Chapter 1
Day 1
He woke up in the same bed, in the same room, under the same blankets.
The coffee made him perk up just a bit. Enough to get him into the shower and into his clothes.
The car started right away. Sometimes he thought it might be more interesting if it was older and less reliable. He took the same straight highway road to work. He pulled into the same parking space he has used so many times before.
He walked into the office building and sat down at his desk. The computer chimed and came to life. He clicked on his email and read those for the next half hour. The rest of his morning was spent making phone calls trying to get people to pay their past due bills.
Lunch time came and he had the same ham sandwich, exactly the way he had fixed it so many times before.
He spent the rest of the evening making more phones calls to more rude people who didn't want to pay their bills.
Day 2
He woke up in the same bed, in the same room, under the same blankets.
The coffee was bitter and he poured most of it down the sink. He stood there watching the brown liquid swirl around the drain. He didn't feel very perked up now.
He got in his car and it started right up again. He sat there staring at the steering wheel for a moment. A sudden rage built up inside him. He hit the steering wheel over and over until his hand felt numb.
Today he was going to to something different.
He drove the car off the ramp at the first exit he came to. He drove on and on down the two lane country road. He passed many farm houses surrounded by corn fields.
He stopped the car in a gravel pull off area beside the road. He slammed the door shut and walked out into the corn field. As he walked he held his hands out, letting them graze against the stalks.
After some time he came to a clearing. It was a huge circle. All the corn inside the circle had been flattened evenly. In the middle of the circle stood a scarecrow.
The scarecrow was falling apart and looked as if it had been out here for decades. The flannel shift was rotting off it. The head had been made out of a pumpkin. The eyes and mouth were shrunken and blackened from the sun.
He walked up face to face with the scarecrow.
"You're not so scary." he said looking right into its eyes.
He turned and started to walk away when he heard something rustling behind him.
"You're the scary one with all those thoughts in your head." said something.
His heart began to race and he turned to look at the scarecrow and saw that its head had moved. The pumpkin head had tilted to one side. That's not all that had changed, the black cut out mouth was now a grin.
A huge black and hollow grin.
