Page 7 of No Way Out
“Naya,” I called out, not using my loudest yell, as if I was ashamed to be actually heard.
The audacity of me to try to find my people.
“Naya!” I called a little louder, this time cupping my hands around my mouth for an extra boost of volume.
A crow cawed out above me, like it was telling me to fuck off.
It was odd walking through here, the walls of corn so high and dense that they essentially blocked out any outside noise from the rest of the carnival.
Eerie as fuck.
I loved it.
Part of me had been partially bummed out when my new lab partner, Ezekiel, hopped over, leaving me alone. Some piece of me had been hoping we’d be grouped together, that by chance we’d end up having the perfect gothic meet-cute at a haunted corn maze attraction.
Never quite that lucky.
A scarecrow was perched atop a cross about five feet in the air in front of me. I didn’t think they had the budget for those kinds of props, but damn, that thing looked like there could be someone in there. It was far too still, and I stood there, staring at it for way too long before deciding to move forward in the maze.
“Naya!” I called out again, this time with less effort.
The crow cawed like it was fucking following me, but I couldn’t see it anywhere. One turn, then another, and I was sure I hadn’t gone this way yet when I made that left, but there was the scarecrow again.
Or was it another?
How big was this fucking maze? No wonder it was taking hours for the line to move at all. People were going to go missing inside of this thing.
Maybe Naya and Kyle were just lost in some other corner, neither of them probably bright enough to figure out how to make it out of here, even if they combined their efforts. I’d been carrying Naya through most of her bachelor’s degree, taking the tests in her online classes and writing whatever papers I could to ensure she’d pass.
It was what any best friend would do. Sure, there might have been a layer of enabling, but I wasn’t responsible for the full weight of it; all I could do was help in the ways I knew how. It just meant that the ways I knew how consisted of passing her classesforher.
“Naya where the fuck are you?” I yelled, getting frustrated at the realization I’d been wandering this goddamn labyrinth for at least an hour, yet I wasn’t any closer to finding my friend or the exit.
I stared up at the scarecrow again.
Wasit a different one? It was impossible to tell if there were others in the distance—the wall of corn was far too high to see above it. I looked back up at the scarecrow; it wasn’t like your regular, run-of-the-mill farm one. It was a burlap mask, made out of patches stitched together, draped over a head, a noose tightly strung around its neck to keep the ‘stuffing’ in place. Its mouth was sewn shut, and its eyes were dark holes impossible to see into. The stitches were a beige, skin-like color, almost resembling maggots thrown onto the scarecrow’s badly formed face. A dark, hooded cape covered the rest of its body.
It was gnarly as fuck.
I stepped toward it, aching to inspect it from a closer distance. I could barely reach its foot from how high it was perched on the post.
I heard a shuffling in the corn, and I whipped my head to see if there was someone in this thicket with me.
“Naya?” I called out again, knowing damn well that bitch was far too loud to try to sneak up on me.
I gazed back at the scarecrow.
It was staring down directly at me.
Stumbling back in shock, I tripped over my own feet, falling onto the ground.
“Fuck,” I cursed, catching myself with my elbows to keep from falling further onto my ass. The shock buzzed through both of my arms, and a slew of my favorite curses flew from my tongue as I rubbed myself for warmth.
That’s when the scarecrow dropped its arms from the cross before coming to a knee on the post as it stared at me. My heart thumped quickly just beneath my throat as he jumped down onto the ground in front of me, and a scream forced its way from my mouth involuntarily.
Damn scare actors. I thought it was a fucking prop.
How many times had this asshole watched me walk by, screaming for Naya?
