The Pumpkin Man

by John Everson

  “Tell it to the judge,” Jones said, and motioned them away from Meredith. “Go wait by the squad car and we’ll get this sorted out in a minute.”

  “C’mon, Harlan,” Gary complained. “Really? We were all just having fun.”

  “Yeah, that’s what it sounded like to me,” Jones said. “Go. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  The two disappeared around the corner, cussing loudly.

  Jones put his hands on Meredith’s shoulders. “Are you okay?” he asked. He could feel her trembling beneath his fingers.

  “Yes,” she said, her voice on the thin edge between fury and fear. “Assholes,” she hissed. Then she pushed away and looked toward the dark. “But George . . .”

  “Right,” Jones said, and let go of her. “Donovan should have settled that, but let’s go.”

  Jones led her back around the dark side of the bar to the front parking lot. The sounds of fighting had died away.

  But when they stepped into the glare of the one overhead spotlight above the door of Casey’s, Jones swore.

  Officer Patrick Donovan lay on his back, unmoving on the ground. George was nearby, struggling to sit up. Elden, and the rest of the gang, had disappeared.

  Jones sprinted to the spot, and knelt by his partner. “What happened?” he yelled at George. The other man looked groggy, and held his middle in obvious pain.

  “He tried to step in to stop Elden,” George said, “but he was crazy, swinging that thing all over. He caught Patrick in the head; I don’t even think he realized he was there until he hit him.”

  There was a dark red spot across Donovan’s forehead, and when Jones slipped his hand under his partner’s head, he felt something warm and wet.

  “Patrick,” he said. “Patrick, wake up!”

  “I don’t think he’s breathing,” George observed.

  Jones put his head to the other officer’s chest and couldn’t find a heartbeat.

  “Oh, man,” he whispered, and then looked up to see Gillan standing just outside the door of the bar. “Is he okay?” she asked.

  “Call an ambulance,” he yelled back, and bent over Donovan to begin CPR.

  Meredith watched silently as Jones pushed on Donovan’s chest and breathed into his mouth, struggling to shock his partner’s heart and lungs back to life. After a couple minutes, she whispered something to George, who stood up and walked back into the bar.

  Then she put her hand on Jones’s shoulder and said quietly, but firmly, “Stop it.”

  “If I don’t do this, he’ll die,” he said.

  She shook her head. “He’s already dead. But you helped me. Let me try to help you.”

  Meredith pushed Jones away and took over his spot, bending over the downed police officer to put her mouth on his lips. But instead of the violent, rhythmic motions of Jones’s CPR, Meredith appeared to almost be making love to the man, running her fingers down the sides of his head and chest, and breathing on his lips, while at the same time murmuring words that Jones couldn’t quite hear or understand.

  When George came back holding her purse, she stopped her ministrations a moment, and reached in to pull out a small satchel. She unbuttoned Donovan’s blue shirt and placed a small carving of silver there. A circular ornament. Then she set other objects around the body in a semicircle around his head, before sprinkling a powder from the sack over his face.

  “This is ridiculous,” Jones said and reached out to pull Meredith away. “He needs CPR!”

  George grabbed him by the shoulder and stopped him. “You have to trust her,” he said. “She knows what she’s doing. And this is probably his only hope.”

  Meredith’s blouse hung open as she bent over Donovan, and she lifted the man’s limp hand to press it to the flesh between her breasts as she continued to chant in words that sounded strange and foreign. She straddled the officer then, and bent down to press her open chest to his, her open mouth to his.

  Moments later, Donovan’s feet kicked. His whole body shuddered, and Jones moved in just in time to see Meredith’s mouth leave his, a thin trail of drool connecting them for just a second as she raised herself to kneeling, and Donovan’s eyes blinked rapidly as he gasped for breath.

  “Jesus my head hurts,” he said. And then, “Meredith, what are you doing?”

  Meredith picked up the circular silver ornament from Donovan’s chest, and finally Jones saw what it was. The circle was actually the body of a snake. A snake eating its own tail.

