Night of the Cornhole

A Story by Scott

Intro/first chapter into a longer story involving two teens who run into trouble on their way across the country

Jonas Miller had never seen a shooting star. It was a cool April night and Jonas had spent most of the day caring for the crops he grew on his small farm in Greenbriar, South Dakota. Although it was less than half the size of an average family farm, it was a laborious campain for one to manage on their own.
He had spent the past fall working compost into the soil, which produced a faster yield. He weeded the crops, careful not to damage the roots. He watered them and drained the soil. He inspected the leaves and stalks for signs of vermin, insects, and disease, which he considered the most important precaution before a harvest.There was nothing worse than shucking an ear of corn only to find some fat juicy larvae where there should be delicious golden corn.
His fields were primarily devoted to sweet yellow corn but he also produced some summer squash and pinto beans for the folks in town. He grew a small patch of dent corn on the far side of the land closest to the woods. Dent corn could be used as feed for livestock, cereal, or even to make ethanol. Jonas used it for moonshine. He didn't sell it, he just liked to drink it, and if you were kind to him and could keep a secret, you usually got a jar of the clear stuff for Christmas.
There wasn't any type of law enforcement in Grainbriar to worry about but it was a small religious community and the folks there tended to look unfavorably on such activities. Alcohol was the devil's drink as far as they were concerned, and the devil had no claim to Grainbriar. Jonas was a religious man but he wasn't zealous like most of the towns people. Too many rules, not enough living, he thought. Can't drink, can't smoke, no sex, and no rock and roll. I'm almost seventy years old. If I want to play a Rolling Stones album and dance naked on my damn porch, I'll do just that!
They had always been pretty uptight but over the past five years it became progressively worse. It started with a young buck preacher out of Siouxe Falls named Benson Gallo. The twenty something moved to town to take over as pastor after Reverend Peters retired and ran off to Florida. Everything was as normal as berries in a pie for a few months. But then came the trucks. Those goddamn trucks. Quinn Road ran five miles long, from the middle of nowhere to the center of town. Up until five years ago, the only residents who lived on the road were the Quinn family and Owen. Then some bio research company called "Techman Bio" bought the massive plot of land at the end and setup shop. There used to be some woods there, with a clearing only a little ways in. Jonas had liked to visit that place some nights, as the moon would light it up and make it a magical place. Jonas doubted it was still there but even if it was, Techman Bio outlined their property with two rows of barbed wire fence. The only thing that went in or out of that place were those trucks. Growlers, Jonas believed they were called. Military trucks transporting who knew what, at least twice a day. Then came the signs: Restricted Area - Use Of Deadly Forced Authorized. Well that just inflamed the paranoia in town. Pastor Gallo soaked up that fear like a big old biscuit in gravy, and shoved it down Grainbriar's throat. In a few months Gallo transformed a stiff little religious community into a good old fashioned end times cult. Now not all of the people were completely sucked in, mind you. There were plenty of good people in town and church was still just their Sunday chore, but Jonas now preferred to keep to himself as much as he could.
Owen Quinn was the only other farmer in Grainbriar and his property dwarfed Jonas's own. Owen was in his fifties, had a kind wife, and a lovely daughter. Jonas didn't care for any of them. They were rich, after all, and it's easy to be kind and lovely when you're rich. What Jonas disliked about his neighbor was how he had acquired the money. Both Owen and Jonas inherited their land, as most did around those parts. Owen inherited a large factory farm that employed several people and grew crops for miles. Jonas worked the same land his parents had, as did their parents, and each generation before that. The only help you got was a cloud on a hot day. Owen's land was setup like the Roman Empire whereas Jonas's was Washington crossing the Delaware. So when Owen sold half of the Quinn land to some outsider who wanted to build a biological research company, it baffled him. Then Owen started buying all these fancy things to show off how rich he was. He bought himself a Porsche and the wife a Hummer. Guess he kinda bought himself a hummer too. The kid got a big fluffy dog that loved to visit Jonas and s**t in his garden. Better the dog than the kid, he supposed. Jonas could tolerate all of that. But when Owen Quinn had two brand new John Deere tractors transported to his property, it made Jonas's blood boil.
"That ninnyhammer doesn't need the two he's got!" he shouted to his vegetables. "And he's buying two more? Sell out your land - your daddy's land - for what? Some new cars and one of them black credit cards? Congratulations, Owen. You're the king of Grainbriar, South Dakota. Maybe next week you'll win the lottery and you can buy the whole damn tractor factory!"
