in his workshop building a bassinet for Laura. It would be a surprise gift after the baby was born. But it was more than just a gift. It was a promise. A promise that nothing would harm his family.

It seemed to work. The nightmares and hallucinations had stopped.

Then one week ago, after Laura had gone to bed, he slipped into the workshop to finish the bassinet. The odor hit him first. A sharp, pungent stench, like rotten food.

That's when he saw it. The bassinet was filled with apples: wrinkled, brown, misshapen. Dark holes dotted the fruits' skin like open sores. Worms and spiders spilled from the holes. A thick swarm of flies buzzed overhead. The entire workshop smelled of decay.

Andy turned his head and stifled the urge to retch. When he turned back, the odor was gone. The worms had vanished. The bassinet was empty.

Thunder cracked overhead, snapping Andy back to the present. He glanced at the sky. The storm was almost here. The weathervane atop the barn gave a shrill squeak as it twisted in a sudden gust of wind.

Andy grabbed his shotgun from the house, then headed toward the barn. He snatched his corn knife from the wall, then turned to head toward the maze. Just outside the barn, something stopped him in his tracks.

A young girl with black hair stood smiling at him. Tucked under one arm she held a book.

Andy scanned the grounds for the girl's parents. "Can I help you?"

The girl continued to stare.

"We open at noon. Tell your folks to come back then." Andy glanced toward the gravel parking lot they'd built for the Harvest Festival. He didn't see a single car. "We'll have everything set up."

"Do you want to hear a joke?" the girl asked.

He stiffened. "What?"

"I know a good joke. Do you want to hear it, Andy?"

"How do you know my name?"

The girl giggled.

"Look," he said, "I don't―"

"Knock knock."

Andy studied her eyes. "Who's there?"

"You know." She giggled again. "Don't you, Andy?"

He did know. He'd seen that same gleeful look in the girl's eyes before. His fingers tightened around the corn knife.

The girl whirled and scampered across the grass to the maze. She paused at the entrance and peered over her shoulder. She smiled, then disappeared into the golden brown stalks.

He followed her, pausing when he reached the Enter sign. The mark from the pocketknife blade was still visible.

Andy drew a deep breath. He felt the fear, thick and heavy in the pit of his stomach. But he also felt something else: relief. After years of dread, his day of reckoning had finally arrived. One way or the other, this would end.

He entered the maze.

At the first fork, he turned right, then made two lefts. He inched forward, pausing after each footstep to listen. Often, he heard nothing but the swishing stalks. But every now and then he'd catch the faint sound of laughter in the wind.

He made it through four more turns before a new sound reached his ears. Music. He recognized the song at once.

You smiled, you smiled.

Oh, and then the spell was cast.

Then the song's pitch began to bend and warp. Its tempo slowed, as though the notes had been dipped in molasses.

And here we are in Heaven.

For you are mine ...

at last.

The corn stalks to his left moved. He whirled and raised the shotgun. The stalks stilled.

"What are you waiting for?" he shouted.

The stalks moved again, ahead of him this time. He crept forward. The movement sped up and shifted left, then broke right. Andy tracked it through the maze as best he could. It moved faster, so fast that Andy had to run to keep up. He flew around one bend, then the next, struggling to catch a glimpse of where it was headed.

He stumbled around a sharp corner. By the time he'd regained his balance, he'd lost sight of it. He froze, listening. The movement had stopped.

"Coward!" he yelled.

"Andy?" a woman's voice called.

He recognized it instantly. "Laura?"

"Andy, where are you?" Laura shouted. She was crying.

"Laura!" He spun in rapid circles, searching for her. "Laura!"

He caught a flash of movement in the corn ahead. Something big was barreling toward him, shoving aside the corn as it drew closer. He raised the gun.

Laura burst through the corn ten yards ahead of him. Her pants were spattered with blood. Andy held the shotgun steady, aiming for her chest.

"Andy?" she said, staring at the gun. "What are you doing?"

His eyes darted to the bloodstains on her clothes. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. It's not my blood. Why are you pointing a gun at me?"

"Why aren't you at work?" he countered.

"Baby, you're scaring me. Please put the gun down."

"Answer the question," he barked.

"Okay." She held up her palms. "I saw an accident. A bad one. No one had stopped, so I pulled over and called 911. Then I went to see if I could help. A man was lying on the side of the road. There was blood everywhere." Her voice was shaking. She gestured to the blood on her clothes. "I kneeled next to him to check his vitals. And then I saw his face. It was ... it was Reuben."

"What?"

"I know it sounds crazy. But I swear, it was him. I panicked. I drove straight home to tell you. When I got here, I heard you shouting. I thought maybe you were hurt, so I ..."

