The Blood Moon Rising
I remember the day I found it as if it were yesterday. The late afternoon sun hung low in the sky, casting long shadows across the flea market on the outskirts of our quaint little town. It was the kind of day where everything seemed still, the heat lingering, pressing down on everything. The dry, hot breeze stirred the dust, kicking up tiny whirlwinds as I walked through the narrow aisles with my dog Charlie, scanning the rows of vendors with growing frustration.The farm wasn’t doing well this season. Pests, birds, and rodents were tearing through the crops with an almost savage determination. Clara and I had tried everything—scare tactics, traps, sprays—but nothing seemed to keep them away. It was as if the very land itself was rebelling against us. Sometimes, I wonder if this was an act of sabotage by Mr Monroe, who had been greedily eyeing my land for a while now.But no matter the cause, the outcome was the same. The crops were wilting, the soil dry despite the endless hours I’d spent watering them, and every morning brought more damage, more destruction. The farm was struggling, and so were we. We weren’t just facing financial ruin—this was ancestral land, passed down through 7 generations. Losing it would mean losing a piece of ourselves. Clara’s patience was wearing thin, though she never showed it. But I saw it in the way she pressed her lips together when the kids weren’t looking, or the tightness in her shoulders when we sat down at the kitchen table to try and budget for the week. We couldn’t afford another bad season. The stress was eating at both of us, turning our once lively dinner table conversations into tense silences. I was desperate—grasping at straws, literally, trying to find something, anything that might help. I figured maybe this flea market would have something useful, though I didn’t know what exactly I was looking for. That’s when I saw it. Tucked between a pile of rusted tools, frayed ropes, and battered knickknacks was a scarecrow. It was old, worn out, and tattered. The kind of thing that had been through too many summers and winters, far more than it should have survived. Its burlap face was faded, sun-bleached, and split in places, the frayed edges fluttering in the wind like dead skin peeling from an old wound. Its clothes—a pair of ripped overalls and a threadbare flannel shirt—hung limp from its crooked frame, remnants of an era long forgotten. Despite its ragged appearance, something about it drew me in and I couldn’t look away.Maybe it was the unnatural way it stood out among the clutter, or maybe it was the way the light seemed to dim around it when I looked at it. I couldn’t shake the feeling it was watching me, as if its dark hollow eyes were tracking my every move. And the crooked smile stretched unnaturally wide, almost up to its ears, as though it knew a secret I didn’t. The scarecrow seemed to catch Charlie’s fancy too; he sniffed it cautiously before placing his paw on it, almost as if testing whether it was real. I snapped out of my thoughts when a man’s voice suddenly cut through the eerie silence. It was the owner. He was a small, hunched figure standing behind the stall, half-hidden in the shadows beneath a wide-brimmed hat. His leathery skin, deeply lined with wrinkles, hinted at a long, hard life. His face remained mostly obscured, his eyes concealed in the shadow of the hat, making it impossible to guess his age. An instinctual urge told me to turn away—both the scarecrow and the man unsettled me in ways I couldn’t explain. “You’re looking for something to keep the birds away, aren’t you?” he said, without glancing up, his voice gravelly and dry. There was an accent, too, faint but old-fashioned, as though it belonged to another era. I blinked, startled by his accuracy. How could he know? I thought to myself. I nodded slowly, unsure of what to say, my mouth suddenly dry. Then he looked up, meeting my gaze for a fleeting moment. “This here’ll do the trick,” he said, gesturing toward the scarecrow with a bony finger. “No birds, no rodents, no pests. You’ll see.” I hesitated, taking a closer look at the scarecrow. It looked as if it would fall apart if I so much as touched it. The wind tugged at its loose stitches, making them sway slightly, and I noticed a faint odor—musty, like damp earth mixed with decay. “Does it work?” I asked, my voice filled with skepticism. I didn’t want to come off as too desperate, but I was. The man grinned, revealing a set of yellowed, uneven teeth. “It works,” he said with an air of certainty that felt