Eyes in the cornfield

I grew up in a small town of about seven-hundred in upstate New York. To anyone who may not be familiar with the area north of the boroughs, it’s mostly wilderness, valleys and farmland—and the occasional general populace in between, of course.

For some background information: my old home was located alongside U.S. route 20, which is the longest road in the United States; spanning from Boston Massachusetts to Newport Oregon—cutting through New York from east to west. Traffic was always heavy, even with the fact that my hometown is very rural. On the other side of the house was a cornfield that went on for miles.

Now, the events that occurred took place many years ago. I believe I was in my early teens when it happened. I didn’t have too many friends growing up, but everyone knew each other; nobody was a stranger to the next person. In the summer time, we always slept with our front door open. That’s how safe it was back home; nothing ever made my family and I feel unsafe. Now I want to make it clear that what I’m about to share with you, doesn’t have any correlation whatsoever to those details.

I had a friend over, and it was a very hot summer day in August. If you grew up on farmland—particularly cornfields—you might know that corn plants release tons of water vapor to keep cool during hot summers; so it was hot and humid; the air was dead and sticky. For privacy reasons, I’ll call my friend Matt. We were pretty close as kids and we frequented each other’s houses occasionally. This was during summer recess, and he floated the idea of camping in my backyard. We had a pretty large patch of locusts and pines in the backyard, coupled with a makeshift rock fire pit.

I agreed and we started setting up our own little camp. Most of our old camping equipment was stored in the upstairs portion of our cattle barn. We didn’t need much, save for the tent, foldable chairs and sleeping bags. We had an abundance of firewood; probably enough to last us the whole night. As I finished digging out the rest of the supplies, Matt had found two sticks and carved points with his pocket knife so we could roast marshmallows and hot dogs over the fire.

Since we started, the sun had already set just above the tree-line, and the tent still wasn’t up. Matt and I spent the next ten minutes or so trying to put it up with what little remained of the sunlight; and I’m sure we royally messed it up, but it stood, nonetheless. We lit the fire with relative ease and had almost immediately started to roast our hot dogs. I can’t exactly remember what we talked about, but it was a calm and quiet night. One thing of note about the situation, is that at night, traffic on 20 is unusually nonexistent. Between the sound of us talking, crickets and tree frogs, it was very quiet.

What happened next was pretty much a blur, but some hours passed, and the only light sources were the fire and porch light from the house—which only partially illuminated the driveway and some side yard. Matt and I were full off of hot dogs and marshmallows. I yawned, then he did. I asked if he was ready to sleep, to which he nodded and rubbed his eyes. It was only then, when Matt turned and reached for our water bucket to extinguish the dying fire, that he suddenly froze.

I didn’t hear it at first, but the second time it happened, the back of my neck began to prickle, and my ears raised to the sound of something rustling from within the cornfield. We were both frozen in place, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were being watched from all directions. Neither of us said anything. Looking back on it, I think we were too scared to move, and I didn’t want my suspicions to be confirmed. This was one of the only times I desperately wanted to be wrong.

The fire had almost flamed completely out, but I could see Matt fidgeting with his overnight bag while looking in the direction of the field. The light from the fire was too weak for us to see anything. After what seemed like ages, he pulled a flashlight from his bag and clicked the button.

Glowing eyes. So many pairs of glowing eyes in all directions fixed on us that didn’t react when he shined at them.

Needless to say, we ditched the fire and the campsite and ran as fast as we could back to the house. Unfortunately for me, I tripped on something and rolled my ankle in a dip in the grass, but I ignored the burning pain until we flew through the door and slammed it shut behind us. We spent the rest of the night up in my room hiding under my blankets.

The morning after, my ankle still hurt, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would’ve been. I limped a little, but it was manageable. Matt and I went back to our little campsite to find everything strewn all over the yard. Food we hadn’t been able to put away was gone.

Later that day, my parents told me that a big pack of coyotes got into the pasture of one our farmer neighbors and killed and ate a calf the night before. I never would have expected a pack of coyotes to do such a thing, but it isn’t unheard of. It makes me think of what could’ve happened, had Matt and I waited any longer to run.

I still get chills thinking about it.