She broke into sobs. "Andy, I don't know what's happening. I'm seeing things that can't be real. I feel like I'm going crazy."

He lowered the gun. He never should have kept secrets from her all those years ago. "You're not crazy. I'm seeing things too."

"You are? Like what?"

"Later." He glanced around the maze. "We need to get out of here. Whatever happens, stay with me. We'll drive to your Aunt Beth's. I'll explain everything there."

She nodded. "I'm so scared."

"I know. It'll be okay. Come here."

He opened his arms. As she reached for him, he swung the corn knife in a wide arc, slicing open her stomach.

She staggered backward, eyes wide with shock. Blood soaked through her shirt and poured down her legs. She dropped to her knees, clutching her belly.

"Andy?" she whispered. "Why?" Her head drooped. She stared in disbelief at her blood-soaked fingers.

"Because you don't have an Aunt Beth."

The thing that was pretending to be Laura looked up at him and smiled. Then it started to laugh.

He raised the shotgun, but the thing sprang forward and knocked him to the ground. The impact sent the corn knife and gun tumbling into the field.

The thing wrapped its hand around his throat and pressed him to the ground. He watched in disgust as Laura's face melted and reconstituted itself. It was now Reuben's face, only horribly disfigured. His right eye was missing. Most of his teeth were gone too, and blood dripped from his gums. A huge gash ran from the top of his skull to his chin, exposing the bone underneath.

"Do you know what I was thinking as I was lying there, bleeding to death on the side of the road?"

Andy tried to pry the hands from his neck, but the thing's grip was like iron.

"I was thinking that it was your fault. And that if I ever had the chance, I'd sell my soul to make you pay."

Andy's vision started to blur. He moved his right hand to his waist.

"Well, guess what?" Reuben said. "I got the chance."

Andy fished the pocketknife from his pants, opened the blade, and drove it deep into Reuben's neck.

The corn knife may have had no effect, but for some reason―maybe because it came from Reuben's world―the pocketknife did. Reuben shrieked and clutched at his neck. Andy shoved him backward and bolted into the corn, searching for the gun. Before he could find it, Reuben rose to his feet and lunged after him.

Andy took off, sprinting through the corn. The stalks striking his body masked the sound of Reuben's pursuit, so Andy had no sense how close he was. He might have been yards away. Or inches.

He exploded through the corn into a large clearing. A flat circle of dust swirled and pulsed at its center. He walked toward it, then froze as the circle began to grow, expanding outward toward him. The circle's center―black as coal―rippled and swelled.

As he turned to flee back into the corn, Reuben stumbled into the clearing. A thick, dark sludge oozed from the wound in his neck. When he spotted Andy, he broke into a wide, toothless grin.

Andy braced himself for Reuben's attack. Instead, Reuben sauntered toward him. He seemed unconcerned about the rippling black circle. Didn't seem to notice it at all, in fact.

The words the palm reader had spoken flashed through Andy's mind: "You need to go back."

He glanced behind him. The edge of the circle had almost reached his heels. He peered inside. It wasn't transparent like last time. He saw only churning darkness. But something felt familiar about it. He couldn't quite place it.

Then it clicked. He understood why the circle was here and why it had first appeared to him two months ago in the spiral. He understood what the palm reader meant. He understood what he had to do.

While his attention was diverted, Reuben charged. Andy stood his ground. When Reuben hit him, Andy wrapped him in a bear hug and used the momentum to hurl them both backward into the circle.

Darkness. The sensation of falling. Andy screamed and released Reuben as he pinwheeled through the endless void.

He landed with a thud in a cornfield. Only, it was no longer morning. It was night. And the stalks surrounding him weren't the golden brown of October. They were the fresh green of mid-summer.

Andy had gone back, just as the palm reader had asked. Back to his parents' field.

He winced and rose to his feet. That's when he heard the noise. It was one he remembered well. A roaring sound, like a freight train, growing louder.

"What is this?" Reuben bellowed from somewhere inside the corn. "Where are you?"

"I'm right here!" Andy shouted. "What's the matter? You lose your other eye?"

Andy could just make out a scream of rage over the howling wind. He sprinted through the thick corn, cutting left, then right, then left again, hoping to confuse Reuben.

Something slammed into his back, knocking him to the ground. He rolled with the impact and managed to straddle Reuben, pinning his back to the ground.

Reuben's mouth twisted in fury. He was shouting, but Andy heard nothing. The wind swallowed the words the instant they left Reuben's mouth. The corn stalks around them shuddered and swirled. Dirt pelted Andy's skin.

The roaring sound was deafening. The gleeful look in Reuben's remaining eye had vanished. Something new had taken its place: fear.