Dr. Elaine Mercer, who had returned to Alder Bend to care for her ailing father, believed the stories hid something older. She found records in the town archive describing a nineteenth-century scarecrow tradition, one that went beyond simple farm tools. During years of famine, the farmers had built figures meant not just to frighten birds, but to guard the land itself. They stuffed them with animal remains, human hair, and soil taken from graves, believing the fields would recognise the offering and respond.
One entry mentioned a name: Crop-Seer. Over time, it had shortened, softened, become Cropsy.
Elaine shared her findings at a town meeting, but fear had already set its own rules. Some residents demanded the fields be burned. Others wanted to leave, to abandon homes that had been in their families for generations. Sheriff Calder ordered patrols, though no one volunteered to go near the corn after dark.
That night, the patrol radios filled with static. Deputy Harris staggered back alone, his uniform shredded, his eyes glassy. He said Cropsy had stood in front of him, close enough to touch. Up close, Harris claimed, Cropsy’s face was not hidden. It was unfinished. Features shifted like wet clay, trying to settle into something recognisable. When it spoke, it did not use words, only a low rustling sound, like wind through dry leaves.
Harris died before dawn, his lungs filled with dirt.
Elaine began to suspect Cropsy was not hunting for food, but for form. Each disappearance added something to him: a straighter spine, a more confident stride, hands that closed more fully around what they touched. He was learning what it meant to be human by unmaking humans.
In the fields, cornstalks bent toward the town, heavy with cobs that no one dared harvest.
Source: Some or all of the content was generated using an AI language model
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