The Haunted Corn Maze! October Tukatön Event! :jack_o_lantern:

Hey y’all Kiwi here!

This is my entry for the #TukaWriting event! Hope y’all enjoy reading it!

:bangbang: TW: Mentions of blood, implications and mentions of death :bangbang:

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    The day was nice and crisp as the more preferable fall mornings usually are. Bria, her brother Adonis, and brother in-law Finn were prepping both Bria and Umbra for the October Tukatön Event in Belgium. Today was the haunted corn maze, which Bria was extremely excited for. She loved haunted houses, and tried to go to as many as she possibly could when she was younger. And now she got to do this with her horse which makes it double the fun.

     She tacked up her big stallion with the help of her brother, while he handled the saddle, she handled his bridle. She was the only one who could convince Umbra to allow a bit into his mouth without fighting it. She scratched the stallion’s forehead lovingly, giving it a kiss and his big, soft, green eyes focused on her. She smiled at her stallion, she couldn’t believe the amount of work and time with him brought the two of them to this moment. Their very first event together.

    “You ready sis? He’s all brushed off and saddled up.” Her brother smiled at his little sister in pride.

     Bria smiles and nods, getting a leg up from her brother onto her giant black stallion, patting his neck as she gets her feet in the stirrups and gathers her reins.

     "You ready big guy?" She leaned up the stallion neck to scratch between his ears, to which the Tukatön snorted in almost an agreeing way.

    "You go have fun, sis!" Her brother patted her knee, double checking on her girth tightness for her.

    Finn put his hand on the stallion's mane covered muscular neck, "Just to talk to him like you have been and you two will be okay since he's never done this before." Finn reminded his sister-in law.

     "Don't you guys worry. We got this! It's just a fun trail ride through a corn maze. What's the worst that could happen?" She was confident in her and Umbra's connection that this would go smoothly.

    "Don't forget about the fact there are scare actors in there too." Finn reminded.

    "We got this! Months of desensitizing practice has helped a lot, haven't they bud?" She patted the crest of his neck.

    She turned her horse towards the entry of the maze, walking up to the two workers at the front. They smiled at Bria and one of them wished her good luck. The setting sun created stripes and speckles of light in-between the stalks and onto the ground and the scarecrow and jack o lantern decorations. Umbra huffed at the goofy face of the front scarecrow decoration, unsure what to think of it yet not afraid. Bria let out a small chuckle and patted the stallion's neck in encouragement to continue on.

    Once she had entered the maze, she pushed for Umbra to move into a nice, easy trot. The stallion complied with ease, his pace surprisingly smooth for a draft horse. Bria led the stallion around the first turn, coming up to her first path choices. She looked between the left and right patch unsure where to go.

    "Which one do you think, big guy?" she leaned up against the stallions neck, standing in her stirrups to try to get a better view above, which, despite the stallion's tall build, proved to be in vain.

    The black horse almost seem to take his own time to consider which path to take, flicking his ears, every which way. He tossed his forelock out of his eyes, before starting towards the path on the right confidently. Bria allowed the stallion to continue on, trusting his judgment. They another corner, turning left when they had ran into the first scare actor, jumping out at them while laughing insanely. Bria let out a little shriek of shock from the sudden jump scare, while Umbra stopped, tense, and snorted deeply. They were dressed as a creepy orange and blue clown, making odd movements and cackling creepily in the attempt to freak the duo out. Bria urged him into a light canter to continue away from the first actor.

    A few turns later, they happen upon another scare actor, this time dressed as a, in Bria's opinion, goofy looking werewolf and growling at them. Bria simply laughed at umbra's spooked stance, front legs splayed out front at he halted to a sudden stop, more scared of this actor than his rider was. She scratched the ridge of his neck to let him know it was alright, nothing to be afraid of as she continued giggling while ing the actor.

    The path continues into what felt like an almost complete circle, before cutting sharply to the right. Around the corner led to a semi-open area going off in four different directions besides the one she had just came from. In the middle of the opening, was a scarecrow sitting atop a bunch of straw bales made into a chair like structure. The scarecrow was leaning onto its left side, with a giant plastic jack o lantern head with a horrifying face to it. Upon closer inspection, Bria could almost mistaken this prop as a person, the way the scarecrow's body underneath it's clothing was shaped very human like. The head and clothes were covered and splattered in what looked like blood.