unsettling. “Better than you think. Just set it up in your field. It’ll do the rest.” My gut twisted with unease and despite the creeping dread, I handed over the little cash I had left. The man took it without another word. I heaved the scarecrow into the bed of my truck, its hollow, straw-filled body thudding against the metal as I started my drive back to the farm. When I got home, the sun was setting, casting an orange hue across the farm. I glanced toward the house, where the warm light of the kitchen spilled through the windows. Clara was inside, cooking dinner, while the kids helped her set the table. The smell of roasting chicken wafted into the air. Charlie and I were immediately greeted by Sir Sunrise, a rooster, who quietly came and perched himself on the back of the truck as I parked near the front porch. He observed in silence as I unloaded the scarecrow. Sir Sunrise earned his name from my 8-year-old son, Luke, thanks to his remarkable habit of crowing at exactly 6 AM every morning. It didn’t matter if it was pouring rain, the middle of winter, or a cloudy morning when the sun didn’t show—he always knew when it was time.He’d march up and down the porch, his triumphant “cock-a-doodle-doo” echoing for a full minute, ensuring the entire Smith household woke to his call. Oddly enough, that was the only time he ever crowed, even though he spent the rest of the day busily wandering the farm. Even stranger was the quiet, almost unspoken friendship he shared with Charlie. The two seemed to enjoy each other’s company in a way that always surprised me. I hoisted the scarecrow onto my shoulders and made my way toward the field. The crops swayed in the soft evening breeze, rows of corn and wheat stretching out before me like sentinels. I chose a spot right in the middle—far enough from the house but close enough that I could still watch it from the upstairs window. I attached the scarecrow to a wooden pole that was already planted deep in the soil. It stood crooked and eerie, its burlap face staring blankly at the sky. Sir Sunrise inaugurated the new addition in the field by performing a couple of customary laps around the pole before taking off, with Charlie eagerly chasing after him. My eyes, however, drifted toward Mr Monroe’s factory in the distance. For years, he had been acquiring land from my neighbors, and was determined to buy my property as well. He wasn’t pleased when I turned him down. Ever since then, my farm has suffered—my crops have been constantly under attack, making me wonder if he was in any way involved. But without proof, all I could do was continue my work and hope things would eventually turn around. I took one last look at the scarecrow before walking back home to join my wife and kids for dinner. That night, sleep didn’t come easily. I tossed and turned, my mind replaying the image of the scarecrow in the field—motionless, seemingly unthreatening, yet somehow menacing.Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that stitched smile, wide and knowing, as though it was waiting for something. Was I expecting some sort of miracle from it? Is that why I felt this knot in my stomach—because deep down, I knew I was acting out of desperation and not thinking rationally. The wind howled outside, rattling the shutters, but beyond that, there was silence. No crows cawing, no rustling in the crops. Just an unsettling, unnatural silence. Meanwhile, Clara slept soundly beside me. I noticed the cut above her eyebrow even in the pale moonlight, a scar from her youth. Despite her challenging childhood, she had a gift for finding peace in chaos, while I remained a light sleeper, needing exhaustion to fall into a deep slumber. I rolled over, pulling the blanket tighter around me and eventually drifted to sleep. When morning finally came, I stepped outside, half-expecting to find the fields torn apart like before. But they were untouched. Not a single stalk was damaged. I looked toward the scarecrow, still standing in the same spot, and felt a wave of relief wash over me. Maybe the old peddler was right. Maybe it really was that effective. A couple more days went by, and the crops remained unharmed. Not a single bird or rodent dared to come near them. For the first time in months, I felt a glimmer of hope—a lightness in my chest that I hadn’t felt in ages. I didn’t fully understand how a scarecrow could make such a difference—the results defied logic—but I wasn’t about to question it now. Clara noticed the shift in my mood too and began to believe again herself. She watched our children, Emma