5 Min Writing Prompt "Corn" #freewrite serial Chapter One

He crouches between the rows of corn and watches the abandoned farmhouse. A car is parked in the yard, lights splayed across the barn's side wall. And there are flashlights, as well, casting about the place. Searching for him.

He'd been partying with his friends up at Sauble beach. Somewhere over the course of the night they'd lost touch with their ride back home. The three of them had managed to finagle a lift in a van with a hippy who dropped them in this area, just outside of a small village amongst the farmland, still several hour's drive from home.

He'd gone into town to use a washroom at a diner, and when he returned to the road his friends were gone - picked up, he guessed. Just as well; three guys hitching together had little chance of getting a ride.

As the sun went down and no ride materialized for him, he'd come across the old farmhouse and made his way to the barn, and what followed was a lonely and frightening evening of trying to sleep in the hayloft while dealing with the acid trip from the tabs the hippy had given them. At some point in the dead of the early morning a sudden alarm had signalled in his head to GET OUT GET OUT NOW and he'd jumped down and scrambled into the corn, just in time to see the car pull up the long dirt driveway from the road.

The people are calling out to each other, definitely searching for him. He wonders when they're going to leave. In the van the hippy had a dog that kept him company during his first stages of tripping. Dogs. Do these people have dogs?

He decides to get out of there completely. Should he come back later? No. Keep going through the corn.

And so, cold and scared and far from home, he sets off into the fields towards the woods, with only the stars above to protect him.

*Chapter One in an ongoing serial based on the 5 min freewrite challenge. Read Chapter Two here.

Written in five minutes from the writing prompt, "Corn" as part of the #freewrite exercise. Image is also by me. You can view the prompt here and check out the other entries; they're aMAIZEing! Thanks to @mariannewest for creating and running this daily flowing field of artistic delight .