By Jay Nystrom
Travis perked his ears at the distant scratching sound, he listened closely…the tiny electric motor that controlled the sliding panes of glass whirred. A small chime rang out over the speaker system but he couldn’t hear any footsteps, he grunted as he placed his hand on one of the lower shelves and lifted himself up from the kneeled position he had taken on the floor. The scratching could be heard again, this time a whoosh and howl of the wind accompanied it, Travis laughed at himself, a small huff of derision that chided himself at his edginess. The sliding doors were stuck open again, they did it often at this little grocery store that was his second home.
He watched as the wind from outside blew the crisp maroon and golden leaves further into the store, he wiggled the door until the motor engaged and the doors slid gently together. Travis scooped the leaves into the waste bin and cursed his luck of having drawn the late shift tonight, he knew the rest of his crew would be halfway to wasted by now and here he was being frightened by the wind. He hoped that the party would still be going by the time he locked up, he so desperately wanted to show Teresa that he was a funny and sweet guy in a setting other then work. Travis took a deep breath and let it out with depressed huff, not that she would even notice him, not that she would even care.
As he rounded the corner back to the aisle he shook his head at the mess he still had to fix before he could leave, he struggled to get back onto the floor again. After a few minutes of turning soup labels forward he heard the doors open again, this time the noticeable clack of high heels could be heard on the tile. A woman in a blue dress turned into the aisle, he could see her from the corner of his eye. He readied a charming smile, a pretty woman was about the only time he bothered to provide anything close to good customer service. He turned his head with a snap only to find that nobody was there, she must have headed to another section of the store in the time it took him to muster the effort to help.
He heard the heels again but a little more towards the door this time, he waited for the familiar beep of the register scanning but found it silent. Just as Travis turned his attention back to the shelf the lights shut off, the entire store was pitch black. He cursed the night janitor who must have forgot there was still employees here, with the wide glow of his cell phone Travis made his way to the switch located in the back hallway. The light shone on the knob, it was still in the on position, he turned it off then back on and the lights flashed to life. After another half hour of tedious, pointless work he called it a night and rushed to his car. The drive wasn’t more then ten minutes to the little farm where his coworkers and friends would hopefully still be partying, he pulled up to the edge of the property and continued on foot.
The moon hung big and bright in the sky, as he walked Travis began to remember snippets of a dream. He found it odd that he would take this long to remember a dream from the night before but somehow it bothered him that he couldn’t form the scene in his mind. The cobwebs of his head swirled around confusing him further, he remembered something about Teresa being there, although to be fair he dreamed of her often. Then he remembered something about a scarecrow, then he felt a whispered breath on his neck. He turned violently but nobody was there, it must have been nerves from strange events earlier that had him on edge.
Travis neared the spot where his friends would be, it was a clearing in the middle of an orchard where nothing would grow. It was a near perfect circle of blackened ground that was rumored to be the site of a witches coven from long ago, it was now just used by teens to drink and paw at each other in the night. He stepped into the circle and his mind was flooded with memories, it wasn’t a dream from the night before that had bothered him so much. No… it was the nightmare of remembering what had happened, in the middle of the circle was a lone scarecrow that had long worn out his clothes and spilled his straw. Now it was just an empty sack with a torn hat upon it’s head, at the foot of the scarecrow were the bodies of his friends.
He started to cry at finding them again, the nightmare relived and remembered. It was like it was fresh again, he looked around the circle and saw the wraiths and apparitions of the people he knew weeping at the sight. He was always the last one to show up, he was last on the night when this happened the first time. It didn’t spare him the blade of the madman who had lurked in the shadows, the man who dug himself from a prison and rampaged across three states taking sixteen lives before being stopped.
Travis watched as the bodies on the ground faded away, he looked at the deflated face of the scarecrow and thought that it had a sinister grin beneath the moonlit brim of his frayed hat. His friends stepped towards the center and he found his feet following suit, the night would be replayed again next year, now he remembered that it always was. The spirits weakened and were blown away by the wind as they neared the decrepit scarecrow, Travis looked to the woods to see the woman in the blue dress standing at the edge of the circle. But the figure gained shape with his memory, it wasn’t a woman though, no… it was the man who had taken his life, a bloodied maniac in a cocktail dress he had taken from a girl four towns over.
Travis almost screamed when he bumped into the scarecrow, a small tuft of hay scratched his cheek with a dry rustle. Then he felt himself being pulled away, he cried but no tears came… he was always last to leave…without ceremony and without company.
END
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