The sharp edges of emerald leaves snag my skin, leaving a rash at my neck that flourishes in rosy bumps. It burns like the body of the little girl that I found in the middle of the field. Dirty finger nails clawing to relieve the sensation only, in the end, make it worse. The stalks are higher than my head now. Ready for their gold to be harvested soon.
I retreat from the field to the hill that overlooks our land. The old red barn sits in silence behind me. The image of her corpse fogs my mind. I look for her in the maze of corn, but I cannot see her under the canopy of green. The hay-made-man is the tallest of everything in the field. Watching over her body as she decomposes in between the rows.
She was my friend. We walked to school together every day since second grade. Dust covered tennis shoes scuffing along the gravel road. Pink bags bounced side by side on our backs. Her hair was waist long, pretty girls always have long hair. She wore it in braids and I did too. Until Dean Smith spit a piece of gum into my hair in the first grade and my father cut it to a bob. It’s been this short ever since.
Her braids still looked perfect, even matted by the dirt and blood.
Our crops won’t be able to be sold after this.
Fluids and puss leak from the holes in her body, slowly sinking into the dark, wet dirt. We have the best corn in the whole county because our soil is soft and fertile. I look at the Scarecrow, he smiles at me because we both know a secret.
Picking. Scratching. Picking. Clawing.
I can see her coming now, but I know that she is already gone. Her eyes look into mine, hollow. Lifeless. Not like they were before. She sits down beside me, she does not smell like her corpse out in the corn. Her braids shine in the sunlight, her cheeks are full and freckles bridge across her nose. She wrinkles it as she inhales the stench of her own murder.
What’s that smell?
It’s the girl in the field.
I’m tired of your games.
She died playing a game.
We were playing house by the barn when the Scarecrow jumped down from his post. I could tell he was different—not the straw man that my father had stuffed three years back. This Scarecrow had a breath. And limbs that moved on their own.
The leaves shook as he made his way up to us, slowly. Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, until he reached us at the top of the hill. His face wasn’t made of hay, I could see it through the holes in the burlap sack around his head. I had seen him before, I think—almost every day on our walk to school. Old, but not as old as dad.
He is dressed up early for Halloween, she whispered to me. We both giggled.
He flashed us a stitched smile and offered out his hands.
We followed him down back to the cornfield, weaving our way through the thick stalks. Careful not to rub against the rigid leaves. The summer heat weighing us down, sinking into the dirt. I looked up at the open sky, the only sight that freed me from the cage of green.
When the Scarecrow said that he just wanted to play house with my friend, it wasn’t fun anymore. Why didn’t he understand that we all play? It’s mean to tell someone to quit.
Let’s just go home, she said after the Scarecrow started talking funny like that.
He didn’t like that.
He reached deep into his pocket and pulled out a blade sharper than those of the leaves. I yelled for her to run, but fear struck, she froze. Opposite reactions deemed our fate. I ran not knowing which way was out, and I didn’t look back.
It’s just a game. It’s just a game.
Picking. Scratching. Picking. Clawing.
This morning I had to go back and check—to make sure that it wasn’t a nightmare. I couldn’t remember quitting our game, or my friend going home. I walked back out to that spot in the field and saw the hole he left in her chest. Her clothes were scattered or on backwards and her shoes on the wrong feet. She didn’t look like the girl I had known, but I knew deep down it was her.
Dad always said not to play in the fields and not to talk to strangers. But when the Scarecrow said hello, his voice was familiar as his smile. I didn’t think he was a stranger. If I can’t keep the secret, he will know it was me that broke the rules.
Picking. Scratching. Picking. Clawing.
Blisters pop. Fluid oozes over and in between my fingers. I lift my hand to my nose, it smells sour. There are blisters all over her body. Red and boiling with fury from the afternoon sun. She will be unrecognizable by the time the sun goes down. Or by the time my father’s combine sweeps the fields in a few short days.
Her body will be mangled by its teeth.
It doesn’t really have teeth, you know.
Doesn’t matter. It will destroy her either way.
There is no one out there!
Go look for yourself.
My friend looks twice as big as the greenery in the field when she stands up, her gaze set upon the straw-like man in the midst of a Mid-west sea. Her size reduces every step closer she gets until she is swallowed by the leaves. She is not strong like me—not yet. She won’t be able to stomach what she finds. The insects will buzz loud in her ears and she will know that she is getting close. The sound and the stench will swarm all around her and stop her dead in her tracks. She will look to the Scarecrow. He will smile down at her a familiar smile.