Jonas fumed as he worked, all the way until the orange sun had set and purple draped the sky. After finishing the day's work, Jonas retrieved a frosty mason jar half filled with white lightning from his kitchen freezer. He then walked out onto his front porch, set the jar on a sidetable, and plopped down into his old rocking chair. There he twisted the embedded ring off the top of the jar, tipped the rim to his lips, and swallowed a mouthwash portion of the rotgut. His body shuddered as the cold liquid set his insides on fire. He lost the ability to breathe for at least twenty seconds before gasping for air, which was followed by a coughing fit. He stomped the wooden floor of the porch with his right leg, each time harder, as if he needed to put a hole there for an emergency escape. His entire body tensed up, then relaxed, then tensed again, and finally ceased.
"Smooth!" he gasped.
Jonas continued this ritual of hooch swallowing, coughing, and seizures two more times before screwing the lid back onto the jar of tiger milk.
He wiped the condensation on his hand off onto his faded blue jean overalls and began patting down his pockets in search of his cigarettes. After a few moments, his hand emerged from his left pocket with a champagne colored box marked Winston, along with a zippo. He pulled a single cigarette from the pack with his thick fingertips, put the filter between his wet lips, sparked the zippo, and took a long drag. He slowly exhaled smoke which danced through the air, weaving ghostly patterns before vanishing into the night. He felt a wave of relaxation begin to roll over him as he stared at the stars against the dark Dakota sky. It was then that he saw it. A burst of sparkling light seemed to appear spontaneously and began racing across the blackness. This was followed by another, equally brilliant, and both had streamed down at impossible speed.
"Hot damn!" he shouted, bolting from the rocker.
He had always heard that when you see a falling star, you make a wish, and that's exactly what Jonas did. He closed his eyes and concentrated deeply.
Lord, forgive me for drinking and then praying. I didn't mean for us to run into each other like this, but you just shot down a star so I kinda had to. Look, I know I'm not your favorite farmer. You probably don't even know my name but if I get a wish, Lord, I want to cash it in. So here goes. Lord - please send me the new 310 horsepower John Deere tractor with the triple link suspension. You can drive my tractor because its gonna be dead next year anyway. I just need that one thing. I mean the shitheel next door has two of them, so I deserve at least one, right? Also, since there were two stars, if that means two wishes, maybe a matching lawnmower would be in order? Or maybe -
A rustling of leaves accompanied by a low gravelly growl broke him from his thoughts. He opened his eyes and saw that something was slowly approaching from just a few rows back in the corn. Apprehensive, Jonas reached behind him, feeling around until his hand found the rake he kept propped by the door, but never taking his eyes away from whence the noise came. Before long emerged a wolf like animal with a halted gait. Jonas felt instantly relieved, releasing his grip on the rake. It was Susie, the dog from the Quinn Farm down the road. Susie was a Husky with shimmering swirls of white, black, and silver fur. With her sharply pointed ears and feral icey eyes, she certainly resembled something close to a wolf. Especially in the dark. On more than one occasion Susie had wandered too far from home and wound up on Jonas's porch. It scared the bejeezus out of him the first few times, but she was a kind, loving dog, and honestly, he had grown to appreciate her little visits. He usually called Owen Quinn to let him know where she was but Owen, never wanting to impose - or share his good fortune with his neighbor, Jonas thought - would hurry right over in his flashy tricked out golf cart to scoop up his family's dog.
"Susie Q, you scared the daylights out of me, old girl!" he said. Susie didn't make any kind of acknowledgement, but instead emitted a barely audible whine.
Jonas's momentary relief quickly turned to anxiety, as he could now clearly see the sweet natured canine was in distress. He briskly rushed to aid the dog, not sure of what was wrong or if he would even be able to handle it. He came upon her, bent down on a knee, and began to look her over for signs of injury. Susie was indifferent to his presence. Might be in shock, he thought. Her usually shiny fur looked matted and dull. She was skinny, too. Half of her normal size, at least. For a moment, he wondered if this was even his neighbor's dog. But she had the expensive leather collar on, so he knew it was her. Her head appeared normal, but on closer inspection, her glacier like eyes were covered by a thin green membrane. It was like they had been dipped in fresh paint. He brushed her body with his fingers to stroke her, but felt wet clumps of squishy fur stick to his hand.
