The web's first magazine devoted to stories about life in giant artificial structures created by forces beyond human comprehension

Roadside Attraction

by Walt Jarvis

Odd about the tow truck, Devane thought, watching the stocky driver in the baggy shorts and baseball cap worn backwards hook the hoist to a dusty car in the far end of the parking lot.

If there was nothing wrong with the vehicle, and the owner was still working his way through the maze, why tow it?

The young man noticed he was being watched, and waved cheerfully. Then the line shuffled forward and Devane returned his attention to the entrance, where an old geezer in overalls and a ridiculously anachronistic straw hat was waiting to take his money. The tow truck driver looked a good deal like him. A son or grandson, maybe?

Ahead of Devane's family was a young couple and a middle-aged man who, in his lime-green pants and yellow golf shirt, looked something like an ear of corn himself. He was impatiently dabbing at the back of his sunburned neck with an already sodden handkerchief.

Devane sympathized with him. He wasn't very good at waiting, either. To make matters worse, he desperately wanted a cigarette, as if he had only quit smoking yesterday instead of three weeks ago. He still carried his lighter in his pants pocket. Just in case.

"I'm hot, Daddy," his daughter Missy whined, tugging fretfully at his hand.

"It'll be cooler inside," he said. "There'll be some shade." At least he hoped there would be. It must have been pushing a 100 degrees.

"This is gonna be really boring," Harry observed. "I can tell."

"And how do you know that, son?" Devane asked.

"'Cause it's only grownups here. Kids don't come to place like this."

"You were the one who wanted to stop," he answered grumpily.

"We all decided to stop, Harold. Remember?" his wife Doris chimed in.

The man in overalls opened the gate and handed them a wrinkled Photostat that mapped out the maze. "You can go in now. Enjoy yourselves. Just try to make it back before nightfall," he said with a phlegmatic chuckle.

Before Devane had a chance to ask about the tow truck, he turned to find that his family had disappeared through the opening and hurried to catch up with them.

As he stepped inside, the afternoon seemed to grow darker, as if an approaching thunderstorm had suddenly obscured the face of the sun. Instinctively he looked up, but the blindingly blue sky was cloudless. It must be the height of the corn, he thought; indeed, the stalks towered over him. The fat man who had gone ahead of them had stopped in the middle of the path to vigorously wipe his brow. "It's plenty warm in here, isn't it?" he asked plaintively.

"Hotter'n hell," Devane answered glumly, feeling perspiration running down his back.

"My name's Gus Sauerhof, by the way," the other said, offering his hand. "Where you traveling to, if I might ask?"

"California. Family vacation. Taking the kids to Disneyland."

The young couple had disappeared down one of the paths while they made introductions.

"Mind if I tag along?" Sauerhoff asked. "I've got a lousy sense of direction."

"You're more than welcome. Let's try the path in the middle," Devane suggested. It went for ten yards or so and then seemed to end, but, drawing closer, he saw that it had simply turned at a ninety degree angle and continued until it reached another juncture.

There the alley split again. Devane pulled out the map and studied it. The only thing he could tell for sure was that all paths led to the center.

He turned around and frowned. He wasn't sure which way they had come anymore. There appeared to be two paths, when he was sure there had just been one moments before. Impossible, he thought. We only made one right turn before stopping.

"We want to go that way," Sauerhof said uneasily, as if reading his mind. "Don't we?"

"I only remember one turn, so I'm not sure.Well, we'll get to the center eventually. Come on, kids. You stay me with me," he added. "Don't going running off where I can't see you. That means you, Harry."

"I just want to get outta here," his son groaned. "Come on, Dad, let's go."

A little further Devane realized this couldn't be the path on the map. The alley was too long; they should have reached another 45-degree turn immediately.With the sun as a landmark, he could have gauged which direction they were heading, but the towering stalks of corn blocked his view.

"I don't think this is it," he said."Let's go back and try again."

"Unless you want to ask that other guy directions."

"Ask who?"

"Haven't you noticed? Somebody's working their way through the maze the next row over."

