Sewed Eyes

My head snaps back as he grabs onto my hair with one hand and squeezes my waist with the other. The wind covers our final moans like a blanket would cover a scared child. The skin of my hands press further and tighter against the peeled paint of the barn, forgetting the chance of a splinter and living in the moment of ecstasy. Xavier’s head rests against my exposed back once he finishes entirely, and I can feel his hot breath send relaxing shivers up my spine. The feeling is short though, because before we can relish in the exhaustion for too long he is putting his clothes back on. My hands pull away from the barn and I feel the cold beginning to travel through the hairs on my arms, sinking into the flesh that was hot and sweaty moments ago.

“Okay, hurry up, I would like to still make it to the party,” Xavier throws back on his jeans underneath his hospital patient gown.

"You can't be serious about this,” I whine. “Let's just go! It's too dark for this shit, and I'm cold!" I put down the flaps of the skirt and pull up my briefs.

"Don't be a bitch, it's just some corn and an old fairytale to scare kids who had a rebellious side!" Xavier responded simply as he rearranged the “bloody” gauze going up and down both arms.

"Then why are we here!" I yell at him, trying to stand my ground. He looks at me.

The zombie makeup on his face was still in perfect condition. Green skin and open bloody sores. His brown eyes, what I often referred to as simple chocolate, shown brightly beneath the moon. His brown and red streaked curly hair was parted down the middle, framing his face as it went down past his eyes. Despite him looking like a literal dead man, he was attractive. With that thought, the moment he smiled, I’d give in. Before he could say a single word, I knew I was going to give in.

"Shut up and take my hand, okay? I promise you'll be alright." He holds his hand out to me, I furrow my eyebrows, and glare.

“Fine,” his smile widens just a little bit, and my shoulders slouch. I take his hand.

I know that it’s foolish to be scared of stories. To think that a scarecrow could come to life and end yours. It is for kids. Childish. But there is something about this place. Something off. It is more than just a feeling in my gut, the entire land. The way the air attaches to my skin and folds away. It is like it’s absorbing a message to be delivered to a place we could not see. There isn’t a family for miles. Not anymore. The house is abandoned, breaking even. Twenty or so yards from the barn is where it stands, just barely that is. Peeling white paint, shattered windows, the gaping hole of the door leaving the house in a constant scream. The House of Wenton, the parents called it.

The kids call it The Haunted House of Wenton, but the adults find it too disturbing. The need to give into the imaginations of children was not high on their priority list. Of course they know the story, everybody knows the story. That doesn’t mean there has to be an aftermath to the situation. Those words come from my mother, the mayor of Wenton.

Fifty years ago, in the late 70’s, Mr. Horn was behind on bills but ahead in his drinking. He had gone to the local bar, granted it was torn down in the late 90s and is now merely an empty lot. Mr. Horn found a pretty lady. His wife wouldn’t approve, but the man wasn’t thinking properly. This pretty lady, however, was not one anybody had seen before. She was passing through town, on her way to some family event apparently; but her hotel plan had fallen through and Mr. Horn happened to be her savior. He just didn’t know that being the savior of a girl twice subtracted from his age could result in the death of himself, his wife, and his son.

The lady offered to drive, seeing as how he was not in the right to do so. He agreed and gave directions. He was entranced with her every move, her every breath. She was breathtaking to Mr. Horn. If he had the chance to breathe again, he wouldn’t take it. As long as she holds his breath, he would be at peace. She slaughtered Mr. Horn, his wife, and the son’s body was never found. Nobody knows why. Nobody knows how. The missing pieces of the story were never recovered. All we know is that the family didn’t have a scarecrow before that night. It has been standing on the same post ever since.

The families who moved in after didn’t stay very long. Like every haunted house, the voices drove them mad. No longer than two years would they stay. Come out screaming, some not come out at all. Our families called it coincidence. Of course that was all it had to be. Corn hasn’t been grown in the field in years. After many attempts of growing the crop and failing, the land was labeled unfit. The stalks grew without fail, but corn was never produced. Twenty five years after the last occupant, here I am in a skirt and my overly excited boyfriend in a zombie patient costume, ready to step into the dead land.

It was like when you smell milk to see if it's expired, walking into the cornfield. The smell is bad, but we are drinking all of it.

A bit of fallen stalk seems to grab onto my foot. I shake it off.

"If we die, I'm going to kill you." I mutter, mainly to myself, but I feel it flutter on the wind, diving in out of the stalks, once again, like a message for somebody else.

"I would only want to be killed by you, so I suppose it wouldn't be all bad."

"Shut up," is all I have to say in return.

“Aha! And we're here." Xavier shouts a little too loudly, but he was right.

Right above rested a package of bags, straw, a drawn on face that was so crusted it started to flake, old clothes, and out of date hat. It’s head sagged like a dead man.

"Are you ready to see if the tales are true?"

"No." I meant it. My stomach begins to tighten. Something was wrong here. We shouldn’t be here. We shouldn’t be here.

"Perfect, let's go."

No! I want to shout it this time. I want to force him to take the both of us to the party. I want to have fun, but I tell myself I am overreacting. I bury the pit in my stomach and pack it heavily with dirt.

"Do you remember the words?" Xavier looks back and asks me.

“Yeah, I remember the words.” It’s another mumble, but something tells me this one doesn’t fall to the ground like it should. It isn’t lost. Somebody hears it. Somebody else is here. Listening. They’re-

NO! Stop! This is a tale for kids! Grow up!

The moon shines high above as we get on either side of the exhausted looking scarecrow, clasp hands, and begin to chant.