"Awwww Susie, " he said, a little disgusted. "I thought you were past all the rolling around in s**t phase. What is so damn appealing about that anyway?"
He wiped his hand on the grass next to them and instinctively smelled his fingers, as if checking to see that the grass had magically removed the odor. But it didn't smell like s**t. It had a more coppery, corrosive smell. A chemical smell.
"Susie Q, what have you gotten into now," he asked. Susie seemed to respond to this, which startled Jonas. She began to emit a low whine which seemed painfully endless. It frightened Jonas, but it made his heart break for her. Something slid off the backside of the dog, landing with a plop. Jonas witnessed a patch of fur on the animal that seemed to be moving. Slowly, a piece of hairy flesh slid off the dog's body and plopped into the grass. Horrified, Jonas tried to stand up quickly, to get the hell out of Dodge. His inebriated body, however, wasn't getting the memo. As soon as he got his other foot on the ground, the other slipped from him. He felt a firecracker shoot off in his ribs. The pain made him see stars all over again, the world left spinning.
That third drink got you, old man, he thought. Always that third drink from satan's teet. Oh, you deserve this you old fool!
He wretched on the ground in agony, fists clutched and eyes tightly closed. After a minute when the pain began to subside, he opened his eyes.
Susie was now hovering above him, obstructing his ability to sit up. Another low whine escaped Susie's lips and Jonas was sure that if he heard that sound again that he wouldn't sleep another night of his life. She didn't make that noise again. She made a sound much worse. Susie began to cough and convulse, thrashing her head from side to side. Beads of frothy drool were hurled around them, some of it dripping onto Jonas's face and into his mouth. He gagged at the putrid stuff, spitting his dentures out of his mouth, which then rolled to the ground.
Jonas's heart was pounding so hard that his temples were blasting like cartoon cans of TNT. His body sweat buckets of salt and booze. Adrenaline poured through his system and he frantically began pounding the dog with his fists. He pushed on her with all of his might, but she could not be moved. She was smaller than before, yet somehow, twice as heavy. More thick pieces of the animal's hide sloughed off to the ground, leaving slimey trails of blackish goo. Each piece was a gory baklava. Bloody meat with layers of flaky, crunchy skin, and topped with silver wool. The smell was everywhere now. That copper chemical stench filled Jonas's nostrils. He wanted so badly to be rid of it. To be in his house, in his bed, and sober for the rest of his days.
There were a few more agonizing coughs and then silence. With her body completely still, Susie's head sluggishly began to rise, until her snout pointed straight upwards. Jonas began to slowly try to squirm downwards during her pause, then froze. She was looking at Jonas again with those green skinned eyes. His eyes were fixed on her mouth. A shark's tooth grin was smiling at him and
Jonas could see the rows of ivory teeth that lined the purple gums. The dog's mouth creeped open a few inches, followed by a choking wet sound. It opened a little more, followed by the same gurgling noise. Something was caught in her throat. Something that wanted out. Finally the skin at the creases of the dog's mouth split open, spilling rivulets of black blood down her neck, as the mouth tore open. Jonas, who was beyond exhausted, was now crippled by fear.
A large egg shape began to emerge from Susie's unhinged mouth. As the purple tumor continued to slither out of the dog's body, it revealed the egg shape to be the head on what was a serpent like appendage. The hound's body sucked itself inwards with each subsequent expansion of the worm. The dog was literally caving in. The oral projection was covered in thick webs of crimson mucus and saliva. Thousands of tiny curved hooks decorated its skin. Jonas snapped out of his paralyzed state. He readied himself for a physical confrontation, which he knew would be his last if he couldn't get away from this thing. He thought about the shotgun in his closet, and that if he could get to it, he may have a chance. He could chop wood with his Remington so surely it could kill this fleshy creature. He drew back both hands, preparing to double fist this f*****g Husky into the sky. The egg shaped bulb on the phallic limb exploded with the faintest puffing sound, no louder than the fart of a chiuaha. A cloud of greasy black spores was all that remained of the bulb, which filled an area the size of a six foot beach ball. Jonas Miller screamed. It was the kind of high pitched scream people make right before they hit the pavement when falling from a skyscraper, or the scream someone makes when they're drowning and their lungs are on fire. It's the involuntarily shriek the body makes when the window to survival closed five minutes ago. Jonas screamed, and he never screamed again.