Frowning, Devane listened. He could hear careful, measured footsteps in the hard-packed earth of the adjoining pathway. When he tried to peer through the stalks, the footsteps fell silent. Devane glimpsed a shadowy figure with its knees bent like a cripple standing motionlessly in the adjoining pathway.

"What are you looking at, Harold?" Doris asked anxiously.

"Nothing. There's no one there," he added with a special emphasis directed at Sauerhof. He didn't know why he lied, but somehow he didn't want them trying to peer through the corn as well.

"Well, I didn't see no one, either, but I sure heard somebody," the other replied stubbornly.

Ignoring him, Devane trudged on, trying to figure out exactly what he had seen. Somehow the legs—if that was what they were—had looked grotesquely misshapen in the glimpse he had caught of them.

His train of thought was interrupted by a series of high-pitched screams further down the alley.

"What the hell?" Sauerhof cried. Ignoring him, Devane took off in their direction.

He rounded the corner and stopped short.

"Doris," he yelled hoarsely, "keep the kids back! For God's sake, don't let them see this."

The young woman was crouched over the body of her companion. His head lolled in her lap, and his chest was covered with blood. Even from a distance, Devane could tell the boy was dead. The two men rushed over to the girl.

"What happened?" Devane asked, kneeling beside her.

She tried to speak but no words came out. Then she saw Doris and reached out beseechingly. Devane's wife rushed over and took the girl in her arms, saying, "Oh, you poor baby. You poor little thing."

"They got Billy," the girl sobbed. "We—we were trying to go back, but they wouldn't let us. He tried to go around them, so they stabbed him with their spears."

"Who?" Devane asked. "The man at the entrance?"

"No," she sobbed, "not a man, th--things."

"Doris, what are you doing here?" Devane asked angrily, suddenly aware of his wife's presence. "I thought I told you to stay with the kids."

"I had to see, too. They're right over there," she said, motioning vaguely to where the path disappeared around a corner.

"You left them alone back there?" Devane asked, stunned. "Jesus." He sprang up and raced back down the path. When he turned the corner and saw that it was empty, he felt as if someone had just kicked him in the stomach.

"This is where I left them," Doris said behind him. "I'm sure of it. Harry, Missy, where are you?" she called out, panic in her voice.

"Over here, Mom." Their son sounded faint and far away, but Harry couldn't have covered much ground in the few seconds they were at the girl's side.

"Harry, stay where you are!" Devane shouted."We'll come to you. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, but where are you? Why do you sound so far away?"

"Just don't move. Do you hear me? Don't move an inch!"

"We can't just leave that girl behind," Doris said hysterically.

"Harry and Missy come first." He turned to Sauerhof: "Can you stay with her 'til we find our kids? They can't be far."

"I—I'm afraid to. Make her go with us," the other answered, his face pasty-white with fear.

"Can you get up?" Devane asked the young woman gently. She looked at him blankly before nodding. He hesitated, then said: "You'll have to leave your friend. We'll come back for him, but we've got to find our kids first."

It looked for a moment as if she were going to refuse, and had she done so, Devane would have left her there without a second thought. His kids were his priority now. Slowly she got up, though, and, after casting one more uncomprehending look at the dead boy, took Devane's hand.

"I'm scared shitless," Sauerhof said in a low voice. "While you were up the path, those noises started up again on the other side of the corn. I felt like something was watching me."

"Get control of yourself," Devane said curtly. "We're safe if we stick together." He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled:"Harry, where are you? Sing out loud and clear."

"Over here, Dad. Hurry up! What's taking you so long?" His son's bewildered voice sounded somehow fainter and further away.

"Have you moved?" Devane shouted back. "Stay still, dammit!"

"We're at the same place. Honest, Dad.You're the one who's going away from us."

"Oh, I feel so bad," Doris sobbed. "This is all my fault. I should never have left them. We've got to find them, Hal, we've got to!"

Time slowed maddeningly as they wandered through the maze. Every few seconds, Devane would call out to his children. Harry always answered, but never, it seemed, from the same place.

They came to a junction that Devane was sure he remembered from earlier that afternoon, and a path that would take them back to the main entrance.

"We're almost where we left the car," he said to his wife. "The three of you go for help. Get the police.I'll stay here and keep on looking."

