It was dark and its was cold, but it was always like that on nights like these. When the freshly leave covered ground was cover by fog and you can only see so far in front of you.
Every breath I took was like a puff of a cigarette as I struggled to catch my breath in the crisp fall night. It was Halloween I had just been trying to find a place to hide from the town, from everyone. When I saw that they had set up a corn maze for the annual carnival.
When I was younger before my mom was killed in a bank robbery and before my father started to abuse me, we use to go to the carnival . I remember the taste of fried ores and sweets and children dressed up running around looking for candy.
But now my heart was as cold and my soul darkened. I hated the holiday because it only reminded me of what I had lost. There were no more happy times, only the bleak dark depression that seemed to swallow me whole. That had left me wanting to claw out my frozen heart and smash it to pieces.
I looked around seeing if anyone had seen me before wandering in. My father was the sheriff of the town so if anyone saw his freak of a son walking around I new I would be dragged back to the darkness that I had just escaped for the day.
I ran straight into the first entrance I saw. The maze in this county was said to be the best in Minnesota, because it stretched on for acres. It made you feel as if you were the adults from the fist children of the corn move. Stuck in a never ending field not being able to tell your left from your right. There were no clear passage ways and after awhile you became dazed and confused as if the maze had taken on a life of its own.
All of the towns people new this of course and there were special rituals that were usually performed before anyone ran in. An adult was always needed and people tended to wear neon arm bands and carry a flare if anything went wrong. But at this point I didn't care I just wanted to disappear for a while, and I grew up in this town I new all the routes that would lead me to a safe place to hide.
You see the way that the maze worked was that the corn field was only the outer shell in the maze once you got inside anything you saw was fair game to travel through, abandoned farms, old houses, and even cemeteries that hadn't been used in years and left to sit with no to care for the dead. And once every year it was opened for everyone to come in. It was the freakiest shit ever, but it was a small town so this was our idea of fun.
I walked in and immediately started my path only relying on pure instinct to guide me to where I wanted to go. Long ago right after my mothers funeral I had heard of a whisper in the town, that there was an abandoned farm in the center of the corn field, that used to belong to a genetic scientists who liked to experiment on the towns food in the 1960's. But was run out of town when almost all the towns children had fallen dead from the food. They later found out that the food include the DNA of unknown substances that to this day people didn't know what was in it.
Everyone had thought of the story to just be a myth because the only living person that could actually verify the story was in a care home and in a coma. So on that day I had ran into the field, it was pouring ran and it was difficult navigating through mud covered ground. I was only 8 when I first laid eyes on the farm bursting through the first opening that I saw I had landed on the front porch of this old Victorian house. It looked like the thing of nightmares. Old, broken down and decaying it looked as if a strong gust of wind could come and rip the whole thing from its foundation.
Then lighting struck and it became my safe haven. Every week since then I went to the house and I hid myself away from everything that could hurt me. I had never explored past the foyer of the house, to afraid of what I might find lurking in the shadows, but behind the house there was an old pumpkin patch filled with dead leaves and the largest pumpkins ever. But after hearing the stories around town I left that part of the land alone.
Now I was eighteen and I was making the trip up to the house again. After about an hour I had made my way onto the familiar route. Till I walked up to a farm of willow trees that acted as a gate shielding the front of the house with its drooping leaves. When I was younger it used to take away my breath in fear but now I could only breath a sigh of relief as I had finally made it to my personal paradise.
As I walked into the house I pulled out a duffle bag that I had hidden in between the floor boards, and began to wipe the blood from my face with the wipes and anti biotic cream that I had placed in there after about the 7 th time my father beat me to a bloody pulp. After I had finished bandaging all my cuts and bruises. I pulled out my favorite book and an old blanket that I had bought and started to settle in for the night thankful that I had thought to stock up on enough food to last me the week.
As I started to get lost in the literary genius of Oscar wild, the day began to catch up with me and as my eyes began to drop I thought I saw something move in the corner of the darkness, but before I could go check a heavy sleep fell upon me and I drifted off into my dreams.
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The first thing that I had noticed when I woke up, was that it was extremely cold. I mean colder then usual for Minnesota in the fall. I sat up and let the sheet fall down to my waist and began to take inventory of my things when I noticed that my shoes had gone missing. I was immediately alarmed because I knew for a fact that if I came home without them my father would actually break my legs like all those times that he had promised. I jumped up from the ground and began to look around in the small little places I had taken as my own and started to panic as I couldn't find them.
I walked outside when I thought I heard a whisper from the back of the house I started to walk the path that lead to the pumpkin patch. By this time night had fallen and all the light and flares from the carnival lit up the starry night sky. Eventually I ended up in front of the gate that lead to the pumpkin patch but I couldn't for the life of me remember how I had gotten there.
But for some reason I couldn't stop moving. A sharp shiver went down my spine as I walked over rotten pumpkins and felt the wet mud on my bare feet. That's when I saw my boots sticking out of the center of the patch in the mud. Without thinking I ran to them and immediately started to pull them out. Only something was pulling back as well, and it was much stronger then I was.
Fear gripped me tight as I tried to release the boots but quickly found out my hands we're stuck to them. I began to scream for help as my hands began to sink under the rich dark soil like quick sand. When I realized there was no one around for miles to hear me. Then I saw him, dressed in black from the top of his hair to the bottom of his feet, covered in combat boots laced up to his knee and as I looked up to him getting ready to beg for help. I saw the giant scythe in his hands his faced was hidden to me behind his robes. And I immediately knew what he was.
Then he spoke to before I could scream and said onto me in a deep smokey voice." Fear not Zaharias for where your going you'll finally be free."
And the next thing I knew I was swallowed up whole right through the mud. Then it all went dark
