Chapter 12
Kiera
Rain lashed the window, making it almost impossible to see out into the dark night. My wipers worked overtime, while the inbuilt GPS barked instructions on how to get to the location Jackson had sent me.
There was no way I was going to make it in time. The countdown in the corner of the GPS ticked down to my ETA, a constant reminder that I would be five minutes late, and no matter how fast I tried to drive in the horrific weather, I just couldn’t make the time up.
I never should have disagreed with Jackson. I should have gotten straight in the car and hit the road, accepting that I was at his mercy. Now, I was racing against time in a bid to stop him from destroying me once and for all.
Instead of hoping Megan would call and ask me to pick Billie up, I was praying that she didn’t, that my daughter wasn’t asking for her mom to collect her so we could go home and eat cookie dough.
A tremor had taken residence in my entire body, pulsing through me with every beat of my pounding heart. My brain spiralled with thoughts of what would happen if Jackson leaked the video. For the umpteenth time, I muttered a curse at my own stupidity for going to that damn party.
Headlights flashed in the rear mirror, and my attention snapped to them, my brows creasing at how quickly the vehicle was speeding toward me.
A knot pulled in my stomach, fear instantly building at the thought that the maniac behind the wheel was going to slam straight into me.
Whoever was in the vehicle was driving way too fast, even if it hadn’t been hammering down.
I pushed the gas harder, my car lurching to a speed I wasn’t comfortable with, given the conditions. And still, the truck behind gained on me. My heart accelerated to an impossible rate when the vehicle caught up to me, flashing its headlights and beeping their horn.
With the truck on my tail, I squinted past the bright headlights, barely making out a battered truck.
In the driver’s seat was a hulking silhouette of a person—a man I presumed, given their size, but not a familiar figure.
From the glimpse I caught, it looked as though the driver had something covering their face, which did nothing to ease my anxiety.
“What the hell do you want?” I screeched as the driver kept flashing their headlights, my frantic gaze darting between the truck behind and the dark road ahead.
Hoping they just wanted to pass, I eased off the gas, slowing my car down. But they didn’t pass, slowing down too, and creating a gap between us. I pressed the gas again, only this time, my car didn’t surge forward like I wanted it to.
A deafening beep rang out from my dashboard computer, startling me. I dropped my gaze to find all the warning lights flashing, and to my utter horror, no matter how hard I pressed my foot to the pedal, the car began to slow.
Forgetting the truck behind for a moment, I scanned the computer, hoping to find a sign of what was wrong. But when the screen turned black, along with all the interior and exterior lights switching off, and the wipers coming to an abrupt halt mid-way across my window, I had no choice but to stop.
Managing to drift my car into a nearby rest stop, dread seeped into the marrow of my bones as, through the darkness and the rain, I realized I’d come to a stop by a cornfield; one of my many worst nightmares.
When I was eight, my parents dropped me off at a school friend’s house for a play date.
It had been a warm, sunny afternoon, and she thought it would be fun to play hide and seek in the cornfield next to her house.
I wasn’t sure, especially when we reached the field, and the rows of corn towered ominously over us.
She didn’t listen to my protests and ran off into the field, yelling at me to count to sixty before I went to find her. Not wanting to spoil her fun, I did as she instructed, counting for more than a minute before heading off into the maze of corn.
I couldn’t find her. Worse, I couldn’t find the way out. The maze went on for what seemed like forever, and as night began to fall, I stumbled across a man in the field. A man, taller than any human could have possibly been, with rough, pockmarked skin across his face, black eyes, and an evil grin.
I screamed and screamed until my throat hurt, but no one came until long after nightfall when her dad stumbled across me, curled up into a ball between two rows, and sobbing for my mom.
When I calmed down to tell him about the scary man in the field, he and my friend laughed at me, telling me that I’d stumbled across their scarecrow.
Ever since then, I’d had a fear of cornfields and scarecrows, avoiding even looking at them whenever I drove past one. And now, I was stopped right next to one, alone in the dark as the rain pounding on the roof echoed eerily around the car.
