“Coming along.”
“Get the pies done?”
“Yeah. I’ve got cookies in the oven now.”
“I should leave you alone more often.”
“No, you shouldn’t. So where are you now?”
“Back in a cornfield.”
“Oh. Beats a leaky boat.”
“It does.”
“So you got across the lake okay?”
“Lake turned into a swamp. Had to hoof it through the bog.”
“Yuck. Better you than me.”
“Yeah, you wouldn’t have made it.”
“Oh you think so?”
“I know so.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. It ruined my shoes.”
“Oh. Yeah, I wouldn’t’ve made it.”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“Piss off any more monkeys?”
“Not yet. Saw a big bird though. Huge. Like a plane.”
“Scary.”
“It was.”
“Well I’m glad you’re okay.”
“So am I.”
“Paul called me, said you told him I could tell him what was up.”
“I did.”
“He was freaking out about your monkey picture.”
Eric smiled. “That got his attention.”
“Yes, it most certainly did.”
“So you told him my story?”
“Uh huh. Sent him those other pictures, too.”
“Good. He won’t think I’m crazy anymore.”
“No. I’m pretty sure he believes you now.”
“Good. Did he find the PT Cruiser?”
“Yeah. Him and Kevin were parked by it when he called. They should be on their way back with it now.”
“Excellent.”
Eric stepped out of the corn and found himself standing on another dirt road, nearly identical to the one where this strange adventure first began. He almost expected he had come full circle, that soon he would find himself back at either the barn or Annette’s backyard gate.
“So any idea where you’re going now?” asked Karen.
“Nope. Stupid dream’s still only coming back to me as things happen. But I found a road through the corn, so at least I’m not walking completely blind.”
In his dream, he’d turned right, so he started walking in that direction. Hopefully, he wouldn’t walk five miles only to recall that, in his dream, he’d found a dead end and had to turn back.
“I’m going to hang up and see where this road goes.”
“Okay. Call me soon.”
He didn’t know why she continued to tell him that. She knew damn well it would be her who called him. It always was.
Eric stuffed the phone back into his pocket and continued walking. A few hundred yards ahead, the corn on his left gave way to pasture and a barbwire fence separated him from a few dozen cows.
He was studying the animals for any sign that they may turn around and bare huge sets of angry gorilla teeth at him or some other terrifying thing, but they appeared to be nothing more than ordinary cows.
His phone rang again.
Grumbling, he answered it. It was Paul.
“What’s going on? You still stuck in that boat?”
“No, I ran out of lake, had to get out and wade through a swamp. Now I think I’m back in Wisconsin. I see cows.”
“Sounds like Wisconsin.”
“Have any trouble finding the Cruiser?”
“Nope. It was right where you said it was. Safe and sound.”
“Good. Where are you now?”
“Kevin’s on his way back to your house with the Cruiser. I stuck around to do a little snooping.”
Eric stopped walking. “You’re doing what?”
“I checked out that old lady’s house. What did Karen say her name was? Annette?”
“What the hell are you doing at Annette’s house? How did you even find it?”
“Karen said you followed the river and found a path. I went looking for it.”
Karen apparently hadn’t skimped on the details.
“Why would you do that?”
“Why not? She wasn’t home. Nobody answered the door.”
“You’re not missing anything. She kept talking about her husband, how he was probably going to die soon. Then I found out he’s been dead a while already. Not a cheerful chatter. You really don’t want to have a conversation with her. I told you to pick up the car and take it home, not try to follow me. I specifically told you not to try and follow me.”
“Relax. I’m just having a look.”
“There’s nothing to see! Things didn’t start getting completely weird until I walked through the barn and by then it was too late to turn around! If you go there, you’ll be stuck. And then we’ll have to find someone to go get your car.”
“You really think I can’t go back through the barn?”
“I was told a lot of things I don’t have any reason to doubt. One of them was that if you go back through the barn the other way, you might not come out at all. If you go through the barn like I did…” Eric closed his eyes. “Tell me you didn’t already find the barn.”
“It was kind of hard to miss once you made it through the corn.”
“Damn it, Paul…”
“The things in there were way freakier in person than in your pictures. What the hell was in that boarded-up stall? I couldn’t see in.”
“Where are you now?”
“I’m at the end of the driveway in front of that old house. There’s a paved road with no shoulders, no center line. I had to come all the way down here to find a signal so I could call you.”
“Listen to me,” Eric said. “Do not go back there. Just start walking. Try and figure out where you are. Don’t go back into the barn and sure as hell don’t go into the house.”
“I wouldn’t know how to get into the farmhouse. In case you forgot, there’s a tractor parked in the door.”
Well, it was good to know he hadn’t imagined that. Although he found himself wondering why Grant hadn’t moved the tractor. Maybe he busted something when he plowed through the porch.
“I’m serious. You saw what was in the barn. You know I was telling the truth.”
“I do. I took some pictures of my own, even. God, those things in the stalls were nasty!”
“Then you have to believe me when I say you could die out there.”
“Okay. I get it.”
“Really? Because you said you got it last time I talked to you and now you’re stranded fifty miles from your car.”
“Really. Don’t lecture me. I’m just trying to help.”
“How is you getting yourself killed going to help me?”
“I’m not going to get myself killed. Did I really go fifty miles?”
“I don’t know. You need to listen to me. You’re in danger. Inside that farmhouse is an old wardrobe with a monster inside it. If not for Grant and that tractor, I’d be dead right now! That thing will hunt you relentlessly until it kills you unless you can find a distraction big enough to break its focus, which—believe me—is not easy to do when you’re running for your life and scared out of your skull!”
“Okay. Fine. But what did you do next?”
“You don’t need to know what I did next! You need to start walking and you need to keep walking! Just leave. And then you can start thinking about how you’re going to get home.”
“Karen said you made your way to the nudist resort from here.”
“Seriously? The nudists? Still? There’s no one there, Paul! Get over it!”
“I know there’s no one there. But Karen said you made your way there from here and all you found along the way was those weird dog-things that you told her were harmless.”
“Taylor told me they were harmless. I don’t know for sure that he was telling me the truth. And I don’t know that there isn’t something else out there in those woods, something that is dangerous. A big, red, pissed off ape, maybe?”