Valley of the Scarecrow (22 page)

They barely even slowed the scarecrow down.

His body just seemed to absorb the bullets and kept moving forward. Malcolm could have tried to run, but decided not to bother. His entire life he’d been running from this evil place, always so scared of coming back
here but now that he was, he wasn’t nearly as afraid as he’d always assumed he’d be. What could Reverend Miller do to him other than take his life? Dying wasn’t so bad. He had made his peace and was more than ready to hopefully join his father in a better place. Besides, he was too old and too damn tired to run anymore.

When the scarecrow walked within striking distance he raised the sharp scythe high in the air, pretending he was about to end the old man’s life, but he had other plans and only wanted to see his bitter enemy’s son cower in front of him. It didn’t happen. Malcolm stood his ground, ready to die with dignity and without fear. Joshua tossed aside the weapon and instead punched Malcolm square in the jaw, knocking the elderly man unconscious. The scarecrow caught his body as he slumped toward the ground, hefting him easily into the air and carrying him toward the open front door of the church.

“It’s not going to be that easy, hell spawn,” Reverend Miller said, laughing again as they disappeared inside. “No…not for you, Tucker. I’ve got something
extra
special in store for you.”

“We can’t just leave him like that,” Kelly said. “We have to go back and help.”

They’d been running for fifteen minutes through the muddy cornfield and had just exited the crops and made their way up the embankment leading to the forest trail when Kelly pulled to a stop. She badly needed a rest, sure, but mostly she was just worried about her grandfather.

“Come on,” Dan said, easing her into a walk. “We have to keep moving. It’s too late for going back anyway. Malcolm’s either already on his way to meet up with us at the quads or he’s…not.”

“You think he’s dead?”

“I’ve got no idea. All I know is we’re not and your grandfather would want you to keep it that way, right?”

Kelly only nodded, tears streaming down her already wet and dirty cheeks.

“Let’s move then. I know this is hard for you, but you’ve gotta try and toughen up. We’re not even close to being out of trouble yet.”

At least the woods were easier to travel in. Even though the rain had stopped, the fields had been slippery with mud and every time they’d bumped against one of the massive cornstalks, a cascade of water would rain down upon them, soaking their clothes and chilling them to the bone. At least inside the forest, the trail was still
relatively hard and dry, the branches and leaves above having kept the worst of the storm at bay. Their biggest problem here was seeing where they were going. Without the flashlight Dan had left back in the church, it was really hard to see the outline of the path in the dark, and several times they nearly walked straight into the trunks of unseen oak trees. Luckily, their eyes soon adjusted to the gloom a little and there were patches here and there where the moonlight was filtering in through gaps in the trees.

Kelly soldiered on beside her boyfriend as best she could. It was so damn hard leaving her grandfather to face that demon alone but she hadn’t been given any other choice. It was driving her crazy not knowing what had happened back at the church or whether Malcolm was alive or dead. Dan was right though; it was too late to do anything about that now. All she could do was hope for the best and concentrate on finding these 4×4 ATVs that were supposedly out here. She willed herself to stop crying. There’d be time enough for tears later.

If she was lucky.

They found the quads parked right where Malcolm said they’d be, sitting in the small circular clearing near the large carved rock. They were identical blue Yamaha Raptors, which meant nothing to Kelly other than they looked like big powerful machines that could get them out of here and back to their car fast. What they were doing here was a mystery to her, but obviously at least two other people had been in these woods in the last few days since they’d found Miller’s Grove. There was an open backpack lying on the ground near her feet, and off to her left some sort of strange-looking piece of equipment made from a set of metal tanks, a plastic tube, and
a thick leather harness to presumably wear the contraption on your back. Who all of this stuff belonged to or where they might be right now was unknown and, in the grand scheme of things, unimportant. They were stealing the quads either way.

“Fuck,” Dan said, examining one of the quads.

“What’s the matter?” Kelly asked.

“No keys. How about in yours?”

Kelly didn’t even know where to look but as soon as she stepped over to the other ATV she saw that they were in luck. A pair of shiny gold keys were hanging under the handlebars just above the top of the gas tank. “Yes! They’re still in the ignition.”

“Great,” Dan said, hurrying over beside her. “We only need one. Climb on back and let’s hope it has enough gas to get us far away from this bloody place.”

“What about Malcolm? We’re supposed to wait for him, remember?”

“He’s on his own. We have to get out of here.”