Her body must be raw by now. I remember her face, soft and innocent, with lilac tinted skin under a blanket of morning dew. Before the sun came up, you would have thought that she was sleeping with opened eyes or still gazing at the stars—dreaming from dusk until dawn about things little girls dream of. The man in the middle of the field could keep the crows away from her, but not the bugs. Her body shed away the morning chill and invited the larvae to come out and play. Maggots made home and dug tunnels in and out of her cheeks but no crows dare come near.
Picking. Scratching. Picking. Clawing.
If the scavenging critters save her body from the torture of the combine, she will yellow like the ocean of husks in the fall. Hair brittle and breaking away with the leaves. The flies will all die and there will be nothing left to consume her—or nothing left of her to consume. She will turn blue under the blanket of frost that creeps in early November.
But she will not get peace.
Picking. Scratching. Picking. Clawing.
She is lost out there not like a buried treasure, but like the perfect title of a small-town newspaper waiting to be headlined. No mud-crusted wooden chest that reveals priceless heirlooms when the lock is cracked, but a near-full set of soil-stained little bones—photographed a countless number of times until the shutter of the camera shatters them to pieces. Hundreds of rolls of yellow crime scene tape will be spent marking off our fields. My father will be upset at the set back of his harvesting schedule. Crops will be lost as the investigators caravan into the abyss of the cornfield. Aim toward the Scarecrow, I will tell them. You will find her there.
Some of them will not be able to handle it. They will cover their nostrils and mouth and flinch away at the sight of her sun-scorched remains. Some will think of their own children and become ill wondering who could ever do this to a child? They’ve trained for events such as this, but never thought they would use it. Her odor will smell sweet. Like when you walk into the hog-shed during the hottest point of the summer. Urine and feces baking under the floor slots. Breathe in through the nose and the rank smell will sting your airway.
Squeals come from the piglets in the barn, they sound just like she did. Why didn’t he chop her up and feed her to the pigs? Pigs eat everything, no one ever would have found her then.
Picking. Scratching. Picking. Clawing.
I tug at the husk of an ear I pulled this morning before I found her. Leaves getting lighter after each layer I peel away until only pale silk strands remain. I brush them away like the hair of the girl when I knelt down beside her this morning. This is what keeps the corn from getting burnt. I wonder if we pulled her out now, would we be able to peel her skin until it’s soft again?
Rustling comes from the field in front of me. An emerald leaf catches her neck. She doesn’t flinch. Just like I didn’t flinch. With every step back, her size overcomes the corn once again. A rash is forming at her neck when she sits back down by me.
Picking. Scratching. Picking. Clawing.
She looks like me.
She is you.
Why didn’t you help me?
I told you to run.
The smell of urine invades my nostrils. Her light blue leggings are damp at the private area. She cries.
I’m sorry!
Why did it have to be me?
It could have been me.
He will come for you too, you know.
My name in the headlines. My father’s combine mutilating the body of his own daughter. Maggots crawling in and out of my soft tissue. The sun pulling blisters out of my skin. My odor that they smell from the city limits line. My screams that screech like the pigs. Or my flesh that ends up in their bellies. When he comes again he won’t make the mistake of leaving me in the field like he did with her.
The scarecrow comes down from his pole and makes his way through the rows to us. He emerges from the leaves, one snags at the dusty canvas sack around his head, blood soaks into the fabric. Matte black buttons stitched into place meet both of our eyes. He smiles at us. We smile back. Because we all know the secret now.
I know that it is her he has come for—not me, not yet. He reaches out a rusty glove, hay and straw poking out at the seams. She looks at me, like I am supposed to tell her what to do. I sit there, empty, she knows that she is long gone. The glove crunches as she takes his hand. She says nothing. I say nothing. And again, their size diminishes as they make their way back to the field. I sit and watch like I have been since I found her this morning.
In a few minutes, I will not know where they went. The scarecrow will not climb back up onto his pole, he will return to his role in our town. The unusual suspect. If I choose to break the silence of our secret, he will still find a way to get me. Obsession never dies.
The crows are free to peck at her body. Their cries are already echoing in the hot, heavy air. A victory caw, because they think that they have won. They peel away the burnt skin like I imagined, making it pink again.
Picking. Scratching. Picking. Clawing.
The rash has crept from my neck to my chest. Blood caked under my index finger tells me that I should stop scratching. But I will sit and scratch and pick and claw until there is a hole in me too. My father will come out to the barn and find me scratching myself in silence. He will pause, because he will see that the Scarecrow is not in his place and the crows are circling above the center of the lush field.
What’s that smell?
It’s the girl in the field.
Don’t play games.
She died playing a game.
Picking. Scratching. Picking. Clawing.
I can hear the sirens coming now.
Off of the Deep End 