For context, I grew up in Portland, Oregon. I had lived there from birth until I was about 15, which is when my Dad had gotten a huge business opportunity and made us move halfway across the country to a small farm in Illinois.
It was acres upon acres of land which had mainly consisted of flourishing cornfields. On the five acres, that had been untouched by the crops, stood a big white house, a wooden barn that was basically crumbling, and a rickety old swing set. It wasn’t much, but it was comfortable enough for me. My Mom was skeptical about it. She was uneasy about being in the middle of nowhere with no service and no towns within 10 miles. My Dad reassured her that it would be just fine and that there would be no problem. Nothing happens in Illinois anyways.
The first few months were a bit sketchy if I had to admit. It was never sunny or warm in the summer, instead you were met with a chill that sent a shiver down your spine. It always felt as if someone was always with you. There happened to be dead animals everywhere in our yard. We would get birds and mice and we didn’t own any animals besides a dog who couldn’t hurt a fly.
It started to get weirder the closer we got to the cornfield. Once I has gone to get some corn, and was attacked by a raven. I looked around the area and grabbed a piece anyways. It was there to be eaten, not to be stared at. But soon the Summer had faded into Fall, and Fall into Winter. The corn remained unaffected by the surrounding piles of snow. It was almost superhuman.
It only started to get bad when I woke up to muffled screams coming from my older brother. I rushed out of my bedroom followed by my little sister, Amy. We followed the screams outside where we found nothing. No trace of my brother, and the sound of bittersweet silence. I woke up and felt relieved that it had been some crazy dream. That was until I took a peek out of my window.
There he was, hanging on that old swing set, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers. Amy was standing before him, horror stricken. She was only seven. I rushed outside the house, tears streaming down my face. My brother was dead.
I left my sister outside crying while I ran for my mother and father. I couldn’t find them anywhere. I ran back outside and my sister was gone. So was my brother. I saw my dog running into the cornfield. I instinctively ran after him.
I made it about fifteen feet in when i lost sight of him. Twenty feet later and I stumbled across a staircase. There was no doors, just a concrete staircase. I walked down, the blistering cold snow giving my feet frostbite.
I found myself wandering in a rotting meat cellar. It smelled like absolute shit. I gagged at the smell of the rotting corpses. Why had this been left open? Why wasn’t this been shown to us?
A door stood in the middle of the back wall. An even worse smell was seeping through the cracks. I worryingly opened it to find human hair and skin scattered around the floor. It was my mother’s hair. And my father’s, and my brother and sister’s. Thats when I realized that the meat hadn’t smelled because it was rotting. It’s because it was freshly cut.
I run out of there, discovering that the staircase had not only been covered with a piece of plywood, but that the room smelled like kerosene. In a second, the match lights and fills the room with fire. I barely make it out.
I lift the burning plywood off the stairs. My body stings as it hits the cold, freezing air. The cornfields were burnt. The house was burnt. How long was I down there?
I walk down the road to the nearest shop. I ask them to call 911 because my hands are blistered and I can’t touch anything without feeling like dying. I get sent to the hospital and tell them this exact story. They go to my home address to find that there’s nothing there. Not even a mailbox.
Since then, I moved far away from Illinois. Far away from the midwest. The memorial for my family occurred back in my birthplace. I live with my grandmother and I pray it wont happen again.