and Luke, play among the crops, their laughter ringing through the air like music after a long silence. It was as if the scarecrow had brought back more than just safety for the crops—it had brought back hope. But on the fourth night, things began to take a strange turn. I woke up in the dead of night to the sound of Sir Sunrise crowing—loud, persistent, and completely out of character. He was never one to crow at night; his routine was always the same, like clockwork at 6 AM. My body, heavy with sleep, resisted the urge to get up. I waited, hoping he’d stop, but Sir Sunrise kept going, his calls growing louder, more driven. With a groan, I dragged myself out of bed and stumbled toward the window, expecting to see him perched where he usually roosted. But instead, Sir Sunrise was on the front porch, pacing back and forth, his head bobbing furiously, crowing as if the morning sun was already shining. But the thing that made my stomach lurch wasn’t him —it was the moon. It hung in the sky, casting a pale glow over the fields. The crops swayed gently in the breeze, bathed in a strange coppery light. It was only then that I realized it wasn’t just any moon—it was a total lunar eclipse. The blood moon hung above, eerie and red, painting the field in a haunting glow. But what I saw next stopped me cold. The scarecrow—it wasn’t where I had left it. For a moment, I just stood there, blinking, my tired mind scrambling to make sense of what I was seeing. I rubbed my eyes, squinted, even stepped closer to the window. But no matter how much I tried to rationalize it, there it was, standing at the far end of the field—a place I had never placed it. My heart pounded in my chest. Who could have moved it? And why? Was it some prank? But who would come all the way out here in the middle of the night just for that? My thoughts raced, reaching for logical explanations that didn’t quite add up. Maybe it was just my groggy, sleep-deprived brain playing tricks on me. The moonlight, the shadows—it could’ve easily created an illusion. Or maybe it was the wind, somehow shifting the scarecrow’s position. Scarecrows were light, after all. It could have been anything… right? I shook my head, telling myself it didn’t matter. I could fix it in the morning. Still unsettled, I forced myself back to bed, but sleep didn’t come easily. My dreams were strange, fragmented, filled with shadowy figures moving through the fields. As the first light of dawn crept over the horizon, I got out of bed, hoping to shake off the strange feeling from the night before. To my relief, when I looked out the window, the scarecrow was back in its original spot. I sighed, feeling a wave of calm wash over me—but only for a fleeting moment, because when my gaze swept across the field, something caught my eye, and it made my stomach drop. A flock of crows were circling low over a patch of land near the edge of the field—the very spot where I had seen the scarecrow standing the night before. I felt a chill crawl down my spine. This was never going to be good news. Without hesitation, I bolted out of the house, and raced toward the spot where the birds hovered, their dark wings cutting through the sky like a bad omen. The birds flew away when I reached the area, but what I saw made me momentarily speechless. Scattered among the crops were dead animals—birds, rodents, frogs, and other small creatures. They weren’t just randomly lying there either. Their bodies were arranged in peculiar, almost ritualistic patterns. Circles, spirals, rows—shapes that made my skin crawl.And the worst part? Straw. Pieces of straw, like the kind stuffed inside the scarecrow, were strewn around the animals, as if linking them to the figure that now loomed in the field. I knelt down, my fingers brushing over the straw. At first, I wanted to believe it was a predator—some animal playing tricks, a fox or wild dog arranging its kills. But that thought quickly crumbled. The arrangement of the bodies was too precise, too deliberate. It felt…wrong. Could this be Mr. Monroe’s doing? Another twisted attempt by him to sabotage my farm?Before I could even finish the thought, Clara’s voice echoed across the field, her tone sounding nervous and urgent. I looked up and saw her in the distance, standing on the front porch, her posture tense as though trying to intervene before something happened. But the thick rows of crops blocked my view, making it impossible to see what had her so panicked. I set off again, this time heading back toward the entrance of my own house. As I got closer, the menacing growl