Most Horrific Scene at Haig Hollow’s Corn Maze - Gnash the Gator or Granny?

“Boomer” Winfrey
Varmint County Correspondent

One of the most notable occasions on Varmint County’s social calendar has come around again. I’m talking, of course, about Halloween. The list of pranks, mishaps and general anarchy that takes place every year at this time of year is the stuff that legends are built upon.  

We’re talking about classic pranks such as the time long ago when a young Colonel Hugh Ray Jass and Archie Aslinger managed to place a donkey cart, complete with two live jackasses, on the peaked roof of Lower Primroy Elementary School, or the time a few years ago, when Corky Hockmeyer and Peanut Cummings tipped over the last standing outdoor privy in Varmint County, and both fell head-first into the open pit while doing the tipping.

Only last year, you may recall, the Varmint County High School cheerleading squad came up with a fundraising idea and sponsored a “haunted high school” instead of a haunted house. They had Dr. Acula’s health class (“Avoid direct sunlight. O-positive is a preferred blood type”).

They had basketball games between werewolves and zombies and then they had that unfortunate matter of mortician Clyde Filstrup Junior loaning a dozen coffins to the school for décor but accidentally sending one over with a client still inside. The mortal remains of old Carlisle McCracken were quickly returned to the funeral home but only after the cheerleaders had mistaken the corpse for a dummy and posed with it for yearbook photographs.

This year the school board quickly nixed a repeat of last year’s excitement, waiting as they are for the statute of limitations to expire on a possible lawsuit from the McCracken family.

But this year’s Halloween festivities are not limited to one night, or even one week, thanks to the good folks in Haig Hollow. The notorious Haig clan has finally joined the current trend of farmers earning a little extra income by creating a corn maze.

In the case of patriarch Elijah “Big Poison” Haig and his extended family, this only makes good sense. The Haigs have extensive farmlands in their valley ringed by mountains, but generally only grow small vegetable gardens and large fields of corn. The corn, of course, is not used to feed livestock or take to market, but used instead to produce large quantities of corn whiskey, including the infamous Haig “spring run” that is also sold to the Air Force as a jet fuel additive. (Some say the secret ingredients in “spring run” include fermented habenero peppers). 

Last year, some of the younger Haigs convinced Elijah to let them construct a corn maze in the large field adjacent to Granny Haig’s log cabin. The maze was intended for the amusement of the Haig children, namely Elijah’s younger grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and Granny’s great-great-great grandchildren. It had the usual collection of frightening scenes, from zombies and monsters of every ilk to a lifelike replica of Caleb Hockmeyer and two of his sons, armed with hog rifles.

The Hockmeyer display was particularly popular, since the Haigs and Hockmeyers have been feuding since the Civil War. Unfortunately, the replicas, carved from some giant pumpkins and acorn squash grown by Boudreaux Haig at his homestead up on the side of Flatiron Peak, didn’t last long. Some of the teenaged Haig boys blasted them into pieces with twelve-gauge buckshots two days after the maze opened.

But to make a long story short, the maze turned out to be so popular that Elijah decided the time was finally ripe to open up the forbidden lands of Haig Hollow to the rest of the world by advertising the corn maze and charging admission.

“Elijah, you think it’s a good idea to let a bunch of strangers roam around Haig Hollow?” Curley “Little Poison” Haig asked his father. “I mean, you don’t need the money and some of them might wander over into the woods and bump into something that’s none of their bizzness, like one of our stills.”

“Son, since the United States Air Force started buying our spring run for their jets, we’re sort of protected from revenooers. We gotta special permit from the Department of Homeland Security that allows us to cook our whiskey and it’s all brewed in one building right there in plain sight. The only stills that are out in the woods are either abandoned or small operations run by your cousins for their personal use,” the old man replied. “And I ain’t keepin’ the money. It’s all goin’ to the Penny Haig college scholarship fund that my granddaughter set up for Varmint County kids from poor families.”

And so during the four weeks leading up to Halloween, one of the most popular spots in Varmint County has been the once-forbidden territory of Haig Hollow. Practically every resident in three counties made at least one visit to the corn maze, if for no other reason than to say they had finally been into Haig Hollow and come out alive.

And Elijah Haig and his family spared no effort to make the maze a memorable experience. They repeated the Hockmeyer display, this time setting it up as a target shooting range where young Haigs could test their marksmanship. Since they wanted Hockmeyers to visit the maze as well, they set up a second shooting range featuring replicas of some feuding Haigs where the Hockmeyers could practice their skill with a rifle A bulls-eye earned the shooter a stuffed witch or werewolf, or if over 21, a small airline bottle of “Haig corn likker.”

