On my drive to see my Ma, I spotted a school bus in the ditch. It looked like it had been there for at-least a decade, but the thing is, it wasn’t there last week. But this thing looked old, like it was rusted on the sides, and its tires were flat and melded with the dirt underneath it. So, me being the curious cat I am, gave it a little looky. This note was found on the drivers seat.
“There are no shadows in this place; I think maybe that’s why it feels so surreal. The constant rustle of feral wheat swaying for a seemingly infinite number of miles doesn’t help either. Like a constant whisper of an ancient tongue, but soft and gentle, yet at the same time, it sounds like a monster scratching on an autumn underbrush, dry and dead.
The thought that this place might be purgatory has crossed my mind, but everything feels far too wrong to be the afterlife. Sounds don’t feel right; there’s a constant overwhelming silence that somehow has noise - the noise of whispering wheat fields. I just somehow know I’m not supposed to be in this place. A mistake has brought me here. Maybe a bad roll of the cosmic dice, a coincidence, but a grave one.
three days ago, I arrived in this place, a place I’m certain is beyond Alberta and Earth. I arrived with a busload of children on a field trip. Somewhere along the way to the dairy farm where my class was supposed to learn about produce and farmers, we got lost. Lost on a one-way highway. The wheat fields slowly stretched while everyone was distracted playing Chopsticks and Battleship. The wheat grew, grew untamed and feral, slowly eating the road and towering over it, watching it. Spanning longer than the sun could see, it swallowed the horizon. But the wheat is not what frightens me; it’s what lives inside it.
On the first night, the children had to pee, so we went outside the bus. The night felt foreign, very dark but with no stars. Slowly, before I could take action, kids started to disappear. Whatever was in the wheat swooped them up with grace. No child uttered a scream. Six died during the first day, then three more disappeared during the night. Slowly but surely, something has been taking the kids away. The toll has become too much. I can’t help but feel that this is all my fault. I don’t sleep; my eyes have become strained and bloodshot because I don’t take my eyes off the children. But somehow, whatever lies outside comes inside while I blink my eye. The window will swing open, utter a single breeze, smelling of a stale barn with a rusty car, the faint ghost smell of diesel once used, and the peculiar, overbearing aroma of cinnamon - dry and sour. The seats then become empty, still warm, and I think maybe in the darkness I can see the monster. But alas, I know it only to be shadows.
The stress has gotten to me. Cam hasn’t come back from the fields, making me know the monsters have gotten him too. It’s bad news all around, folks. Food supplies are down to crumbs and granola in lunchboxes, but that’s a small problem in comparison to the much bigger problem of where the fuck we are. I’m sorry for the children who wake to find this note, and I’m sorry to leave you here alone. The whispers of the fields grow louder each day, and I think I can almost understand them. I think it might be my children whispering. I think I might join them now. Yes, I think I will. —Craig H. Elrod”
As I stand on the highway right now, and read this note. I can’t help but feel like I’m being watched. And maybe its my imagination, but I smell cinnamon. Oh god, I smell it strong. Ma, I don’t think i’m gonna make it to the farm tonight. I think I’m now in the same boat as Mr. Elrod’s class. God, help me the road looks as long as ever, and the wheat is longer than it was in the mornin’. Please if anyone receives this message, get me out before the cinnamon gets me! My wifi bars are goin’ down, I just hope this posts reaches in time.