“Brad, what you saw in a crystal ball was just a fortune-teller’s trick,” Jeremy said evenly, hoping to calm his friend down before they met up with Rowenna. All he needed was for every formerly rational person around him to begin supporting each other on a quest for a bogeyman. “Brad, the guy was playing you. And I’m not saying he’s a good guy,” he hurried on when Brad started to object, “but you can’t get this upset about seeing a cornfield.”
“Look over there,” Brad said, pointing.
It was strange, Jeremy had to admit, following Brad’s indication.
He’d never seen so many crows circling all together.
He faced forward again, and down the road he could see a car. He didn’t know what Rowenna drove, but he had to assume that was her silver SUV on the shoulder.
He pressed harder on the gas pedal. He could just make out Rowenna and…
And the crows. One of them, and then another, flying around her, swooping low over her head and…
What the hell was going on?
Crows didn’t attack like that!
But these crows were attacking her, diving straight at her.
She should have gotten in the car, dammit, but for whatever reason, she hadn’t.
And they were circling her too closely now, getting between her and the car, so she couldn’t get the door open. It was as if they were driving her, trying to force her off the road and into the field.
And then, when he had nearly reached her, she turned, ducking her head to protect her face, arms flailing in panic, and ran into the cornfield.
This was insanity. She knew it, but she couldn’t stop. As soon as she moved, running from the crows, she knew that she had made a mistake. Wasn’t instinct supposed to help you survive, not send you racing away from the safety of your car and into the unknown?
Mentally reviling herself for being an idiot wasn’t going to help, she thought as she dashed wildly through the rows, the rustling stalks closing in around her as if reaching for her, then dived down low, her arms over her head in an effort to protect herself.
But even as she lay on the ground, tasting dirt, she realized that the crows were gone.
Slowly, she raised her head just high enough to see the ground near her.
She was afraid. She knew the crows…were still there.
Somewhere.
But their shrieking was gone, along with the beating of their wings, which had sounded as loud as thunder when they’d been attacking her. The whole world was silent now. Then seconds passed, and she could hear the natural sounds of the day again, the light whisper of the breeze, the cornstalks rustling as they smoothly bent and swayed.
She slowly moved, easing up onto her knees.
She commanded herself to look up, but she couldn’t bring herself to obey.
Then she heard the crows again, but they were distant now, and they sounded normal, as they circled far overhead. Their cawing was the random, undirected sound she had heard dozens of times before, not that terrifying screeching they’d made as they swooped and dived at her.
She shifted and turned to look up. She could see them behind her now, far away, their black wings shimmering in the rays of sunlight filtering through the clouds.
She realized then that she was just a few feet away from the scarecrow the crows had been circling, but something in her refused to look at it. She told herself not to be ridiculous, not to be a coward, to simply look up and dispel the irrational fear coursing through her veins.
But she couldn’t do it.
All she could do was remember Eric Rolfe’s horrible creations, the scarecrow monsters he had created for the annual scarecrow competition back when she was young, before he had fulfilled his dream and moved on to Hollywood to create real monsters for the movies.
But Eric Rolfe’s artistic endeavors weren’t what was scaring her now.
The dream she had endured—time and again—was what held her in the deadly grip of fear.
She couldn’t look. Not when she was so afraid the horror was going to be right there in reality.
It was just a scarecrow in a field, she told herself. Not a monster, not a rotting corpse nailed to crossed boards, just a scarecrow.
She inhaled, exhaled. Told herself she was being irrational again.
Then told herself she wasn’t, because the crows’ attack had been anything but rational and normal.
In the end, it didn’t matter what she told herself, whether she believed she was being rational or not. She simply couldn’t force herself to look up. Instead she stared at the earth and found a prayer forming on her lips.
No, no, no. Please, God, don’t let it be real. Please don’t let it be real….
Fear and dread began to creep through her, like cold rivers flowing in her blood. She tried to still the frantic beating of her heart by telling herself that Eric Rolfe and all his cohorts were grown up now. The competition had fallen by the wayside, and there were no longer any kids trying to terrify their friends by creating straw-stuffed monsters looming above the corn.
Whatever was in the field with her now was just a scarecrow, nothing more.
Just a scarecrow.
She had to look up.
She’d seen a car just before she’d run into the field. Jeremy was coming. She had to get up and go meet him or else he was going to think she’d truly lost her mind, but she was paralyzed. In her mind, she could already see the scarecrow.
She would look up, and it would lift its head.
Its empty eye sockets would stare at her malevolently. Its head would be a skull, with rotting, blackened flesh hanging in strips from its bony cheeks, and while she watched, one of the crows would land on it and peck at what had once been living flesh.
What was left of the mouth would be opened in a final, silent scream. Some silly coat would be thrown over a bloated body, bones breaking through long tears in the fabric.
And then she would hear laughter, because the demon, who had left the body in the cornfield for her to discover, would somehow see her, and he would laugh at her terror. And then the corpse would begin to weep, and its tears would be blood, as its putrid fingers of bone and maggoty flesh would twitch and reach out for her….
“Rowenna!”
Jeremy, she thought in sudden relief.
