Between The Rows (Part 1 of 2)

  

“This is really lame.”

I shot Alison an irritated look. She seemed to ignore it as she stared past me at the signs plastered around the ticket booth for the Jefferson Farm Corn Maze. My sister was always a naysayer when it came to stuff like this, but her comment was still tactless, even for her. It was Jenny’s idea after all—the first suggestion or sign of enthusiasm she had shown since she’d come to live with us a month earlier. If Alison kept shitting on her idea, she might retreat back into her shell for good this time.

Turning to Jenny, I smiled. “You have to forgive Alison. She was born with a handicap, you understand. It’s called being a fucking bitch.” Jenny’s eyes twinkled with surprise and merriment as she looked up at me, and she let out a light laugh when Alison punched me in the arm.

“No, I get it.” Jenny said more seriously. “It might be kind of lame. But it looked fun on the internet, and I thought we could have a good time. Get into the Halloween spirit a bit.”

Alison interrupted her. “You’re right. It’ll probably be fun.” She looked around with a sigh. “Sorry, not trying to be a downer. Tell you what. You two get our tickets and I’ll get us drinks.”

I followed her gaze and saw a large food truck set up serving soft drinks and beers while another nearby truck sold funnel cakes and popcorn. She was eyeing the guy selling beers with interest, and I had to concede that he looked just greasy enough to be her type. Shrugging, I gave her a nod and turned with Jenny toward the ticket line.

I had never known our cousin Jenny very well. She was the only child of our mother’s brother, and they lived on the other side of the state from us, though it wasn’t so far a distance that it explained how rarely we saw them. The truth was that her family had always been fairly isolated. They would come around at Christmastime or Thanksgiving maybe once every three or four years, but even then they didn’t talk a lot or stay very long.

They were never rude or weird-acting, just kind of quiet. Uncomfortable-looking or like they felt kind of out of the loop because they weren’t around more. I’d felt a bit sorry for them growing up, but I still always enjoyed their visits because of Jenny.

Jenny was a lot more outgoing than her parents, and even though she was a girl, I always clicked with her a lot more than Alison did. Maybe it was because Alison was older—she was worried about what she was going to do when she graduated college next spring while me and Jenny were just getting into our last year of high school—or maybe it was just that their personalities didn’t mesh well. Either way, over the years I had been guilty more than once of wishing that I could swap out Alison for Jenny on a permanent basis.

Jenny poked me in the side. “Do you want to do any of the other stuff, or just the main corn maze?” We were getting close to the front of the line, and her question prompted me to look at the menu of options hanging above the ticket booth window. There was the corn maze, a smaller “haunted” corn maze, and a hay ride.

I weighed the money as well as Alison’s patience in my head. “Hmm. It’s already past nine and the corn maze looks huge. You cool with just doing that? I imagine it’ll take awhile.” I left off the rest of my thought, that Jenny didn’t need to be exposed to whatever fake blood and violence would be waiting for us on the haunted maze. She seemed to consider it for a moment before nodding.

“Yeah, that sounds good. I bet we’ll be in the corn maze for a long time anyway.”

---

The night we found out Jenny was coming to live with us was a Saturday just like this one. I had planned on staying in and watching t.v. that night and Alison was home for the weekend to see some guy she was dating. Or at least one of the guys she was dating. While we hadn’t talked about it directly, I had the distinct impression that she had a boyfriend at college too, and that most likely neither guy knew about the other. Not that I cared—if someone was dumb enough to date her in the first place, I had very little sympathy to spare.

I remember our parents coming home from shopping and being strangely quiet. They had called us into the kitchen, our mother looking like she was in shock, her eyes red but not teary, our father rubbing her back with one hand while distractedly pulling at his mustache with the other. After a few moments of tense silence, our father started to explain.

There had been some kind of incident at Jenny’s house. A home invasion possibly, though no one could say for sure. All that was certain was that she had come home the night before from a football game to find that her parents were both gone and that there was blood all over the living room.

