Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Outside, the fog hangs low like an unmade bed.
The pumpkins on the porch gossiping in candle tongue.
I lock the door with a little flourish, then we file to the car.
Skully calls shotgun, because of course he does; but I make him sit in the back anyway because I need him where I can’t see him watching me.
The engine coughs alive. The radio serves up a tinny love song that doesn’t know it’s dying; Skully leans forward and kills it with a sigh.
Bonehead drums on his knees like the world is a door he’s about to kick in.
Marrow folds into the passenger seat like a saint who just remembered he’s also a knife.
“Rules,” I announce, backing out of the driveway with theatrical caution. “One: no sprinting off into the dark alone unless you are me. Two: if a scarecrow flirts with me, you let it. Three: if we get lost, we do it romantically. Thoughts? Notes? Rotten tomatoes?”
“Counterpoint,” Skully says. “If a scarecrow flirts with you, I will fight it. On principle.”
“Noted,” I say. “But let it buy me a cider first.”
Bonehead peers at me in the rearview mirror like the mirror owes him honesty. “You’re doing the breath thing,” he says.
“What breath thing?”
“The tight one. The balloon that forgot how to balloon.”
I force a bigger inhale, making it noisy on purpose. “See? Balloon. Practically a parade float.”
Marrow’s hand drifts to the center console, palm up like an invitation he’s pretending is furniture. I place my fingers in it because I am generous and definitely not clinging. His thumb finds the pulse at my wrist and rests there, a quiet metronome.
The road out to the farm is a ribbon of black licorice, fields on either side gnawing at the sky.
We pass a church marquee that says JESUS LOVES YOU in letters that look like they’d tattle and a gas station with one eye half shut.
I narrate in my head like I’m the last tourist: barn, ditch, naked trees, a billboard promising fireworks in all seasons.
The closer we get, the louder the night seems: crickets sawing, wind chewing, the car humming its brave little hum.
Skully leans forward between the seats, close enough that I can smell his shampoo—smoke pretending to be citrus. “If you want to turn around, we can pretend we got abducted and came back enlightened.”
“We’re going,” I say cheerily, my emotions iron clad. “We’re going to buy tickets and hold hands and laugh at teenagers who think saying Bloody Mary into a portable toilet is witchcraft.”
He studies me like a lyric he can’t quite land. “Copy that, Captain Spiral.”
Bonehead points at the horizon. “Corn!”
“Excellent observation,” I say. “Five stars.”
We pull into the gravel lot where strings of orange bulbs sag between poles like tired smiles.
The sign reads NIGHTMARE ACRES in drippy font that’s trying too hard—my favorite genre.
Fog machines puff along the entrance, sweet and damp, and a speaker coughs out haunted house groans on loop.
There’s a line of humans in hoodies, hands tucked in sleeves, eyes bright with the hope of being pretend-scared.
Teenagers pretend to shove each other into the dark.
A toddler in a bat costume yells at his mother about ethically sourced candy.
“ambiance acquired,” I declare, parking between a truck that has antlers and a sedan that has a grudge.
We spill out. Gravel shifts under boots, the air tastes like cider and cold metal.
Bonehead plants himself at my shoulder like he’s auditioning for boyfriend who blocks the wind.
Skully flicks a lighter open and closed, open and closed, a nervous heartbeat in his hand.
Marrow offers his arm like we’re entering a ballroom instead of a field designed to misplace people.
At the ticket booth, the attendant has fake blood on her chin and real boredom in her eyes. “Three?” she asks.
“Four,” I say too quickly, then grin to cover it. “Obviously four.”
Her stamp lands on my wrist: a corn skull with crossed cobs.
Dumb and perfect. For a blink—a mean, fast blink—it looks less like ink sitting on skin and more like it’s sinking in.
Like the stamp doesn’t know where to go.
Then somebody behind us laughs too loud, and it snaps, gone, like a candle blown out.
Bonehead notices my micro-flinch and crowds closer. “You sure?”
“Sure is my middle name,” I lie. “Well, it’s actually Opal, but we don’t need to unpack that tonight.”
Skully gestures at the maze entrance, a mouth made of stalks and fog. “After you, Final Girl.”
Marrow’s voice brushes my ear: “If the night asks for a tithe, we will pay it in jokes and sugar, yes?”
“Yes,” I say, bright as a match. “And if it asks for more, I’ll haggle.”
We step under the string lights and into the corn’s shadow. The path narrows, the world turns into panicked rustle and the distant squeal of someone being delightfully murdered by a man in rubber. I squeeze Marrow’s hand once, twice, a code for something I haven’t named.