She inhaled raggedly and almost laughed aloud at her own foolishness.
She lifted her head then.
And saw the scarecrow.
The mouth was open in a silent rictus of terror. The eyes were sunken pits that seemed to stare at the world in anguish. Jagged bones stuck out from flesh pecked bloody by the crows and through rents in the old coat that had been thrown over the body before it had been staked out in the field. Black hair, beneath a ridiculous straw hat, moved in the breeze, except where it had been matted to what remained of the face by dried blood.
She stared at the vision in such stunned horror that her own mouth opened and nothing came out. Her blood congealed, and she feared she would be sick.
“Rowenna!”
Jeremy’s voice again.
And then another voice cried out, but not her name this time, just an endless sobbing cry of “Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God!”
She managed to turn in time to see Brad Johnstone fall to his knees, screaming at the sight of the savaged corpse.
7
Jeremy was paralyzed.
Rowenna was staring up at the dead woman, white as a sheet, a silent scream branded on her features.
And there was Brad, collapsed on the ground, screaming.
Not to mention the horror of the corpse staked out in the field like a scarecrow.
He pulled out his phone, hit 911 and asked not just for emergency vehicles, but that Joe Brentwood be informed about the situation. He strode forward, caught hold of Rowenna’s shoulders and spun her to look at him.
“You all right?” he asked huskily.
“I will be,” she said, and offered him a pale smile, so he turned and raced over to
Brad.
He knelt down and took his old partner by the shoulders.
“Brad. Brad, listen to me.”
“She wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me. Oh, God, how she must have suffered,” Brad said, tears streaming down his face.
“It isn’t Mary,” Jeremy said.
“What?” Brad whispered.
“It isn’t Mary,” Jeremy repeated.
Standing now beside the two, Rowenna breathed a sigh of relief. Until just now, he realized, she hadn’t known Brad Johnstone, and she had never met Mary. But they were friends of his, and judging from the sympathetic look in her eyes when she turned to him, that mattered to her. She was clearly as horrified as he was by what they had seen, but he couldn’t help feeling grateful that at least the horror wasn’t compounded by the victim being someone he knew, and apparently she felt the same.
Brad wasn’t looking at the corpse. He was staring at the ground, clearly afraid to look back at the mockery of a scarecrow.
“Not Mary,” he said firmly, as if speaking to himself. “How do you know?”
“The hair, Brad,” Jeremy said, looking down at his friend. He’d seen enough of that corpse himself, and he knew he would have to look at it again—even more closely—before this was over. For the moment, he was just trying to breathe, hoping the image of the dead woman wouldn’t become permanently imprinted on his mind. “This woman had black hair. This isn’t Mary.”
Brad turned his eyes toward the corpse for a fleeting moment, his whole body convulsing in a shudder. “It’s—it’s not a wig?”
“No.” Jeremy inhaled deeply to steady himself. “And she’s too short…Brad, I swear to you, it isn’t Mary.”
At least the woman was beyond suffering now, Jeremy thought. He didn’t know when she had died—a medical examiner would have to deal with that question—but he could only pray that she had been strangled, as seemed likely from the dark mottling of the flesh around her neck, before suffering the slash across her open mouth that was like a surprised and bloody grimace.
He heard the sound of sirens and something in him unwound at the thought that he was no longer going to be left to deal with the horror alone. There was something surreal about standing there in the cornfield, feeling the warmth of the sunshine struggling through the clouds and the soft breeze that was still enough to force the cornstalks to bend slightly, their rustling like the whispering of some ancient tongue.
“Excuse me,” Brad muttered suddenly. Then, leaning on Rowenna for support, he made it to his feet and about ten yards away before he was ill.
It was a horrible thing to see his friend so broken, Jeremy thought.
Rowenna had regained control of herself, he noticed, though she was very carefully avoiding looking at the scarecrow. She was standing next to Brad, gently touching his shoulder, just enough for him to know she was there in case he needed her.
A moment later, three cars arrived, driving right into the edge of field before they jerked to a halt. The emergency operator had obviously gotten through to Joe, because he was the first to get out of a car; Jeremy could just see him through the green stalks. A uniformed officer was right behind him as he strode through the cornstalks, shoving them out of the way until he was standing in front of the staked body and staring up at it, horror and disbelief written across his face.
“Get the scene cordoned off—now,” Joe said, and the officer, white-faced, hurried to carry out the order, calling out to the others as they exited their cars. Seconds later, while Joe was still staring tight-lipped at the body, a fourth car arrived. The man who got out was obviously the medical examiner, judging by the equipment he carried. A crime-scene unit made its appearance in his wake.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” the M.E. exclaimed, crossing himself as he stared up at the body.
Joe shook his head, turning away at last. “No fuckups,” he said curtly. “No mistakes, no evidence missed or lost or compromised, do you understand?”
No one answered him, but it was clear from their expressions that his message had gotten through loud and clear. One of the crime-scene officers began to snap pictures. Someone else stumbled away and, like Brad, was sick.
Joe made his way over to Jeremy just as Rowenna returned. Brad was sitting on the ground farther down the row, pale and shaken. Joe gave Brad a cursory look, then arched a brow to Jeremy in question.
