Cropsy - Chapter 10: The Final Harvest

The storm broke as Evan struck the match.

Rain hammered the fields, thunder shaking the earth as flames licked across the spilled fuel at Cropsy’s feet. The creature recoiled, shrieking as fire raced outward, igniting dry stalks and rotten wood alike. The cornfield burned fast, fire devouring the rows that had hidden Cropsy for decades.

“You think this will kill me?” Cropsy roared, thrashing as smoke coiled around its warped form. “I am the field!”

“Not anymore,” Evan shouted.

Mara had uncovered the last piece in the farmhouse cellar: the remains of the underground chamber where Cropsy had been kept. At its centre lay a rusted generator, long dead, but still connected by thick cables buried deep beneath the soil—anchors binding Cropsy to the land.

Evan yanked the final cable free.

The ground screamed.

Cropsy staggered, its body cracking like dry earth in drought. The fire consumed it now, flames tearing through skin that hardened into ash. Its laughter turned into a howl of rage and agony as the cornfield collapsed inward, soil swallowing flame and monster alike.

With a final, echoing shriek, Cropsy sank beneath the ground, leaving behind only scorched earth and drifting smoke.

Silence followed.

By morning, the storm had passed. The field was gone, reduced to blackened soil that steamed faintly in the dawn light. No sign of Cropsy remained—no body, no trace.

Weeks later, the land was declared unsafe and fenced off. Officials blamed gas lines and illegal dumping. The truth was buried, as it always had been.

But sometimes, at the edge of the field, new shoots of corn appeared—pale and twisted, growing far too quickly.

And on quiet nights, when the wind was just right, the soil still seemed to breathe.

Waiting.

For the next harvest.

EPILOGUE: “The Last Rustle”

The forest didn’t heal.

That was the lie people told themselves—one they repeated like a prayer every time the wind moved through the pines. They said the fires had burned the evil away. They said the police had “handled it.” They said the missing hikers were just lost souls who wandered too far into the wilderness and paid the price of nature’s indifference.

But the trees remembered.

Weeks after the final screams faded into the soil, the campground was sealed off with bright yellow tape and official signs warning trespassers of “unstable ground” and “hazardous conditions.” Rangers stood at the entrances for a time, their faces tight and sleepless. They didn’t speak much. They didn’t need to. The way their eyes kept drifting toward the tree line said enough.

Then, slowly, life returned—because life always returns.

The town reopened its diners. The gas station put fresh stock on the shelves. Teenagers laughed again near the riverbank, pretending bravery like it was armour. The world moved forward, grinding the horror beneath the weight of routine.

But at night, the locals still locked their doors earlier than they used to.

They still kept their porch lights on.

And nobody—nobody—went near the woods when the fog rolled in.

On the edge of the old campground, where the burnt cabins stood like skeletons, something had begun to grow.

A patch of earth, blackened and cracked, now bulged with strange green shoots. They weren’t like ordinary weeds. They were too thick. Too strong. Their leaves were sharp and glossy, like wet knives, and they seemed to twitch when the air was still.

The wildlife avoided it completely.

No birds nested nearby. No squirrels climbed the trees above it. Even the insects stayed away, as if they sensed the soil itself had become poisoned with memory.

Deep beneath that patch, under ash and rot and old blood, lay something that should have been dead.

A shape. A mass.

The remains of Cropsy, burned and broken, fused with bark and bone and the melted remnants of rusted metal.

And yet…

There was movement.

Not the movement of breathing. Not the rise and fall of lungs.

It was subtler.

A shifting. A slow stirring, like a seed turning in the dirt.

One evening, a lone hiker ignored the warning signs. He was the kind of man who laughed at ghost stories, the kind who believed the world could be measured and understood. He stepped over the tape, telling himself the town was full of cowards.

The fog came quickly.

Thick and cold, it rolled between the trees like a living thing, swallowing the moonlight whole. The man stopped walking when he realized the forest had gone silent.

No crickets.

No wind.

Just his own breathing, loud and shaky.

Then he heard it.

A rustle.

Not leaves.

Not animals.

Something heavier… dragging.

The man turned, his flashlight beam cutting through the mist. The light landed on a tree—and on the bark, there were marks.

Fresh scratches.

Deep grooves.

Like claws had been testing their strength.

His throat tightened. He backed away, but his boot caught on something half-buried in the soil.

A melted mask.

Blackened, cracked, but unmistakable.

He bent down, trembling, and picked it up.

The inside was warm.

Then the forest exhaled.

The fog thickened.

The leaves trembled.

And from somewhere deep within the dark, a sound rose—wet, cracking, and hungry.

A laugh.

Not human.

Not animal.

Something in-between.

The hiker dropped the mask and ran, but the woods were already closing around him.

Behind him, the rustling grew louder.

Closer.

And in the soil, beneath the roots and ash, Cropsy opened what was left of its eyes.

The nightmare hadn’t ended.

It had only been waiting.

Source: Some or all of the content was generated using an AI language model