“You think he’s dead, don’t you?”

Dan considered another sugarcoated answer, but he knew they were running out of time. Reverend Miller would be all over them any minute. “Yes, I do. Sorry that’s not what you want to hear, but it’s probably the truth. It’s been a long time since we heard those gunshots, Kelly. He’d have been here by now if he was coming. You know that.”

Kelly just stared at her boyfriend, not knowing what to say or do. Deep down she knew what he said was true, but she still couldn’t accept it.

“Get on,” he tried again. “Malcolm said to drag you out of here if I had to, and I will, dammit. We’re running out of time!”

Dan had no idea how prophetic his words were. Seconds
later they heard noises deeper into the forest and turned in time to see Joshua Miller running toward them, his long arms flapping as he ran like a huge carnivorous bird of prey along the path they intended to take home, effectively cutting them off from leaving the Grove. Somehow he’d circled around them, not willing to let them go. With the one working quad facing back toward the church, there was no time to try turning it around and somehow getting by the reverend. They’d have to head back into the cornfield and try to lose him in there.

“Get your ass on here!” Dan screamed, cranking over the Yamaha’s engine, and dropping it into gear the second he felt Kelly’s weight touch the seat. “Hold on tight!” he yelled over his shoulder, gunning the throttle without waiting for a response.

The powerful machine leaped into action, nearly jumping out from underneath them when Dan cranked the throttle. He held on tight though, and soon they were fishtailing out of the circular clearing and tearing off down the trail they’d just come from. This particular model machine didn’t come equipped with headlights so Dan was driving semiblind but thankfully he could see just well enough to get by. Kelly held on for dear life, and once she realized she wasn’t going to fall off she risked a glance behind them to see where the creature that was chasing them was. Joshua was still on their tail, running at an ungodly rate of speed, but it seemed to her like they were slowly outdistancing him little by little, the distance between them growing ever so slightly by the second.

We’re faster than he is,
she thought, but yelled to Dan, “Keep going, keep going…he’s still coming after us.”

Dan nodded and dropped the quad into another gear,
revving the engine for all it was worth, kicking up a plume of dirt and stones behind them in their wake. They exited the woods quicker than expected, hitting the big down slope into the field at over forty miles an hour, launching them airborne a full twenty feet before their spinning wheels touched back to earth. Kelly and Dan both screamed, but somehow they managed to stay on the quad and carry on into the corn.

When they crashed through the wall of massive cornstalks and disappeared into the field, Dan began to hope their chances of losing their evil adversary were getting better. They just had to find some way of getting on the other side of Reverend Miller so they could backtrack into the woods again. Surely the reverend wouldn’t be able to find them in this maze and there had to be a way of fooling him. The 4×4 made a lot of noise and he could probably follow their tracks in the dirt, but he’d have a hard time staying close enough to be able to see them, much less catch them. Not on the quad. Sure, the rain had soaked the field and the mud was slowing them down a bit, but they didn’t call these things all-terrain vehicles for nothing. Dan tore off into the field, tires spinning and engine growling as they headed for the church.

A few minutes later, they ran across a section of field where the cornstalks were withered brown and lying dead on the ground. It was a strange enough sight that Dan eased off on the throttle and coasted to a stop out in the middle of it.

“What the hell is this?” he asked, not really expecting Kelly to know.

“No idea. A fire from before we got here, maybe?”

Not a bad guess. It almost looked like a large section of the field had been burned away but there were no
signs of a fire anywhere—past or present—and the air reeked of some kind of chemical.

“I don’t think so. You smell that? It’s not really strong, but I think it’s a chemical of some kind. Something nasty, I’ll bet. Looks to me like someone was spraying these crops but I don’t know why they’d only do part of the field. And look…that section there is longer than this one, almost like a cross.”

“I saw metal tanks back where we found the quad that might have chemicals in them. They were filled with something anyway, and a hose that was probably used to spray it.”

“Just one more crazy thing to add to the list around here, I guess. Do you see Joshua yet? He still coming?”

“Not yet, but listen…I can hear him. Better get moving.”

“Hold on a second. Not yet.”

“What do you mean? You’re just gonna sit here out in the open?”

“Until he sees us, yes. I’ve got a plan. I don’t want to risk cutting back and hoping we can slip past him. It’s too dangerous. I’d rather get him to chase us around the outside of the church until we’ve done a 360 and he’s behind us and we’re facing the way we want. We won’t be backtracking…just moving forward where he can’t catch us. Get it? Once we have him and the church at our backs, we can gun it across the field again to the trail and head for home.”

