We slip outside, staying low, shoulders brushing the siding. The golden hour presses in hard and close, like it’s leaning down to listen.
The cars sit lined up in the dirt drive, dark shapes waiting to save us.
Hope flares. Small. Fragile.
Then I see the tires.
Shredded. Split open. Rubber peeled back in long black curls like dead petals. Vines push out of the rims, thick and glossy, pulsing as if they have a heartbeat. One tendril drags across the gravel with a soft, wet scrape that makes my skin crawl.
Goodbye hope.
“For fuck’s sake,” Shaun mutters, raking a hand through his hair.
Panic surges up my throat, fast and sharp. My vision tunnels. Every instinct screams run, scream, do anything except stand here.
Think, Val. Do not spiral.
A useless fact pops into my head, bright and uninvited. Pumpkins are technically berries. Berries with vines strong enough to crack concrete if you let them grow long enough.
Great.Killer berries.
“We can go on foot,” I say, forcing the words out. “Follow the road. Maybe flag someone down?—”
My voice cuts off.
Somewhere in the distance, an engine growls.
Ice floods my veins.
“Shaun,” I whisper. My throat shrinks around the word. “Did you... did you see one of them on Cole’s body?”
He freezes. The shotgun stops halfway up, caught between instincts. For a second he doesn’t answer.
He doesn’t have to.
His eyes lift to mine and the truth lands there, heavy and rotten. Confirmation without words.
We turn together.
Beyond the corn maze, the tops of the stalks ripple. Not from the wind. Something pushes through from below, forcing the plants apart. Stalks bend and snap. Leaves shudder like they’re trying to crawl away from whatever’s coming.
The tractor’s engine revs again.
“Fuck,” Shaun says, the word torn out of him.
My brain, traitor that it is, throws out another useless fact. Cornfields sound louder at night because moisture stiffens the leaves. Every rustle carries. Every snap echoes.
Great.Murder produce with surround sound.
“Run,” Shaun snaps.
I don’t argue.
We bolt. Gravel bites through my soles. My lungs burn, each breath sharp and shallow. The corn rushes toward us, a wall of green teeth whispering and hissing like it knows exactly what’s hunting us.
I spot a pitchfork leaning against a hay bale and grab it without slowing. The handle scrapes my palms, rough and splintered. Real. Heavy. It grounds me in a way panic can’t steal.
For the first time since this started, I don’t feel completely useless.