"Man, I don't think that's such a good idea," Sauerhof said. "Not after what happened to that boy.You better come with us."

"That kid was killed—murdered. I can't let the same thing happen to my kids. We need outside help, but I can't run out on them."

He started down the path to his right when there was a rustling sound in the corn ahead of him. Something popped out from between the stalks and Devane shrieked in terror.

It looked vaguely like an ant, although it was as big as a man. The long, cylindrical, almost metallic-looking head was topped with huge, black, concave eyes. The lower half ended in a set of evil-looking yellow mandibles that oozed a brownish ichor. Four brittle-looking appendages sprouted from beneath a blue-bottle colored carapace ending in crab-like claws. One claw held a spear that almost looked like an extension of one of its legs but which was sharpened to a gleaming point.

They all had the same reaction: blind panic and flight. Instinctively Devane grabbed Doris by the arm before he bolted.

Halfway down the path she slipped fell and, as Devane tried to help her to her feet, Sauerhof and the young woman collided with them and they all tumbled down in a heap. Devane struggled to get up but found himself pinned by Sauerhof, who was wheezing like a broken calliope. Devane took a desperate look down the alley, expecting to see the monster charging after them, but there was nothing but the rows of corn and a settling cloud of dust that they themselves had made.

"Wait a minute," Devane said hoarsely. "Wait just a minute. There's nothing after us. We're OK."

"But I saw it," Sauerhof gasped, finally finding words. "It was awful, like a giant ant or roach."

"But it's not chasing us, because...because we've moved away from the entrance," Devane said, rising unsteadily to his feet. "It only threatened us because we were about to exit the maze."

"How do you know that, Harold?" Doris cried, clutching at him. "How do you know?"

"Because it's been trailing us ever since we took that first turn. You heard something stalking us the next aisle over, didn't you, Sauerhof? I caught a glimpse of it but didn't know what it was. It could have jumped us at any time but didn't even show itself until we got near the entrance. If we go back there, I'm sure it'll appear again."

Devane looked down at the girl who was curled up in a fetal position. "Is that thing...what we just saw...is that what got your boyfriend?" he asked.

She nodded slowly, her eyes glazing over.

"Let's get the hell out of here," he said. Devane reached for the map, and found it was gone. It must have fallen out in his flight. There was nothing to do except continue on the path and hope they were moving away from the ant thing. He hobbled down the trail, aware of the sharp, throbbing pain in his left shoulder from where he had hit the ground. Doris stumbled after him, weeping loudly again.

As they trudged forward in a ragtag line, Devane tried to make sense of what had happened. What they had seen was more than an aberration, it was an impossibility. It could have been a hallucination brought on by the stupefying heat, but they wouldn't all have suffered it at the same time. Did Farmer Jones pay someone to dress in costume to frighten the tourists? But that had been no costume, he told himself, and the blood on the young man was real.

"Sauerhof, do you have a cigarette?" he asked suddenly.

"No, I'm sorry, I—I don't smoke."

"Smart man. Once we get out of here though, I'm going to chain smoke a carton of Camels, I swear to God." He saw Doris' mouth began to quiver again. "Come on, baby, that's the least of our worries right now," he said, squeezing her hand.


Occasionally he would pause and call out to his children. At first Devane was afraid to do more than whisper, in case it would attract the attention of the insect thing. But it was as if they were alone in the maze again. He grew bolder then and yelled their names. The corn seemed to swallow his shouts, as if the broad green leaves were sponges that greedily soaked up the sound.

The girl lagged behind so they had to stop and wait for her. Devane guessed that, unhinged by her boyfriend's death, she was teetering on the edge of shock. Finally he looked over his shoulder and found that she was gone. "Wait here," he ordered his wife and Sauerhof. "I'm going to give her one more chance."

She was just around the last corner, playing with one of the yellow tassels that drooped over the path, crooning silently to herself. He took her gently by the hand.

"Listen, you have to keep up," he said. "We can't carry you. It's not personal, but we have to keep moving to find our kids."

