#ShortStorySaturday: “Harvest” by D. Norfolk

Please enjoy this Short Story Saturday submission from D. Norfolk.

Harvest

By D.

To whom it may concern,

First, a warning: If you have found this note where I left it on the kitchen table, in Gable Cottage, get out now. Take this with you and read it when you leave the borders of East Grindlecroft.

If you have found this in some other location, run, RIGHT NOW!

I would like to state for the record that despite the alarmist nature of the opening sentences that I, Jacob Malory, of Gable Cottage, East Grindlecroft, am of sound mind and body. It is just that if I am not here to meet you, I will have become one of the missing, one of the many, many missing.

I do not really know how many others remain in the village, but I do know that they are getting more and more. I have watched from the slits in my barricaded window as one by one they have appeared in greater numbers. I have resigned myself to the thoughts now that I probably will not survive this. I mean this document to give brief overview of the events leading to this point.

I do not know if this is futile, as I am unaware whether they are sentient and may just destroy this evidence and await further victims.

The facts are that we were slow to react to the initial ones and this has ultimately lead to us being overrun.

The harvest festival had begun as usual toward the beginning of September, and as usual people were busy labouring at the farms and bringing in the crops.

The scarecrows being put up in everyone’s driveways and gardens were also part of the tradition. It was during this time that we think the first of them arrived.

Mrs Denning had said that she hadn’t made the one that sat beside her own, modelled very closely on Mr Denning. But in the morning they had found theirs torn apart and thrown around the garden.

We dismissed it at the time, sat in the Red Lion, laughing at what the old duck had said. Local kids, playing silly buggers, we said.

We all just figured she’d got the hump with us after that and not bothered to come across for a drink like usual. It was only when the butcher’s boy said his order for two pound of sausages and ten pork chops was left on the kitchen counter when he went to deliver again that people started to take notice.

Then old Ted was the next to have a run in, nearly cycling into one in the middle of the road on his way home from the pub.

Again, we thought too much brandy had caused him to veer wildly into someone’s garden, and he admitted he had a few that night. It certainly wasn’t there when he went to have a look the next day.

The village was uneasy and a meeting was scheduled at the hall for the following Wednesday. Well it was, but it never happened, that’s when it come about, that fateful morning.

Miss Arnold our school teacher was counting the children into the class at the school when she realised, of the twenty-seven children in her class, only thirteen had arrived for school. A gap too big just to be sickness.

Being inquisitive in nature, she busied herself at break time quizzing the children and making telephone calls to confused parents to find out where they all were. It seems they had all left their respective houses for school but never arrived.

The next call was to the police, Burt and his junior at the local station. He called an emergency meeting right then and there.

The next frantic hours were spent roaming the countryside, searching, calling names and looking behind bushes with trepidation. But the calls and scouring yielded nothing, not a coat or a glove.

The party returned to the village hall dejected and baffled when the moonlight defeated them, not noticing initially the new additions on the village green, the circle of them, playing a frozen game of ring a ring a roses. Their still faces, with the permanent grins escaping the downtrodden and depressed.

The remaining children raised the alarm the following morning when they arrived to find the school empty, well apart from the ghoulish classroom display of fourteen new ones all posed for intent listening to a grown one where Miss Arnold should have been.

Dr Grange insisted we took one and searched for clues. In earlier days he’d been the chief pathologist in Reading. Burt had agreed and they made a makeshift lab in the school canteen.

People had stared disconnectedly, gawking on as he slowly peeled back the dishevelled clothing, straw tumbling to the floor. Painstakingly, he removed the dry grass, wad by wad for Burt to comb through. All that the thing contained was straw and a large smooth black stone where its heart should have been. Onto which had been painted a single name ‘Geraldine.’ For the most part it made no sense, but for those of us who knew Miss Arnold, we knew the significance.

Following the scarecrow autopsy, angry parents went through the town collecting them and burning them on a gigantic pyre in the square. They laughed and shouted demonically as the material caught easily. The cracking flames danced into the night air, filing the streets with smoke.

I feared that a mania had overcome them all and I shied away, thinking nothing good could come of this.

The very next morning, they were all back, every single one, the remnants of the fire gone. But there were new ones and more of the villagers missing.

In the days that followed, we have stayed in our homes, cowering from their ever increasing numbers. This morning I found two of the sinister straw men standing in my garden. I hadn’t even made one for the festival. Maybe they know. Maybe they are watching.

I personally do not know how far this thing goes, whether our village is cursed, but I beg anyone to leave this place and not return.

Update – there was a scratching at the door last night, like dry twigs popping and breaking against the hard wood, in threnody of desperation. I could not look out of my window. I was frozen with fear. All I can hope is whatever happens, I pray that it will be over soon and I will not feel too much pain.

Beware the smiling face of straw. Beware his sagging cruel eyes.

Jacob Mallory Esq – 22nd October 1958

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About the Author

D. is a writer based in Leeds, England, who writes a number of different topics but all are based around the horrific and macabre.