I have a feeling if I look over my shoulder right now, I will see Lilith’s face in the window. She said almost nothing. And yet so much.
Rather than walking to the corn maze, I cross through the cornfield, say goodnight to the officers who had relieved the ones from before and taken their place protecting the investigation, and get in my car. The drive to the corn maze only takes a couple of minutes down the narrow dirt road. It was only a couple of months ago that Dean and I walked through the rows of corn and saw the beginnings of the maze growing up in the late summer heat.
Now it’s fully grown and surrounded by black fabric to create boundaries and keep people in. Any other year that would just be to elevate the fear. There was already a certain level of unease and fright that comes from being in a maze at night.
Add a barrier that prevents walking through the edge to escape, and the feeling of being chased, and it can quickly turn into terror. But that's why people come. They want the rush of adrenaline. They want the brush with danger their lives never offer them.
They know in the end they'll find their way out.
But the fabric has a more ominous feeling after the events of the last few months. It's not just there to create a more frightening atmosphere or keep people from cheating and leaving the maze through the back or one of the sides. It's there to control their movements and stop anyone from trying to creep to the cornfield.
There's something about the intrigue of death that makes people feel the need to prove themselves. I'll never understand that. There's nothing inherently frightening about a grave or even a body. It's what happened to it, why it exists, that can be chilling. Yet people still want to do things like sit in a grave or touch bones, thinking it gives them some sort of credibility.
It's the damage they can do, the disrespect they show, that causes a problem. They seem to forget these were once people. That should never be forgotten.
In my years in this line of work, I have learned to think of a body as nothing more than a body. I distance myself for as long as I need to in order to investigate and find out what happened. But after that, their humanity returns. I never lose sight of their lives. And what they've left behind.
Chapter Sixteen
I get to the maze, but there’s no one around. The screams and laughter have stopped, and there are only a couple of cars parked toward the back corners of the parking area.
“Dean?” I call, walking up to the entrance.
I hear voices in the distance. It sounds like someone is inside the maze, but they don’t sound as happy about it as the other people did. I take out my phone and call Dean, but he doesn’t answer. The only choice I have is to go in and find him.
I go into the corn maze, trying to follow the voices echoing around the sharp corners. I turn left, then right, left again, then come smack into a dead end. I curse under my breath, heading back to retrace my steps, then take a left where I had previously taken a right. One of the scare actors lunges out and screams, but I just brush by him.
“Not right now,” I tell him, holding up my badge.
The man stops awkwardly, not sure what to do, but I keep my ears perked for familiar voices. I can just make out Dean speaking to someone else, but it doesn’t sound like Xavier. Whatever he is saying is rather animated, and I pick up my steps to reach them a bit faster, taking a right, a left, two more rights, getting stuck twice more in dead ends, running past a few more actors, and then finally coming out towards the end of the maze. When I get there, my heart sinks.
It’s only Dean and the man running the maze. Xavier is gone.
“Where is he?” I ask, not bothering with introducing myself or other niceties.
“I don’t know,” Dean begins, shooting a look over at the heavyset man beside him. The man, whose nametag reads “Carl”, looks surly and upset. “One of the scare actors jumped out at him, and he took off. This guy grabbed me as I chased him to tell me they are closing and to get out.”
“We are closed. Your friend will find a way out,” Carl says.
“The hell he will,” I say cutting him off. “He’s not… he’s lost. Trust me. He is lost, and he will stay lost if we don’t go get him.”
“Yeah, well, one of the actors in the maze will guide him out,” Carl grumbles and then picks up his walkie. “Code orange. We have one loose. Adult. Guide him out and close up,” he said into the ancient-looking walkie-talkie.
There is a moment of silence as we wait for a response. Carl pulls the walkie up to his ear and then turns the knob a few times.
“Shit,” he mutters.
“Shit what?” Dean asks.
“Battery must be dead,” Carl says. “Seriously, folks, the best thing is for you to go outside and holler for him to find one of the actors and make his way out. I’ll go get another battery for this thing up at the house.”
With that, he walks away from us, and I turn to look at Dean. I shake my head.
“I’m going in after him,” I say.
“Me too,” Dean nods. “We should probably split up to cover more ground.”
“Famous last words,” I mutter. “Didn’t you suggest that last time?”
“I feel more for the scare actors than Xavier, honestly. Who knows what they will think when he starts telling them all about whatever is on his mind.”
We reach the first fork quickly. I nod to the fork closest to me. “I’ll head this way. If you find him,
