Funhouse (8 page)

             
There must have been more than a hundred of them, silhouetted in black against the moonlit sky. They were haphazardly placed, and surrounded the house. Some, Randy saw, were the size of a full grown adult, others were smaller, and planted in-between their larger counterparts.

             
The hovel like house sat in the centre of the strange display, a thin wisp of smoke drifting from the chimney.

             
“Holy shit, would you look at that?” Kenny said as he tried to catch his breath.

Dwayne didn’t say anything, and simply surveyed the landscape of scarecrows. Randy could see well enough, and it was with some dismay that he noticed
that little occasional glimmer of whatever lived inside his grieving friend, was now more evident than ever.

             
“What do you think the old fuck does all day in there?” Kenny whispered.

             
“Who knows, place is out here in the middle of nowhere, he could do anything he wants and get away with it.” Dwayne replied, as he took a swig of the beer he had brought with him. “You don’t have much to say about it.” He added, glancing at Randy.

             
Randy shrugged, trying to feign disinterest despite the gnawing horror in his guts.

             
“What is there to say, it’s a bunch of scarecrows. The guy is probably senile, or well on his way.”

             
“I say we go take a closer look.” Dwayne said, flashing a slick, predatory smile.

             
“I don’t know.” Kenny mumbled, and Randy could see the uncertainty in his eyes. “I mean, why bother? We have seen what we came here to see.”

             
“I’m with Kenny. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

             
“No. you pussies can go wait by the car if you want to, I’m going to take a closer look.”

             
“At what?” Randy snapped “What do you expect to see down there?”

             
“Well I don’t know until I get over there do I?”

“
Look, let’s just go home. Call it a night, okay?”

“
Yeah, maybe Randy’s right, Spyder. Let’s go home.” Kenny said, eyeing the scarecrows.

“
I don’t wanna go home!” He hissed.

Dwayne’s lip trembled and he turned away so that his friends couldn’t see it.

              “I can’t go home. Not yet.” He repeated.

              Randy thought he understood. Dwayne wanted to grieve for his mother, but perhaps he didn’t know how, or just wasn’t ready to accept it yet, and so would do whatever he could to delay having to make that decision.

             
Randy looked at the house, then to Dwayne.

             
“Okay.” He said. “Let’s go and take a quick look, then we get out of here. Agreed?”

             
“Yeah, exactly.” Dwayne said, still not quite free of the tremble in his voice.

             
“Okay, then let’s go, but keep it quiet. This guy has been here alone for a long time, and he might get easily spooked.”

             
“You afraid, Randy?” Kenny sneered.

             
“No, all I’m saying is we should be careful.”

             
“Why?” Kenny pressed.

             
“He probably has a gun.” Dwayne said, then turned and flashed his alligator smile. “And I doubt he would think too long and hard about shooting at us.”

             
“Oh!” Was all Kenny could muster, and the trio were silent for a while.

             
“So, how do you want to do this?” Randy asked.

             
Dwayne licked his lips.

             
“The scarecrows will give us cover; we just walk straight up to the house. If we see or hear anything, try to blend in.”

             
Randy didn’t like it, but he also had a duty to do whatever he could to help his friend through the process of grieving, and so he decided to push away his own uncertainty, and get this little voyeuristic mission over with as quickly as possible.

             
“Well.” He said with a sigh. “No point standing around and waiting. Let’s get on with it.”

             
They walked towards the house, weaving around the scarecrows as they neared. Randy saw that some were older than others, the tired plaid shirts they wore were rotten and hanging off the straw sack bodies. He drew a deep breath, and his senses were filled with the scent of moist earth, straw and rot.

             
“Is anyone else freaked out by these things?” Kenny whispered.

             
Randy was, but he wasn’t about to admit it, and so remained silent, and Kenny’s question remained unanswered.

             
They were close now, and crouched behind the last row of scarecrows, beyond which were the farmers crops and then finally the house.

             
“That’s weird.” Dwayne said, as he looked at Randy with a wide grin.

             
“What is?”

             
“Look at his crops.” Dwayne said, finishing his beer and tossing the can over his shoulder.

Randy did. They looked remarkable. Rows of well-kept tomato plants and potatoes. Behind that, rows of cabbages and beets, then by the side of the house a modest size cornfield.

              “It all looks normal to me. What are you seeing?” Randy asked.

             
“My uncle has a farm.” Dwayne whispered. “He had crops like this too, but this whole setup is wrong.”

             
“What do you mean?”

             
“Come on Randy, think about it. Why would a farmer have a scarecrow?”

             
“To protect his crops from birds I guess.”

             
“Exactly, now look again.”

             
Randy did, and was still unsure what he was looking for. He was about to say as much when it hit him.

             
“You see it now, right?” Dwayne pressed, and flashed another sick grin.

He did see it. He looked over his shoulder, then back at the crops, and questions began to fill his mind.

              The crops were the only place where there were no scarecrows. They were open and exposed, and as Randy looked around him he thought he understood.

