20. Mona #3
My cheek is on fire. My head whips around as I’m forced to decide where to go, time of the utmost importance.
And I run the only place I think he won’t find me—in the corn maze.
I know it from running around with Peyton and Brett like little kids.
I know there’s a pocket in the middle that isn’t a part of the path.
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. This is ridiculous. The scared girl has to run into a corn maze to escape the killer. I mean, I don’t know if he’s a killer, but I also don’t want to stick around long enough to find out.
My tennis shoes smack against a few fallen dried corn stalks as I enter the maze, running it solely from memory, one that isn’t a hundred percent confident. Left, right, around the bend, right. I smack into corn, suddenly confused as to where I am.
Shit. Did I take a wrong turn?
Terrified tears pour down my face, my entire body trembling.
Get it together.
Forget about the middle zone. I’ll hide in the stalks and wait.
“Where are you, demon?” the man’s gravelly voice calls out.
I don’t waste another second jumping into the thick, crunchy, and dried crop, dropping to a crouch, my feet still planted on the ground in case I need to take off again.
Stilling as much as I possibly can, I try to calm my breaths, which is the only noise around me that’ll give me away, other than the crinkle of corn when I shift in the slightest.
Just breathe. In for four, out for six. In for four, out for six.
But any chance at calming myself is thrown to the wayside when I hear his voice again, much closer than before. I think he’s on this path—maybe ten feet away? It’s so hard to tell.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are. I’ve killed demons before; you won’t be the first, and you likely won’t be the last,” he stammers. “I know how to rid the world of your evil. It was written in the book. I am a soldier of God, and you will be sent back to hell. You won’t kill me. I forbid it.”
I gasp heavily but silently, expelling the controlled air through pursed lips. You’re safe. You’re safe. Casper’s going to be here soon.
When I tighten my fist, an entire new wave of hopelessness crashes into me because I must have dropped my phone at some point and not even realized it.
Shit!
Maybe I could cut through the stalks, back toward the house, and escape while he’s stuck in here. Maybe—
Crunch.
Crunch.
Crunch.
The path breaks beneath his boots, mere feet away from me.
I can’t form a thought or take a breath. My body is debating how fast we can flee or how hard we can fight. Both options sound fucking horrible. I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t want to deal with this.
It was supposed to be cute, a game of cat and mouse with Casper. But now I’m here, hiding in the dark at midnight, avoiding a man who thinks I’m trying to kill him.
Another crunch, and if I could see a single thing, I’d know he’s on the path directly in front of me. I’m tucked away, in the middle of the crop, three or four feet from where he’s standing.
Don’t move. Don’t breathe. Don’t make a fucking sound.
Slamming my eyes closed, I bite down on my lip, holding my breath and waiting for him to continue on. But of course, that would be all too simple and too easy of a hand dealt by the universe.
“There you are,” he cheers, and by the time I hear his boot step toward me, his hand is already fisting my hair and yanking me from my hiding spot.
“Ahh!” I scream, my scalp catching fire as I slap his hands, tugging at his wrists as hard as I can. “Stop! Please!”
“You took him from me. You stole Harvey!” Spit flies with his hate-filled words. He whips me to the ground, dropping on top of me, his knees at my sides.
“Please!” I kick and scream, fighting his hands that are now wrapping around my throat. “Please! I don’t know who Harvey is! I didn’t take him!”
His thumbs press against my esophagus, and panic widens my stare, my body flailing and fighting for relief.
I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t fucking breathe!
“You won’t escape me this time,” he growls.
I try to gasp, to fight past his iron grip. But to no avail.
“Please!” My cry is raspy and dry, muffled from the pressure. It’s all I can manage to push out. One final word.
Suddenly, a burst of light strikes his face, seeping through the stalks and illuminating the thousand-yard stare in his eyes.
My mind latches on to the details rather than the lightness trickling through me or the glitter in the air between us.
His irises are bright blue, face weathered, and if I had to guess, I would say he’s around sixty years old.
How terrifying would it be for this to be the last thing I saw?
I can feel darkness invading my mind, shutting me down slowly, agonizingly. So, instead of staring at the man who’s killing me, I close my eyes and imagine the face of the one I love. Wavy blond hair, golden-brown orbs with a ring of glitter around his pupils.
My eyes flutter open, and I swear he appears before me for a brief moment before everything around me fades away, darkness taking me into its cold embrace.