“I have,” Cap said. “It has to do with corn. My gramps used to grow it in a corner of the backyard of his place in North Carolina. It means something like if the stalks weren’t knee high by July fourth, the crop would be bad.”

“Exactly,” Lou said. “That’s what I remember, although I have no idea who I heard it from. Well, it isn’t July yet, but that corn is certainly way higher than my knees.”

Cap turned left again, this time onto a gravelly dirt road. The stalks on each side towered upward like a ghostly army. Rocks, coupled with potholes and the gathering darkness made driving without headlights tricky. Lou felt every jolt of the low-riding Prizm as it struggled to negotiate the uneven terrain.

George pointed up ahead. “They’re turning again,” he said.

“I got ’em,” Cap replied, swinging the car onto an even narrower dirt road that was carved into a seemingly endless expanse of corn.

“You sure you can find your way out of here?” Notso asked, looking around anxiously.

“There’s always a way out,” Lou said, patting the hefty man’s shoulder.

Notso was rubbing the gold handcuffs pendant he wore as if the miniature manacles were rosary beads.

Again, the car jostled from side to side as the wheels found more ruts.

“Shit,” Notso said.

“What is it?” Lou felt a tingle of alarm.

“I dropped my gun.”

Before anyone could comment, he reached above his head and flicked on the car’s interior light.

“Notso!” Lou yelled, covering the light cap with his hand and quickly flicking the switch off. “What are you doing?”

“Sorry, man,” he said, “but I got to find my gun.”

“We told you to leave it in your holster.”

“I got nervous, so I wanted to be sure I could get at it.”

Lou glanced up just in time to see the sedan’s taillights, perhaps a quarter mile ahead, go dark. Cap pulled over to the edge of the narrow road, car wheels crunching corn stalks underneath, and shut off the engine. Save for the white noise of insects and the swishing of the corn, the silence was heavy. After a minute, his window open, Cap restarted the engine and inched forward. Ahead, the blackness intensified.

“Stop, Cap,” Notso said with authority.

“Why?”

“’Cause I’m gettin’ out to walk on ahead of you. They might call me Notso Brite, but that don’t mean I make the same mistake twice. I got hearing like a shark.”

“What in the hell are you talkin’ about?” George said. “Sharks live in the fuckin’—”

Notso was already out on the road, gun in hand, lumbering ahead through the night.

Cap followed for a few minutes, then pulled to the side and cut the engine. He, Lou, and George joined Notso in front of the Prizm and moved cautiously ahead.