             
“The scarecrows aren’t protecting the crops.” He said as he looked at Dwayne. “They are protecting the house.”

“What
the hell would they be protecting the house from?” Kenny asked, now desperate to leave.

“I don’t know Kenny, giant birds? Shut up and let me think.” Dwayne hissed.

Kenny mumbled and lowered his head, as Randy and Dwayne stared at the house.

“What do you think?” Randy asked.

“I think we go take a closer look.”

“I’m not so sure, I have a bad feeling here.”

“Look, this is just a crazy old man who doesn’t know what he’s doing. Nothing more.” Dwayne said with more than a hint of bravado.

“Then why are you so determined to look into the house?”

Dwayne was about to reply, when he saw a flash of silver in his peripheral vision. The object landed on the dirt between him and Randy, and the two of them looked at it, and then in unison, whipped their heads around to look behind them.

“What?” Kenny said, shrugging his shoulders, but he was ignored. They were looking past Kenny, into the tangle of sticks, straw and old clothes which swayed and creaked in the breeze. Kenny joined them in staring into the dense mass of scarecrows.

The air was still, a thick silence hanging heavy as the trio glared into the darkness from where they crouched.

“You saw me toss that, right, Randy?” Dwayne said, his voice now stripped of bravado.

Randy nodded. He had seen Dwayne throw it over his shoulder when they first arrived here at the edge of the crops. And now, someone had tossed it back.

“Yeah, I saw it.”

“Will someone tell me what’s going on?” Kenny asked, his voice a little too high and his eyes a little too wide.

“Someone’s out there,” Dwayne said, flashing that sly grin that reminded Randy of the cat from Alice in Wonderland.

“Shut up man, that’s not funny.” Kenny whispered, then he saw that neither of his friends were laughing, and the three of them stared into the dark.

             
“I think we should get out of here.” Randy whispered.

             
“Yeah, me too.” Dwayne agreed. “You ready Kenny?”

             
Kenny didn’t answer; instead he stared into the scarecrows.

             
“What’s wrong? Dwayne hissed.

             
“They are moving out there.”

             
“Who, the people that are screwing with us?”

             
“No. The scarecrows.”

             
Dwayne started to laugh, but something in Kenny’s eyes made him stop, and he too stared. They watched, and waited.

             
“This is bullshit.” Dwayne said, and he scooped up the can and for the second time tossed it deep into the forest of scarecrows. They waited for it to come back, but there was nothing out there but that same heavy silence.

             
“That’s it, I’m done.” Randy said, standing and brushing the dirt from his knees. “I’m leaving.”

             
“Yeah, me too.” Kenny added.

             
Randy was expecting to have to convince Dwayne, and was surprised when he too stood and zipped up his jacket with shaking hands.

             
“I’m with you; let’s get the hell out of here.”

             
They moved quickly, crouched over as they criss-crossed their way around the maze of scarecrows. It was hard to see which way they had come and combined with their panic, disorientation set in.

             
“Which way?” Kenny said, closer than ever to losing it completely.

             
“Keep going straight, we’ll be out soon enough.”

             
“It shouldn’t be taking this long.” He shot back. “Screw this.”

             
Kenny stood, and there framed by the moonlight, both Dwayne and Randy saw it all.

             
One of the scarecrows moved. It turned its head – a cloth bag stuffed with straw and adorned with a rough hand drawn face. At the same time, it swung towards Kenny, the wooden frame which held its arms at its side hitting him full in the face.

             
Kenny yelped as the wood smashed into his nose, staggering him backwards. The scarecrows behind him swung aside to accommodate him, and then closed behind him.

             
Kenny was gone.

             
“What the fuck was that?” Dwayne croaked as the scarecrows began to sway and move as if rocked by the wind. The way ahead was closed, lost in the movements of the scarecrows.

             
“Come on, back the way we came.” Randy yelled as he turned and ran back towards the warm yellow glow from the windows of the house.

             
“What about Kenny?” Dwayne said as he followed.

             
Randy didn’t answer. If it were a movie, they would surely go back and retrieve their portly friend, but here in real life, Randy didn’t care enough about Kenny to risk his own skin. His only concern was getting free of the scarecrows.

             
“Hey!” Randy screamed. “Hey, you in the house, open up!”

             
The pair burst free of the scarecrows, and charged over the crops, giving the cabbages and carrots underfoot little regard. They arrived at the house, and Randy pounded on the door.

“
Hey, open up!” He yelled.

“
Jesus, look at this.” Dwayne said quietly.

             
Randy turned and pressed his back to the door and looked at the scarecrows.

             
When they had arrived, they were all facing out away from the house, but now as the two boys stood with their backs to the farmhouse door, the scarecrows were facing inwards. They were like sentinels, watching with eyes that were as unreal as the heads they were drawn on. Any sense of a path through them was gone. The house was surrounded. As they waited, the door swung open, and Randy fell backwards, landing in a heap on the floor of the farmhouse.