In the Tall Grass

Behind her, she heard a door slam. Cal, on his way across the street.

“We’re lost!” the boy shouted. “Please! Please, my mom is hurt, please! Please help!”

“No!” the woman said. “No, Tobin, no!”

Becky looked around to see what was taking Cal so long.

He had crossed a few dozen feet of the dirt parking lot and then hesitated by what looked like a first- generation Prius. It was filmed with a pale coat of road dust, almost completely obscuring the windshield. Cal hunched slightly, shielded his eyes with one hand, and squinted through the side window at something in the passenger seat. Frowning to himself for a moment, and then flinching, as if from a horsefly.

“Please!” the boy said. “We’re lost and I can’t find the road!”

“Tobin!” the woman started to call, but then her voice choked. As if she didn’t have the spit for talk.

Unless this was an elaborate prank, something was very wrong here. Becky DeMuth was not conscious of her hand drifting to press against the tight, beach-ball-firm curve of her abdomen. Nor did she connect the way she felt then with the dreams that had been bothering her for close to two months now, dreams she had not discussed even with Cal-the ones about driving at night. A child shouted in those dreams, too.

She dropped down the embankment in two long-legged steps. It was steeper than it looked, and when she reached the bottom, it was clear the grass was even higher than she thought, closer to seven feet than six.

The breeze gusted. The wall of grass surged and retreated in a soft shushing tide.

“Don’t look for us!” the woman called.

“Help!” said the boy, contradicting her, almost shouting over her-and his voice was close. Becky could hear him just off to the left. Not close enough to reach in and grab, but surely no more than ten or twelve yards from the road.

“I’m over here, buddy,” she called to him. “Keep walking toward me. You’re almost to the road. You’re almost out.”

“Help! Help! I still can’t find you!” the boy said, his voice even closer now. This was followed by a hysterical, sobbing laugh that cooled Becky’s skin.

Cal took a single skipping step down the embankment, slid on his heels, and almost fell on his ass. The ground was wet. If Becky hesitated to wade into the thick grass and go get the boy, it was because she didn’t want to soak her shorts. Grass that high would hold enough water, suspended in glittering drops, to make a small pond.

“Why are you waiting?” Cal asked.

“There’s a woman with him,” Becky said. “She’s being weird.”

“Where are you?” the boy cried, almost babbled, from just a few feet away in the grass. Becky looked for a flash of his pants or shirt, but didn’t see them. He was just a little bit too far in for that. “Are you coming? Please! I can’t find my way out!”

“Tobin!” the mother yelled, her voice distant and strained. “Tobin, stop!”

“Hang on,” Cal said, and stepped into the grass. “Captain Cal, to the rescue. Have no fear. When kids see me, they want to be me.”

By then, Becky had her cell phone out, cupped in one hand, and was opening her mouth to ask Cal if they should call highway patrol or whatever they had out here that was blue.

Cal took one step, then another, and suddenly all Becky could see of him was the back of his denim shirt, and his khaki shorts. For no rational reason at all, the thought of him moving out of sight caused her pulse to jump.

Still, she glanced at the face of her little black touchscreen Android and saw that she had the full complement of five bars. She dialed 9-1-1, and hit Call. As she lifted the phone to her ear, she took a long step into the grass.

The phone rang once, then a robot voice announced that her call was being recorded. Becky took another step, not wanting to lose sight of the blue shirt and light-brown shorts. Cal was always so impatient. Of course, so was she.

Wet grass began to whicker against her blouse, shorts, and bare legs. From the bathing machine came a din, Becky thought, her subconscious coughing up part of a half-digested limerick, one of Edward Gorey’s. As of jollification within. It was heard far and wide and the something something tide blah blah. She had written a paper on limericks for her Freshman Lit class that she had thought was rather clever, but all she got for her trouble was a headful of dumb rhymes she couldn’t forget, and a C+.

A real live lady-voice supplanted the robot. “Kiowa County 9-1-1, what is your location and the nature of your emergency, caller?”

“I’m on Route 400,” Becky said. “I don’t know the name of the town, but there’s some church, the Rock of the Redeemer or something. . and this broken-down old roller-skating rink. . no, I guess it’s a bowling alley. . and some kid is lost in the grass. His mother, too. We hear them calling. The kid’s close, the mother not so much. The kid sounds scared, the mother just sounds-” Weird, she meant to finish, but didn’t get the chance.

“Caller, we’ve got a very bad connection here. Please restate your-”

Then nothing. Becky stopped to look at her phone and saw a single bar. While she was watching, it disappeared, to be replaced by NO SERVICE. When she looked up, her brother had been swallowed by the green.

Overhead, a jet traced a white contrail across the sky at thirty-five thousand feet.

“Help! Help me!”

The kid was close, but maybe not quite as close as Cal had thought. And a little farther to the left.

“Go back to the road!” the woman screamed. Now she sounded closer, too. “Go back while you still can!”

“Mom! Mommy! They want to HELP!”

Then the kid just screamed. It rose to an ear-stabbing shriek, wavered, suddenly turned into more hysterical laughter. There were thrashing sounds-maybe panic, maybe the sounds of a struggle. Cal bolted in that direction, sure he was going to burst into some beaten-down clearing and discover the kid-Tobin-and his mother being assaulted by a knife-wielding maniac out of a Quentin Tarantino movie. He got ten yards and was just realizing that had to be too far when the grass snarled around his left ankle. He grabbed at more grass on his way down and did nothing but tear out a double handful that drooled sticky green juice down his palms to his wrists. He fell full-length on the oozy ground and managed to snork mud up both nostrils. Marvelous. How come there was never a tree around when you needed one?

He got to his knees. “Kid? Tobin? Sing-” He sneezed mud, wiped his face, and now smelled grass-goo when he inhaled. Better and better. A true sensory bouquet. “Sing out! You too, Mom!”

Mom didn’t. Tobin did.

“Help me pleeease!”

Now the kid was on Cal’s right, and he sounded quite a lot deeper in the grass than before. How could that be? He sounded close enough to grab.

Cal turned around, expecting to see his sister, but there was only grass. Tall grass. It should have been broken down where he ran through it, but it wasn’t. There was only the smashed-flat place where he’d gone full length, and even there the greenery was already springing back up. Tough grass they had here in Kansas. Tough tall grass.

“Becky? Beck?”

“Chill, I’m right here,” she said, and although he couldn’t see her, he would in a second; she was practically on top of him. She sounded disgusted. “I lost the 9-1-1 chick.”

“That’s okay, just don’t lose me.” He turned in the other direction, and cupped his hands to his mouth. “Tobin!”

Nothing.

“Tobin!”

“What?” Faint. Jesus Christ, what was the kid doing? Lighting out for Nebraska? “Are you coming? You have to keep coming! I can’t find you!”

“KID, STAND STILL!” Shouting so loud and so hard it hurt his vocal cords. It was like being at a Metallica concert, only without the music. “I DON’T CARE HOW SCARED YOU ARE,