The Case of the Eight Dancing Scarecrows

Detective Lance pulled up in front of the farmhouse, marveling at the way the corn rattled in the field. The corn was wrong, he could tell that right away, and Lance could honestly say he had never seen corn look that way. The husks were brown, the corn inside turning black as it rotted on the stalk. He had been impressed by the amount of corn surrounding the farmhouse, acres of skeletal stalks that made the farmhouse feel more like an island in a dead corn sea. The police cars out front looked out of place in the dirt yard, and as he mounted the stairs, one of the rural cops came out to meet him.

Lance was on loan from a nearby precinct, and the clock was ticking.

He had thirty-six hours to find anything that would lead them to five missing persons.

They needed his help in discovering what happened to the Murphy clan.

"Bring me up to speed," he said, nodding at the man as he came onto the porch.

He looked like any other state trooper, his coat trimmed in fur, his hat leaning into something more cowboy than law enforcement. He tugged a pack of smokes out of his pocket and lit one up, the smoke curling against the rafters of the porch as he accessed the big city detective they had called in to help. Whatever he saw, he seemed unimpressed, and his smile was more than a little mocking.

"Well, well, by all means, sir. Let me fill you in on what the bumpkins have managed to turn up."

He flipped open a spiral notebook and started flipping through the crumpled pages. Lance didn't much care for his tone, but he held his tongue as the trooper riffled through his notes. The county mounties had been working this case for almost a week and had no idea what had become of the small farm family. The report said that the Murphies, two adults, and three children, had suddenly vanished from their large farm. They had also disappeared right around harvest time, leaving their cash crop in the ground. This made their sudden vanishing act all the more confusing, and Lance was eager to get his teeth in this one.

"Let's see. On October twenty-third, their closest neighbors noticed that the crops in the field had changed. They said it appeared a frost had killed all their corn overnight and just left it to rot. This was odd since it had never gotten below fifty degrees on any given night. They came to check on the family and noticed that they were gone. The last time anyone could remember seeing them was on the twelve when they came into town to buy pumpkins for the kids. The children were out of school for the harvest and had been getting ready to bring the corn in when they suddenly vanished. That's all we know; that's why we called you in. I think the Sheriff hoped a fresh set of eyes would prove useful."

"Have you found anything inside?"

"No blood or bodies, if that's what you mean. We've found nothing to make us consider foul play and no signs of a robbery either. There's no reason at all that they should have left their home, and their vehicles are still here too. So, unless they walked away on foot with a child under three and two other children under eighteen, we have to assume that they were abducted for some reason."

Lance nodded, thinking over what they knew and adding it to the small amount he assumed.

With children present, there was a pretty good chance that they had been kidnapped.

This was the midwest, and it wasn't uncommon to have whole families get picked up for trafficking or worse. The location of the farm would mean that it would take time for their disappearance to be noticed. All the corn would mean that their crimes would go unnoticed, even if they tried to run. They would likely never find the Murphy's, not alive anyway, but Lance had to try.

He was one of the department's best detectives and had a lot to live up to.

"Show me the house. Let me see what I can find."

"Okay," said the trooper, "but we've pretty much gone over this whole place with a fine-toothed comb. I'm not sure there's much else to find."

After an hour and a half of searching the scene, Lance feared he might be right.

The farmhouse had three rooms. One was clearly a bedroom, the other was a big room for the children, and the third was a big open room containing a kitchen, a living room, and a sitting room. The home was pristine, recently cleaned, and freshly swept, and everything looked far too orderly for a kidnapping scene. The dishes were done, there were clothes laid out for the next day, there was no sign of a struggle or a fight, and Lance couldn't figure out how they had taken them so neatly.

He was searching the kid's room, looking for anything, when he came across the journal.

It was nothing, just a salt and pepper MEAD notebook left on the floor as if it were a tent for natives. It was the most out-of-place thing in the house, and it stood out to Lance for some reason. He couldn't have said why, but his eyes tracked back to that book no matter where he was in the room.

As he left, he scooped it up and took it with him as he went back to the living room.

Lance opened it to the page it had been left on as he walked up the hall, reading what appeared to be an entry on October tenth.

Daddy is mad. Someone keeps stealing our scarecrows. They just disappear out of the fields, and daddy is getting pretty mad about it. He's certain that Dale is stealing them, but Dale swears it isn't him. The scarecrows are pretty heavy, so I'm not sure how he could steal them by himself.

The field looks so empty without them. It's just corn as far as the eye could see. Sometimes I stand on the porch and just watch it wave in the breeze, hearing it rustle as the stalks chuckle together. It used to be comforting, but it's been a little creepy lately. The rustling makes me think of monsters moving in the corn, and I've spent less time in the corn by myself.

Hopefully, whose ever stealing our scarecrows will be caught soon. That way, Daddy won't be so mad all the time.

