A Farmhouse, An Alleged Escaped Killer, A Dark Night, and An Evil Father

So it is 1985, a time before everyone had cell phones and internet, I am 9 years old and living in a big, old, farm house with my dad for the summer.  It is dark outside as me, my dad, my sister, my step-brother, and my step-mom are sitting in the living room watching TV.  I hear a conversation between my dad and step-mom.  They are talking about an escaped convict and how dangerous he was.  I hear them talk about how the escapee is a killer and he was loose and last spotted in our county.  I see that they don’t seem too worried so I don’t worry. 

A few minutes go by and the phone rings.  I am closest to it and my dad says go ahead and answer it.

“Hello.”

I don’t hear nothing but what seems to be some heavy breathing.  My dad asks who is it and I tell him I don’t know because no one is saying anything.  He takes the phone and asks who it is and when no one responds he hangs up.  “Dumb prank callers.” He says.  After a few more minutes the phone rings again and again I am told to answer it.

“Hello.”
“Come out to the cornfield and help me.” The voice says.
“Uh, no.” I replied.

My dad asks me who it is and I tell him it is some guy who said he needed help out in the cornfield.  He tells me to ask what kind of help.

“What kind of help do you need?”
“Just meet me in the cornfield in five minutes.” The creepy voice says and then hangs up the phone.

I tell my dad what the guy says and he says let’s go look out on the porch.  So we went out onto the porch and looked out into the cornfield.  After a few minutes of standing there he nudges me and tells me to go ahead and walk out there.  I am pretty sure I looked at him as if he must be the stupidest person in the world if he thought I was going out there to the cornfield, in the dark, all by myself.  So after refusing he chuckles and we go back inside.  My step-mom says she is going to take a shower and the rest of us continue to watch TV.  After a few more minutes the phone rings again.  I answer it and the voice asks why I didn’t meet him out there.  I didn’t say a word and just looked at my dad.  After a few seconds of silence the man’s voice says, “I am coming after you now!” and hangs up.

I am pretty sure at this point my legs felt like jell-o, as I stood there I could feel them wobbling back and forth.  I tell my dad that he said he was coming for me but instead of comforting me he asks me what I did to make him mad.  “I didn’t do anything.  I don’t even know who it is.” I told him.  He tells me not to worry about it and to sit down.  As I sit down there is a big bang on the house.  I jump up looking at where it came from.  The windows are open but because of the lights being on you couldn’t see anything outside.  Another bang on another window and this time it is followed by, “Come out to the cornfield.”  At this point I am now doing everything in my power to hold all bodily fluids inside me.  I am getting so scared that the hair on my head is even shaking. 

“You kids stay here.” My dad says as he runs into the bedroom and comes back out with his gun. 

More banging and demands that I come out to the cornfield and that he was going to get me came from the man outside.  By now I have jumped onto the couch with my younger sister and younger step-brother.  All of us scared and shaking so much that whole couch and coffee table shook.  My dad tells us that he thinks it might be the killer escapee and that we were all alone out here.  He says he will go out there and take care of him. 

He runs outside with his rifle.  After a few seconds we here screaming and what sounds like fighting going on and then a gunshot.  Our water filled eyes no become water fall filled faces.  We are screaming, crying, and terrified.  Somehow I still had not peed my pants but I can not talk for the other two.  We are huddled on the couch holding on to each other just intently looking at the front screen door that my dad had gone out of.  Suddenly we heard slow and heavy footsteps coming up the porch steps.  The steps kept coming closer and closer to the door.  We hollered for our dad but there was no answer.  I am sure I thought about throwing my step-brother and my sister in front of the door so I could run out the back.  The only thing was out the back door was more of the cornfields the voice wanted me to me him at.  I was trapped and frozen in fear.  The only thing I could think to do was cry louder. 

The footsteps stopped and the old wooden screen door started to squeak open.  You know the kind of squeak that is in every scary movie.  We could do nothing but cry louder when our screams for dad went unanswered.  Suddenly a man jumps through the doorway and yells at us.  You would think by this time our screams couldn’t get any louder but somehow they did.  Gallons of water poured out of our eyes as we balled.  It took us a minute to notice the guy who jumped through the door was not only our dad but he was also laughing hysterically.  He was followed by the entrance of my step-mother who had acted like she was taking a shower and instead snuck out to bang on the windows.  Yes from the beginning this was an elaborate set up to scare the crap out of me, my sister and step-brother we just unfortunate victims.  Why did they want to scare the crap out of me so much you ask?  Well it all had to do with a comment I made earlier, a comment that all kids proclaim at one time or another.  “I am not afraid of anything.”

Little did they know that the stunt they pulled that night would forever change who I would become and who my kids would be.  My family loves to scare each other so much that it seems like we can barely go a day with out doing it.  Good job dad.  Just remember one day you will be too old to run and you can bet that when that day arrives I will scare the crap out of you, literally.