of Charlie pierced the air. When I pushed through the last of the crops, I saw him engaged in a tense standoff, his fur matted and streaked with blood, growling fiercely at Sir Sunrise. The rooster was badly injured, his feathers in disarray and blood dripping onto the ground. He wobbled, struggling to stay upright, yet remained defiant, determined to hold his ground in the fight. But Charlie wasn’t finished. Before I could intervene, he lunged at the rooster, clamping down on his throat with his teeth. With a violent shake of his head, I heard the sickening snap of bone. Charlie finally released him, and the lifeless body dropped to the ground.Horror washed over me as blood pooled around the carcass. Charlie cleared his throat a couple of times, and in slow motion, I saw him extend his tongue, licking the blood clean off the floor in one swift motion. I stood frozen, unable to look away as Charlie, his tongue stained with blood and dirt, jerked and crouched momentarily, eyes closed, tilting his head down before releasing a loud howl, with his muzzle pointed skyward. He then darted off into the field before I could pin him down. I chased after him, but it was clear he wasn’t interested in being found. I expected he would eventually find his way back home, though I wasn’t sure what I would do with him upon his return. I had never seen him behave this way before. I struggled to piece together the events of the morning, wondering if there could be any correlation to last night. Deep down, I couldn’t ignore the gnawing suspicion forming in my gut. This all began the moment I brought that scarecrow home. What had been a curious purchase at a roadside stand—had now morphed into a source of growing dread, its tendrils curling tighter around my mind. And what about the dead animals? Were they also Charlie’s doing? I had no clear answers, and I reluctantly glanced at the scarecrow perfectly positioned in the middle of the field. The smile stretching across its face stirred an uneasy feeling in me. That is Strike One! Patrick, a voice echoed in my head at that very moment. And for the first time, I considered getting rid of it, but as I looked at the crops around me, I was quietly taken aback by the risks I was willing to accept! Finally gathering my composure, I dealt with the dead animals, burying them one by one in haste before Clara could notice. She was already upset about Sir Sunrise and had spent the day looking for Charlie, convinced they had a falling out. Her suspicions were not yet on the scarecrow and I hoped to keep it that way. Still, I forced myself to focus on the positives. The crops were thriving—better than ever, in fact. The rows were thick with green, healthy stalks, and the vegetables were coming in larger than expected. My family was on track to recoup our losses and hopefully that would put us in a better financial position than we had been in years. But that night, as the wind whistled through the trees and rustled the leaves, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. Something was out there, watching us. The scarecrow was more than just straw and cloth— and I could feel that deep in my bones.I pressed the pillow to my ears, desperate to drown out the sounds of the night and drift off to sleep. But then a loud, piercing howl shattered the stillness. It was Charlie, no doubt, somewhere out in the field in the distance, howling into the night. Somehow, I eventually succumbed to exhaustion and drifted off to sleep. But I was jolted awake by my daughter Emma’s urgent voice calling for me. “Dad! Come quick!” Her frantic tone sliced through the morning calm like a knife, pulling me from my dreams. Heart racing, I scrambled out of bed and rushed outside. The sun was just beginning to rise, casting a pale light across the farm. I spotted Emma near the edge of the field, crouched next to Charlie. A wave of dread washed over me as I approached. There lay Charlie, lifeless and caked in mud, his front paws badly bruised and the flesh peeled back, exposing the jutting bones. It was clear he had been digging with a frantic desperation and eventually died from the sheer exhaustion. Next to him was a mound of sand—the grave where Sir Sunrise had been buried. Emma looked up at me, tears streaming down her face. “I don’t know what happened, Dad! I found him like this.” The horror of the scene settled over me, a chilling weight in my chest. Clara soon joined us, and we decided to bury Charlie with Sir Sunrise since they were pals after all. Once everybody went back inside, I ventured into the