Turning the engine off, I jabbed the on button again, hoping the electronics just needed to reset, only for the engine to sputter before dying completely.
“Shit,” I hissed, my moment of panic turning to terror at glancing in the rear mirror to find that the vehicle tailing me had also come to a stop several feet behind.
With shaky hands and adrenaline pumping through my veins, I grabbed my purse and rummaged through it for my phone, only to spit another curse at finding I had no signal. Grabbing the phone Jackson had given me, my heart sank even further when I discovered that it too had no signal.
The slamming of a car door snapped my attention from frantically jabbing at the phone’s buttons. My gaze whipped to the mirror, and an invisible hand wrapped around my throat, preventing me from breathing.
The figure had gotten out of the truck and was prowling toward me, a shiny object clutched in their hand, glinting off the headlights of their truck.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I squealed, twisting to slam the lock down on the door.
But it didn’t stay down, the resounding click telling me that all the doors had just unlocked.
I slammed my hand down on it again, but the second I released it, it popped back up.
Looking into the rear mirror, nerves fired through me at finding the figure had disappeared, but when I checked the side mirror, I couldn’t stop an alarmed gasp flying free.
As if knowing what one of my biggest fears was, the figure—definitely a man—was nearing my door with his hood pulled up, and a terrifying scarecrow mask covering his face. In his hand, still glinting under the shine of his headlights, he clutched a knife.
Oh, shit.
There were always news articles from around the country, reporting random murders or disappearances. Was that my fate? Did the man behind the mask want to murder me? What if he raped me first?
My entire body turned to ice at the thought. I sucked in a deep breath, desperately weighing my options. If I stayed put, I was an easy target, especially with the locks not working. If I got out of the driver’s side, I’d run straight into his path.
That left one choice, and as much as it scared the living hell out of me, it was better than waiting to be raped and murdered by a crazed madman.
Before I could give it too much thought, I clambered over to the passenger side, throwing open the door and leaping out into the rainy night.
Without a backward glance, I took off toward the cornfield.
It was by some miracle that I’d decided not to dress up for the evening at Donna’s and had opted to wear sneakers, making it easier to run, but with my jumper and cotton pants soaked within seconds, my clothes turned heavy.
Reaching a gap between two rows of corn, I paused, briefly looking over my shoulder to see if I was being followed. A scream escaped at seeing the scarecrow had started walking in my direction with long, determined strides, the knife still clutched in his hand.
Fuck! I was going to die.
With my heart in my throat and my body riddled with panic, I took off again.
My ankles twisted on the sodden ground, my feet sinking into the mud as I pushed my legs harder than ever. Muscles ached, demanding I stop, but with the image of the creepy figure holding the knife etched in my mind, I kept going until I was deep in the cornfield.
Tall corn stalks towered over me in long rows, just like they had when I was a little girl, only now, with the rain still falling and blurring the path ahead, I felt more trapped than I did as a kid.
My lungs burned as adrenaline flooded my system, keeping my aching body from giving up until I’d reached safety.
But after another minute of battling through the rain, I couldn’t go on.
If I pushed myself any longer, I was at risk of collapsing.
Pausing, I pushed myself between two corn stalks in hopes that they would shield me.
Sucking in deep breaths, my desperate pants echoed into the night as I willed my thumping heart to calm. I glanced from left to right, releasing a sigh of relief at finding I hadn’t been followed.
I squeezed my eyes closed, taking several seconds to regain my breath, but knowing that if I stayed put for too long, I risked the scarecrow finding me. I just needed a minute, and then I would take off again.
With my heart calming fractionally, I cracked my eyes open, relieved to find the rain had finally begun to slow. Now that I’d stopped running, though, a chill ran through my body from my sodden clothes.
As quietly as I could, I wriggled out of my jumper, figuring that I was soaked right down to the bone anyway. If I needed to run again, I wouldn’t have to carry the weight of my jumper.
Rustling from nearby reached my ears, and I dropped my jumper, holding my breath and intently listening for any other clues of where the sound came from.
Silence.
Still, I didn’t dare move.
I didn’t dare breathe.