The Long One in the Cornfield

In the autumn of 2014, my husband, Elias, and I moved to a small town called Morrow, nestled in the heart of the Midwest. Our house sat on the outskirts, backed by a vast, endless cornfield that seemed to stretch to the horizon. The previous owners had left a scarecrow in the field, a ragged figure with a burlap sack for a head. We thought it was charming, a nod to the rural setting.

One evening in late September, as we were driving home from a dinner at a neighbor’s house, we saw something strange. The sun had set, and the sky was a deep purple. As we turned onto our gravel road, the headlights swept across the cornfield, and there, standing among the stalks, was a figure. He was impossibly tall, his head clearing the corn by a good two feet. He wore a long, dark coat, and his face was pale, almost translucent in the dim light. He stood perfectly still, facing the road, and as we passed, he didn’t move a muscle. Elias slowed down, squinting. ‘What the hell is that?’ he murmured. We thought it was a trick of the light, or a farmer checking his crops. But as we pulled into our driveway, we looked back, and the figure was gone.

We dismissed it, attributing it to our imagination or a local prankster. But the sightings didn’t stop. A week later, I saw him from the kitchen window, standing at the edge of the field, his coat billowing despite the lack of wind. He never approached the house, but he was always there, watching. Our new neighbors, the Hendersons, were friendly. I asked Mrs. Henderson about him one day while we were chatting over the fence. She paled and said, ‘You’ve seen him? The Long One?’ She told me that the scarecrow in our field was an old marker, a warning. The locals knew him as ‘The Long One,’ a being that had haunted those fields for decades. According to legend, he was a farmer who had gone mad and buried his family in the field, and now he walks the rows, searching for their souls. Mrs. Henderson warned me, ‘Don’t go into the field after dark. And whatever you do, don’t take down the scarecrow. It’s the only thing that keeps him from coming to the house.’

I laughed it off, but Elias was skeptical too. One evening, our young daughter, Lily, who was eight, came running in from the yard, crying. She said she saw a ‘tall man’ in the field, and he called her name. My blood ran cold. We called the sheriff, but he just smiled and said, ‘Old wives’ tale, ma’am. Nothing to worry about.’ He left, but we saw his cruiser slow down as he passed the field, and he looked out with a nervous expression.

A few nights later, I couldn’t sleep. I went to the kitchen for a glass of water and looked out the window. The Long One was standing at the edge of the field, closer than ever, just beyond the property line. His face was blank, but his eyes seemed to burn with a terrible intensity. As I watched, he raised a long, bony finger and pointed directly at our house, then slowly, he turned and walked into the corn, disappearing as if swallowed by the night.

The next morning, we found the scarecrow torn down, its burlap head ripped open, and a pile of corn husks arranged in a crude shape in front of our back door. Elias decided we should leave. We packed up that weekend, but as we drove away, I looked in the rearview mirror. There, in the middle of the field, stood The Long One, his coat flowing, and it seemed to me that he was smiling. We moved to the city, far away, but sometimes, at night, I still hear the rustling of corn, and I see that tall figure in my dreams, always waiting, always watching, always reaching out a long arm from the field, as if to pull me back.