field, holding a shovel in my hand, wondering what else I might uncover. As I walked through the field, I noticed small mounds of earth scattered around, like hastily made burial sites. It was all too clear now what Charlie had been doing throughout the night. With a shovel, I dug into one of the mounds and uncovered a dead pigeon. Another revealed a large rodent. The field was littered with these makeshift graves, and I couldn’t even guess how many there were. When I turned, my stomach clenched. Luke was standing there, his face pale, eyes wide with fear. “What’s going on, Dad?” he asked, his voice trembling with confusion as he looked around. I forced a smile, kneeling down and placing my hands gently on his shoulders. “Nothing to worry about, buddy,” I said, keeping my tone calm. “Charlie was just… being Charlie. We’ll take care of it.” For the next 15 minutes, I tried to reassure him, telling him he had to be strong, that growing up meant taking responsibility and knowing when to keep things to himself. “You’re a man now,” I said. “And sometimes we do what we have to, to protect the family. Don’t mention this to Clara or Emma, okay? They’re already worried enough.” Luke nodded, but the unease in his eyes was hard to miss. I hated myself for what I was doing—gas lighting my own son—but with the harvest only a couple of weeks away, I had no choice. The farm had to come first. As Luke slowly made his way back to the house, I glanced toward Mr. Monroe’s property in the distance and then back at the scarecrow. I felt a lump form in my throat. “That’s strike two, Patrick,” I muttered to myself. I knew I couldn’t handle another incident like this. If anything else happened, I’d have to start thinking seriously about other contingencies. Time was running out. Determined to put my fears to rest, I decided to keep watch over the field myself, alone, in the dead of night. So the rest of the morning, I tended to the field, watering the crops and going about my usual farming routine. And when evening finally arrived, we all ate our meal in silence. One by one, everyone retreated to their rooms while I remained vigilant. Once everyone was in bed, I grabbed my shotgun and crept up to the second floor, where I had a clear view of the entire field. I had already set up lights at the corners so that I had sufficient visibility. I positioned myself at the window, determined to stay awake through the night. Hours ticked by slowly. The only sounds were the faint whisper of the wind and the occasional creak of the old farmhouse settling around me. My eyes eventually grew heavy, even as my body fought the exhaustion at every level.But I must have drifted off at some point because when I opened my eyes again, I was startled by how still everything seemed. I instinctively glanced out the window, expecting to see the familiar silhouette of the scarecrow standing in its usual spot. But it wasn’t there. My heart leapt in my throat as I scanned the field, and then I saw it—moving. The scarecrow was moving. Not walking, not stumbling, but drifting. It glided across the ground as if something unseen was pulling it, dragging it toward the far end of the field. Then it suddenly stopped, and to my horror, I saw the birds descend quietly around it. My hands trembled as I bolted out of the chair, shotgun in one hand, and the old lantern in the other. I didn’t wake Clara or the kids—I didn’t want to frighten them. But my pulse pounded in my ears as I sprinted into the field, the lantern swinging wildly in my arm. The scarecrow, now a distant silhouette, was still drifting, disappearing into the dark edges of the field. I sprinted after it, the lantern’s glow swinging wildly in the darkness. When I reached the spot, I nearly dropped it. Dead animals lay scattered everywhere—birds, mice, frogs and even a rabbit—arranged in eerie, precise circles. The smell of decay clinging to the air. Out of the corner of my eye, I then spotted it again: the scarecrow, this time drifting slowly toward the opposite end. I ran toward it again, gripping my shotgun tightly as the lantern swayed in my hand and the wind howled around me. But as I approached the scarecrow, I froze. It wasn’t the scarecrow that terrified me. It was Emma—my 12-year-old daughter—carrying the scarecrow as if it weighed nothing. The pole rested effortlessly on her small shoulder, her hands gripping it firmly yet without emotion. Her movements were slow and mechanical, her eyes wide and blank, as if she were trapped in a trance. Behind her, Luke knelt in the dirt, his small hands stained with