Sunday Story- Skullduggery Pt.1

Part 1 of 2.

Skullduggery- dishonesty or trickery

Ex: Their cobalt blue station wagon sped under the wooden archway and into the gravel parking lot. The autumn color palette bled through the trees, the bushes, the buildings in front of them. But everyone always talks about the leaves changing colors in the Fall in New England, and I’m not everyone, so let’s move on. This story is going to end up being satirical or farcical or just plain absurd, so any vividly descriptive scene setting that I’m doing at the beginning is going to fall on deaf ears (blind eyes?). So instead, I’ll leave it to the king of Autumn- Ray Bradbury-to do some world building for me:

“OCTOBER COUNTRY . . . that country where it is always turning late in the year.  That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay.  That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal-bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun.  That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts.  Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain. . . .”

So it was October. They jumped from their car and surveyed the options in front of them. There was the red barn with the peeling paint and its double wide doors thrust open to reveal pies, ciders, old-fashioned donuts, oblong gourds dotted with witchlike warts. There was the muddy pumpkin patch in the hay bale enclosure with overeager girlfriends and “let’s just get this over with” boyfriends. There was the imposing corn maze (for readers fluent in both Spanish and English, when you hear corn maze do you process it as “corn corn” since maize is corn as well? Do you think we’re so amped up to get lost in corn mazes that we affectionately gave them the cute nickname of corn corn, as if we’ve been reduced to infants that repeat the names of objects to indicate our desire for them? Do you think I should really be getting back to the story now?) with its labyrinth of soil hallways and tall green stalks, borne out of the skullduggery of some uber-bored tractor operator. Next to the entrance to the maze stood a man ominously stroking his dog from the crown of his head to the tip of his tail. I know it’s acceptable, but man if that doesn’t send a chill down your spine.

So, the family opted instead for the farm shop. That seemed as good a place as any to start their day. They browsed the shelves, glancing past familiar items and throwing their gaze towards the more obscure products. Oats, rolled oats, milled oats, steel-cut oats…Farmer Freddy’s fungal sourdough starter kit, now with more wool socks worn when toiling the fields in Summer live bacteria cultures? Strawberry preserves, blueberry preserves, peach jam, plum jam…Farmer Freddy’s toe jam? Just who is this Farmer Freddy and what gives him the unmitigated gall to try to turn his athlete’s foot into an artisan bread and jam pairing? This whole place was getting weirder by the second. They shuffled out of the store mostly emptyhanded except for Parker, who guzzled down a glass of thick sheep’s milk chocolate milk that had an oddly cheesy- or, dare I say, sweaty- aftertaste. He tried to expel the idea from his mind that Farmer Freddy may have- literally- dipped his feet into the dairy production at the farm. The uneasiness in Parker’s stomach was accompanied by the family’s unease that there was something not quite right, something potentially even sinister about this farm.

Lisa, ever the protective matriarch, pulled out her phone to give skullduggery farm a quick google. Huh, that’s odd, she thought. No reviews. Just one link to a webpage with a couple pictures of the farm. She scrolled down to a caption underneath the last picture, a grainy black and white image of the corn maze, which read: “Enter at your own peril. Farmer Freddy is waiting.” She x-ed out of the tab and stuffed her phone back into her ripped Abercrombie and Fitch jeans (“There’s no rule saying moms can’t rock these, right?” was what she asked the cashier in the mall, to which he replied, “Not technically, no” in between coughs caused by the thick haze of aerosol droplets that left the store’s atmospheric composition dominated less so by nitrogen, and more so by axe body spray). Lisa suggested to her family that they go pick some pumpkins on the patch behind the barn, putting some distance between themselves and the maze.

