The 35 acres, that now comprises the Haunted World, has an interesting history.  Please read on to find out all about why the corn at the Haunt is so tall and why the Haunted World is such an incredibly creepy place to be at harvest time.  The story begins roughly 80 years ago and has been retold by Jeremy Justice just for your information.

CORPSE CORN

by Jeremy Justice

Gustav Gristle's crops just wouldn't grow.  His wife, Hilda, insisted that his ground was completely infertile, or that the irrigation water was contaminated or that Gustav simply wasn't a farmer.

For three years he had tried everything he could think of, or heard about, to make his corn grow.  Every year, when the corn reached about a foot in height, it would wilt and die.

As he tilled the soil and planted the seed, Gristle told himself over and over that this year would be different.  Even if it killed him, he would work day and night to have the tallest corn in Idaho.  And so a week later, his crop was planted.  He had lovingly planted each and every seed, each time imagining how tall each cornstalk would grow.

But two weeks later, when the corn had reached a foot tall, it began to show signs of wilting.  He spent all of that day and the next trying to save his corn, retiring only when he was totally spent.  All to no avail.

The following day, as he approached the house for a bite to eat, he noticed a flash of color over by the irrigation ditch and decided to investigate.  As he neared the headgate, he heard the voices of two boys.  Creeping closer through the corn he saw several empty buckets lying on the ground at the boys' feet.  Both boys were snickering; all the while, dumping buckets of salt into his water. 

Now, Gustav was not a violent man, but upon seeing this, all the years of frustration boiled up inside him and vented into an uncontrollable rage.  Before he even realized what he was doing, he leapt out of the corn screaming incoherently, and stabbed the nearest of the two boys, right through the chest with his pitchfork.  The other boy just stood there and stared, shocked.  Snarling, old man Gristle ripped the bloody pitchfork out of the corpse and turned upon the other boy looking on in horror.

Moments later, when his rage subsided, he stood looking down at the two corpses and couldn't believe what he saw.  Shamefully he walked to his house and told Hilda what he'd done.  Fearing vengeance from the community, who already disliked the crotchety couple, they dragged the bodies into the cornfield and buried them there, carefully hiding all traces of the horrible deed.  Late into the night they worked, and when they were done, they vowed top never speak or think of it again.

Afterwards, Gustav's corn began to return to normal, though still weak and sickly.  But where he and Hilda had buried the boys, it was magnificent.  In that spot alone, the corn grew to nearly 20 feet and the corn was delicious!

Several weeks after the harvest, a huge storm rolled in and a stranger stopped at the farm to get out of the cold.  The Gristle's, though not social people, offered the strange man supper and the spare room for the night.  During supper Gustav and the man began to speak of politics and religion.  The conversation grew so heated it soon turned into a fight.  The stranger attacked Gustav and began to beat him.  Hilda, fearing for Gustav's life, grabbed her cast iron skillet off the stove and hit the stranger on the head.  He fell over and didn't move.  His skull was cracked wide open.

After doctoring up Gustav's wounds, scolding him all the while, Hilda examined the stranger and realized that she had killed him.  So they took him out back and buried his corpse in the corn field.

The next season, as soon as the corn began to grow, it was immediately apparent to them that the two places where the bodies were buried, the corn was much more healthy and grew much faller and faster.  Intrigued, Gustav slaughtered two of his cows and buried them in different places in the field.  Nothing happened, so the next week, when a stranger was traveling down the road near his house, late in the evening, he and Hilda invited him in for supper.  Afterward, Gustav engaged the man in conversation while Hilda returned to the kitchen.  Taking up her cast iron skillet, once again, she returned to the dining room and struck the man on the head killing him.  They buried him in the cornfield and lo and behold, the very next day the corn was taller and healthier.

And so it began.  Every stranger who happened by, was invited in for supper.  Sometimes, Gustav did the slaying and sometimes Hilda.  However, the result was always the same . . . the corn grew taller than any around.

After many years of this, Gustav and Hilda Gristle grew more and more ruthless, while their entire 30 acres of corn grew taller and taller.  The local farmers, who at first had marveled at their success, began to grow suspicious of their inhuman manner and jealous of their monstrous crops.  The townsfolk shunned them, and they had to start hauling their corn to the next town to be sold. 

Because of their age, they had to hire on a few hands to help them. Two of the men they hired where simpletons, dim-witted individuals who had to be directed for every little chore.  The third, Henry, was smarter than was good for him.  He found the massive pile of personal possessions, from all of the Gristle's hundreds of victims, in the stand of trees on the backside of Gustav's property. 

Late one night when Henry went home for supper, he told his mother and father what he'd found--he always told his family what he'd done during the day.

The next day Henry asked old Gristle about the pile.  Gustav, fearing discovery of his secret (and having an insatiable taste for murder) attacked Henry with his sickle.  The blow caught Henry on the arm just above the elbow.  Henry howled in pain, his arm cut to the bone, and fled.  Gustav gave chase but could not catch him, as Henry was much younger and faster.

Henry ran straight home barely making it in time to tell his father what had happened.  He died only moments later from the loss of blood.

Several hours later, Henry's father arrived at the Gristle Farm with a mob of angry citizens.  They dragged Old Gristle and his feisty wife Hilda out to the stand of trees at the back of his property and prepared to hang them both.  But before doing so, they set fire to Gustav Gristle's precious cornfield.  After the blaze had died to smoldering ashes, they hanged Gustav and Hilda Gristle.

The Gristle's evil, twisted spirits remain.  Sometimes late at night you can still hear Hilda Gristle's tortuous cackle or Old Man Gristle's shuffling steps in the corn.  And occasionally, people still disappear in the corn that still grows there today, fed by the copses of Gustav and Hilda Gristle's hundred of victims.

THE END