“It isn’t Mary,” Jeremy said quietly.
“How the hell did you find her?” Joe asked.
Rowenna took a deep, steadying breath and answered. “I found her. My car ran out of gas, like I told you.” Her tone was flat and dull. She shook her head, as if she were still trying to comprehend the chain of events herself. “I…I was attacked by crows.”
Joe frowned fiercely. “What were you doing out of the car?” Before she could respond, he went on. “And what do you mean, crows attacked you?”
“I swear to you, the crows attacked me,” Rowenna said. “It was like they were…I don’t know, like they were driving me out here.”
“So you ran into the field?” Joe asked sternly.
Rowenna lifted her hands in confusion. “I just…I tried to get away from them, that’s all.”
“So then you found…her,” Joe said very quietly.
Rowenna nodded and shoved her hands into the pockets of the light jacket she was wearing. She was still frighteningly pale, Jeremy thought. And she still wouldn’t look at the corpse, not that he could blame her for that.
The clouds shifted as the wind picked up, and for a moment the sun shone brightly and the day felt almost hot.
The smell of death, which had been strangely missing before, was suddenly pungent.
Another cop ran off and, seconds later, could be heard retching. Joe let out a sigh and turned to the medical examiner. “Harold? Any preliminary thoughts?”
“Looks like strangulation,” the M.E. replied. He was a man who looked just right for his job. Medium height, medium build, steady blue eyes and neatly combed silver hair.
He was as white as the rest of them.
“I could have told you that,” Joe said.
So could I, Jeremy thought, but there was no point in alienating anyone by saying so.
“Fine, then you can have my job,” Harold replied angrily. “I can’t tell you much more until you get her down…and I’ve had a chance to do an autopsy.”
“I want this whole damn field searched,” Joe said. “Step-by-step. Jenkins, get on the radio. I want every farmer in the county out checking on his scarecrows.” He frowned slightly. “Who owns this parcel?” he asked.
“The MacElroys,” Rowenna said quietly. “I think the property is actually Ginny’s.”
“Nick MacElroy’s old auntie owns these fields?” Joe said, surprised.
“I think the income from the fields is hers, yes. She owns the land. Nick owns the house and some fields to the north of his house,” Rowenna explained.
“Well,” Joe said quietly, as if he wasn’t really speaking to anyone but himself, “I would say that lets out the owner being the killer.” He glanced over at Jeremy and Rowenna, and then his gaze shifted to take in Brad, who was rejoining them, though he still looked shaky. “Go on in to the station. I’m going to need statements from each of you. Go now, and start writing the minute you get there. I want every detail just as you remember it.”
As if anyone could ever forget the way the corpse looked, staked above the corn and dressed up like a scarecrow, Jeremy thought.
As Rowenna started for the road, Jeremy gently caught her arm. “Are you all right?” he asked. He flushed slightly as she stared at him, a silent question in her eyes. Could any of them actually be all right after what they had just seen?
She nodded mechanically and glanced toward Brad. “A lot better than he is.”
Jeremy nodded. He toyed with the idea that maybe he should stay behind to help and let her drive his car back to town, but he’d seen the corpse, and he’d seen the field, so Joe
was going to need his statement in the end anyway. Besides, Joe was obviously good at his job; if there was something to be found in the field, Joe would see that it was discovered. And he would no doubt resent it if Jeremy tried to hang around. He would get more information if he went about it carefully, he realized, than if he forced himself in where he was neither needed nor wanted. Besides, he hoped to attend the autopsy, which meant he needed to be on Joe’s good side.
“Get out of here,” Joe said now. He didn’t bark the words like a command, and he didn’t sound irritated, but his meaning was clear: they needed to do themselves the favor of being somewhere else.
Together, they walked through the crushed stalks, disturbed by the passage of so many people, to the road. Crime-scene tape was already stretched in a huge ring around the area that surrounded the corpse, and they had to duck under it when they reached the shoulder.
When she stepped onto the pavement, Rowenna suddenly let out a dry laugh.
Jeremy stared at her questioningly. Had she finally lost it? After what she’d just been through, it would certainly be understandable if she had.
“What?” he asked.
“I’m out of gas,” she said, still laughing, clearly on the edge of hysteria.
He’d forgotten that little detail, too, he realized. “Give me your car key,” Jeremy said. “I’ll ask Joe to have one of his men drop it at your place once it’s gassed up.”
She nodded. Brad, still looking pale and barely there, got into the backseat of Jeremy’s rental without a word. Rowenna took the passenger seat. Jeremy was back two minutes later and made sure she was belted in before he revved the engine and pulled a U-turn, facing the car back to town.
“Look,” she said, pointing down the road.
The AAA truck was there to help her at last. She shook her head. “I’m sure Joe or one of the cops will explain,” she said.
Jeremy just nodded and kept driving.
He thought that he could drive all day and all night, but it wouldn’t matter. There was no driving away from what they had just seen.
News of the ghastly discovery seemed to travel faster than the breeze. By that evening, it was all that anyone was talking about locally, and it even made the national news.