“Here he comes!” Kelly said, pointing behind them. “Watch out!”

When Dan looked, he saw the huge scarecrow break through the last few rows of standing cornstalks and skid to a sudden stop on the edge of the dead part of the field.
His eyes burned bright green in the darkness and his bullet-ridden brown robe was wet and muddy, trailing behind him on the saturated ground. By the look on his face, they could tell he was absolutely livid, gnashing his teeth together and finally opening his deformed mouth wide to let loose a scream of primal rage and frustration. The reverend clearly wasn’t used to not having things go the way he wanted.

“Who did this to my field?” Joshua screamed, pointing an accusing finger at Kelly and Dan. “You’ll pay for this, heathens. Pay dearly!” But instead of running toward them as expected, he ducked back into the field and disappeared.

“Where’s he going?” Kelly said, confused.

When Joshua didn’t come back out, Dan started to worry. “Don’t know, but I don’t like it. Let’s stick to the plan…see if he’ll follow us around the church.”

He put the Yamaha in gear and tore off in the direction of the church. Once they were back in the maze of cornstalks, their anxiety levels started to climb, not knowing where the reverend was or when he might dive out of the darkness from one side or the other. They should still be out in front of him though, so they should be okay.

Should be, but they weren’t.

As soon as they exited the field onto the grass surrounding the church, the scarecrow was waiting for them, scythe back in his hand from where he’d dropped it earlier. He was standing spread-eagled and balanced, ready to swing the sharp blade at their heads as they passed by. Dan had no time to swerve out of the way so he did the only thing he could think of; he hammered the throttle and turned directly into the reverend’s legs, catching the man-monster off guard. Kelly screamed and
held on around Dan’s waist as tightly as she could. The collision was violent, the powerful machine slamming into Joshua at full speed, weapon flying out of his hands, knocking him to the ground and continuing on right over the top of his prone body.

When they were thirty feet past, Dan and Kelly turned around to look, hearts pounding in their chests at their close encounter with death. Reverend Miller was still on the ground, but clearly not out of the fight. Within seconds he was slowly climbing to his feet again, reaching for his lethal scythe and taking up the chase.

“I’ll tear you both limb from limb,” the scarecrow shouted, seething in anger and some obvious pain.

“You’ll have to catch us first, asshole,” Dan said, heading off behind the church and hoping they’d pissed the reverend off enough that he’d chase them. “Is he coming after us?” he shouted over his shoulder to Kelly.

“Yes,” she replied. “And he looks pissed! Move it!”

Dan didn’t need to be told twice. He gunned the engine and took a clockwise circular route around the desecrated church. He quickly swept past the painted warning about the scarecrow walking at midnight, then around back where the path led to the village and Reverend Miller’s old house, then completing the route back where they’d started, the nose of the quad finally pointing in the proper direction. All they had to do now was cross the field again, find the trail heading south, and they would be home free.

The only trouble was Joshua was no longer behind them.

When Dan turned to check, the reverend was nowhere in sight. “Where the hell did he go?”

“Don’t know. I thought he was right behind us.”

“Shit! He could have stopped following us at any time. We don’t know if he’s behind us or back out in front.”

“Just go anyway. What choice do we have? Drive as fast as you can and get us the hell away from here.”

It was as good of a plan as they were going to get. Dan threw caution to the wind, flying off into the cornfield as fast as the Yamaha engine could push them. It was a huge field and the odds were they’d be able to slip by the reverend and his scythe even if he was out in front of them somewhere. He held the throttle buried the entire way, slipping and sliding in the mud and knocking down row after row of corn under their wheels, but several extremely tense minutes later they burst out of the field and up the dirt slope heading into the trees.

They were just starting to relax a little when they hit the wooded trail, but Dan was driving too fast and his eyes hadn’t had a chance to adjust to the gloom yet. He made the first turn to the left and started to slow down but flew straight through the next right, slamming head-on into a one-hundred-year-old oak. The quad stopped instantly, its engine grinding to a stop in a mash of twisted metal and broken parts. Both riders were tossed from their seats, flying over the handlebars in different directions. Kelly flew to the left, barely missing the oak and tumbling to a stop in a blanket of wet pine needles fifteen feet away. The fall hurt like hell but she only suffered scrapes and a few bruises.