NOTES
I laugh whenever I think about the origins of this story. I’d never written a horror story before and hadn’t really intended for this to be one, but it seemed to fit the requirements of the moment.
Writer’s Weekly sponsors a quarterly 24- hour contest. On the dot of noon, Central time on a Saturday, the prompt is revealed and you have 24 hours to write and submit your story, based on the prompt, though it doesn’t have to contain the exact wording.
I was living in Germany at the time I entered this competition, and since I don’t work on Sundays, that gave me only five hours in which to complete the challenge.
So, seven p.m. my time and the prompt came in:
The barren, tan corn stalks behind her
snapped in the cold evening breeze,
the only sound louder than the dry,
fiery red le
