The Cornfield - FICTION
Growing up in rural NY was nice. No hustle & bustle. You could run around outside until it was pitch black. No worries of someone stealing you or shooting you...it was completely safe or so I thought....
The house I grew up in lay on 19 acres of green & trees. It was quiet there. You could hear the birds chirping and insects buzzing. You could see the stars at night and hear the owls hooting. Serene. Across the dirt road from my house was a massive cornfield. We called it "cow corn" because it wasn't the kind you buy in the store to roast and eat. Every fall it was harvested and we watched the combines cut it down & swoop it into the backs of the farm trucks. The farmer who owned the field was a dairy farmer & every year he harvested & stored for his cows.
"Knee high by the 4th of July" as the saying goes for corn and by August the stalks towered over our heads. My 4 brothers, my sister and I used to play hide & go seek in the cornfield at night in late August. It was fun...until that moonless night I heard and saw something that made me NEVER enter that or any other cornfield again. I was "it" (as usual being the youngest). I covered my eyes against the big oak in our front yard as everyone else ran across the road to "hide". The way this game work, the "it" person had to sneak up on people in the corn and touch them - if 'it' didn't succeed before all the others made it back to the tree then 'it' remained 'it'. I was 'it' a lot.
This night I counted and then headed across the road. It was silent - no insects, no owls, no rustling of the corn. Dead quiet. I worked my way up the row and stopped to listen - still no sound. I continued on, crossing to the next row and I heard some whispering. Thinking it was a sibling I rushed through the rows, but no one was there. Again the whispering. I strained to hear what the words were & I could barely make them out. " ____ my corn____" was what I heard. I cut through another row and still no one - more whispers, but no person. I kept this up for awhile and then I heard my eldest brother shout "home free", so I knew he was safe. Silence again.
Then more whispering - a little clearer. "This is my corn _____". I stumbled through another row and saw movement down the row. I headed toward where the movement was, thinking it was a sibling. I heard the rustle a couple of rows over so I forged through. More whispering, "_____ my corn _____". I burst into a row thinking I had found a brother - not what I found...
In that row stood a tall creature... I heard it say "This is MY CORN. GET OUT!!". It stood on two legs, dark in color, arms hanging to it's knees. It looked scaly and it's face has some sort of beak like mouth... "MY CORN!!!". It started toward me and I let out a blood curdling scream and collapsed onto the ground.
When my father found me I was curled in the fetal position crying quietly and saying over & over "Go away, go away".
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eeeeek! lol, there's a few corn mazes within a 10 mile radius of my home. they must make decent money in the fall.
We have a lot of those, too. I know they are jammed with people in the fall.
Oh my, you found the ''corn monster''. Not good.
I was thinking about giving it wings, but I went scaly instead.
It sounds like a demon out for revenge and it takes the form of a giant crow.
I never wandered in the corn fields until after it had been harvested. Then we gathered up corn to shell it and throw it at people's house for a Halloween prank
Now this story is completely fiction, but we did use to play tag in the cornfields before harvest. I never saw anything, but my brothers used to jump out at me & scare me.
that's what brothers are supposed to do
You read Stephen King, don't you? His best work "The Stand" has an awesome scene with Mother Abigail taking a shortcut thru a cornfield. The TV series didn't do it justice
That is one book of his I have never read. I saw the movie. Now I want to read the book as there is probably a lot I missed.
The cornfield wasn't the only place they scared the shit out of me... there was the barn, the darkened upstairs hallway, the cellar. The list goes on....I won't go into how my "pervert" brother used to scare me (totally different & long story).
I love King novels, novellas & short stories. The Stand was long before he re-added the cut pages & now I have the book with the pages added back in. I love that book. The cornfield scene in the novel was definitely more eerie than the mini-series.
He rewrote parts of the novel a while back. Added things like AIDs, GH Bush as president - and a lot of things he was told to leave out the first go around. It is definitely worth the read.
You have to read it
I have the re added version, too. Did you read the introduction of the newest edition? It's classic King...very funny
Yep. And it is classic King. I may have to pull that out to read instead of Duma Key this June.
Maybe it was me or the area but when I was a kid, corn actually hurt. It could cut you up...
We had farms all around. The closest one to us they eventually sold the land I guess and it was turned into ball (sports) fields.
It can cut you and make you itch - we always wore long sleeves & jeans into the corn. Also had hair up under hats. Still ended up with cuts & itches.
Here's a little bit of history, ghost story, and personal experience combined. Growing up in the rural desert Southwest along the AZ/Mexico border as a young teenager, I was a member of our local Boy Scout troop in the late 60's. One summer we were on a campout several miles away from my hometown of Douglas, AZ. The first night there, me and my tent mates were awakened by a roaring thunder of hooves like a cattle stampede. We rushed outside and saw nothing and it was a clear night with not a cloud in the sky full of stars. We just stood there, looked at each other, our scout masters were sound asleep snoring in their tent. We then went back to bed and said nothing to the adults in the morning.