At this point our father had made a point of explaining that Jenny had two friends with her when she discovered they were gone and that she had been at the football game for hours before that. As though we needed some reassurance that she wasn’t the one who had hurt her own parents. I felt mildly irritated and offended by the suggestion. Jenny was one of the nicest and gentlest people I’d ever known, and even in my limited time with her over the years, I knew she loved her parents very much. The idea of her hurting them or somehow being tied into their disappearance…well, it was just absurd. Still, I pushed down my frustration at my father’s delivery of the terrible news and tried to listen.

So far there was no sign of them. Their phones and cars, wallets and keys, all those things had been left behind. After a few hours of investigation, and child services determining she was going to have to be placed with a relative because she was still 17, our parents had gotten the call. Until her parents were found alive, however unlikely that may be, or she turned 18, she needed a place to stay, and we were her only relatives.

---

For not the first time, I felt a thrill of excitement at the idea of having Jenny around. I had always wanted to be closer with my big sister, but we were very different from each other, and as we had gotten older those differences seemed to multiply. I loved Alison, but I didn’t think I liked her that much, and I certainly couldn’t say we were very good friends.

Jenny, on the other hand, was awesome. We had similar interests, and she didn’t respond to everything with sarcasm or like she was defending against some kind of attack. Just the opposite. She was calm and laid-back, with an enthusiasm and sweetness that made you feel better just being around her. By the time Alison got back with our drinks, I was over my earlier anger and back to having a good time. Alison seemed in a better mood too, leading us to the long line to get into the corn maze without any of her usual eye-rolling or complaints.

Jenny handed out small maps to each of us. Looking at the small square of paper, I saw with surprise it was a rough drawing of the corn maze itself. I held it up to Jenny. “Isn’t this kind of cheating?”

She grinned. “Nah, not really. It helps some, but once you’re in there, everything looks the same. I usually find the map messes me up more than it helps, but we’ve got it if we want to use it at least.”

Alison was still studying it when she asked, “So you’ve done these mazes before?”

Jenny nodded. “Yeah, me and my…my family used to do them almost every year. A tradition I guess.” Her expression grew sad for a moment before brightening again. “But the maze is different every year, even if you come back to the same place. The only advantage I have is some experience.”

Alison raised an eyebrow at her. “Corn maze experience? Is that a thing?”

Our cousin grinned and gave a shrug as we moved up in the line. “It’s more useful than you might think.”

---

There were a surprising number of people at the Jefferson Farm Corn Maze—kids strung out on sugar running to get on the hay ride as they were chased by beleaguered parents, clusters of squealing teenagers running out of the haunted maze to the repetitive whining roar of a chainless chainsaw, and in our own line, a mixture of young and old waiting for their turn to enter the giant corn maze.

As far as we could tell, they were letting in groups of four or five people every couple of minutes. I guessed the idea was that you would get a fairly even number of people coming and going from the maze by staggering people’s entry. While this may have worked wonders for the isolated ambiance inside the maze itself, on the outside it kind of sucked. We edged our way forward, but after over forty minutes we still hadn’t made it to the front of the line. Jenny had actually made a supply run at the twenty-minute mark, bringing us back fresh drinks and funnel cake.

Then, when we were ten people from entering, a man who seemed to work there came up to the gatekeeper of the maze, telling him it was time to cut off the line for the night. The gatekeeper, a boy who looked only a couple of years older than me, cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled to the line of seventy or eighty people that the maze was going to have to be closed to new entries after three more groups. If someone was further back in the line than that, they could go to the ticket booth to get a new ticket for any other night in October.

I understood the logic—the maze had to close some time, after all—but I still found myself anxiously wondering if we would make the cut. I knew it meant a lot to Jenny, and the odds of wrangling Alison to come out a second time this month were slim to none. To my relief, the gatekeeper walked past us and cut off the line right behind where we were standing. A few of the people muttered as they shuffled off, but then we were being ushered into the maze as one big final group and the noises and lights of the outside world faded away between the rows of corn that surrounded us on every side.