Register Murphy

Register Murphy was the middle child; Lance remembered as he flipped to the next page. He was supposed to be about eight, and by his writing, Lance could believe it. It read like a typical child's journal, but Lance found himself intrigued all the same. If the kid had seen something, maybe he had written about it in his journal. Something like that could help him narrow down a culprit or even a motive, and Lance furrowed his brow as he turned to the next page.

There had indeed been a visitor, but it wasn't the one he had expected.

October eleventh

There was a surprise in the field this morning. Daddy was standing on the porch this morning when we came out to work, and he was scratching his head as he looked into the east field. Standing on a brand new post, its body turning rapidly, was a new scarecrow. It was dressed in a dark blue suit, a tall top hat on its round head, and the head was a small orange pumpkin.

I thought maybe he was turning in the breeze, but then I realized there wasn't any wind. The corn was still, and the usual rattle was gone. The scarecrow just kind of moves on its own, its dance something smooth and graceful. His arms wave bonelessly, his legs kicking freely, and as the post wiggles around, he continues to dance and sway.

I thought Daddy would be mad, but he seemed pretty happy about the scarecrow. He thinks it's funny, a dancing scarecrow, and he says it will bring luck to our crops. His mother told him a story about a dancing scarecrow that brought rain and grew the corn thirty feet high. As he told it to us, I could see that it had meant a lot to him, and he thought it was a big honor to have a dancing scarecrow in our field.

We were farming the field he was in that day, and I couldn't help but watch him as he danced and swayed. Daddy seemed really happy, smiling every time he looked at the thing, but I was a little creeped out by it. I was working close to it, and I couldn't help but notice when it turned its head to look at me. The grease paint face was far too lifelike, and it seemed to linger on me every time I was close.

We brought in the corn, but I dreamed about that dancing scarecrow last night.

It was dancing in front of me, its mouth screaming as it twisted. Its dance became more and more violent, straw flying as it flailed. Its screaming started sounding like laughter, and as it fixed its eyes on me, it started to whisper.

"He comes, He comes, HE COMES!"

Who is this person he's talking about, and what will happen when he comes?

Register Murphy

A dancing scarecrow? What the hell was this, Lance wondered. Had the kidnappers been dressed as scarecrows or something? There was no way that one person had kidnapped five people and spirited them away with no one noticing. Lance turned the page and read the next entry, seeing a pattern as the young boy laid out the days before his disappearance. The more he read, the less childish it sounded. The longer he read, the more it sounded like Register Murphy was detailing the worst days of his life.

October twelfth

There are two of them now. The new one is dressed in a yellow suit with a matching hat, and despite looking brand new, it looks like it was colored with pee-pee. They stand side by side in the field, kicking their legs and swinging their arms, looking like they're trapped in a windstorm. Daddy clapped when he saw them, saying that this was exactly what he wanted. The story said more scarecrows would show up, and I almost shook when he said it. More scarecrows? How many more? These two were kicking and dancing, smiling their greasy grins as they wiggled around.

I was working alone in the east field today, picking the field as far away from the scarecrows as I could, when I heard them whispering. They were talking just like they had in my dream, whispering about the coming of whoever He was. I heard the corn rustle as I came out of a row, and suddenly there they were. Both of them danced, spinning in the air like typhoons, and I could hear them whisper screaming all around me.

I covered my ears as they swirled around me, and when Dale found me crying, they were both gone.

As I lay in bed that night, I heard them rustling amongst the corn plants, their bodies lashing wildly at the corn stalks, and the sound made my skin crawl.

Register Murphy

October thirteenth

Daddy has gotten weird.

When I came out to work today, he was talking to the scarecrows. There are three now, one in a blue suit, one in a yellow suit, and the newest one is dressed in a gray suit with a matching top hat. They were all side by side in the east field, dancing and swaying, as they held Daddy with their black eyes. They seem to be gently swaying, not the usual violent dancing they do, and they almost seemed to be listening to him.

Listening or talking.

He didn't help us today. We all went to work in the fields, picking corn and packing produce, but Daddy stayed with the scarecrows. He looked strange out in the field, in his sleeveless shirt and his sleep pants, and when Momma went to go talk to him, he told her to go back inside. We were all on the porch carving pumpkins when she came back. Even Thomas was hacking away at his pumpkin's face with a butter knife, and Mamma looked scared. She said that Daddy just wasn't feeling well, and when all the pumpkins were lit, he was still standing out there in the dark and talking to those scarecrows.

I heard them out there dancing again, but I never heard Daddy come back inside.

