In the Tall Grass

by Joe Hill

He wanted quiet for a while instead of the radio, so you could say what happened was his fault.

The grass was incredibly tall. (For such an expanse of grass to be over six feet high this early in the season was an anomaly that wouldn’t occur to them until later.)

That all but one of these cars appeared to have been there for days—even weeks—was another anomaly that would not strike them until later.

He fell full-length on the oozy ground and managed to snork mud up both nostrils. Marvelous. How come there was never a tree around when you needed one?

The grass flows and you flow too. Think of it as becoming one with nature, bro.

There is no morning or night here, Cal thought, only eternal afternoon.

We heard her scream. We heard her die.

It hissed as he touched it to the grass and it went out. Hadn’t Jack London written a story about this?

It’s easier to find things in here once they’re dead. The field doesn’t move dead things around.”

“A girl once hid in tall grass,” she crooned. “And ambushed any boy who walked past. As lions eat gazelles, so many men fell, and each tasted better than the last.”

There were seven of them in an old RV held together by spit, baling wire, and—perhaps—the resin of all the dope that had been smoked inside its rusty walls.

She was cataclysmically stoned,