The corn maze felt eerily separate from the place we had just left. The corn dampened sound and light, and with no lights set up within the maze itself, everything had a fuzzy blue-black quality to it. The half moon overhead and the ambient light from the rest of the attractions and booths provided just enough illumination to make out the dirt path as we walked forward, a faintly visible ribbon of dirt that wound and crisscrossed the further we went into the maze.

We had no flashlights, but instead took turns using our phones’ flashlight setting to provide some additional light. In some ways it only made things more disorienting. The small circle of bright white light would make its best feeble effort to cut through the murk, but it also made the surrounding dark seem that much darker. After a few minutes, we gave up on using our lights unless we were checking the map for some sign of where we actually were.

The thing with a corn maze is that, like Jenny had said, everything looks the same. You’re surrounded by twelve-foot high stalks on every side, so tightly planted that you can’t see more than a foot into the rows, much less the path that is ten feet away on the other side. And the corn all looks the same. You try to find distinct curves or intersections—things that are unique enough that you can find their twin on the small map and get a bead on your location. Then you realize that the map is not entirely accurate and that there are several places on it that could be your special spot.

So do you pick one and try to use the map? You can, but that only works if you know where you’re starting from. Do you ignore the map and just keep going? It’s an option, but it’s also a good way to wander for hours. We had been in there over thirty minutes with no real discernable progress toward the exit when Jenny asked a question.

“I wonder if you could stay in here after they’re closed for the night?”

At first I misunderstood what she meant. I thought she was worried we might get stuck in here overnight, and I was quick to assure her that we could always just push through the corn, or barring that, yell until someone found us, as they undoubtedly would have people checking for stragglers before calling it a night.

But Jenny shook her head. “No, I mean, if we wanted to stay after it was closed, just to explore and say we did it, could we get away with it?”

I’d expected Alison to have some smart comment at the suggestion, but she surprised me by showing interest. “You know, I bet we could. Even if they send people through to get out people that are lost or don’t want to leave, they can’t find everybody. Particularly if you don’t want to be found. If we hid in the corn deep enough and stayed quiet, I bet they’d never know it. Then we could do what we wanted and leave when we get ready.”

I hated to be the wet blanket, but the idea sounded really boring and dumb to me. Plus, if I’m being honest, I’m not much for breaking the rules. Aside from any far-flung fears of the police being called if we were found lingering after hours or they noticed our car had never left the lot, just the embarrassment of being yelled at and escorted off the farm by the staff made my stomach squirm.

Still, I didn’t want to appear uncool or unfun, so I tried to look casual as I shrugged. “Even if we could, what would be the point? We got in here after ten and it’s close to eleven now. You have to figure that they’re going to let people stay until at least eleven-thirty or twelve, right? Otherwise people would get pissed for not getting long in the maze. So we’re talking about killing time for an hour or more, then hiding in the corn for what, another hour? Just so we can walk around the same maze we can just walk around now?” I saw Jenny’s disappointed expression and tried to soften my words. “I mean…we can if you want, I just don’t know that we’ll have fun.” I could hear the insincerity in my voice and hoped I was the only one.

“You suck. I bet you graduated first at the academy.” Alison was frowning at me.

I raised an eyebrow. “Academy?”

She gave me a toothy smile. “The Fun Police Academy, you little bitch.” She turned to Jenny. “Ignore him. He’s all butthurt if he doesn’t return a library book on time. Plus, he checks out library books. So his vote doesn’t count. And if you’re down, I’m down.”

I felt anger and embarrassment tightening my chest, but I couldn’t think of any reply that wouldn’t make me look worse. Besides, Jenny was already nodding excitedly and looking back to me. “Are you cool with it, Kyle?”

I smiled weakly. “Yeah, sure. I’m probably wrong and it’ll be really fun.” However, I couldn’t help but add, “And if we get bored we can always change our minds.”

We started back walking through the maze, and occasionally I would see a glimpse of flashlight through the rows or hear someone talking or laughing some distance away, but we didn’t run into anyone else despite the massive amount of people that had been let in before us. At eleven, an announcement went out over a hidden set of speakers somewhere.

The Corn Maze is now closed. Please exit the maze immediately. Thank you for coming. If you can’t find your way out, yell and we will come find you.