"It's peaceful here, don't you think?" she asked dreamily as if she had not heard him. "It's warm and green and still. I'm going to rest here for a while."

"Come on," he said, roughly taking her by the arm.

"I think I'll wait for Billy. He'll be along any time now."

"Billy's dead," Devane said.

"Oh, no," she shook her head. "He's all around us. He wants me to stay here with him."

Devane dropped her hand. Could he walk away from her now? She was someone's daughter, too, somebody's Melissa. Then he thought of his own little girl, frightened, lost, and in the none-too-capable hands of her older brother. That decided him. Devane turned away from her and forced himself to keeping walking. When he reached the corner, he turned and looked back. She was still standing there, toying with the silvery tassel, the soft, dusty light gleaming on her flaxen hair, oblivious to the danger that surrounded her.


"She wouldn't come," Devane said, rejoining the others."I tried to talk her into it, but she's too far gone."

"You—you just left her there?" Doris asked, her mouth starting to writhe again.

"Doris, you've got to think about Harry and Melissa now," Devane said."They're the ones who need our help. We can't carry that girl and find them, too."

They resumed their march, the silence broken only by Sauerhof's wheezing breaths.Walking a little ahead of his wife and the salesman, Devane glimpsed something white half buried in the fallen leaves of corn. Stooping down, he moved the desiccated vegetation out of the way.

A human skull stared blindly up at him. He squatted down to examine it more closely. He had no idea how long it had lain there, but it looked new. It was gleamingly white and had been picked clean of all flesh. He was thankful to see that it was an adult's skull, and not a child's. Quickly he covered it back up before Doris and Sauerhof came up behind him, and resumed his march.

The next turn in the path brought them without warning the center, and Devane held up his hand to halt.

The heart of the maze: he recognized the open rectangle from the drawing on the map.The corn enclosed a vast bare plot of land. The black earth looked rich and loamy, though, as if it had recently been plowed and fertilized. His children were on the other side of the open space, their backs against the stalks of corn, clutching each other fearfully but apparently unharmed.

Doris saw them at the same time and with a little shriek started to stumble across the field. "Don't!" Devane hissed, holding her back.

"But the kids," she pleaded, struggling to free herself. "Look at them, Harry, they're scared to death."

"We'll go around," Devane said."Stay as close to the corn as you can."

"Are you crazy?" Sauerhof asked. "We can cut right across to them."

"I don't want to step onto that field," Devane said. "I don't want to touch it. It looks like it's just been plowed, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, so what?"

"How the hell could you get a tractor in here through all that corn? Answer me that. There's no road, only these little paths.I don't want to find out what made it look like new earth. We better stay the hell away from it."

They moved like rock climbers with their bodies pressed against the stalks, trying to keep from stepping on the soft, loamy earth that demarcated the edge.

"Oh, Jesus," Sauerhof gasped. Devane's head snapped back. Four of the ant-things had appeared from out of the corn on the other side of the field and were headed in their direction, their blue-black, hard-shelled bodies gleaming menacingly in the golden light.

They could cut across, too, Devane thought, but they don't. Why not?

"They're gaining on us!" Sauerhof yelled.

Panicking, he bolted suddenly and went charging across the field toward the openings in the corn on the other side. Sauerhof had gotten about half way when it seemed to Devane that he went into slow motion. He floundered in the dirt, his arms flapping in the air. Suddenly he buckled and fell to his knees.

As he struggled to get back up, something shot out of the earth just behind him. At first Devane thought it was an upside down harrow buried in the dirt that somehow Sauerhof had dislodged. Then he saw that it was not metal, but something alive, the extended mandibles of a monstrosity burrowing under the soil.

Sauerhof, who must have seen its shadow on the earth in front of him, looked over his shoulder and redoubled his efforts. The teeth slid through the dirt toward him like the fin of a shark protruding above water, and they continued to rise until they were taller than he was.

At the last moment he broke away and careened across the field, but immediately slogged down again as the earth turned into quicksand. He twisted this way and that, but only sank deeper.

"Help me!" Sauerhof cried out. "For God's sake, help me."