blood. He was carefully arranging a sparrow’s body among the others, his face blank, his eyes unblinking. With a firm grip, he squeezed another rat’s neck until it went limp, then placed it on the ground, completing a circle of dead animals. A wave of dread rose in my chest as I choked out a call, my voice thick with fear. “Emma! Luke! What are you doing?!” They didn’t respond. They didn’t even flinch. Emma kept walking, gripping the pole attached to the scarecrow and moving forward. Luke silently followed behind her. Then Emma suddenly stopped. She raised the scarecrow and pointed it westward. And from the shadows animals suddenly emerged. Birds swooped down from the trees, rodents scurried out of the soil, and insects crawled from every crevice, all of them moving toward the scarecrow with eerie obedience. I could only watch in horror as Luke picked up a rock and began smashing the animals one by one. Each brutal strike was met with a sickening thud, and yet none of the creatures moved—they remained rooted to their spots, oblivious to the carnage unfolding around them.The air felt thick with something sinister, something beyond my understanding. My chest tightened as I staggered back, gasping for air. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real.Then Luke bent down, grabbed a dead rodent from the ground, and sank his teeth into it. He bit into the fur with the desperation of a ravenous animal, blood smearing his lips as he chewed, completely lost in the frenzy. A wave of nausea washed over me as I realized how the scarecrow was controlling my children, transforming them into something unnatural, something monstrous. A torrent of anger erupted inside me, every cell in my body pulsing with raw fury. My hands shook, but my mind was suddenly clear—I knew exactly what I had to do. I dropped my lantern and rushed toward Emma, yanking the scarecrow from her hands and then hurling it to the ground. My kids remained mute spectators, rooted to their spots as they continued to be trapped in their hypnotic trance. I grabbed the lantern, and smashed it against the scarecrow with all my might. It shattered on impact, igniting the scarecrow in flames. Without hesitation, I fired my shotgun at the fuel-soaked straw, and an explosion erupted, engulfing the figure in a fiery blaze. Emma blinked for the first time, as if suddenly waking from a dream, confused about how she had ended up in the middle of the field. My son, Luke, stared down at his blood-stained hands, clutching the dead rat. Horror washed over his face, his lip trembling as he met my eyes. “I didn’t mean to, Daddy… I didn’t mean to…” he sobbed, wiping the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. I dropped to my knees, pulling both of them into my arms, as the fire crackled and roared, the acrid smell of burning straw filling the air. Through the flames, I watched a shadowy figure emerge, its silhouette shaped like a man, writhing and twisting, struggling to break free. For a fleeting moment, it seemed almost alive, thrashing in a desperate attempt to escape the flames. But the fires consumed him, pulling him deeper into the inferno until, at last, he vanished. I closed my eyes briefly, using the moment to utter a silent prayer to the Lord, hugging my children tighter, grateful that it was finally behind us. Together, we slowly walked back to the house, each step laden with the weight of what had just transpired. Just as we were about to enter the house, Clara opened the door, worry etched across her face. She had woken up sensing something was wrong, and when she found us missing, fear gripped her. As we stepped inside, she wrapped us in a warm embrace. I immediately felt a sense of relief, hoping that this whole nightmare was finally behind us. Over the next few weeks, my crops flourished, yielding a harvest that far exceeded my expectations. We were pulled back from the brink of financial ruin, but it came at a cost.Both Emma and Luke suffered from relentless nightmares, waking up screaming in the night, and it would be months before they could fully recover. I, too, struggled with sleep, waking in the dead of night, drenched in sweat, haunted by the memory of the scarecrow. “It’s gone,” I kept telling myself. “The scarecrow is gone.” And every night, I prayed that it would stay that way. Credit: Vicky Shroff Reddit Copyright Statement: Unless explicitly stated, all stories published on Creepypasta.com are the property of (and under copyright to) their respective authors, and may not be narrated or performed under any circumstance.