Page 33 of Bobbing for Bodies
But I don’t waste time rectifying the error. Instead, I head over to the haunted corn maze myself and step on in.
It’s time to confront the mother of Hunter’s child, and maybe his killer as well.
Chapter 16
There have been moments in my life that I’ve been morbidly afraid, frightened out of my mind for far lesser reasons. But at this moment, entering into a dimly lit maze—haunted at that—I’m riding the zenith of terror. I’m so far outside of my mind with fright it almost feels sublime.
The corn maze is a walled-in wonder filled with erroneous twists and turns—and don’t forget a horror around each corner. I should know, I’ve been once before—ironically while I was dating Bear. I screamed until my vocal cords went out and finally closed my eyes and made Bear get us the heck out of there. I swore I would never subject myself to the terror ever again and, yet, here I am. My feet move brazenly at a quickened clip in hopes of catching up to Stella and her man.
The sound of a child crying can be heard at a distance, and my pace picks up. No sooner do I round the next corner than a zombie-looking creature jumps out at me with a tiny zombie baby doll in her arms, and I snatch it from her without thinking.
“Hey, lady”—the zombie woman calls after me as I take off—“where you going? That’s a part of my bit! Ah, geez.”
Her voice fades to nothing as I bullet past vampires jumping out of caskets, monsters and maniacs, werewolves and space aliens. I pass a small crowd of teenagers who scream their heads off as I bolt past them with the zombie baby still in my hands, but I’m a woman on a mission, and I’m not stopping until I get the truth out of Stella.
The violent sound of a power tool grows in ferocity as I propel myself from one dead end to the other, and I pause, holding onto my knees, panting so hard I start to feel light-headed. The glint of something small and furry wraps around my ankle, and a shrill scream unleashes from me as I try my best to stomp the life out of the creature. But the tiny beast only lifts its cute little face at me and appears to chatter out a laugh.
I suck in a quick breath as I bend over and give the ghostly little cutie a scratch over his back.
“You scared the living daylights out of me.” Another breath hitches in my throat as an idea comes to me. “Take to me to Hunter’s killer! I’ve got an entire fleet of deputies I can employ to wrangle them to justice. Wouldn’t you love that?”
Its bushy little tails whips back and forth, and it takes off without so much as a wink.
“Here goes nothing,” I say as I follow along after it.
It leads the way straight to a split in the road, and for the life of me I can’t tell which direction the sound of that buzz saw is coming from.
“Just FYI,” I whisper to it. “I’m practically allergic to spooks. If at all possible, I’d like to avoid anyone who’s even remotely near a chainsaw.
The tiny fuzzy creature chirps up at me, and I’d swear I was just laughed at by dead vermin. It leads to the right where the maze opens up to a clearing, and I spot a couple with a baby up ahead.
“Good job, little guy,” I pant as I do my best to blend in with corn stalks.
Stella turns and spots me before pulling her boyfriend to the left, and just as I’m about to follow, they come right back to where they started.
“Dead end?” I can’t help but chide them.
The poor baby has his head tucked into his mother’s neck, too afraid to look at his surroundings, and I don’t blame him. Stella looks on fire as if she thrived on the adrenaline, but her boyfriend has a stiffness about him as if he were trying his best to get them out of this situation at any cost. And that’s what I have to fear the most.
Bear must be on my trail by now. Both he and Micheline were after them. They’ll be here soon. I have to believe it. I step forward, and they back their way into another offshoot as it opens up to a large octagon-shaped space that’s—
Out jumps a man in a hockey mask wielding that horrifically loud chainsaw, and the three of us howl in unison.
Stella and her boyfriend hightail it to the back of the octagon, entrapping themselves with nowhere to go. Instinctually, I block the exit, holding my hands out like a goaltender with the zombie baby dangling from my wrist.
“That’s Hunter’s baby boy. Isn’t it, Stella?” I shout up over the roar of the motor. The man in the hockey mask does his best to jump and jive while wielding his weapon, but not one of us pays him any mind.
“What do you care?” she shouts back, cradling the back of the baby’s head protectively. “This isn’t any of your business. But you’ve been putting yourself where you don’t belong right from the beginning.” She jerks her head toward her boyfriend. “Get me out of here, Jonas.”
The man with the chainsaw growls and shakes his weapon but to no avail. He got the reaction he wanted out of us the first time, and now we’re onto something far more frightening—ourselves.
“Jonas—” I call out, and he looks up at me with a steady gaze as if he were calculating how to burst right through me, and then a thought occurs to me. “Oh my God.” I straighten as I come to an epiphany. “You rigged the scaffolding, didn’t you?”
He looks to Stella, and they exchange a steely glance.
“You wanted Hunter out of the picture—but why? You had Stella. Hunter didn’t.”
Stella lets out a riotous groan, and the man with the chainsaw tosses a hand in the air in exasperation.