"Sticks and straw, a wondrous caw, I call to the ground, to feel a pound, I call one to walk, to stalk, to dine, to end, those of ourselves." It felt like a nursery rhyme leaving my lips, playful and for laughs. Xavier squeezes my hands and nods to me to repeat the words. We repeat them. The words are fun. The words are childish. They will not do anything. That is what the wind was saying to me. Calling on me to continue. I listen. I do whatever the wind tells. A third time, we repeat the words. The last word trips in my throat, barely managing to get out. I go to repeat and pain ripples through my body like Mystique changing into somebody else in X-Men.

I can’t speak another word. I choke. I let go of Xavier’s hand and grasp onto my throat, my body falling to the ground against my will to stand. A ball was stuck in it. It had to be a ball. Someone had shoved a ball down my throat. Nothing was connecting. My thoughts become one. Fiery needles poke through the skin on my arms, and I move them into my field of vision. My skin had bulging sticks of bloody straw poking out of it and dancing in the wind. I try to scream. I can’t breathe. I can’t fly. I move my fingers to my arms and I tug at the bleeding straw.

With the sound a lot similar to taking a big suck on a lollipop, I tug the straw from my body and scream silence. Fire travels through my arm and the entirety of my body. I pull, and I pull, and I pull. I need to get up. I need to run. Xavier. I need Xavier. More needles travel across my thigh and stomach. More straw was wiggling its way out of my skin like stiff worms. I claw at my skin like a beast. Blood drips onto the ground through the holes, then blood floods. I turn my head to Xavier.

Instead of Xavier, I see a man and a woman. Inside of the house, walls painted a fresh yellow in the kitchen and a warm brown in the living room. The itch I had to tug at my body a moment ago was gone. The pain was gone. All I could do was watch the scene before me. A man and a woman are fighting with each other, screaming I could assume by their actions, but not a sound left their lips. The man slams his hand on the table that stands neatly in the middle of the room amongst the counters and cabinets. Drops of blood onto my face, flecks of copper digging itself into my lips, but there isn’t any blood on the table. Blood begins to drip from the walls, the tops of the ceilings becoming coated in red. It seemed I was in a soundproof box. I was telling them to run, to get away, but all it did was echo in my ears. I could see everything before me.

I blink and the room changes. I am now in a bedroom. Walls a dreamy blue, a twin bed in the far corner of the room, a window with black curtains behind it. There’s a desk in the room, like one that would be in a school. There is nothing else. A boy around my age was there, fixing up the bed for their guest. She leaned against the desk, head bent back and eyes closed. She was a goddess, and she knew it. He was trying not to show that he knew it too.

“So, where are ya from?” The boy fluffs one of the pillows.

“Here and there, there and here. It really just depends on the year.” A soft voice, like snow landing on the ground or the slight run of a little stream in the forest.

“How do you know my dad?” The boy questioned.

“I don’t. We just met. I don’t have anywhere to stay until tomorrow night, and he offered me your room for the night. I hope that’s okay?” Her voice obtained a layer of innocence to it, and the boy coughed as he walked towards the door.

“Yeah, of course, it’s fine. No worries.” As he rested his shoulder against the door frame, everything melted together once more and a comfortable quiet night filled the room, lights now off and a body sleeping soundly in the bed.

Quiet footsteps made their way to the door, and when it was pushed over the wife’s face appeared in the crack. Her eyes were wide and crazed, bloodshot and bleeding. The woman’s hair was pulled back into a ponytail he noticed as she propped the door open all the way. Blonde wisps of hair twitched along with every twitch of her head and the knife in her hand glinted in the moonlight. Her dress was blue in the darkness of the room, and there dark patches around the bottom, seams torn as if she had been crawling around on the ground. Pearly white teeth shone as she opened her mouth, let out a scream that resembled a fork being scratched against a metal plate, and ran towards the woman on the bed. Before I could scream, everything was gone again.

Like, a blink, I was in the doorway watching the son grab onto the door frame for his life. His eyes were popping from his head and trails of blood followed them as they rolled underneath a shelf in the entrance hall. The ground had itself wrapped around the boy's legs, the field was pulling him into it.

“You may not have been the culprit, but I already killed your mother. Your father was dead the moment he laid his eyes on me, but she took care of him herself. She really was a naughty woman, your mother, but again,” the woman manifested out of the darkness “you already know that from the long nights you spent together when your father was away. She just wanted some company, and you were happy to provide. Poor boy, you should keep your thoughts more private.” The woman crouched down to where the boy was holding and with a twist of her hands on his, he didn’t have hands. Bones popped, flesh tore, blood pooled and soaked into the boy’s brown jacket, and a sickening thud echoed as he screamed. “You are their punishment. Forever until never. You kill me. You walk away. Until then, you watch from a rested position. Here’s some ears.” A screwdriver forced itself up from the floorboard as she put a bag over his head and forced it into the side of the boy’s head.

The field pulls him across the yard and props him into his resting position.

Xavier’s mouth was gone, in its place was a bundle of straw. The field stopped our screams first. Our breath. Before me, I watch as patches of thread take over Xavier’s face, delicately traveling between his scratching hands and sewing his eyes and mouth together. I feel mine next, but I don’t resist. The pain isn’t as bad as the straw was. It is as if I am receiving multiple pricks of a thorn. I was an adventurous child. Thorns are nothing. Fire is something else entirely. Fiery needles as well. My one thought brain is fogging over, darkening like my vision. More skin tears, somewhere on my back. My head sags onto my chest, and I fall to the ground entirely, my own pool of blood being my final swim.

Before the thread sews my eyes together, I witness something fall to the ground. No, not fall. Land. It is like an angel, but one cursed. A brown jacket. A flannel? Worn in jeans. An old hat. Flecks of straw fall from his head of curly hair. The earth envelops me, and I fly knowing that the field was destined to show me forever.