The Children in the Cornfield
For most of his life, Harold Keene ignored strange things.
He had lived on the same farm in Iowa for nearly fifty years.
He had seen storms destroy crops.
He had seen animals behave strangely.
He had even found objects on his property that he couldn't explain.
None of it bothered him.
Then he started seeing the children.
There were three of them.
Two boys and a girl.
They stood at the edge of his cornfield just before sunset.
They never moved.
They simply watched the house.
Harold assumed they were neighborhood kids.
He walked toward them.
The children disappeared.
Not ran.
Not hid.
Disappeared.
Harold searched the field.
Nothing.
The next evening they returned.
Same place.
Same three children.
Harold shouted at them.
"Get off my property!"
They didn't respond.
He walked toward them.
Again, they vanished.
This time Harold noticed something.
The corn was moving.
Not because of the wind.
A narrow path was forming through the field.
Something was walking away from him.
Harold followed it.
The path ended in the middle of the field.
There were three sets of footprints in the mud.
Small footprints.
Bare feet.
Harold called the sheriff.
The sheriff found nothing unusual.
He suggested that local children were playing a prank.
Harold accepted the explanation.
Until the following night.
The children appeared again.
But this time they were closer.
They stood just beyond the fence.
The girl raised her hand.
Harold later said she appeared to be pointing at something behind him.
He turned.
His farmhouse was dark.
Then he heard the front door open.
Harold spun around.
The children were gone.
He ran inside.
Nobody was there.
The following morning he found three sets of muddy footprints inside the house.
They began at the front door.
They crossed the kitchen.
They stopped beside his bedroom.
Then they ended.
The footprints never went back outside.
Harold eventually stopped sleeping in the farmhouse.
He moved into a trailer on another part of the property.
The children continued appearing.
Every evening.
Always three.
Always watching.
One morning, Harold discovered something buried beneath the soil near the cornfield.
Three small metal identification tags.
Each belonged to a child who had disappeared from the area in 1951.
Harold gave the tags to the sheriff.
There was never an explanation for how they got there.
The children stopped appearing shortly afterward.
But Harold continued finding small footprints in the mud.
Three sets.
Always leading toward the house.
Never away from it.
Some children grow up and leave the places where they were born.
Others may never leave at all.