  Meredith stood up and pocketed the charm. She put one arm around George, while holding her blouse shut again with the other.

  “You helped me,” she said, staring unblinking into Jones’s eyes. “I won’t forget that.”

  In the distance, the warning bleats of an ambulance broke the quiet of the night.

  “Let’s forget this,” Meredith continued, bending down to pick up the other trinkets she’d pulled from her purse. “I am not going to press charges. It was all a misunderstanding. Just let it go.”

  “But . . .” Jones began.

  She shook her head. “I don’t want any more trouble,” she said. “I’ll make sure that this doesn’t happen again.”

  With that, she turned away, pulling George along with her to their car.

  Jones knelt next to Donovan, who looked confused.

  “Her eyes . . .” he began.

  “What about them,” Jones said absently, as he watched Meredith walk away.

  “Her eyes were on fire.”

  Meredith Perenais’s Journal

  June 26, 2009

  I said the words today!

  It’s been too long in coming, this. More than twenty years. So many spells and foolish potions. Witchcraft isn’t about herbs and livers. It’s taken me far too long to learn what I know. It’s taken me far too long to grow strong. The searching, the planning . . . The failures. Looking for the strength to try again. I never gave up, not for long. There is always a way, though. If a door can open one direction, it can open another. I’ve opened doors before that were closed to anyone else. I’ve brought back men from the edge of death. Though I’ve never brought anyone back before who had fully crossed.

  I hope he still knows how much I love him. I gave him my blood for this, and so much more. And finally I said the words:

  Make them rue the day they hurt you.

  My strength yours as long as you can

  stay with me and make them regret

  the day they hurt the Pumpkin Man.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FOUR

  “I talked to Brian’s mom,” Nick announced. He set the cordless phone back in its cradle in the living room and flopped down in the easy chair next to it.

  “How is she?” Kirstin asked. She and Jennica had waited on the couch while he’d gone to the back bedroom to make the call.

  “Pretty broken up,” he said. “And it’s still not even totally sunk in. Brian was really tight with his family.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Jenn whispered. “I’m really—”

  “It’s not your fault,” Nick snapped. When she visibly cringed, he pushed himself out of his chair to sit next to her. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without him,” he admitted. “We’ve been buds since high school. His parents are like my own.”

  “How did you first meet him?” Jenn asked, trying to help him talk it out.

  Nick laughed. “He beat me up.”

  “That’s how you met?”

  He nodded. “Pretty much. He had this little gang, you know, and he was like . . . the cool kid. He was on the football team, and somehow was always able to get beer for parties on the weekends. I pretty much kept to myself, and so his gang decided it’d be fun to pick on the quiet kid. Except when I kneed his friend in the nuts, Brian stepped in and decked me.”

  “And after that, naturally you became best friends?”

  He laughed again. “I think Brian felt guilty, and after that, he kind of took me on as his special project. I had been pretty dweeby up to t
hat point, and he got me on to the football team. He pulled me out of my shell, really.” He smiled. “And I forced him to do his homework.”

  “Sounds a lot like me and Kirstin,” Jenn said.

  “Nah,” Kirstin piped in. “I never tried to get you on to sports. I just tried to get you laid.”

  Nick smiled. “Brian did that, too. Who invited you over to join us at Bottom of the Hill that night?” He grew quiet for a minute, obviously thinking back to better times. Then he continued. “Anyway, Brian and I have been friends forever. So I need to go see his parents tomorrow. But I meant what I said before. This is not your fault. This one is bigger than all of us. We just happened to walk into it, unfortunately. Don’t blame yourself.”

  “I have to find a way to stop it,” Jenn said. As she vocalized the words, she felt something harden inside her; something that had been soft and easily pushed around for most of her life. Something that suddenly wanted to really take a stand. Maybe for the first time, ever. “I may not have started it, but I have to end it.”

  “How? What are you going to do?” Kirstin asked.