Register Murphy

Hmmm. Lance flipped back and read that last bit again. His dad, Marcus Murphy, was acting strangely. That could explain why his family had suddenly just up and disappeared. Maybe whoever these scarecrows were, they had help from the father. It was too soon to tell, but it was a working theory. That would explain why the vehicles the family-owned were still here. If the people running these scarecrows had their own vehicles, they could have disappeared easily without a trace. He kept reading, wanting more information, hoping for some more clues as to what had happened.

October fourteenth

Daddy was still in the field, and so was a new scarecrow. This was in a green suit, and it looked like it was woven from grass. All their heads are pumpkins, and unlike ours, they don't look squashy or attract flies. They just sit up there and smile and stare and look very creepy.

Momma is worried about Daddy. All she does is sit at the window and watch him while he's in the field. He just stays in the field for some reason, listening to the scarecrows and talking with them. He moves around the cornfield sometimes, not picking or boxing but just walking around aimlessly. Dale and I have been doing most of the work, but sometimes I can see the scarecrows following me as I work. I felt like they might get me when there were just two, but now that there are four, it feels like they might trap me. They grin at me from out of the corn, watching me work, and when I try to tell Dale about it, he just tells me to stop being a spaz.

Last night, they were all over the field, and I had to put my head under the pillow to stop from hearing them. They sound scary, and their whispers are even louder now. They say He's coming and that He's going to get us. I don't know who He is, but I don't want Him to get me. If He's as scary as the scarecrows are, I don't want Him anywhere near the house.

October fifteenth

Daddy is gone, but there's a new scarecrow out there now. This one is dressed in orange, and it matches the pumpkin he wears as a head. Momma told us to stay inside and went to go look for Daddy in the field. She couldn't find him out there and told all of us to stay inside today. It started to drizzle a little, and while Thomas watched TV and Dale read, I sat by the window and watched the scarecrows.

There are five now, and each of them are dancing just like the other. The rain hasn't hurt their spirits at all. They sit out in the rain and dance and sway on their posts, rustling the corn and sending streams of water flying off them when they crash against them. It's weird, I wouldn't swear to it, but they look closer to the house somehow. Like when Daddy stood out there talking to them, he seemed farther from the house. Now I can see the rain as it slides down their faces. They're not on the porch, but it feels like they're close enough to throw a rock through the window.

Thomas doesn't like them much. He came to sit with me and said they were scary. He says they come and look in his window at night, and he always hides and cries until they go away. I never checked to see if they came to my window. Maybe tonight I'll stay up a little to wait to see.

This looked more and more like a case of psychosis. The father had a break from reality and had done something to his family. Whatever this Dancing Scarecrow nonsense was didn't matter. It was pretty clear that something was going on with Marcus Murphy. Something tickled at the back of his mind as he read, though, and Lance couldn't help but think of something a friend of his had been talking about. The scarecrows, and the constant use of He, reminded him of Stephen's case.

He shook it off, though, not wanting to muddy the waters with a different case. He called over one of the officers and asked if they could see if all the family's vehicles were accounted for. He wanted them to check into places on the property where a body could be hidden, like a well or an old drainage line or something. He suspected that the bodies had been easy for Marcus to move after they were dead and wanted to know if there was anywhere on the property they had found blood.

"Nowhere, sir. There's not even a slaughterhouse. Marcus grew corn for the ethanol plant. Corn was pretty much his only crop. A lot of farmers around here grow mostly corn, and Marcus used every acre he had for the corn crop."

Lance nodded, "What about a basement? Somewhere he might have taken them to kill them?"

"No basement, sir. The barn is clean, the house is clean, and the men are searching the fields for anything that might be suspicious."

Lance let the officer get back to it, noticing the deputy he had talked to when he came in, eyeballing him as he spoke with a larger man in mirrored sunglasses. He returned to reading, seeing the possible Sheriff nodding his head in his direction. They likely wanted to know what he knew, but they would have to wait, just like him. He didn't have a full picture yet, but he suspected it might be fuller than theirs.

October sixteenth

Someone smashed our pumpkins last night. I can see them on the porch through the windows. Their guts have been scattered across the porch, and their shells are lying across the yard. Daddy is still missing, and Momma won't let us leave the house.

We found her on the porch this morning, and when Dale helped her inside, she sounded like something had scared her half to death. Dale didn't want Thomas and I to hear, but Momma said we needed to hear about what she had seen. As she drank the coffee Dale had made for her, she told us about how Daddy had called her out to the field, but it hadn't been Daddy.

She had woken up to the sound of Daddy calling her name through the window. She had seen someone standing there, their silhouette tall and broad like Daddy. He had called her, calling her by name, and then moved towards the field as she went out in her nightshirt. The fields had been dark, the corn lit only by the silvery moon overhead, and Momma had followed the sound of crunching husks into the field. She could see him as she walked, hurrying to catch up to him, but then the corn on either side had started rustling. Something was to her left, her right, behind her, and Momma felt hemmed in.

