It is quite unsettling to think about how someone’s life can be forfeit by something so banal as a kick of a ball. Indeed, it was a kick of the old, worn out leather ball that spelled out Ray’s demise. He was the happiest kid in the world when his parents gifted it to him for his eight birthday, two years prior.
Growing up in a small town, you have to be content with little entertainment you get. We kids had no arcades and parks to keep us occupied. Instead, after school, we’d spend our days in the backyard of one of us, playing board games and messing around.
When summer came along, though, things got a bit more interesting. We’d spend entire days casing around our small hometown, walking through the forest and riding our bikes down the streets. If we were particularly lucky, we’d find one of the homeless people to bribe to buy us some cheap beer from the convenience store. The four of us would pool our money together with great difficulty, yet the absolute triumph of getting away with something like that offset the feeling of financial setback.
The four of us had known each other since early childhood. Ray, Edgar, David and I were inseparable.
As I said, we spent entire summer days together doing various activities, but we were energetic boys, and even as night grew closer we did not want to conclude with our games and our parents would have to call us one by one to get us inside.
Usually, we would gather on our street and play some football with street lights illuminating our playground.
It was during one of these nights that our lives would forever change, that one of us would die. I do not remember the date. In fact, it took me many years of therapy to even be able to retell this event in such a calm manner.
It was a warm night like any other. We were at our usual spot on the street dividing our houses from the cornfield on the other side. We had just elected the teams, which was always a point of contest for us, and began playing.
Right off the bat, David and Ray scored a goal and Edgar and I made an unspoken agreement to play more aggressively, signed by both of us with a silent nod.
David passed the ball to Ray who prepared to make a breakthrough and fire at our goal we primitively made out of two rocks at an approximately appropriate distance from one another. As Edgar was a little bit clumsy and not good at abrupt interventions, I knew I had to be the one to stop him. I began charging, Ray noticed and wanted to pass the ball to David, but I was already too close in his personal space for him to be able to fire a precise shot, so he kicked blindly.
The kick was too strong and too imprecise and the ball flew off in the cornfield. We all looked at him. It was an unspoken rule of ours. Whoever launched the ball off the street had to go fetch it.
Wasting no time, Ray walked into the cornfield. I wish this was the last time we saw him.
The sound of the corn leaves shifting followed Ray’s footsteps. We had a general idea of where the ball landed, but neither of us had a flashlight or any other light source. Still, we were impatient. After a minute or two, Edgar called out, “Come on! Have you found it yet?”
Silence. We all called out to him in unison. Suddenly, we heard his voice. It was distant. He had delved deep into the cornfield. How did the ball fly off THAT far?, I thought to myself.
“Guys. This… This isn’t right. It keeps going further from me. It… won’t stop.” We heard him say. The uneasiness in his voice was palpable. We did not understand what he was trying to say, yet it was clear that he was disturbed. His disturbance passed on to us. We didn’t care about the ball anymore.
“Get out of there. We will find it tomorrow.” I shouted. Others confirmed.
“Oh god. Sir… Such long arms. Arms. I. Sorry. We just want our… Ball back.” Ray mouthed. We stood frozen there. Time seemed to come to a standstill. None of us were brave enough to do anything. Still, this mind numbing silence wouldn’t last long.
Ray let out a scream appropriate for some animal that was being ripped apart. I can still hear that guttural shriek in my worst nightmares. The scream and incoherent pleas for help went on and on. They were steadily growing fainter before they disappeared altogether.
This ordeal awakened slumbering citizens of our little hometown, and before we knew it we were ushered inside Edgar’s house, being the closest, and showered with a multitude of questions. We answered them to the best of our ability. The men from our village armed themselves that very night and searched the cornfields. They found neither Ray nor the thing that took him, yet the signs of struggle were obvious. Broken corn stalks indicated the struggle that happened and the pathway which that thing used to drag Ray out of the cornfield and into the forest.
The following several days were a blur of multitude of happenings. Stern faced men in dark suits arrived in our town and questioned the three of us. Ray’s mother had a mental breakdown. She lost her husband a year prior, and fate would have it that her son was also taken away from her.
As for us, we answered to the best of our ability and were eventually cleared of all suspicion. I watched from my bedroom window as those strange men investigated the cornfield and the sprawling forest bordering it.
Nothing was found of our friend, and life moved on. We didn’t see each other much that summer, but we resumed our friendship after the school year began. Still, we were wary not to stay out after nightfall, we didn’t even look in the direction of the cornfield when we would walk home, and we pretended Ray never existed.
Three years passed. Time heals pain and smothers fear. Summer came around and we began staying out after nightfall. I could sense the fear looming over us the first few times we did it, yet after a couple of nightly outings it seemed that we had defeated it.
It was one of those warm summer nights and we had just polished off a case of beer in the alleyway near the convenience store and begun walking home. The sound of crickets and our lively conversation echoed in the silence of a warm summer night. Time flew fast while we were conversing, and before we knew it we were back on our street, ready to say our goodbyes and depart for the night.
Some sudden movement in that damned cornfield killed our chatter. I cannot speak for others, but it was in this exact moment that all that fear I considered dead and buried came back to haunt me. We looked at the source of the movement, but the corn stalks obscured our view. We all took a step back when sudden movement erupted and something landed in front of our feet. It was.. an old, worn out, leather ball.
“I… Found it…. guys.” Something croaked, hiding itself among the corn stalks.
“I found it… We can… Play… Again.”
“Ray?” I whispered. “My god…Ray. Is it… really you?” I asked
“Help me. It gnawed on my legs. Lend me…. a hand” It wheezed
Without much, or any thinking really, I walked closer, extending my hand. I wanted my friend back.
“No! You fucking idiot!” Edgar roared and grabbed my shoulders, yet I stood firm. David also embraced me. They were trying to pull me away.
A hand reached out of the cornfield and grabbed mine. I looked at it. It was cold and clammy. I noticed that the skin was falling off. There were gaps where Ray’s rotting bones were exposed. It looked as if the skin was carelessly taped onto his degloved arm.
I glanced upwards and saw his face peering from the stalks. His face… He wore it like a mask. It was torn, shuffled and dirty. His eyes bulging out of his sockets
I could not bear to look at such a sight and longer and lowered my gaze. That’s when I noticed…Something was holding him. Two elongated appendages stretched deep into the cornfield… Something… Was propping him up.
My friends were pulling me away with immense force and Ray’s hand was sliding out of mine.
“Do not… Leave me… Let’s play… Play…. Please…” He begged.
Finally, they pulled me away from his grasp and I came to my senses. We scattered. Each of us ran away to his house. I realized that my parents were already asleep as I grabbed my father’s gun and secured every window and checked every lock in the house. I went upstairs to my room, barricaded the door and hid beneath the covers, where the full realization of what just happened hit me. I must have wailed like a madman for an hour till I passed out.
I was woken up unnaturally early. I could hear stressed voices talking one over another. I could hear cars driving by on a dirt road. I stood up, still clutching a gun and walked over to the window. There was a crowd of people gathered in front of Ray’s house.
I unbarricaded my door as quietly as I could and went downstairs, storing my father’s gun.
I shuffled out of the house and onto the road. I could see David and Edgar among the crowd.
“What happened?” I asked. Edgar was crying, David was on the verge of tears.
“What the fuck happened?” I repeated myself.
“It seems… After we left… He… Took his mother with him.” David whispered.