  “I’m going to ask for help. But I need your help to do that.”

  Nick looked up. “What are you talking about?”

  “Hang on.” Jenn got up and went into Nick’s room, where she’d left her things. She opened her bag, and stared at the thing inside. Really? she asked herself. And the answer came almost immediately. Yes. She was not going to stand by and let this just happen. Not this time. Meredith had shown her the way . . . she just needed to be strong enough to follow it. She emerged from the bedroom a minute later with both a new determination, and her aunt’s tablet of varnished wood covered by the etched letters of the alphabet. And the words YES and NO.

  “When did you get that?” Nick gasped.

  “You went to the bathroom when we were up at the house, and I realized that the police are not going to be able to solve this thing. This isn’t about catching a normal killer. Hell, you heard the chief. Even he believes that the Pumpkin Man has come back from the dead. This is not about the police, this is about catching a ghost. They can dust for prints in that house all they want, but they’re not going to catch anyone. We need my aunt. She had something to do with this. So, if I could just talk to her . . .”

  “Oh no,” Kirstin said. “I think we’ve seen just about enough of that thing. Put it away.”

  Jenn ignored her and sat back down. “My aunt started this. I’ve read just about all of her journal now. At first I thought it was all bullshit and she was crazy—she wrote a lot in there about collecting these weird herbs and mixing them with blood and all sorts of other shit. I really thought she had just gone batty out here in the middle of nowhere. But now, I don’t think so. The stuff that’s been happening to me, and to people in River’s End . . . it’s not natural. If half of what Meredith wrote about was true, then she was able to make contact with spirits, and she got them to help her do things that she wanted. That’s what magic really is: getting help from the other side.

  “Well, guess what?” she continued. “We need help. But I can’t do it alone. And Meredith used this Ouija board to get help. Why shouldn’t we do the same?”

  Nick laid his arm across her shoulder. “Let it go,” he begged. “You’re out of there now. You’re safe here with me. Just . . . please let it go.”

  “Safe?” Jenn said. “Are you kidding me? Do you really think we’re any better off here, an hour or two down the road? I don’t think so. That thing came all the way to Chicago and killed my dad. They found pumpkin pieces in his apartment after they took away his body. Oh, and guess what? His head was missing. So don’t try to tell me I’m safe!”

  “Well, I don’t think touching that thing is the answer either,” Nick said. “God knows what you’re really talking to on the other end. Maybe it’s the Pumpkin Man himself, did you ever think of that? Maybe HE is what’s answering you. Maybe every time you touch it, you’re letting him out again.”

  “I don’t think my dad was playing with a Ouija board,” Jenn said. She set the board down on the coffee table. “Look,” she said, turning to Nick in a blatant appeal. “That thing killed Brian. Don’t you want to avenge his death? Don’t you want to make sure that fucker can never hurt anyone else again? Because I sure do.”

  At first, Nick didn’t answer. When he did, it was in a very measured tone. “Your aunt may have stirred up something that ultimately caused her death, and she might have done it with that. And your dad’s death. And Brian’s. Do you really want to risk making the same mistake?”

  “Yes,” Jenn said. Her eyes pulsed with anger. “Because I don’t believe I can make things worse. The Pumpkin Man is already free. I want to find a way to send him back.”

  She slipped off the couch and crawled around the table. Holding out her hands, she said nothing else; she just waited. And in a minute, a cool thin hand slipped into one grip, a heavier, warmer hand the other.

  “All right,” Nick said with tired resignation. “Let’s find out how to kill this fucker.”

  “Wait a minute,” Jenn said. “Do you have any candles?”

  Nick shrugged. “Yeah, I think there are a couple in the kitchen. Hang on.”

  He returned with two jar candles. “Will these do?”

  Jenn nodded. “Yeah, I think it’s just important to turn off all the electric lights and let as much natural energy into the room as we can.”

  Kirstin shot her a sideways glance. “Have you been studying?”

