Escape to the Cornfield
Silent tension filled the truck as it rolled down the dusty road.
Annie felt it the most, being packaged between her uncles of differing moods. Reiner, now dressed in his overalls and work shirt, was undoubtedly irate. He gripped the steering wheel like he wanted to strangle the thing, his golden eyes alive with fire as he watched the road before him. Bertholdt was sorrowful and limp against the window. Even though he had done right he felt he had done wrong, upset that he had distressed his brother. He stared at his hunched knees and said nothing.
"Hospitals!" Reiner said, final cutting the voiceless atmosphere. "They take you in, tell you you're sick, and then charge you a hundred dollars! Bunch of useless nonsense they are."
"You could have been seriously hurt," Annie explained to him. "We do not want you to die because you decided to lift hundreds of pounds of Lion Chow by yourself."
Reiner scowled and the silence continued. It was broken again when the girl noticed the mailbox and long driveway of the farm pass beside the truck. She twisted her head to look back, the mailbox clouded by dust.
"Uncle Reiner, you missed the turn."
"I did not!"
"Yes you did! I just watched you. The house is that way."
"I want to go this way!"
Annie huffed and narrowed her eyes. Reiner rarely snapped at her, and when he did he was in a foul mood and acted very childish. She shunned her uncle, turning her head away from him to display her displeasure. She leaned upon her Uncle Bertholdt as they continued down the road.
Reiner eventually pulled the truck to a halt outside of a country store. Various signs promised affordable gasoline and cheap cigarettes and beer along with a special recipe of barbeque ribs available for purchase. Annie followed her uncle's as they exited the truck and entered the store.
The owner was a bony old man with a thinning beard and sad eyes. He prepared the three orders of ribs and served them on wax paper. He then went into the back of the store without another word.
Annie liked the briny beef ribs, the sauce uncared for as it splashed upon her overalls. She was thankful she was not wearing one of her dresses to be ruined. She paused her eating, listening to her uncle's conversation.
"I'm not afraid of dying!" Reiner told Bertholdt as he continued their discussion. "I'm not afraid of getting old either."
"Maybe I'm afraid of you dying..." Bertholdt replied carefully, still worried that he had upset his brother.
"I'm only afraid of becoming useless," Reiner said as he spat a piece of gristle onto the wax paper. "Seems that is all we are now. When we were young there was always something to live for, to fight for, a point. Now there is not much point to anything. We sit around and shoot at salesmen, we garden... Maybe we should've died in that last battle."
"But we lived. Maybe we need to find the things still worth living for."
Annie hummed in approval. She finished a rib as they continued to chat beside her, the bone given to the old dog sleeping behind the counter. She was startled as she heard a shrieking sound. A speeding convertible jerked to a stop, three whooping teenagers jumping out simultaneously. The thundered like a herd of cattle into the store, laughing jovially, the largest and most greasy-haired of them all fishing in the cooler for a carton of beer. Annie did not like how they thought they owned anything they wanted.
One of them noticed the three at the counter. Annie saw as a trouble-making grin lifted his face, the boy trotting over. He stood between Annie and her Uncle Reiner.
"Heyyyy, old man! How're those ribs? Gimme one!"
Reiner swatted the greaser's hand away as he leaned on the counter and began to reach for the barbeque. Reiner finished his thought before giving the boy any heed, his muscled shoulders held high and gaze threatening. Annie thought the boy stupid not to be intimidated.
"We're busy here, kid. Get lost."
"What?" he questioned with the edge of a false laugh. "What did you just say to me?"
"See, Bertholdt," Reiner said, turning to his brother, "this is what I'm talking about with kids nowadays. Ever since this boy has been crying for his momma's tit he has been given everything but discipline. Now he thinks riding around with a bunch of asshole friends and harassing good-natured folks is a good display of courage and manhood."
Disbelief consumed the group of friends. The one closest to Reiner growled dangerously, lifting himself off the counter.
"Just who the hell do you think you are? Huh? Old man?"
Annie saw the heat return to her uncle's eyes. Bertholdt saw it as well and touched his brother's arm, pleading softly.
"Reiner, please don't..."
The man relaxed, the act almost soothing him. The greaser, however, laughed, jumping back into a fighting stance.
"You wanna fight?"
