Young Thomas Cavanaugh's life changes the morning he sees a fairy in his mother's garden. When it appears in his room later, he realizes his parents are wrong⎯the fairy is real, all too real. One night the fairy takes Thomas into a cornfield on his family's Northwest Missouri farm to face the Empty⎯an enemy he can't understand, and barely survives. Haunted by the horror he encountered in the corn, Thomas spends time in a mental hospital where he meets Jillian, a girl who seems oddly familiar, and Bobby, a troubled boy. Later, as a young adult flitting from relationship-to-relationship, dead-end job-to-dead-end job, he discovers he was right. He knows Jillian, and Bobby is dangerous.

As Bobby summons the entity from the corn to rid himself of his lifelong role as victim, and Jillian begs Thomas to help her stop him. Admitting that she is the fairie indeed, she takes him to her world so Thomas can witness the destruction wrought by the Empty. Finally convinced that he is the only one to stand between the Empty and the destruction of all he cares for, Thomas helps Jillian to fight Bobby and the ancient evil he has called. Are they too late to save the people they love?

The Girl in the Corn is a rural horror novel for fans of Joe Hill and Jonathan Maberry.