Alison poked me in the ribs and waggled her eyebrows. “See, scaredy cat? Not so long a wait after all.” Glancing back at Jenny she grinned. “Let’s find a good hiding spot.”

---

We walked for a couple of more minutes before finding a secluded corner that seemed to be especially dense with corn stalks. One concern was that if you went in deep on one side you may be visible on another side if a different part of the maze cut too close to your hiding spot. But it seemed we had made it to one of the outer edges of the map, and as we slowly threaded our way into the corn there were no signs of another path coming into view. Instead there was just increasing darkness and the claustrophobic feel of stalks pressing in on you from all sides as a dry, leafy smell filled your nose and coated your tongue.

Jenny was holding my hand as we went into the corn, and I felt sure she could tell my own was sweating. But she never said anything, and as we settled into a spot to wait out anyone searching the maze, she gave my hand a squeeze.

“Thank you for doing this, Kyle. It means a lot to me.” I could barely make her out in the dark, but I smiled at her words anyway, squeezing her hand back.

“Sure thing. It’s kind of cool.” In truth, I could barely breathe in that place, my chest feeling like it was surrounded by a slowly tightening belt as the minutes crawled by. I checked my phone and saw that twenty minutes had passed. Speaking to where I thought Alison was next to me, I let out a dry croak. “We good? No sign of anyone.”

“Yeah, let’s get back out. Just be quiet though.”

I started back the way we had come—the way I thought we had come, at least—but I didn’t see any break in the corn ahead of us. If anything, it seemed to get darker. After a few more feet I knew why.

“There’s a wall here.”

“What?” Alison was coming up behind me and I could hear the irritation in her voice. “What the fuck do you mean, a wall?” She reached passed me and put her hand against the brick wall. I heard her let out a breath and suddenly her cellphone’s light was on, illuminating a gray brick wall buried among the corn and going up at least ten feet. As she panned the light from side to side, we could see that the wall stretched on to our left and right as far as the light would reach. “What…I don’t understand. We would have seen this, right? We would have seen a giant brick wall when we pulled into the parking lot.”

“I think there’s more corn on the other side.” We both looked at Jenna as she spoke, her eyes wide. “That’s the only thing that makes sense. They must have more corn growing outside the wall so from the ground it looks like it’s just corn, when really the maze has walls on it.” She bit her lip as she looked up at it. “I dunno. Maybe it’s so they can control how people come and go? Keep people from sneaking in without paying, I guess?”

I nodded, trying to speak with a confidence I didn’t feel. “Yeah, I bet that’s it. It makes sense that they want to keep people out that don’t pay for a ticket.” And it did make a certain amount of sense, even if something in my core said it was a lie. “Either way, we know a direction that isn’t blocked, so let’s head that way and find our way out.”

I didn’t know if this last was true either, as I had thought we were heading in the right direction before when we had hit the wall. Still, I turned left and stayed with the wall for a few feet before veering away in a direction I hoped would lead us back to a path. This time it did, and I found myself taking in burning lungfuls of the cold night air once I wasn’t surrounded by the corn any more. Jenny patted my back and I smiled at her.

“I’m okay, just glad to be out of the corn.” Looking around, I frowned. “But I don’t think I have any idea where we are.”

Alison took the map from me and started alternating between studying it and looking at the path we were on, trying to discern some unique feature that would tell us what path this actually was. She stopped when the stillness of the night was pierced by the high-pitched squeal of a pig. We all looked at each other with anxious expressions. They called this place a farm but it was an attraction, not a real working farm with livestock. Why would there be a pig out here?

I was about to ask that very question when the music began. Strange, discordant music that would occasionally be punctuated by another cry from a pig or some other creature. And underneath it all, we could hear the low, throaty thrum of some kind of singing. I looked up at the inky sky as though it would help me place where the sounds were coming from. I couldn’t tell much, but it was somewhere close by. Somewhere in the maze, if I had to guess.

Now I did speak, my voice barely a whisper and my own fear reflected in their faces as they looked at me. “We’re not alone in here.” 

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Credits