Annie was battered into when the boy jerked back. A fearful squeak passed her lips as she dropped to the floor, falling like a tossed ragdoll. The pitiful noise, the first one Reiner ever heard his niece create, must have enacted a defensiveness in the man, a defensiveness of one's young, of Annie, more dynamic than Bertholdt's plea.
Reiner stood quicker than a striking snake, grabbing the boy by the collar and slamming him against the countertop. His voice was taunt with fury as he spoke.
"I'm Reiner Braun. I've fought in two world wars and countless smaller ones in countries that only exist today, on three continents. I've watched thousands of men die as they ran into battle with swords and on horses as they fought against gunfire and tanks. I've seen the entire length of the Nile and tribes of natives no white man had ever seen before. I've won and lost almost everything, killed many men, and lost the only woman I loved, with a love a worm like you could never understand. That's who I am."
Bertholdt rushed to Annie as Reiner threw the boy back to his group of friends. Annie hissed with unhappiness, rubbing a tender part of her hip. She glared at the group of greasers with unmasked rage. She waved off her uncle as he tried to tend to her, instead standing without a wince of pain. Her hands clenched.
"Come on! We'll show him who's really tough."
The three boys all exposed their switchblades with a click. The realization that bodily harm might come to his brother or his niece must have shaken something within Bertholdt as well. The man, tall as he was, typically had a small presence. His protectiveness towards his family dissolved this weak composure. He stood before Annie to guard her from the danger, hatefulness rigging his frame. Seeing him so angry surprised Annie.
Uncertainty shuddered the group. The addition of Bertholdt made them realize messing with Reiner might not be a good idea. The greasers looked at one another with worry, questioning whether they should go through with their action.
"If it is a fight you want, you can have one," Reiner said. "But you won't be fighting me or my brother. You'll be fighting her."
Annie leaned from behind the uncle twice her size to view the unbelieving teenagers. She looked to her Uncle Reiner to confirm and he nodded. She stepped out from behind her Uncle Bertholdt, her dark fury clear with her expression.
"I'll fight you," she told the greasers. "It will be easy."
"A little girl?" the largest one gapped. He then laughed, his friends joining in, their arrogance returning.
"You will do no such thing!" The man behind Annie insisted. "Reiner, there are three of them! And they have knives!"
"Alright, alright," Reiner agreed. "Annie can fight one of them and then the others; without weapons."
"It is all the same to me," Annie shrugged, appearing apathetic even though the excitement of the fight was bubbling within her. "Who is first?"
The boy with the now stretched-out collar stepped forth, his switchblade tucked back in his pocket. A confident smile highlighted his face, Annie scowling at his naïve boldness.
"Very well," she said, lifting her arms to block her torso and steadying her footing. "Whenever you are ready."
The boy cried in victory as he began to charge, his fist aiming for Annie's stomach. The shot missed easily as she moved. She dipped her body and knocked the greaser's legs from beneath him. The force caused him to flip over himself and land on his back, hard. He released a groan, legs hanging above his head.
"That was too easy." Annie complained, flipping the bangs from her eyes.
The other greasers stared, flabbergasted. A chuckle rumbled from Reiner.
"You better get in there and defend him."
By the time Annie had tossed the others onto their backsides, the first had regained himself. He stood, flinching in pain, anger consuming his features. His neck was flush with either irritation or embarrassment.
"You little bitch."
A click sounded as the switchblade appeared again. The boy howled with rage as he ran with the knife, hellish and thoughtless intent keen upon stabbing the little girl before him. Annie took her stance, prepared to cuff the knife from his hold. Yet she could not. Another person dashed before her.
Annie recognized it was her Uncle Bertholdt.
The man plucked the boy's arm from him, twisting it behind his back. The knife fell with a gasp. Bertholdt then slammed the boy into the counter, a crack sounding as his face was crushed into the countertop. Blood bloomed from his nose.
"I don't like people who don't play by the rules."
It was the most beautiful thing Annie had ever seen.
.
"Hold my hand, please."
Connie linked his hand with Sasha's and she in turn used her free hand to hold her mother's. People moved around the hospital in every direction they possibly could and Nifa did not want her children to be swept up in the hustle. A vase of water and tulips hit at her waist, looped around its glass neck by her elbow.
