The Corn Maze

“Fear can make you stronger.”

Anonymous

On one cold and blustery night, when my twin girls were eleven, we went with their friend, Nicole, to the Pierce College corn maze. Tall and thick and waving in the breeze, the maze covered a couple of acres, and we had a good time trying to find our way around, and at last, out the exit.

After loading up on popcorn and sugary drinks, they said, “We want to go in the Scary Maze.” On the car ride over, they had talked mostly about the Scary Maze and how they would never set foot in there, too creepy!

“Are you sure?” I asked, and all three shook their sugar-charged heads yes, but on one condition, that I would go with them. My wife wouldn’t be going in; she doesn’t like that sort of stuff. So off we four went, to the Scary Maze.

Unlike the traditional maze, the line was long and filled with teenagers eagerly expecting the wits to be scared out of them.

At last, we entered through a wall of dry ice vapors. All three of the girls hid behind me, clinging to my T-shirt as though their lives depended on it. One hung on the left, one on the right, and one in the middle. My shirt was stretched out like a laundry sheet as I staggered along the path.

For the first ten feet of utter darkness, nothing happened. Then, a flash of light! A deranged looking creature charged towards us and disappeared just as quickly! Others rushed across our path, fore and aft, screeching and whispering horrible things. And so it went, me lurching along with the three girls grappling behind, screaming all the way…uh, they were screaming, not me. Occasionally, I nearly punched one or two of the crazed zombies coming at us from every direction, but I managed to resist the temptation.

Finally, we made it to the exit and back into the real world. The girls untangled their fingers from my stretched-out shirt and chattered excitedly among themselves about their experience.

“It wasn’t too scary?” I asked.

“No, it was hardly scary at all,” they replied. “We had our eyes shut the whole time!”

“The Corn Maze,” from The Saturday Morning Post, at hankfrazee.com. Text “Saturday” to 22828 to subscribe.