Camilla Clotfelter, whose late granny Cordelia was reputed to be Varmint County’s last real witch, agreed to dress up as a wizened old crone and tell fortunes while stirring a witches’ brew. Since many in the county suspect that the lovely young Camilla inherited her granny’s powers, they took Camilla’s predictions seriously, especially after “Little Hair” Pennywell’s nephew pinched off part of Camilla’s fake nose. The kid had to be taken home when shortly afterward, his nose began to bleed uncontrollably.

But the most popular, and most feared display in the maze was “the swamp of terror.” A path of trampled cornstalks led down a steep incline to a pool of muddy water. A wire cage then stopped visitors from approaching beyond a red line painted on the ground. Kids would all push up to the edge of the cage to see what was so scary about an old pool of filthy water, when out of the pool would lunge “Old Gnash,” Elijah’s pet alligator, given to him by his Louisiana Haig cousins for providing them with a temporary home in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Old Gnash played his part well. He was chained by one leg to a concrete post that would allow him to bang up against the wire cage, huge teeth gnashing, but without being able to put any weight behind his charge. The kids would all scream and fall back, but Gnash would merely snap his huge jaws once or twice and then, unable to reach his quarry, retire back into the water.

Throughout October, the Haigs fed Gnash only half of his normal daily diet of a live goat and six hens, guaranteeing that he would make an honest effort to get at the gawkers behind the wire cage and put on a good show.

You’re wondering by now, what happened to make this tale a typical Varmint County story, where the best-laid plans go astray resulting in chaos, civil unrest or mass casualties? Actually, nothing terrible happened at the Haig Hollow corn maze. The maze brought in a small fortune for the scholarship fund, provided the entire county with a memorable Halloween experience and the Haigs and Hockmeyers contented themselves with shooting at replicas of each other instead of the real things.

Well, there was that one minor incident involving Cody Perkins, “Quip” Aslinger and Lawyer McSwine’s nephew from Burrville. The three teenaged boys visited the maze with former Road Superintendent Pothole

Perkins and his wife Beatrice, when they slipped off by themselves to steal a smoke.

They found themselves wandering down a path in the maze that looked less trampled than most, and suddenly spied another path leading to a wooden structure. The boys couldn’t believe their eyes. An outhouse! A real genuine outdoor privy still standing in Varmint County!

“They didn’t mention this in the newspaper article about the maze. Must’a just put it up for decoration,” Quip Aslinger noted.

“Hey, didn’t Corky Hockmeyer and that Cummings kid get credit for flipping over the last outdoor privy in Varmint County back when your paw was in school?” Cody Perkins asked. “Reckon we should steal their thunder?”

“Yeah, and I’ll bet we can do it without falling in the pit,” Quip replied.

So the three leaned up against the last privy in Varmint Count and pushed hard until it crumpled over on its side, revealing 112-year-old Granny Haig sitting there on her throne, reading a 1973 Sears & Roebuck catalog by candlelight.

Immediately, maze visitors were treated to the sight of the three wayward teenagers running through the corn maze, screaming for help with Granny Haig hot on their tails, swinging a double-bladed axe. Elijah intervened before any damage was done, holding back his grandmother while the boys piled into Pothole’s car and the family made their escape.

“I told you not to plant this danged corn maze so close to my cabin. Them mean boys done gone and knocked down my bathroom,” Granny complained.

“Well, Granny, I’ve got six bathrooms in my house with flush toilets and hot running water. You know I’ve been trying to get you to move in there for the past five years,” Elijah pointed out.

“Don’t hold to no new-fangled stuff like that, boy. I was born in my cabin and so were you. I plan to be buried in it and I plan to use my own bathroom, so you better just get some of the younger boys to build it back tonight!”

“You get Granny’s privy set back up?” Doc Clyde Filstrup Sr. asked Elijah the next morning. “Lawyer McSwine asked me to come out here and tell you he’ll pay for any damages.”

“Nah, the boys were able to get it back up last night. We anchored it with some concrete so there will be no more pushing it over,” Elijah replied.

“A shame, really. Judge Harwell was here last night with his grandkids and he said the alligator pool was scary, but nothing really frightened the kids as much as seeing Granny come running up the path swinging that axe. It ought to be part of the maze on a permanent basis.”

“Uh-huh. It was scary, all right. I was more scared than anyone ’cause I knew if she caught up to those boys, she would have used that axe,” Elijah replied. “You want to get really scared, Doc. You be the one to go tell Granny we want her to repeat that scene again every night.”