This scarecrow horror story happened on a county highway in northern Iowa on Halloween night, 2022. There was a scarecrow at every mile marker, and every one of them was facing the road. I’ve told this Halloween night story every October since, and I still can’t drive that road.
I was driving home from my sister’s Halloween party in Clear Lake. She has one every year. Chili, a costume contest, her husband’s band in the garage. I left at 10:50 because I had to open the vet clinic at seven the next morning.
It’s about forty minutes to my place outside Garner if you take the county road instead of the highway. I always take the county road. No trucks, no cops, nothing but fields.
I was still half in my costume. A witch hat on the passenger seat. Green face paint I hadn’t fully washed off.
The corn was mostly harvested by then. Stubble on both sides of the road. Flat, open, black. Every couple of miles, a farmhouse light way back from the road.
Where This Scarecrow Horror Story Started
I noticed the first one at mile marker 6.
A scarecrow, on a wooden post, right beside the green marker sign. Flannel shirt. Straw hat. A burlap sack for a head with a face drawn on in black marker.
I thought it was cute. Lots of little towns around there do a scarecrow walk in the fall. Businesses and churches make one each and set them up along Main Street.
At mile marker 7 there was another one. Different shirt. Same burlap head.
Mile 8. Another.
By mile 10, I’d figured somebody’s 4-H club had done the whole road as a project. I remember thinking it must have taken them all weekend.
They were all facing the road. Square on. Like they were waiting to cross.
At mile 11, the scarecrow was facing the other way. Toward the field. I could see the back of its burlap head in my headlights.
I told myself the wind turned it.
There was no wind. I’d had my window down an inch to keep from falling asleep, and the air was dead still. It was cold and dry and smelled like dust and the inside of a grain bin.
Mile 12, facing the road.
Mile 13, facing the road.
Mile 14 had a post. No scarecrow.
Just the bare post next to the green sign, with a little bit of straw stuck to it.
The Empty Post at Mile 14
I slowed down. I’m not sure why. I think I wanted to see if it had fallen in the ditch.
It hadn’t. The ditch was empty. Short grass, a beer can, nothing else.
I sped back up. My heart was going, which felt stupid. I said out loud, “Somebody stole it.” That was my excuse. Kids drive these roads on Halloween. Kids steal scarecrows.
Mile 15 had a scarecrow, facing the road.
Mile 16, the same.
Then I passed the Hanson place, an old farm with a single yard light, and I looked in the rearview mirror at the light.
There was something standing on the center line behind me.
It was just at the edge of my taillights. Red light on flannel. A straw hat. Standing still in the middle of the road, about a hundred yards back.
I didn’t stop. I didn’t even slow down. I put my foot down and did ninety the rest of the way to my turnoff, which is gravel, and I fishtailed onto it and nearly put the car in the ditch.
When I got home, I left the headlights on and ran into the house. I sat on the kitchen floor in the dark with my keys in my hand until it was almost one in the morning.
It was 11:31 when I passed the Hanson place. I know because the clock on my dashboard was the only other light in the car.
What the County Said
The next day, after work, I drove the county road again in daylight. I wanted to see them. I wanted them to be cute again.
There were no scarecrows. Not at mile 6. Not at any of them. Just the green markers, and not a single wooden post anywhere near them.
I called the county engineer’s office. I asked if anyone had a permit to put scarecrows along the road for Halloween. The woman on the phone checked with somebody. She came back and said no, nobody would get a permit for that, it’s a safety thing. She asked if somebody had left junk in the right-of-way. I said never mind.
I asked around at the clinic. One of our techs grew up near there. She said there used to be a scarecrow walk in Garner years ago, but they stopped doing it. She didn’t know why. She said her grandma used to say the scarecrows should always face town, never the fields. She didn’t know why about that either.
I didn’t go back to my sister’s party the next year. I told her I had to work.
The year after that, I went. I took the highway home with the trucks and the cops. It took twice as long and I didn’t care.
I got home a little after midnight. My headlights swung across the end of my gravel driveway when I turned in.
There was a wooden post there. I had never put a post there.
It was empty. Just a little bit of straw stuck to it.
I’ve lived in that house four years now. I still haven’t pulled it out. I keep thinking that if I take it down, whatever was on it won’t have anywhere to stand.
If you like scary driving stories, read the trunk or treat horror story about a parking lot full of open trunks, a set of hitchhiker horror stories from one stretch of Nevada interstate, or our scary campfire stories post about a stranger in the spare chair.
Ever seen a scarecrow horror story come true?
Have you ever driven past a field at night and felt like something out there turned to watch you go? Tell us your scarecrow horror story, or any scary Halloween tales from an empty road on a long drive home, in the comments below.
How scary was it?
More Highway Horror Stories
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A Voice on My CB Counted Down the Miles to Where He Was Waiting
The Payphone at the Rest Stop Rang, and It Was for Me
Dana, Shower 6 Is Ready
The County Never Put Out Those Detour Signs
The Rest Stop at the End of the Highway