The Orchard

Rachael thought the "Scooby Gang" thing had run its course but she did her best to hide her annoyance with Scott. He was such a puppy dog and you have to be patient with puppy dogs. "Well," she said. "I'd have to go with Velma."

"Okay," Scott said. "The smart one. Still, kind of surprised you didn't say Daphne."

"Velma can get a new haircut, contacts, and ditch those bulky, body-shaming sweaters, but it isn't like Daphne can get a brain transplant," Rachael said.

"Harsh," Scott said. "But fair, I guess. Was Daphne really that stupid?"

"Dumb and numb," Rachael said. "I mean, come on. It's so painfully obvious that Fred is gay."

"Really?" Scott asked.

"The hair. The scarf. Those hip-hugger bell bottoms," Rachael said.

"Well," Scott said. "I suppose it would explain my childhood crush on Fred."

Rachael, Scott, and their fellow "Scooby Doo" gang members, Alex and Lisa, had decided to indulge in some Halloween hokum, taking a Saturday afternoon trip to the Sokoki Ridge Farms apple orchard. Apples for pies, pumpkins for carving, and the haunted hayride for some Legend of Sleepy Hollow kind of autumn in New England fun. The four of them had met in college, rented a house off campus together their senior year, and somehow had managed to stay together after graduation, now three years past. Alex had once described the four of them as "friends without benefits" and perhaps that was why they had managed to last this long as friends and housemates.

Rachael snuck a glance at Scott. The two of them could easily be Daphne and Fred, much to her disappointment and regret. The good guys are always gay, she thought. Rachael had the legs, the red hair, the fashion model cheekbones and the button nose but in real life she was much more Velma Dinkley than Daphne Blake. She had gone on to a Masters in Computer Science just a year and a summer after getting her Bachelors and had already been promoted to Senior Software Engineer in just her second year at Unum. 

Scott was as on point as Fred Jones, minus the scarf. He was the very definition of a good guy, working as a counselor at the Strafford County Department of Corrections and taking shifts on a suicide hot line two nights a week. Rachael worried about him regularly. She found it far too easy to picture his face next to the word hostage in the dictionary. Scott's comforting smile and empathic hazel eyes had broken the heart of a half a dozen co-eds during his undergraduate years and Alex - the group's Shaggy Rogers thanks to his evident belief in the t-shirt as fashion statement - had learned early on in their friendship that Scott was the perfect wingman; attractive but uninterested. 

Alex juggled gig-worker jobs while trying to figure out which dream to pursue; stand up comic, or guitar shredding rock god. Rachael, Scott, and Lisa had yet to decide if it was better to encourage Alex or to provide an honest assessment of his "talents." His average good looks would've been perfect for a life of crime. Average height, average weight, no distinguishing marks, and yet, Alex could be unexpectedly good looking. In the right moment, the police sketch artist would've had everyone looking for Timothee Chalamet. Or not. With Alex, everything seemed to come and go.

Lisa would've been described as pretty in that girl next door way standing next to anyone other than Rachael. Short blonde hair, large green eyes, and a bit on the short side, she was really nothing like Velma. If she'd had wings she could've passed for Tinker Bell. She was too trusting and too much the romantic, if those can be seen as vices. It had left her heart broken twice during her undergraduate years and left her wary of romantic entanglements at Macy's, where she worked as the manager of the jewelry and perfume department, with every sale of a ring a painful reminder of her lost loves.

"We probably shouldn't have split up," Rachael said.

"Alex and Lisa will be just fine," Scott said.

"I'm just saying," Rachael said. "Never split up."

"You watch too many scary movies," Scott said.

"You watch too many Scooby Doo cartoons," Rachael said.

"Impossible," Scott said. "You can never watch too much Scooby Doo. It's the key to unlocking the secrets of human existence."

"Are we ever going to pick some apples or are we just going to walk around all afternoon?" Rachael asked. She looked to the west where the sun had begun to set. "I take that back. We have literally walked around all afternoon."

"When I see the right tree, I'll know it," Scott said.

"Wait!" Rachael said, stopping in her tracks. "Did you hear that?"

"What?" Scott said.

"The trees," Rachael said. "It sounded like they sighed."

Scott stood still and listened.

"They're disappointed that you didn't pick their apples," Rachael said. "Their feelings and my feet hurt."

"I told you not to wear those shoes," Scott said.

They had walked up a slight hill in the space between the rank and file of apple trees when they entered a small clearing. There, elevated on a post, was a scarecrow. It was posed as if standing on a small platform attached to the post, with its arms tied to a cross beam like Jesus on the cross. The scarecrow was life-sized, dressed in a red flannel shirt, jeans, and work boots. It's crude face was sewn with a heavy black thread into the jute cloth that covered its head, with heavy twine securing it at the neck. There was a Red Sox cap on its head. Hands fashioned from straw stuck out of the shirt's cuffs and small clumps of straw poked out the pant legs and between the shirt buttons.

