By Deb Thomas
(October 19, 2022) — I had never driven through a cornfield before. The day was long; I started out at one in the morning, giving myself plenty of time to travel from my house in eastern Connecticut through Pennsylvania to see my boyfriend, and now I was nearly there. Making a zig-zag approach, with stops for gas and a phone check-in each time on my way to the southwestern corner of Ohio, it was nearly nine in the evening. Finally, I had about twenty miles to go.
Overcast skies followed me all day, but that night, a late autumn full moon was to rise later on. All the cornfields were bare stubble for miles; they’d been harvested on both sides of the highway. The blanket of night surrounded me with tinny jazz music on my car radio, and the sweet anticipation of going to a big party at midnight on campus at his college music hall—because it was Halloween.
Dressed in a black tuxedo from a thrift shop, my lady-vampire costume was complete, and I could easily put on the rest of the make-up and fangs just before I got there. I loved the thought of ringing his apartment doorbell, asking, “Trick or Treat?!” It was almost too good to be true. We’d had on and off—interesting, exasperating, exciting, and adventure-filled affair since seventh grade, and now we were together again, even if separated by more than eight hundred miles, which I’d just driven. Between letters, college, and other failed relationships, we landed in limbo at the same time.
And, I was almost there. Getting ready to take the turn south, out of nowhere, lights came at me—blinding me, hurting my eyes. The car, or whatever it was, appeared as if by magic, in my lane. With the guardrail on my side, my only escape was to cross into the median. But the lights chased me out into the opposite lane somehow, and I found myself crossing that lane as well. Time stood still; I anticipated a crash. Instead, somehow, I’d sailed down the embankment and now was in one of the cornfields I’d seen mile after mile. Only this one wasn’t harvested yet. I was plowing through the tall, dry stalks, taller than the Pinto, as tall as an elephant’s eye, taller than anything I’d ever seen in any cornfield, and as I regained control, my only thought was to shut my car off before I had popcorn exploding out the engine.
Then quiet; all around me: calm, quiet, and the eerie company of ten foot high corn stalks.
I sat there, in a kind of uncomfortable shock, for several minutes, sitting in the dark, in the corn. Ultimately, I decided to follow my path back out. But everything was scrambled; there wasn’t any definitive path.
Turning on the car again, I made a slow circle to survey where I was, and began following what looked like the broken stalks I’d mowed down. Only, this corn was flattened already. The entire idea that I’d driven down into the field was ridiculous, but seeing a carpet of dry corn in front of me, under my wheels—was worse.
I stopped, my headlights fixed ahead on what looked like a large, multi-row corn chopper with a round and odd-looking cab, lit with strobe lights. Next to it, a tall truck with extended leveling legs. Odd, but it was harvest time at last for this field. I hurried to get out and go around to the hatchback, to retrieve the wide angle flashlight borrowed from Dad. Stepping on the back of my car, I aimed the beam across the crushed stalks in all directions.
What I was looking at wasn’t my path, but a crop circle. Multiple crop circles—with burned centers in every direction. I had to get out of there and fast.
Flooring the car, I willed it to race through the corn—to fly. At the exact moment I was at the end of the cornfield, I braced myself and bolted up the slight embankment, when the blinding lights of the corn chopper came to life. Incredibly, I bounced up on the road I’d meant to take.
Now, the rear-view mirror revealed the moon, and then, the entire scene illuminated behind me, revealing more than I ever needed to know. That was no corn-chopper.
As I accelerated toward my boyfriend and safety, from behind—those lights accompanied me about half a mile, then rose slowly off the pavement, rushed ahead of my tiny car, going high, higher—until they disappeared into the blackness above.
*****Don’t forget: Stay away from dry, unharvested cornfields in October!*****
Happy Halloween!
Photo credit: Free Access/Internet-Obtained