Balto trekked ahead of his family. His large size made a nice lee to the flow of people, nurses and doctors giving the menacing man a wide girth. He asked for the room number at the front desk before moving on.
"Uncle Reiner!"
Sasha and Connie rushed forward into the hospital room, jerking their mother as well. The vase of flowers wobbled and threatened to fall, Nifa's quick reflexes saving it just in time.
"...Uncle Reiner?"
The siblings looked with curiosity around the vacant and disheveled room. Nifa placed the vase on an awkwardly angled and backwards-facing side table, the object looking like it had been pushed from another area of the room. She glanced at her husband in confusion.
A doctor passed by the doorway. Balto was quick to grab his attention and pull him aside.
"Doctor, where is Mister Braun?" he all but demanded.
The doctor, appearing to understand, fixed the glasses. "I'm sorry, he's gone."
Nifa gripped her chest with a gasp. Sasha gained a slack-jawed and wide-eyed look, Connie burying his face in his sister's sleeve. A joyful smirk was smoothed over Balto's face as he cleared his throat.
"How unfortunate... He lived a long life."
"U-Uncle Reiner is dead?" Connie sniffled.
The doctor raised a quizzical brow. "No, he's gone. He left. Mister Braun checked himself out."
The last sentence was said with an agitated stiffness, the doctor leaving with a sweep of his ponytail. Balto's face turned red.
"He left? What do you mean he left?"
"Dear..." Nifa said softly, touching her husband's arm. "It's fine. We can see if they are at home."
And so the family packed themselves back into their Buick and drove to the farmhouse.
The children hopped out after the car coasted to a stop, taking to exploring and finding their Uncle Reiner. Nifa shut her car door and looked about, the premise deserted.
"I guess they're not home yet..."
"Reiner just got out of the hospital. I'm sure they're taking it slow and steady on the way home," Balto said with a huff. He followed his wife and ascended the porch stairs.
"What's that?" Connie asked his sister, pointing. He was gesturing to a lone wooden crate residing by the cornfield. The girl looked and cocked her head.
"I don't know. Let's go see!"
They raced to the object. They investigated the crate by circling it a few times, finding very little of interest. Sasha glanced up and saw the fastened latch.
"Look! I think you can open it."
After tugging on the latch for a moment the bolt popped free. Sasha allowed the loose door panel to hit the ground, sending up a blast of dry dust. Inside, a lioness opened one sleeping eye.
"Is that a lion rug?"
"No, silly! It's a stuffed lion."
The girl poked her head inside, getting a better view of the creature. She jumped and hit her head against the top of the crate as the lioness moved, lifting herself to stare at the intruders. She examined them for a moment.
Christa yawned and showed her giant incisors.
The children bolted away, screaming in terror. The lioness stood, stretching, tongue curled as she yawned again. Her golden eyes blinked and found the cornfield. She hesitated. She then walked forward, disappearing into the stalks of corn.
"Momma!" Sasha shrieked, bounding onto the porch with her brother. Nifa whirled around as her children threw themselves against her, sobbing.
"Momma, a lion tried to eat us!" Connie bawled, gripping his mother's dress and crying for her. She tried to rub his head and shush him, not quite understanding why her littlest were so upset. Balto scowled at the scene.
"You two should know better than to make up stories."
"We are not making up stories!" Sasha protested. "There really is a lion!"
The sound of a roaring engine and crackling gravel approached, Reiner and Bertholdt's truck braking hard before the house. A topless convertible soon followed. Three greasers and a small blonde girl could be seen inside. Two of the boys could be heard groaning with misery and seen rubbing their bruised backsides, the final of them holding his head back and pinching his bloody nose. Bertholdt and Reiner exited their truck. Reiner stretched and rubbed his shoulder.
"Oh my lord, what on earth happened?" Nifa gasped and covered her mouth. "There looks like there has been a terrible accident!"
"There was a little trouble," Reiner enlightened her. "But Annie took care of it."
Balto went rigid as one of the greasers opened the door for the girl, Annie stepping out of the passenger's seat unscathed. Bertholdt moved around his relatives on the porch to retrieve stabs of meat from the home. He was oddly calm, given he had just recently slammed someone's face into a countertop so hard it broke their nose and then forced them to beg for Annie's mercy and forgiveness. He lacked the sadness or guilt or pride an act such as what he did usually brought.
