The Corn Maze: Welcome to Brookville

By Michael Field

High Schooler, Clancy joins his longtime friend, PETER (ELLIS) and their friends for pumpkin picking. CHRISSY (MORGAN), Peter's girlfriend, and Clancy's longtime crush joins them as they take on the corn maze. Just as they enter, Clancy has an ominous feeling. Something evil lies within the maze. He causes a scene and remains outside. Chrissy stays with him and Peter stays with Chrissy.

But their friends enter the maze. Hours later, they have yet to return. The farm swarms with officers and civilians, who form search parties. The missing teenagers make the local news.  Peter believes his friends are playing a joke, so they check out one of their houses. But Clancy fears something far more sinister.

That night, Clancy has a nightmare. He is in the maze when the stalks of corn attack. He runs and runs until there's no escape. The stalks crush him. He wakes up from his dream, soaking wet from his sweat. Peter calls him and reveals he had the same exact dream.

The next morning, they go to Chrissy's house. She's disappeared. Clancy believes the maze is responsible. Somehow, someway, Chrissy is in the maze and they need to save her.

Clancy is drawn to the maze now. Peter stops him from running into the maze. They need help and Peter knows who can help him.

All Things Weird is a shop downtown, run by GRADY OLSEN, an old man who's seen his fair share of weird in Brookville and the one person who knows its history. Olsen reveals the town's sinister past – Brookville resides atop the original settlement of Mathertown. A place infamous for its bloody ending.

The town's pastor struck a deal with a witch, AGATHA, in the woods for their settlement to be fruitful in exchange for a child. Once the settlement had success in their farming, Agatha came to collect the pastor's child, but he refused. She murders the pastor and his death sparks and violent response from the settlers as they turn on each other. Agatha promises the dying pastor that she will be back to reclaim her side of the bargain. Centuries later, Olsen reveals that Clancy is the descendant of the pastor and Agatha is here for him.

Clancy won't go without a fight or his friends. He has a plan. Clancy enters the maze alone and finds himself in the Mathertown settlement on the night of pastor's murder. The scene of his death unfolds before him. Then Agatha turns her sights on Clancy. They strike a deal. Clancy for his friends. Agatha agrees.

Suddenly, the settlement is on fire. Clancy makes his escape with Chrissy and their missing friends. They escape the corn maze to discover it's on fire courtesy of Peter. The entire town has come to put it out when Agatha appears. She grabs Clancy and soars in the air with him. Clancy gets free. Headbutts Agatha and they both fall towards the fiery maze, but only Clancy survives.

But will Agatha return for him one day?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Field
• Release date: May 26, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224560219

Michael Field

I directed a feature I penned in 2005 titled, "Save the Forest", which enjoyed a small run on Netflix as well as being released internationally through Echelon Entertainment. I created the short film, "The Hero", which was a finalist for TriggerStreet.com's annual festival in 2005. and developed two successful web series, The Puzzle Maker's Son and Scenes from the Movies From there, I published my two novels Adam Parker and the Radioactive Scout and Adam Parker and the High School Bully. In 2015, my script Kiddo was a quarterfinalist for the Nicholl Fellowship and in 2017, I was nominated for a Writer's Guild Award for Outstanding Writing in New Media for my short Life Ends @ 30. Recently, I've published a novella, Paradoxed, and a YA-Adventure novella called All Things Weird: The Jar of Pandora. I also have a short film, that I wrote and directed, on the festival circuit, Noppera-bō You can find me here: michaeldfield.com and Forgotten Cinema Podcast.

Book preview

The Corn Maze

Michael Field

Up on the Roof publishing

Copyright © 2023 Michael Field

This is a work of fiction. The events and characters described herein are imaginary and are not intended to refer to specific places or living persons. The opinions expressed in the manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher.

The Corn Maze

All Rights Reserved

Copyright 2023 Michael Field

V1.0

ISBN: 9798860342927

Cover Design by Alex Faison

All rights reserved – Used with permission.

This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without expressed written consent of the publisher/author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Up on the Roof publishing

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

More Stories by Michael Field

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Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

For all you know, a witch may be living next door to you right now.

- Roald Dahl, The Witches

The Corn Maze

by

Michael Field

Chapter One

The fall season wouldn’t be official without a visit to Kelly’s Farm, located on the eastern edge of the town of Brookville. Apple pies, cider donuts, hayrides and, of course, the pumpkin patch where families scoured pre-made rows of the orange fruit in hopes of finding the right one to slice open to make a jack-o-lantern.

Happy Halloween! A volunteer, dressed as a scarecrow, leapt from group to group shouting the same greeting. Most liked it. Many, simply, put up with it. A few of the younger kids screamed and ran to hide behind their parents.

A small group of Brookville High kids were indifferent.

Aren’t we jumping the gun a bit? Halloween is about a week away, Peter said with a smirk. He was clearly the leader of this pack of teenagers. With his high and tight hair style, freckled acne-free cheeks and hundred-dollar smile, he was the envy of a few of his teachers.

Uh-oh. Someone’s a Grumpy Gus. The scarecrow made fists with his hands and rolled them back and forth, miming the action of wiping tears from his cheeks.

I’ll show you a Grumpy Gus.

It took Peter’s friends holding him back to prevent the inevitable shoving match between him and the thirty-something seasonal help dressed as a scarecrow.

The scarecrow backed up. He laughed as if watching a puppy unsuccessfully try to climb steps. He quickly moved on to a family of four, looking for that Halloween flair that only his rendition of a scarecrow could provide.

Peter quickly lost interest and tagged along with his friends towards the large corn maze. The faint cry of ‘Happy Halloween’ was heard as they walked away.

You should’ve let me take him, Peter said. He smoothed out his Brookville High letter jacket. The patches on the giant, embroidered B revealed a two-sport athlete. Football and baseball.

Then we would’ve been escorted from the farm. And I need to get a pumpkin for home. This was Clancy, Peter’s longtime friend and neighbor.

Tyler and Michael, both fellow football teammates and Peter’s unofficial bodyguards, crashed their conversation. Peter was the star quarterback, and they wouldn’t let anything happen to their prized player, not while the Brookville Badgers were in the midst of an undefeated season and a run for the Class M championship.

Tyler was the All-State cornerback, while Michael played middle linebacker, albeit as the backup most games. Clancy was the only one in their group who didn’t play football. He didn’t play any sports. He found solace in books. Many, many books.

Clancy wasn’t a nerd, not that the stigma of being a nerd was as terrible as it once was, but if Peter wasn’t his friend, there’s no doubt Clancy would be the subject of ridicule. But, like anything in this world, it’s all about who you know.

You can get pumpkins at the grocery store, Clancy. Who cares if we get booted? Peter said.

It’s tradition. Every Halloween season, I get a pumpkin at Kelly’s Farm.

Tyler chimed in, Traditions are lame.

Why? Clancy asked.

Tyler shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t think that far ahead. He never did.

This place is for kids, anyway. We only came because the girls said they’d be here, Peter added.

We used to do this when we were younger, Pete. Every year, our families would do this together, Clancy said.

Maybe you’re right, Clance, Peter said. He looked down to Clancy’s shirt. Whoa, Clance. What’s that? He pointed at the shirt.

Clancy looked down. Peter came up with his finger and bopped him on the nose. He laughed, You fall for that every time, Clance. All the way back to grade school.

"Still not funny,