She stopped following Daddy, and that was likely all that saved her life.

It seemed he had been hiding the sickle somewhere out of sight, and when he turned to slash her, she was farther back than he thought.

Momma ran, bumping into one of the scarecrows as she careened into the field. Daddy was hot on her heels, and she ran blindly as she tried to lose him. The scarecrows popped up randomly as the rows of corn swung by on ghostly rails. Her legs burned, and her face was windburned as the stalks battered against her. She ran for her life, running on pure adrenaline. She didn't know how long she had run. She didn't know how far. As the sun peeked over the horizon, she collapsed on the porch in a heap and prepared to be killed.

When she opened her eyes again, it was morning, and Dale was helping her inside.

There are six scarecrows now, and the newest has a white suit and hat. They're all out there dancing now, swirling in the rain and rustling the corn plants. I think I can see Daddy out there if I look closely. He's still carrying the sickle, and there's something on his head, though I can't tell what it is. I'm scared. I don't understand what's going on, but I know we won't be going back to the fields anytime soon.

October seventeenth

Daddy is stalking the house from the fields.

The new scarecrow, number seven, has a light pink suit. Most people would say it's supposed to be cute, but to me, it just looks like old blood. Momma is standing at the window, watching Daddy as he peeks at us through the corn. His head is covered by a pumpkin now too, but it's not the same as the scarecrows. His head is already starting to wilt, the pumpkin looking sad as he looks out through the eyeholes.

Thomas is crying, and Dale is looking mad. He keeps pacing around, holding the old hatchet he used when we went camping. He keeps glaring out at Daddy like he's going to do something, and Momma seems worried that he will.

It's getting dark now.

I hope we make it till tomorrow.

"If you know something, Detective, I think it would be best if you shared it."

Lance looked up from the notebook and into the reflective lenses of the Sheriff. He was immensely fat, his belly pressing against his duty belt as he loomed over Detective Lance. He was grinning, but it was clear what his intentions were. He was used to cowing his inferiors into doing what he wanted, but he might have overestimated his pull this time.

Lance was not the sort to be cowed so easily.

"If I should learn anything that I think you need to know, Sheriff Leebrook, I'll be sure to let you know."

Leebrook grinned, and Lance could see every one of his tobacco-stained teeth.

"That ain't quite how things work around here, haus. We called you in on this one. That means,"

"That means that I'm here to help you. That doesn't mean I work for you. Now, if you want me to effectively do my job, let me work."

Leebrook put his hands up and backed away, still smiling but clearly not liking being rebuffed, "Sure, sure, you're the big-time detective, after all."

Lance looked back to the journal and continued reading, the cops now giving him a wide circle as they moved about.

October eighteenth

Dale left.

He and Momma argued about it for hours, the two of them shouting in the back like they thought Thomas and I wouldn't hear. Thomas has been crying in the living room, but Momma never came after him. Dale disappeared out into the corn, the eighth scarecrow seeming to turn to the side to admit him. This one was wearing a black suit, making him look like a reaper. When he turned back to look at the house, I could clearly see the scowl that stretched its face, making it look different from the rest.

It's dark now. I can see my breath as it steams out of my mouth, and Thomas is shivering. Momma still hasn't come out of the backroom, and I can see the ice swirling on the glass. The corn outside is rattling differently tonight. I can hear the ice breaking off as it hits the ground. The scarecrows are very close now. I can see them even in the dark, the moon casting their shadows across our home. The shadows slide greasily over the floor, and I moved Thomas away from them and put him to bed on the couch instead. We're both wrapped in one of Mamma's afghans, but it's so cold. It's almost too hard to write, my fingers are so numb, and I don't think I'll be able to write much longer.

Someone is coming out of the corn, someone on a horse.

Daddy is with him, Dale too, and he's wearing armor like a knight. He has deer antlers on his head, and there's an ax over his shoulder. I can see his eyes, their red coals that are burning under his helmet. The closer he gets, the more frozen the window grows. I can't see anything now, it's too icy, but I can hear the clip-clop of his hooves.

I know I should be scared, but the cold is sinking in, and I'm getting tired.

Thomas has stopped shivering, and I think I'm going to close my eyes for a few minutes.

Lance felt his breath hitch as he read over the last entry. The handwriting here was cramped, almost illegible, the scribbles of a child who was just learning to write. He stood up suddenly, taking the notebook with him as he went for the door. The big-bellied Sheriff tried to step in his path, but Lance sidestepped him. The Sheriff cawed angrily behind him, but Lance was out the door and across the dooryard before anyone could stop him. They would never find the family, no more than they would ever find any of the others who had disappeared under similar circumstances.

As he drove away, he was already on the phone with the only person who might be able to use this information.

"Stephen, it's Lance. I've got something you need to see. I think I might have more information on your Green Man case."