"I want to go home!" the boy with the shattered nose whined, the words throaty and gargled. Annie sighed and put a steak on his swollen eye.
"You are in no shape to do that now."
"Momma!" Sasha insisted again. "There is a lion! There really is!"
"Christa?" Annie said, giving another cut of meat to a grateful boy. "I better go feed her. She hasn't eaten all day."
Annie took a few steaks from her Uncle Bertholdt's pile, Reiner nodding absently as he aided one of the boy's in placing his cold cut. Annie held the meat in both arms and walked off to the crate.
"Christa? Who the hell is Christa?" Balto inquired with distaste.
"Annie's lioness," Bertholdt told him, arms now empty.
"A lioness? You got a lioness?" the bloody-nosed greaser asked.
"Yeah, but she's locked up," Reiner said.
"No, she's not!" Sasha persisted. "She tried to eat us!"
"It had really big teeth..." Connie added.
Silence fell. Bertholdt and Reiner looked at one another, horror in their eyes.
"Bertholdt..." Reiner began steadily. "Where is Annie?"
"She... W-Went to feed Christa... Said she hasn't eaten all day..."
A pause.
"Get the guns!"
.
"… Christa?"
The crate sat open, barren. Annie dropped her meat and looked inside and around the container, her lion vanished. She stopped and scratched her head.
Rustling came from the cornfield.
"Christa?"
A grizzly muzzle peaked out, amber eyes and round ears quick to follow. Annie sighed, going to the lion hiding in the cornstalks.
"Christa, you should not be out of your crate."
A wildness crossed her eyes. She pounced, limbs outspread.
.
A whirlwind tore out of the house. Sasha and Connie ran to the window, watching the adults with loaded rifles sprint towards the cornfield, their mother and father and uncles and the teenagers alike.
"Wait!"
They all halted at Reiner's order. The lion could be seen in the distance, wrestling, Annie recognizable by her outfit and yellow hair. She appeared to be trying to force the animal off of her.
Balto took all-too-eager aim. Reiner knocked the barrel down before he could cock the rifle, sending the man a dark glare.
"Don't, you'll hit her too."
The man grumbled, his gun pointed downwards. The remainder of the party began to creep towards the pair, rifles raised, faces tense. Nifa was shaking gently.
"Christa, your breath smells terrible," Annie scolded the animal, forcing the lion's mouth away from her. The lioness ignored this and wiggled herself back into licking the girl's face. Her ear's perked as she heard the group approach. Her sharp eyes found the gun-wielding assembly, narrowing as she roared her threat.
The guns cocked.
Sensing danger, the lioness took Annie by the pant leg, dragging her to the safety of the cornfield.
"Christa, what..."
The crowd of rescuers sprang to the edge of the cornfield as the girl descended deeper into the forest of cornstalks, voice trailing off.
"We might be too late..." the largest greaser dreaded. A fierce look crossed Reiner.
"Move in."
The sounds of struggle intensified as they pushed further in. Bertholdt went a shade paler at every outcry he heard, fearing the worst, fearing that his niece was being eaten alive. His face was masked with sweat.
Nifa wanted to faint.
"No, no, stop!" Annie pleaded, a squeal sounding through the corn. Grips upon the rifles tightened as they aimed for the noises of slurps and shrieks.
"Don't-"
"Go!"
The party rushed forth. They discovered a ring of crushed cornstalks, the girl and the lioness in the center. The creature was lapping at Annie's hair like a mother cat, giving the girl a tangled cowlick. Her face was scrunched up in disgust.
"You are so gross, Christa."
She opened her eyes and saw the circle of slack jaws and pointed guns. She held the lion's head as she rubbed into the girl's torso, purring, stomach exposed.
"She is feeling a lot better."
"Jesus!" Reiner barked. "You had us worried sick!"
"Annie!" Bertholdt called, rushing to his niece. He looked her over for any injuries, frantic. Annie sighed. The lioness in her lap eyed him suspiciously.
"She's okay..." He breathed, falling back in relief. Balto hid his displeasure while his wife relaxed, the greasers eased as well. Reiner nodded in approval.
"You sure you're okay?" Reiner asked her.
