I brought up the rear as we headed toward it, and the three of them chattered about their prior experiences outwitting corn mazes. I eyed the thing as we got closer, wondering if I could squeeze between the dried stalks in the middle and cheat my way out of it.
“They say it takes at least thirty minutes to get through the whole thing, and that’s if you have a good sense of direction,” Joe said. “We should have a competition to see who can make it out fastest.”
There was no way I wanted to spend a half hour wandering around the thing. I was about to set a new speed record.
“In teams,” Carly said, grasping her husband’s hand. “Us against you two.”
I shot her a look that could’ve sent the dried husks up in flames.
“Sure, that works,” Andrew said, shocking the hell out of me. “Joe, if we beat you you’re going to owe mesomany pull-ups next time I see you.”
“Don’t worry, won’t happen,” he replied, full of bravado. “Honor system. We’ll each set our timers as we walk in.”
A bored-looking teen handed us flashlights at the entrance and I realized that the interior of the maze was dark, lit only by the stars.
“Is there, like, a cheat code?” I asked the attendant as Joe and Carly headed in. “Can you give me any pointers to get out quickly?”
The kid’s expression didn’t change. “Nope. Good luck.” He slapped a flashlight in my hand, then got out of his chair and fumbled with a yellow plastic chain.
“Wait, are you closing?” I asked him, feeling a little panicked.
He nodded. “You two are the last ones for the night. We had a group get lost in it and call 911 at midnight at the beginning of the season, so we shut it down a little earlier, just in case.”
“It’sthathard?”
“Well, it’s not easy, I’ll tell ya that.”
I glanced over at Andrew as a shiver zipped through me at the thought of being trapped in corn-land with him. “Maybe we should skip it? I mean, you’ve got the final round of the wood-chopping contest to win, right?”
“I’ll get us out in time,” Andrew said confidently, fiddling with the on-off switch and beam width on his flashlight.
I felt my jaw tighten. “I thought this was a team effort?”
“Sure, it is.” He glanced at the entrance, then down at his phone. “We’ll give them a few more minutes before we go in and smoke ’em. Let them get good and lost.”
I’d seen this side of him before. The touch football games that morphed into tackle, the trivia nights that led to shouting matches. It seemed to me that Andrew saw life as a series ofchallenges that needed to be conquered, even if they were as ridiculous as finding the way through a labyrinth made of cornstalks.
“Joe’s the only one who has to pay up if he loses,” I said. “It’s a one-sided bet.”
“Because I won’t lose.”
“Wewon’t lose,” I corrected.
“Right.” He nodded. “Okay, they’ve been in there for five minutes, let’s go.”
I followed Andrew in reluctantly. The lights at the entrance were swallowed within a few feet inside, leaving me to fumble to get my flashlight on. At this point in the season it wasn’t a fright maze with zombies and witches jumping out to scare us—that part ended after Halloween—but the dead cornstalks in the moonlight and the giant man a few feet away from me still felt like the beginning of a horror movie.
“This way,” Andrew said, pointing in the exact opposite direction that I wanted to go.
“But...” I pointed to the obviously correct route.
“Nope, I’m sure this is the way. I have a good feeling.”
I kept my mouth shut against my better judgment and followed him. The path was clear and gave me more than enough room to drag behind Andrew like a teenager trying not to be spotted with a parent at the mall.
We came to a split in the path and Andrew pressed on without even glancing at me, as confident as a museum tour guide.
“I really think we should go this way.” I pointed. “It makes sense that the exit would be at the opposite corner from the entrance.”