"Well," Rachael said. "That's kind of spooky."

"Yeah, and that Jesus pose is definitely not helping," Scott said.

"I get why you'd have a scarecrow in a corn field but it's odd here in an apple orchard, isn't it?"

"Seriously?" Scott asked. "You're overestimating my expertise in horticulture's last line of defense."

"I think I was being rhetorical," Rachael said, checking her phone. "I can just Google it."

"Did its head just move?" Scott asked.

"Stop it!" Rachael said. "Don't even."

"I'm serious," Scott said. There was an odd sound then that drew their attention from the scarecrow to the surrounding trees; something indefinable, a humming, a buzzing of insects or the flapping wings of a flock of birds; a breeze stirring the leaves in the trees, Scott thought, but the air was still and he suddenly felt cold. "Rachael?" he asked, unable to control the tremor in his voice.

"Yes, Scott," Rachael answered.

"Is that the trees sighing again?" Scott asked.

"You know I made that up, right?" Rachael said.

"Yes," Scott said, not sounding at all confident. "Right. I knew that. So what is that?"

Rachael felt the hair stand up on her arms and the back of her neck. "It's probably just bugs," she said with as much confidence as she could muster, and with that, Alex and Lisa jumped out from behind two nearby trees, laughing. Alex held his phone over his head as it produced a ghostly moan. Rachael noticed their canvas bags were filled with apples. 

"I guess they found trees they liked," Rachael said.

"Gotcha!" Alex exulted.

"Sorry," Lisa said. 

"I told you," Rachael said. "It was just bugs. Well, one large bug."

"Come on, Scott," Alex said. "Man, you got to get into the holiday spirit. Hey, seriously. You okay?"

Scott's attention had returned to the scarecrow. His face was a mirror of fear.

"Oh, I think he's got the holiday spirit, all right," Lisa said. "I think he's got it bad."

Rachael touched Scott's arm. "Scott? Scott? You okay?"

His eyes still locked on the scarecrow, Scott said, "I'm telling you, I saw its head move."

"Sorry, Scott," Alex said. "But you can't fool a fool. That didn't come out right, um, but it's something like that. You know what I mean. Don't try to scare an, um -"

"Asshole?" Rachael asked. "Is that the word you're searching for?"

"That is one of the realest looking scarecrows I've ever seen," Lisa said. 

"I am real," the scarecrow said.

The voice froze them for just an instant.

"I did not just hear that!" Scott said.

"I did," Alex said.

"Yeah," Lisa said.

"So did I," Rachael said.

"Don't any of you know how denial works?" Scott asked.

The scarecrow pulled itself free from its rustic crucifix and jumped to the ground, tumbling smoothly into a somersault as it landed, losing the Red Sox cap in the process, and sprung up onto its feet.

"And he sticks the landing!" the scarecrow said. "Yeah. College gymnastics. Still got it, don't you think?"

The four friends drew close to each other, doubting what they had just seen, unable to deny what they had just seen.

"Alex, I don't suppose you brought a lighter, did you?" Scott asked. 

"Good call," Lisa said. "It should be afraid of fire."

"Oh, are you a smoker?" the scarecrow asked. "You wouldn't have a cigarette would you? I'm dying for a cigarette. Ha! See what I did there? Dying? Cigarette? Of course," he patted his chest, "I really don't have to worry about lung cancer, do I?" The scarecrow tipped back its head and laughed a Bwa-ha-ha-ha laugh.

"I can't find the lighter," Alex said, digging in his pants pockets. "Maybe I forgot it."

"Check again!" Scott implored. "Have you got that stupid Swiss Army knife of yours on you?"

"That won't do any good," the scarecrow said. He patted his belly. "Straw don't bleed."

"Wait! Hold on!" Rachael said. "I don't know what's going on here but I've seen enough scary movies to know we don't have anything to worry about. We're the friends without benefits, remember? You don't have sex, you don't get killed by the evil demon scarecrow ghost thing. It's like a rule or something."

"More of a convention than a rule," the scarecrow said.

"Um, about that friends without benefits thing," Alex said.

"What? You what?" Rachael said. "Lisa! With Alex? Seriously? How did you have time to pick apples?"

"Ugh!" Lisa said. "How could you even think that? Yuck!"

"Hey!" Alex said.

"Well, if it wasn't you," Rachael said, and then she noticed Scott, hanging his head, raising his right hand. "Scott? What were you thinking?"

"I was drunk," Scott said. "It was a weak moment. I'm not proud of it."

"Again," Alex said. "Hey!"

"When did this happen? Wait! No, don't tell me. I thought you, I mean, I didn't think you, well, I mean, not that there's anything wrong with it," Rachael stammered.

"Oh, it was wrong," Scott said.

"And, once more with feeling," Alex said. "Hey! Look, it's complicated. I mean, everyone experiments, right?"

"When they're twelve," Lisa said.