"I am," she assured him. A cattiness held her chin. "Were you worried about me, Uncle Reiner?"
He did not answer. He instead hissed at the absurdity of the notion and turned around, leaving the cornfield.
Annie smirked at his denying flush.
.
Balto's appearance was comparable to a tomato. His round face was bright red along with his neck and ears. His chest was puffed and high, threads of cornfield dander protruding from his thinning hair.
"We're leaving," he said in a threatening tone. "And we're not coming back until you get rid of that beast."
"Dear, I do not think that is necessary..." his wife argued. "The lion seems fairly tame."
She was ignored by her husband. The man was staring down Reiner, challenging him, daring him to dismiss his family forever. Reiner could not do so more eagerly.
"The lion stays," he said with finality. Balto's shade turned fuchsia.
Annie was attempting to beckon Christa from the cornfield as Nifa and Balto gathered their kids from the house and drove off, Sasha and Connie waving from the windows.
"Come on," Annie urged her cat. "You do not belong in the cornfield. You need to go back in the box."
Christa remained where she was, tail flicking mischievously. She turned and dashed off to hide in the stalks when the girl made a move forward. Annie scowled.
"She won't come out of the cornfield," she told her Uncle Reiner when he came to stand beside her, gun held over his shoulder by a strap.
"She probably thinks she's in a jungle," Reiner said. "Since she's a zoo animal, a cornfield is the closest thing to a jungle she's ever seen. But she knows this is where she belongs. It's in her blood."
A roar sounded and cornstalks rustled, the lioness circling around her new territory. She paused, looking towards Annie. Seeing she was safe, she continued to pace, traveling deeper into the forest of corn.
"I think she's happy," Annie said as she watched Christa go.
Reiner looked down at his niece. "What about you? Are you happy?"
"… Yes. Yes, I'm happy."
.
After Annie had gotten Christa to come and retrieve her dinner of meat, she joined her Uncle Bertholdt on the steps, her Uncle Reiner going to the greasers by their car. The boys were standing in a line, Reiner marching before him, lecturing about this and that. Annie watched this and cocked her head.
"What is he talking to them about?" The girl asked.
Bertholdt took a sip of his iced tea. "He is giving them his 'What Every Boy Needs to Know About Being a Man' speech."
"I see, Annie commented. "Do you think he could give it to me, even though I'm a girl?"
"If you asked him, I suppose. Some of it could benefit you too."
A particularly valid point made the teenagers stiffen. Reiner made sure the boy with the broken nose heard this quite clearly before moving on, his speech continuing. Annie leaned against the railing on the porch.
"You never told me what happened when Uncle Reiner found out Historia was marrying another."
Bertholdt pressed his lips into a thin line. He was hesitant, eyes following his brother's pacing form.
"… If you want to know what happened, you'll have to ask him."
"But Uncle Bertholdt!" Annie complained, almost in a whine. "I can't do that. You know what happened last time."
The man shook his head, staunch. "If you want to know the end of the story, what happened to Historia, you need to ask him."
Annie growled unhappily. She seethed silently as her Uncle Reiner finished his speech, the greasers hopping in their car and leaving with a wave. He climbed up the stairs and sat in his chair, mumbling about his aching back.
"Damn, I feel old," he voiced with abhorrence. He had to ease back into the chair slowly.
"You wouldn't feel old if you did not do such rash things," his brother advised him, sliding a glass of tea his way. "Terrorizing doctors and nurses, fighting teenagers, chasing lions through cornfields..."
"Those boys don't know the first thing about fighting," Reiner groused. "And Annie did all the dirty work anyway. I am probably so useless now that she could take me down."
Annie moved her shoulder to show she had heard. His words troubled her, his bitterness concerning. She saw worry crease her Uncle Bertholdt's features as well.
"I am sure you'll feel better tomorrow," Bertholdt tried to assure him. Reiner waved off his words and, with a little struggling, stood, hand rubbing his back.
"I'm going to bed. Goodnight, Bertholdt; goodnight, Annie."
"Goodnight, Uncle Reiner."
Annie watched him leave, hobbling slightly, his weakness clear to her. The presence of it bothered her, but also showed her that he trusted her, enough to show her the part of himself he hated the most.
Annie wondered what this meant. She observed the condensation running down her uncle's untouched tea glass.