Horror - Flash

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious and any similarities to actual persons, locations, or events is coincidental. This work cannot be used to train artificial intelligence programs.  No AI tools were used in the writing of this story.

All rights reserved. A Big Surprise Copyright © Eddie Generous 2026

A BIG SURPRISE

Diane squints as she stumbles. She knows where she was headed—despite the hangdog tequila shots—but the sign before her does not say Orca Drive, it says… “Harvest Lane?” After she speaks, a spicy burp climbs up her throat. “Wrong street. Fucking cabbie,” she says as she withdraws her iPhone. It’s dark around her, a space where the city seems to butt up against the country.

She is a wealthy woman in designer everything. This afternoon, a verdict had come down on her client like a guillotine’s blade. 100 years, no chance of parole. And Diane simply moved on, only shrugging to her client as he was walked away in ankle shackles by a chubby bailiff.

“No bars? What is this, nineteen-ninety-nine?” Diane barks a single, harsh laugh as she drops her cellphone back into her purse.

A laugh returns as if echoed, though that is not her laugh.

“Who’s there?” she says as she rifles through her Prada bag for what she calls her American Express, because she doesn’t leave home without it. Once she has the pepper spray canister firmly in her grip, she repeats the question, “Who’s there?”

Where the country begins, rows upon rows of green corn rise and run infinitely to her left and right. Here and there, stalks begin to sway and ruffle.

“Okay then,” she says and turns away from the greenery to the—more corn?

The asphalt beneath her feet is gone, now it’s dirt and harvested stalks that have left behind only nubs.  Overhead, the moon is huge and red, and she’s certain that when she stepped into the bar, it had been but a pale sliver.

More stalks ruffle. She stands in a perfect circle of harvested corn, which makes no sense—how could a combine enter a field, harvest a circle, and then depart without trampling stalks upon exit? Makes as little sense as the city suddenly disappearing. Another laugh rings out.

“Who’s there?” she says, like third time’s going to be the charm.

Pepper spray shifted to her left hand, she relocates her cellphone within her purse with her right. Still no bars. She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. “You’re drunk, stressed, overwrought. When you open your eyes, this will all be gone.”

She opens her eyes; nothing has changed, she’s surrounded by corn. She’s about to pick a direction to start walking when she notes the sudden appearance of a scarecrow with a rotting jack-o-lantern head. Flames ignite within the moldering gourd and its eyes flash red, red, red.

Once capable of peeling her gaze from the scarecrow, she spins, looking to make distance between herself and it. There, before her is an identical scarecrow—same flannel shirt, same jeans, same tufts of straw playing out the seams, same rotting pumpkin head, same flashing red eyes.

“No,” she says, turning and seeing three more suddenly around the periphery of the circle.

Her cellphone rings in her hand, the vibration causing her to toss it away like a hot potato. She chases it, snatches it from amid the stiff remnants of harvested stalks. On the screen, she reads the caller ID: Kent Institution. Doesn’t matter. She accepts the call and says, “You have to help me! I’m—”

“Why should I help you, you didn’t help me?” the voice says.

Diane recognizes it instantly. It’s Willem Morgan, the man she’d failed to defend against the slew of violent and revolting charges he faced for the countless archaic and downright eerie acts he’d committed. It’s only now that she makes the connection. The women and children Willem had murdered and tortured showed signs of being harmed at an undisclosed, undiscovered location. A farm. They’d been mutilated, raped, and murdered on a farm before being dumped. Diane had tried to level with Willem about his coming clean with the location, about his making a deal concerning other victims. He’d said it was impossible because the farm, “Exists up here,” tapping his temple.

Diane drops the phone and puts her hands over her eyes. “You’re drunk, stressed, overwrought. When you open your eyes, this will all be gone. When you open your eyes—”

“You will get a big surprise,” five raspy voices whisper tight around her, breaths reeking of vegetable rot, burnt wax, and blood.

Diane doesn’t dare look. She’ll prolong this surprise forever, if she has to.

XX