     Bria appreciated the realistic looking props. Umbra seemed unsettled. He was tense, his ears flicking back and forth every few seconds, body tense.

     "What's the matter boy? It's just a decoration." She looked at her path choices. "Let's keep going, bud."

     She tried pulling the stallion's rein to the right, to which he did not respond. He was heavily focused on the scarecrow in front of him. Bria gave him a few more light tugs, not wanting to hurt him.

    "Bud, come on. It's gonna be dark soon." She ushered the stallion, nudging her heels into him while gently tugging his nose to the path she wanted to go.

    He finally gave into his rider's urging motions, body still tense and instincts on high as he kept his eye on the scarecrow while walking down their new direction until he couldn't see it anymore due to the turns. Bria patted his neck in a comforting manner, letting him know everything was alright.

     A few turns and paths later and the sun was just there enough to make the sky an ombré of gold, orange, magenta and blue at certain points. They had come across plenty of scare actors, some being generalized concepts such as clowns, witches, ghosts, and other Halloween or horror monsters. Some few were actual characters, and so far she had seen Ghost Face, Jason Voorhees, Frankenstein, Freddy Krueger, and Leatherface.

    The horse and rider team were bending around another turn when they heard a loud rustle between the cornstalks, making the two stop and turn heads towards the noise. Bria expected it to be another scare actor just getting back in place but being noisy about it. Something in her gut felt uneasy, like she was being watched, and Umbra felt it too. He tenses pinning his ears back every now and then while also flicking them back and forth to listen for anything.

    Another loud sound made the two jump, looking at any direction to find where the sound came from. It almost sounded like something heavy dropped to the dirt ground. Bria and Umbra’s unease grew, so she urged her stallion to walk on.

    Suddenly, to their right, they saw an actor wearing a Michael Myers costume. The sudden realization that he was there startled the two, and Umbra reared up a little in freight.

“It’s okay boy! He’s just another actor pretending to be a scary guy.” Bria hushed at her horse, trying to calm him.

     It was in vain as the stallion pranced and raised his front legs in tense fear. She felt like he was about the bolt out from under her, and no matter what she did she couldn’t manage to get him to calm down. It wasn’t until the Myers actors starting walking in closer, holding up a bloody knife that looked almost too sharp to be a prop.

    “Alright bud, let’s get out of here then.” She felt creeped out, and allowed the stallion to go off into an easy canter away from the unnerving actor.

     ‘He deserves a raise cuz he was actually creepy.’ She thought to herself. Despite the Halloween series being her absolute favorite of all time, she felt really uneasy after that instance with the actor, something just felt off about it.

    It had been half an hour after the sun had completely set, they had found their way out of the corn maze finally, exiting on the other side of the stand next to where she had entered from. They hadn’t done any pace slower than a working trot, eager to get out of the maze after the Michael Myers actor had freaked them out.

     “Did you have fun?” One of the ladies from the stand asked, smiling at her.

    “Yea we did,” she patted Umbra’s neck, smiling, relieved to finally be out of the maze “the only thing was the Micheal Myers dude kinda creeped us out.”

    Her smile faltered once’s she noticed the heavily confused looks on the two ladies’ faces.

    “We don’t have an actor dressed up at Michael tonight. That actor called in sick hours ago.” The other lady stated in confusion.

     Bria’s stomach dropped. She tried to assume someone was pulling a prank, but something about that gave her a really bad feeling. She tried to shrug it off as she led her horse back to the stables. She untacked her big boy before going to brush him down. After she had helped him cool down, she brought him his feed and water for the night. She kisses the stallion’s big nose goodnight before heading with her brothers back to their hotel they got for their stay during the event.

    The next morning in their hotel, while eating her usual toast and cereal with her brothers, Bria decided to turn on the tv. It immediately popped up at the news channel, and she was about to switch it until the headline caught her eyes.

    “A body was discovered at a family friendly equestrian event late last night after it closed.” The news reporter stated in the usual reporter-like voice, “It appeared to be a scare worker in a corn maze attraction, who was discovered by a coworker after closing hours. The suspect is still unknown.”

    Bria sat in shock, toast slipping out of her hand and back onto her plate, which went unnoticed to her. The three looked between each other in shock and surprise. Nothing was said but everyone thought generally the same thing.

     What the—

Word Count: 1810