Almost waist deep now in the undulating black earth, he reached blindly for something sticking through the soil just ahead of him. Suddenly he rose into the air. Devane at first thought that he had managed to break free; then he realized that Sauerhof was being lifted from beneath. As he shot up so did another set of harrow fangs: Sauerhof had grabbed on to one of the tips sticking through the soil without realizing it.

Dangling in the air for a moment, his eyes round with terror, Sauerhof refused to let go. His sheer weight actually seemed to bend the blade-like teeth toward the ground. The first set slid greedily through the dirt, matching up with the second, then both closed around the man, dragging him down, thrashing and screaming, into the churning earth. The last thing Devane saw was his fingertips, trying to escape through the spaces between the blades, futilely struggling like worms exposed after a heavy rain, before they, too, were sucked beneath.

The ant things on the opposite bank began to dance and make strange clicking sounds that might have been triumphant war cries or even insectoid laughter.At the same moment the corn began to rustle all around them, although there was no breeze.

"Come on," Devane shouted, yanking at Doris, "we can't help him now."

They reached the children, who threw themselves wailing around their parents' legs. Devane managed to pry his son loose. "We're going to get out of here!" he yelled. "Harry, hold on to your mother. Missy, give me your hand."

He darted through the break in the corn and plunged headlong down one of the paths, dragging Doris by the one hand and Missy by the other. Every turn was identical to the one before. They would be raced like laboratory rats until they either ran into the center again or crossed paths with the ant-things.

Desperately he tried to remember any details from the map, but all he could visualize was just a blurred series of lines.

High, squeaking inhuman cries behind them made Devane look back. The ant-things were drawing closer, jostling each other as they slinked down the path in pursuit. "Faster! Come on," Devane yelled, but he knew it was hopeless; they could never outrace the things, not burdened with the children.

Desperately he felt in his pockets for the map, thinking that perhaps that was where he had put it. His fingers brushed against the lighter. He saw in his mind's eye the dry stalks of corn that he had used to cover the skull. Tinder dry.

"Stop!" he roared to Doris. He dropped to his knees and flicked the lighter open.

"Harold, what are you doing?" she screamed "Those things are coming—"

The corn crackled as it caught fire. He sprang back, shielding his face from the heat, and led them away. Within minutes the field exploded in flames behind them. He heard high, eerie shrieks as the ant things came up against the flames.

Now he knew they were moving away from the center of the maze, because every time he looked back, he had a landmark of billowing of black smoke in the sky.

After a succession of twists and turns, they came to a wooden wall at the end of an alley and Devane prayed they had reached the opposite side. Scaling the wall would carry them out of the corn and back into the normal world. Then it would be time to settle accounts with Farmer Jones and anyone else involved in the care and feeding of the maze.

"I'll go first," he said, and pulled himself to the top of the wall. A moment later he dropped down again.

"We're going back into the maze," he said.

"What do you mean, Harold?" Doris asked, her voice squeaky with fear. "We can make it over the wall. You can lift the kids—"

He shook his head, cutting her off. "If we follow the edge of the maze, it will bring us back to the entrance. The ant-things are distracted by the fire. We might have a chance."

"But all we have to do is go over the wall," she said, "and we'll be safe."

"Trust me Doris," he said. "We have to go back."

She started to argue but saw something in her eyes that made her fall silent. He motioned for the children to follow him, and, after hesitating for a moment, Doris trailed along behind them.

 He couldn't tell her what he had seen on the other side. Maybe later, if they made it out alive. The rows of corn disappearing into a green haze. No sign of a highway, no hint of any habitation, nothing moving except for what he thought was an indistinct piece of farm machinery crawling across the endless horizon. At first he thought that they could lose themselves in the corn until they reached the combine's driver. Then, squinting into the fading light, he realized that the thing shimmering in the distance wasn't a combine after all, but something huge and alive, moving slowly in their direction through the rows of corn like a ship plowing through endless green waves. It was as alien and unidentifiable as the twin suns that hung low on the horizon, warming a hungry earth that patiently waited for them in its time of sowing.


Walt Jarvis lives in Los Angeles. His short stories have been published in the anthologies Bell, Book and Beyond, Dead But Dreaming, and Darkness Rising.