It was many years later when I happened to hear a song called "Ghost Riders In The Sky" written by a man named Stan Jones. The song, which was written in the mid to late 40's and has been performed many times over the years talks about a cowboy who saw a herd of ghostly cattle racing through the sky being followed by equally ghostly cowboys one of which tells the cowboy to change his wicked ways or he will ride with them. It turns out Stan Jones was from my home town of Douglas, AZ and the song takes place in a in some hills not far away known as Skeleton Canyon. In addition Native Apache legend believes that warriors who die become horse riding spirits in the sky. Stan Jones was told of that legend as a teenager by a old Chiricahua Apache who lived outside of Douglas. It turns out that the place my campout took place was in Skeleton Canyon and to this day I have no logical or reasonable explanation for what I heard and felt that night. Another historical footnote about Skeleton Canyon is the famed Apache Chief Geronimo surrendered to the U S Army there.
Still get a shiver down my spine thinking about that night
I love that song. When I first read the beginning of your post the song popped into my head & then you went on with some great background on it. I appreciate learning new stuff. Thanks.
I think I will have to put Skeleton Canyon on my Bucket List - not sure how my sister & traveling companion will feel about it, but my interest has been peaked.
I forgot mention that that site has also been other events, most notably what is known as "Skeleton Canyon Massacre". Back in the late 1800's a group of Mexican cowboys were transporting a chest of gold payroll to a bank when they were ambushed by a group of outlaws and killed with the gold taken. Rumor/legend has it that the gold was buried somewhere in the canyon and treasure hunters to this day have looked for it with no success. Local residents near the canyon still say they see what they believe are the ghosts of those killed that day. In addition, two members of the outlaw group were said to be brothers Frank and Tom Mclaury. A couple of years after the massacre they died at the hands of the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday in the famous gunfight at the "O K. Coral in Tombstone, AZ in 1881. By the way, contrary to popular belief, said gunfight did not physically happen at the O. K. Coral. Gunfight occurred in a vacant lot behind the coral. Okay, Old West history lesson done for the day.
Same here! I was thinking "Ghost Riders" as I continued. I like Johnny Cash's version
Thanks for the history lesson. I watch any movie I can find about Wyatt Earp and his brothers. I think my favorite is "Tombstone"
No, I want more. I love this stuff.
Great version. I preferred the Outlaws version - more rock.
A couple of years ago I took my adult daughter and my then 9 year old granddaughter to Tombstone a hour away from where we live. We stopped at The Birdcage Theater which is said to be very haunted. My daughter has always been very sensitive to certain areas of the supernatural. She is particularly sensitive to places where bad things have happened. I have never belittled her or said otherwise and I respect what she feels even if I can't. She has been there before and has gone all the way inside and through all the rooms and told me that she feels the terrible things that have happened there to the extent that she had extreme difficulty breathing and had to leave. When we went a few years ago tou could only access the front lobby and gift area. If you wanted to go into the back they charged exorbitant admission. This is mostly on account of all the publicity they have received over the years, especially from paranormal investigators. My daughter said she got bad vibes just standing in the front lobby.
I heard about that theater. I do want to visit Tombstone. Just the history alone makes it interesting - to say nothing of the "hauntings".
I usually get chills all through my body when I encounter odd things. Felt it at Waverly Hills & at the Hinsdale House. When the chills reach my feet I know it is time to go
Great story !
I think my father in law is a descendant of Geronimo. He was named for him
Believe it or not Geronimo is a fairly common name among Hispanics on both sides of the immediate AZ/NM border areas.
I like this story. It's similar to the novella by Stephen King and his son Joe Hill called In The Tall Grass. I don't know if the movie is still on Netflix or not, but it's worth a watch.
Thanks for the info. I will have to check it out (both novella & movie).
There are a number of tall grass and corn field horror stories. One of the earliest I read was a short story (in a Alfred Hitchcock anthology) called Canavan's Back Yard where the back yard looked ordinary but once anyone went back there the grass gets tall the people get lost and there are creatures in there.
Also if you are checking out Netflix you'll need to see Love+Death+Robots Season 2 Episode 5 The Tall Grass where a steam train with passengers stops in the night in the middle of a grass field. The conductor tells a man to stay with the train but finds himself in the grass anyway and is chased by the creatures inhabiting the field.
Then there is the movie called The Fields described as American Farmland Gothic where a young boy is warned by his grandfather to stay out of the corn field. It's a slow burn creepy movie.
Then if you want to move on to scarecrows in cornfields we have a whole new list of gory delights!
I am not a big fan of gore, but love scary movies. Have you seen the movie Husk? That one I liked.
Thanks for the list I am adding to My List now.
No, but I was just reading about it when I was looking up the others to make sure I was remembering things correctly. I have it on my list now.
Scarecrows always get me - or things that appear to be scarecrows like in Jeepers Creepers 2.