  Jenn smiled. “Not exactly, I’ve just read a fair bit more of Meredith’s journal. And I know that all of the stuff we do now with electric fields and gas fumes and radio and TV broadcasting . . . it all closes us in. Or locks them out. Spirits, I mean.”

  “So it’s actually safer to live in a city?” Nick said.

  “To some extent. I think there are holes wherever you go, though. Spirits can get through if they really want to.” She looked at him. “I just want to make it easier. So if we kill the lights and use a couple candles . . .”

  Nick lit a match, held it inside the jars to light the candles and then set them on either end of the coffee table. The glow of their natural flames in the darkness gave the trio’s cheeks a ruddy orange glow. Their faces seemed to float disembodied in the night. They all reached out to lightly touch an index finger to an edge of the planchette.

  “Let’s see what the spirits have to say,” Nick said.

  “Not spirits,” Jenn corrected. “I need to talk to my aunt.”

  “I hope she has her spirit phone turned on,” he answered.

  “They are never off. Not on the other side,” Jenn promised with a faint smile.

  She eyed her friends in the flickering candlelight. Kirstin’s normally animated face was drawn and thin. Her eyes were wide, and she was clearly too numb from the day’s events to do more than just be present. Meanwhile, Nick’s mouth was drawn in a tight line. He was doing this as a favor for her, and he just wanted it to be over.

  But Jenn also saw something in both faces that she hadn’t the first time they tried this. She saw belief. The first time they had all been playing. Toying. Scoffing, if only just a bit. Now Kirstin’s jaw clenched and Nick’s lips held no trace of a smile. They looked committed and worried.

  Jenn closed her eyes and concentrated. “Okay,” she said. “Just try to put everything from your mind. Focus on my words and will your energy to me. I’m like the transmitter here.”

  She felt stupid and theatrical as she thought about what words to use to begin contact. What did you say to call the attention of the dead, spirits who no doubt were used to hearing a billion disparate voices chattering on incessantly every hour of every day? Everything sounded hokey, so all you could do was be direct. She took a deep breath and began.

  “Spirits who are near, we call upon you. We beseech your help.” Jenn screwed up her mouth in distaste. Who used the word “beseech” anymore? She stifled a semi-hysterical giggle and struggled to foc
us.

  “Spirits in this house, spirits who can hear me, please listen to my call. We are in desperate need. We must talk to Meredith Perenais. She was my aunt in her life. She lived not far from here, up the coast, and only passed on a few months ago. Please tell her I need her. Her niece from Chicago, Jennica Murphy, needs her now.”

  Jennica paused and took another breath. She felt Kirstin’s fingers give hers a slight squeeze. “Aunt Meredith, are you here?” she asked.

  All of them stared at the planchette in the middle of the board, both hopeful and fearful that it would move. It remained still.

  “Meredith Murphy Perenais,” Jennica called. “Please come to us. Help me.” She waited a second and then repeated, “Aunt Meredith, are you here?”

  This time Nick squeezed her hand, but the wooden ring remained frozen at the center of the board.

  “Maybe if we all repeat her name,” Kirstin suggested. “Like Mary Worth and the mirror.”

  Jenn cringed at the thought. If you said “Bloody” Mary Worth’s name three times in the dark before a mirror, it was said she would sometimes be summoned from beyond the grave. It was a common dare at slumber parties because, if Mary Worth appeared, she would try to kill you from the mirror. Who was brave enough to try and call her?

  “Let’s try that,” Jenn agreed.

  “Meredith Murphy Perenais, come to us,” she said softly. And then she said it again with Nick and Kirstin joining her.

  “Meredith Murphy Perenais, come to us. Meredith Murphy Perenais, come to us,” they repeated, their voices growing stronger. “Meredith Murphy Perenais, come to us!”

  The planchette trembled beneath their fingers. Jenn opened her eyes wider to watch as it slowly slid across the board. She struggled to let her arm be relaxed, to not influence the device. A part of her wondered if either Nick or Kirstin were doing just that.