"So, I hate to spoil the moment," the scarecrow said, "but, nobody has a cigarette, then?" He pulled the jute cloth covering from his head. "Sorry to disappoint but as it turns out, I'm not an evil demon scarecrow ghost thing, after all. I just work here. I'm Joe. Joe Bela." His face was handsome in a blank, featureless way; his eyes were pale, more grey than blue.

Rachael was the first to recover from the scarecrow's reveal. "Hi, Joe," she said. "Very effective scarecrow costume."

"Why thank you," Joe said.

"I'm Rachael," she said, holding up her hand and giving a slight gesture of hello while maintaining her distance.

"Scott," Scott said.

"Alex," Alex said.

"Lisa," Lisa said. 

Joe popped the straw hands out the cuffs of his flannel shirt, took a step forward and reached out with his right hand. Lisa took it reflexively. Joe held her hand as he said, "Nice to meet you, Lisa. Are you sticking around for the haunted hayride?" 

Lisa opened her mouth to speak but no words came out. 

"Yes, we're sticking around for the haunted hayride," Rachael said.

Joe picked up his straw hands and his Red Sox cap and put his jute cloth covering back on his head, and pointed to his sewn on face. "Look for me. Joe. Joe Bela." He started to leave and stopped. "Nice to meet you all." 

"Nice to meet you, too," Lisa said.

He moved quickly down the hill from the clearing and disappeared into the orchard.

"Well, that was a lot," Rachael said.

Scott forced a nervous laugh. "Yeah. Kind of a cool Scooby Doo moment there. When he took off the mask. I could've bought this orchard for pennies by convincing Old Man Whatshisname it was haunted if it wasn't for you meddling kids!"

"I think you might've been just a little too in the moment there, Scott," Alex said.

"Kind of cute for an evil demon scarecrow ghost thing," Rachael said. "It'll make a great story to tell your grandchildren."

"Yeah," Lisa said. "Wait! What? Grandchildren?"

"I'm calling dibs on maid of honor," Scott said.

"Really?" Rachael said to Scott, throwing side-eye at Alex. "Because apparently you no longer qualify as a maid."

"You're never going to let me live that down, are you?" Scott said.

"Once more," Alex said. "Hey!"

"Do not say 'I thought we had something' because we didn't," Scott said. "And we don't."

"That hurts," Alex said.

"Fine," Scott said. "I promise to devote a full paragraph in the Moments I Regret chapter of my autobiography to our unlamented and never-meant-to-be love affair."

"That's better," Alex said. "Thanks."

"I think I might cry," Lisa said.

Alex noticed the distracted look on Rachael's face. "What's wrong, Rachael?"

"I think she's having a Velma moment," Scott said.

"Yes!" Lisa said. "I knew I was Daphne."

"Well," Rachael said. "That was all pretty strange, don't you think? I mean, the scarecrow turns out to be a real live boy, some kind of bale of hay Pinocchio? And what about that moment with Lisa? Like he's a rustic Count Dracula and Lisa is playing the part of his Mina Harker. How many metaphors can we throw into the mix before somebody actually gets hurt?"

"I really prefer having Daphne as my fictional doppelganger if it's alright with you," Lisa said.

"It's scary how much scary stuff you know," Alex said. "So, the scarecrow who wasn't a scarecrow was a man who wasn't a man but instead was a scarecrow all along."

"An evil demon scarecrow ghost thing," Rachael said.

"I'm not sure I follow," Scott said. "Perhaps it's all the metaphors."

"I'm saying we get out of here, right now, before this evil demon scarecrow ghost thing puts the 'haunted' in haunted hayride, and the four of us in unmarked graves," Rachael said, enjoying the looks of terror on her friends' faces a little too much. She wondered how much longer she could keep a straight face.

"Skip the haunted hayride?" Lisa said. "What about my grandchildren?"

"He's a smoker," Alex said. "And based on everything we know, we have to assume he's an evil demon scarecrow ghost thing. It will never work out."

"That's another thing," Rachael said. "He's a smoker and a former college gymnast? What's with that?"

"He's complicated?" Lisa said, her voice rising to the pitch of hopefulness.

"Okay," Scott said nervously. "This isn't just more sighing trees, is it?"

Rachael shook her head. She looked to the west. The sun was now just peeking over the horizon; the moon, full and bright, was already out. Stars had begun to poke glittering pin pints of lights into the darkening sky. "We need to get out of here. Now." 

The four of them started down the hill from the clearing into the orchard. 

Behind the trees, keeping out of sight, the scarecrows gathered and waited for them. The scarecrow who called himself Joe Bela said to the scarecrow who called himself Damien Clay, "The one in the t-shirt and jean jacket who looks like Timothee Chalamet may have a lighter. So, be careful. Oh, and t-shirt guy and the tall, good looking guy recently had sex."

"Really?" the scarecrow who called himself Damien Clay said. "Too bad. They do make a cute couple."

"You know the rules," Joe Bela said. "We take them first."