She also told him about “the other one.” The one who looked like he was shrouded in fog, but without the fog. As if that made any kind of sense at all.
And she told him he was supposed to be looking for a cathedral.
It was beyond crazy. Either he just imagined this whole conversation, or she confirmed that he was here for a reason and not just because his brain was short-circuiting.
Or maybe they were both completely crazy.
He could still feel that strange pull, as if the cornfield were calling out to him. He did not want to go out there. Something was terribly wrong about all this. But he was fairly certain that he would find no peace by turning around and going home. And he certainly didn’t want to converse any further with Mrs. Sunny Disposition.
Preparing himself for whatever weirdness awaited him on the other side, Eric lifted the latch on the gate and stepped through it to the other side.
Chapter Three
Eric walked through the tall grass between the sunken wheel ruts of the dirt road. He didn’t like the feel of the tall corn on either side of him, the way it refused to let him see more than a few yards in either direction. Having already turned the bend, he could not even see the old woman’s Victorian home anymore. Even the tallest peaks of its roof were quickly lost behind the endless stalks.
It was silly, but he found himself unwilling to stray past the ruts, as if something might reach out and snatch him away if he dared get too close. It was that woman’s fault. Her insane rambling about the “other one” and how he was somehow shrouded in an invisible fog. It was a creepy thought, especially now that he was all alone out here, with nothing to be seen in every direction but corn.
She had obviously been delusional.
Yet, she had managed to make a strange sort of sense, too. Or at least more sense than his irrational compulsion to drive here in the first place.
He pulled out his cell phone and checked his screen. He was surprised to find that he still had good service out here. There must be a tower somewhere nearby. He wondered how far he was from the nearest sizable town.
The road curved again and he turned with it, still keeping between the wheel ruts.
According to the old woman, he was looking for a cathedral. His immediate assumption was that he was looking for a large, ornately built church, but a cornfield didn’t seem to be a very likely place for such a structure and he certainly didn’t see any towering steeples rising over the corn. But then again, the woman also said it was a long walk. He wondered if this road would take him all the way there and if he would have to stare at the corn the whole way.
He knew that he should probably call Karen and update her on his whereabouts. But he also knew that she would just as likely be calling him any time to check up on him. And since she was the one who loved to talk on the stupid phone, he tended to let her do the calling.
He was trying to determine how he was going to explain to her why he left the PT Cruiser when he abruptly realized that something had changed.
He stopped and looked around, but he couldn’t quite decide what was different. It was as if the light had changed, but when he squinted up into the sky, he saw that no clouds were passing before the sun. Yet everything suddenly felt colder and darker.
He turned around and surveyed the corn. The shadows seemed deeper somehow, the shade beneath the broad leaves darker, colder, more sinister.
That was ridiculous. Corn could not look more sinister. Broccoli, maybe. But corn was just corn. It was tasty.
Gazing forward, he saw that the plants were getting shorter as he went. He found himself passing through a strange swath of sickly stalks. It cut into the healthier, taller corn for about thirty yards to his right and curved out of sight to the left. It was as if the soil in just this one, narrow strip lacked the proper nutrients to fully sustain the crop.
As he passed through this odd area of the field, he checked his phone and saw that his signal had nearly vanished. A single bar kept flickering in and out, the words “NO SIGNAL” flashed at him as the little phone struggled to maintain its suddenly tenuous connection to the rest of the world.
He’d always hated cell phones. He hated the way people were always attached to them like a bad addiction. He’d met far too many people who were practically incapable of putting them down. They were constantly tinkering with them, as if they couldn’t bear to be left unentertained for even a few minutes, constantly taking calls, sometimes in the middle of a conversation! People even drove with the stupid things, as if the roads weren’t already dangerous enough. And it especially pissed him off when he caught his students playing with them in his class. He was notorious for his intolerance of cell phones in his classroom and still he had to confiscate the damn things at least once a week. He despised them and had proclaimed on occasions far too numerous to count that if every device on the planet abruptly quit working and they never made another one for as long as he lived, he’d continue his life quite happily.
But now that he was standing out here in this odd field, his signal cutting in and out, he felt a slow dread creep into him.
A soft rustling noise made him snap his head up. He scanned the area around him, but there was nothing to see but cornstalks.
The hairs on the back of his neck were suddenly standing at full attention.
He told himself it was probably nothing more than a crow. Or perhaps a deer. But that eerie chill persisted. He began to walk faster, his eyes darting back and forth from the corn on his left to the corn on his right and back again, half expecting something to spring out at him, determined to drag him out into the sickly stalks.
Past the middle of the stunted patch, the corn grew taller again, and soon his vision was reduced to only a few shadowy yards.
Then, abruptly, everything felt different again.
Eric paused and looked around. The sky was still the same blue. The corn was still the same green. But everything suddenly appeared brighter somehow. That odd chill was gone.
He glanced back at the path behind him. It looked perfectly normal, except for the stunted stalks. Yet that feeling of uneasiness remained. He continued walking and glanced down at his phone again. The signal was strong and clear.
He stuffed the phone back into his pocket as he tried to see through the corn, but he had barely withdrawn his hand when the phone buzzed to life against his leg.
“Where are you?” Karen asked as soon as he answered.
Shaking off that strange feeling of irrational dread that had been creeping into his gut, Eric dismissed the weirdness of the corn and forced himself to relax. “I’m in a cornfield,” he replied. “Where are you? What are you wearing? Are you naked? I like it when you’re naked.”
“Yes. I’m naked. I lounge around in my birthday suit all day when you’re gone. Did you say cornfield?”
“I did say cornfield. You’re never naked when I get home.”
“Why would I still be naked when you get home? It wouldn’t be relaxing with you around. What are you doing driving around in a cornfield?”
“I didn’t say I was driving.”
“Okay. What are you doing walking around in a cornfield?”
“Checking things out. Considering buying a farm. What do you think?”
“I think I wouldn’t make a very good farm girl.”
“Why not? Fresh air. Sunshine. Outdoors. The chores. ‘Green Acres is the place for me.’ The good life.”
“I get allergic smelling hay.”
“Well there go all my barn fetish fantasies. Thanks for leaving me empty inside.”
“You’ll get over it.”
“I know I will.” He scanned the field around him. Now and then he thought he saw something moving, but could not be sure it wasn’t just the breeze churning through the leaves.