Everybody Scream!

One of our favorite things to do at this time of year is to get lost in an enormous corn maze.  Almost every year since Madi was a wee sprite, we’ve managed to find a corn maze at Halloween time where we can spend an hour–or sometimes hours–trying to find our way out. 

Each year, the Boys and Girls Club at the town down just the road hosts an enormous Halloween festival with haunted houses, hay rides, and, yes, a corn maze.  We went through their corn maze two years ago and got really, really lost — so lost, in fact, that we ended up cheating our way out, ducking down low and cutting out through some of the lower-growing corn at one corner. We finally emerged in a plowed field, then picked our way around the outside edge of the maze in the dark until we found society again.

This year, we decided to give their maze another try.  Madi was having two friends over to work on Halloween costumes, so we agreed to head over to the corn maze at around 7:30 p.m., well enough after dark for the maze to be really spooky.  I pocketed a flashlight this time, in the event we had to make another unauthorized escape, and at 7:30, all five of us — me, Barb, Madi, and two of her friends — stood just outside the entrance to this year’s enormous corn maze.

We had only made it about twenty yards inside when we saw a pile of hay bales stacked to one side–and as we approached it, someone in overalls and a creepy mask jumped out at us.  All three girls screamed, and we cut quickly to our left, making our way around several turns in the dark until we came upon a small group of people huddled in a wide spot.  There at the entrance to the next leg of the maze lay a body, very still.  The group in front of us laughed nervously in the dark.  There was no place to go but forward past the body, or turn back.

I clicked on the flashlight and ran the beam the length of the body.  Sure enough, it was real person, laying very still and just waiting for someone to take a step forward so he could make a lunge for their legs.  

Fair enough.  I took a wide step forward, just barely out of his reach.  He lunged anyway, and our girls screamed bloody murder.

Suffice it to say, we didn’t make it any further than that.