Cornstalker

By Lori R. Lopez

Trouble with a capital C! The tale begins when a car stops and a body is tossed into the Corn. But this is not just any crop. It is the battleground of a legendary creature who haunts fields along desolate highways, only when stalks are tall and the blood of brothers has been spilled in the soil — rising above the Corn like a burly Scarecrow.

A novelette of betrayal and retribution, “Cornstalker” pits a female truckdriver and a man with blood on his hands against a mythical beast summoned by a band of men wearing feathers and paint.

Jane is searching for her younger brother, who disappeared along a highway bordered by many ears. The last message on a sputtering cellphone had been something about a monster. So she took over his rig, coincidentally called “The Monster”, a heavy-duty black beast with a long snout, double chrome stacks and a reinforced grill. Anxiously prowling the roads of The Cornbelt, she picks up a stranger who could be dangerous. Our heroine may need to unleash her own demons to emerge from the Corn once she goes in.

First appearing in the 2014 anthology DEAD HARVEST, “Cornstalker” is part of Lori’s SPOOKTACULAR TALES collection.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lori R. Lopez
• Release date: Oct 23, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463859070

Lori R. Lopez

Lori R. Lopez wears many hats as an Author and Speculative Poet of Horror, Fantasy, Suspense, Humor and more. She illustrates her books and has written songs, while being an Activist for animals and children. Growing up, Lori roamed graveyards and conducted funerals for dead birds, squirrels, insects and spiders. Her offbeat books include The Dark Mister Snark, Leery Lane, An Ill Wind Blows, Darkverse: The Shadow Hours, Odds & Ends, and The Fairy Fly. In 2023 Lori won Third Place in the Long Category for the SFPA Poetry Contest for "Wake Unto Death". Her Poetry Collection Darkverse was nominated for an Elgin Award and a Finalist in the Kindle Book Awards. Her poems "Crop Circles" and "Nocturnal Embers" were nominated for the Rhysling Award in 2020, "Social Graces" and "The Whistle Stop" in 2021, "Biting Sarcasm" in 2022, "The Whippoorwill" and "If Houses Could Talk" in 2023. Poems "The Maw" and "creatures of the macabre" received Editor's Choice Awards among other honors. Stories and verse have appeared in The Sirens Call, The Horror Zine, Space & Time, Spectral Realms, JOURN-E, Weirdbook, Bewildering Stories, Dreams & Nightmares, Impspired, Altered Reality, Aphelion, and anthologies such as California Screamin' (the Foreword Poem), HWA Poetry Showcases II, III, V, VI, and IX, Journals Of Horror, Grey Matter Monsters, Dead Harvest, Fearful Fathoms I, Terror Train I and II, Trickster's Treats #3, Speculations III (Weird Poets Society), and In Darkness We Play. A member of the Horror Writers Association, Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association, and Lewis Carroll Society Of North America. Visit the Fairy Fly Entertainment Website Lori shares with her two talented sons, and their YouTube Channel @FairyFly. They have a Folk Band called The Fairyflies.

Book preview

Cornstalker

by Lori R. Lopez

Fairy Fly Entertainment

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any

media without written permission from the author, except

brief excerpts in critical reviews and articles.

This is a work of fiction. Any and all references to real persons, events, and places are used fictitiously. Other characters, names, places, events and details are fabrications of the author’s imagination; any such resemblance to actual places, events or persons, whether living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2018 by Lori R. Lopez

First published in the anthology Dead Harvest, 2014.

Artwork by Lori R. Lopez

Cover Design by Fairy Fly Entertainment

Author Photos by Fairy Fly Entertainment

E-Book Edition (EPUB)

Table Of Contents

Cornstalker

Table Of Contents

About the author and artist

More works by Lori R. Lopez

Trouble with a capital C! The tale begins when a car stops and a body is tossed into the Corn. But this is not just any crop. It is the battleground of a legendary creature who haunts fields along desolate highways, only when stalks are tall and the blood of brothers has been spilled in the soil — rising above the Corn like a burly Scarecrow.

A short story of betrayal and retribution, Cornstalker pits a female truckdriver and a man with blood on his hands against a mythical beast summoned by a band of men wearing feathers and paint.

Jane is searching for her younger brother, who disappeared along a highway bordered by many ears. The last message on a sputtering cellphone had been something about a monster. So she took over his rig, coincidentally called The Monster, a heavy-duty black beast with a long snout, double chrome stacks and a reinforced grill. Anxiously prowling the roads of The Cornbelt, she picks up a stranger who could be dangerous. Our heroine may need to unleash her own demons to emerge from the Corn once she goes in.

Dedicated to my hometown — Ripon, Wisconsin. Thanks for all the free corn!

The body was dumped from a car idling on a highway between fields of genetic mutations, also known as Maize. The driver opened his trunk and slid a drooping form out of the interior, then hauled the corpse into tall dense rows.

G’bye, Brother.

Clapping his hands as if to remove any blood or germs, a killer ambled to the Sedan and drove off, swinging a U-Turn. He didn’t get far.

Waves of green parted like the ocean in a storm — an unhallowed turbulence frothing with chaotic passion, spawning the infernal. A creature stomped out of the frenzy, and sturdy woven limbs planted squarely in the middle of the lane.

What? The man’s first impression was disbelief. The road had seemed desolate, paved over a prostrate terrain crushed by stark alabaster sky. Nothing but asphalt, dirt, and corn.

Sunlight dazzling the hood and windshield blinded him. Static disrupted the radio. Sweat beaded a guilty brow.

Wringing the steering-wheel, Grayson Duckweed instinctively squealed to a halt. The thing towered, a hulking beast, fluctuating in a heat