Parker and the rest of the kids picked out some pumpkins that were wide enough to fit the carving design they had in mind- a photo-realistic recreation of the final scene in the treehouse from Hereditary- that was sure to make even the greediest little perps think twice about stealing the whole bucket of candy, when the sign clearly reads “take one”, from this house! While surveying their festive squashes, Lisa caught- out of the corner of her eye- a glimpse of a rotund man in overalls licking his lips and looking in her family’s direction. She grabbed her children and directed them out of the muddy grass patch, through the gap in the hay bales, and back towards the main barn. “Alright kids, we got what we came here for, and daddy wants to get home in time for the Giants-Cowboys kickoff at 4:05, so let’s make our way back to the car.” But the kids wouldn’t budge. You only really get one shot a year to explore a meandering corn maze, and by god were they going to capitalize on that opportunity. “Mom, but we haven’t even gone into the maze yet! That old man who was petting his dog all weird before left, so why can’t we go in? Oh mom, come on, come on, come onnnnn!” Against her better judgement and the stench of demonic foul-play that hung about the air like freshly laid manure (or, more likely, really was freshly laid manure) she caved to her children’s wishes. “Fine, we can go into the maze, but no, and I repeat, absolutely no running off in front of me. I want you by my side the entire time. Don’t make me bring out the kid leashes again. Remember how much you all loved those on our Vermont ski trip last year?” The kids begrudgingly agreed.

They approached the entrance of the maze and were instantly blasted with a whoosh of arctic air from between the stalks. Fucking terrific, thought Lisa. What could be more reassuring than that? As they took their first few steps into the maze, the crops seemed to almost triple in height. They now rose above them to the height of maple trees. The kids seemed not to notice. Lisa thought she heard a muffled scream from somewhere to her right. Still, they proceeded forward down the long initial straightaway. It was just straight, right? Lisa turned back and, what she could have sworn was the entrance to the maze was now just a soaring tangle of foliage. She tensed up and barked at her kids through clenched teeth to stay close together, as a tight-knit unit. They came to their first fork in the maze. They could either go left or right, with no visual cues as to discern which option would be more beneficial towards their goal of…what was their goal exactly? I mean, at first it was to just have some fun and hopefully not get lost for too long, but now it seemed to involve maintaining their physical and psychological well-being at the very least, if not full-fledged survival. Lisa came to the pained realization that-- left or right, it didn’t matter, whatever way they would escape the maze would surely be less straightforward than just binary direction picking.

They decided to go left, at the kids’ behest. Once established on their new route, Lisa glanced behind her. Shit. Not only had the other option and the gap from which they came from been swallowed up by corn stalks, but now there were corn stalks encroaching in on them, getting nearer, nearer, nearer, with every ticking second. The kids noticed now. “Mom, what’s happening? Is this part of the maze!?” they asked in a panic. Lisa tried her best to remain a model of composure, but she couldn’t help the apprehension present in her cracking voice when she responded, “It must be, surely”. She thought about all the signs that she knew, that she felt in her bones, were not good, just could not be good, but that she had ultimately chosen to ignore: the mysterious men, the suggestive name of skullduggery farm, the weird products inside the food barn. She had never been able to trust her gut. In fact, once back in middle school she filled out a multiple-choice test, circled her first choice answers, re-read the questions, and then changed every single one of her answers. She would have got a 96 on that test. Instead she got a 68. From time to time she still had nightmares involving parabolas and linear equations.

Her negative self-talk was becoming violent and oddly Australian at this point. You stupid cunt, I should have smacked some sense into you when I had the chance, she thought. There was only one direction to move in, and that was forwards, so they kept on going. Lisa thought she heard a child sobbing behind the crops. This cold stretch of hallway seemed to go on infinitely. It was all corn of equal height and uniform texture, so uniform as if appearing to be rendered by a computer program. They walked and they walked, and a mysteriously manicured bush took shape in front of them. As they approached the plant sculpture, they began to make out that it was in the form of a man. A man they had seen before, but only in pictures on paper labels. “Farmer Freddy!” Screamed Parker. Lisa was reminded of the caption beneath the picture of the maze online: Farmer Freddy is waiting. Before she could reach out to grab Parker’s collar to yank him back towards her, Parker reached out to shake Freddy’s green hand, which was extended out as if anticipating a firm handshake.

END PART 1

PART 2 COMING NEXT SUNDAY