Behind me, Bonehead mutters, “I got you,” like a contract with no small print.
Skully adds, softer than he thinks, “Stay where I can hear you be annoying.”
“I’m not annoying,” I whisper back, and the corn around us answers with a hiss like laughter.
The first turn waits, dark and expectant. I smile wide enough to feel my lipstick beg for mercy. “Left,” I say, choosing with the confidence of a coin toss. “Let’s get lost beautifully.”
The corn swallows us whole. Lantern light dangles overhead like jaundiced moons, fog machines snarl from hidden speakers, and some teenager in greasepaint howls like he’s being paid in candy corn and trauma. Perfect.
“Another rule,” I announce, sweeping my arm out like a cult leader at the mouth of the maze. Lantern light halos me like a very untrustworthy saint. “We follow the path like civilized sinners. And: we don’t follow the path at all because where’s the fun in that?”
Bonehead immediately steps off the gravel path and shoulders into the stalks, ripping through like a linebacker. “Short cut.”
“Get back here!” I shriek-laugh, lunging after him, the corn scratching my arms like eager little knives.
He looks back, grinning, all teeth and menace, and then—because he’s Bonehead—he grabs an entire stalk at the base and yanks it clean out of the dirt.
Roots dangle like witch hair. “Free snack!” he crows, shaking soil over me and Skully.
“Stop manhandling the maze!” I swat him with both hands, dust sticking to my glitter. “That’s agriculture, not buffet.”
“Corn is buffet,” he says solemnly, as if announcing scripture, then tears open the husk with his teeth. Kernels scatter. He crunches down like it’s a steak.
Skully groans, dragging his boots along the path. “We are officially going to be banned from the suburbs. Again. Which is impressive, considering October already had a lifetime ban from the HOA.”
“That was only because I planted motion activated lunging spiders in the mailbox,” I shoot back. “And it was festive.”
He ignores me, already heckling the teenage actors lurking in the shadows. One zombie lurches out with a moan, fake blood dripping from his lips. “Wow,” Skully says, deadpan. “That zombie’s eyeliner is better than yours, October.”
“Excuse me?!” I shriek, but before I can claw at him, the zombie actor pelts him with a fistful of straw. Skully sputters, spitting bits out of his mouth, and I clap like it’s dinner theater. “Finally, someone who understands customer service.”
Marrow, of course, ignores all of this in favor of being the romantic crypt keeper of my heart. At the next fork in the path he takes my hand, lowering his head so close I feel his breath warm on my ear. “Left,” he murmurs, velvet and solemn, “is longing. Right is ruin. Which way, beloved?”
I grin so wide my cheeks ache, because this is the kind of problem I like. “Both.”
He blinks at me, caught between devotion and exasperation, and I seize the moment to drag all three of them straight through the middle, forcing the stalks apart like I’m parting a sea of dead soldiers.
The corn sighs and rustles around us, closing in again once we pass, and I laugh too loud, the sound spilling out like a dare.
Bonehead shoulders after me, eager to smash anything in his way.
Skully mutters about OSHA violations and ghosts with better contracts.
Marrow trails his fingers along the corn like he’s listening for prophecy.
And me? I’m vibrating, high on the sound of them bickering, high on the way the night feels alive, high on the fact that if I keep everyone moving, no one notices I’m the one trembling.
Every shriek in the maze—teenagers squealing, cheap jump scares—sounds like it’s echoing out of my chest. Every time a fog machine sighs, I think it’s the whisper again, reminding me: clock, window, thin, thin, thin.
So I laugh louder. I throw candy corn at Skully’s head.
I run my hands over Bonehead’s chest like I’m frisking him for illegal pumpkins.
I kiss Marrow’s jaw mid-step just to feel something solid under my lips.
They all look at me the same way in those moments—concern in three accents.
Bonehead frowning like he wants to smash whatever hurts me.
Skully smirking, but softer, like he’s waiting for me to crack the punchline.
Marrow’s gaze is heavy and reverent, as if I’m already a ghost he’s trying to memorize.
I spin away from all of them, dragging the fog around my shoulders like a cape, and shout into the maze: “Try harder, monsters! I paid for terror, not minor inconvenience!”
The corn shivers in answer. Somewhere ahead, a chainsaw revs.
I grin wider, cracked and perfect. “See? They listen.”
At the next junction I bolt, ducking into the shadows until the three of them lose me. Their voices spike into panic—Skully’s sharp curses, Bonehead’s bellow, Marrow’s whisper turned frantic hymn.