by Mac Flynn
"The usual, Aunt Ma?" I guessed.
"Oh, I hope it's not that usual," she commented as she walked forward. She set the lantern on the porch railing and stepped back to admire the work. "It did take quite a while to get just the right face."
"All night and twenty pumpkins. . ." Uncle Seward muttered.
Aunt Ma put her hands on her hips and glared at him. "You can't rush these things, Pat."
I walked up the porch stairs and patted her on the shoulder. "I'm sure you'll win first prize again this year."
"'First prize?'" Roland repeated.
"Every year there's a county Squash Festival, and they hold a jack-o-lantern contest to see who can make the funniest, weirdest, or creepiest pumpkin," I explained. I gestured to my aunt. "Aunt Ma enters her pumpkin in the scariest competition every year."
"And I place," she added.
"Not if somebody doesn't bring their pumpkin in before those hoodlums get it like they got Old Ben's field," Uncle Seward piped up.
"Pish-posh, Pat. There's nobody out here but us," Aunt Ma argued. She opened the door and pulled Roland and me through ahead of her. "Now why don't we go inside for some nice cocoa? The sun'll be up soon, and I'm sure Roland needs his rest."
"Ma, you're forgetting that boy's a vampire," Uncle Seward reminded her.
"Then I can get a chicken for him fresh from the coop," she offered.
"Cocoa will be fine," Roland assured her.
She smiled and winked. "All right, but my chickens are tasty."
Aunt Ma herded us all inside and to the dining room. We sat down while she bustled herself into the kitchen to attend to our every food need. I prayed she wouldn't change her mind and bring out a chicken as sacrifice to my blood-deficient companion.
Uncle Seward waited until she went into the other room before he shook his head. "Crazy woman. . ." he muttered.
"I heard that," Aunt Ma shouted from the kitchen.
I coughed to hide my laugh. "What were you saying about hoodlums, Uncle Seward?" I asked him.
Uncle Seward frowned and his gaze flickered between us. "Isn't that why you're here? To see who's been messing up all the pumpkin patches?"
"Yes," Roland confirmed.
I jabbed him in the ribs and glared at him. "Don't tell the whole neighborhood," I hissed.
"With your whispering I'm guessing this isn't just a bunch of kids out to ruin Halloween," Uncle Seward surmised.
"We suspect it to be a supernatural hoofed creature with sharp teeth," Roland told him.
Uncle Seward raised an eyebrow. "Like a devil?"
"We're still working that part out," I spoke up. "But you said something about all the pumpkin patches?"
"Old Ben wasn't the only one hit," he told us. "A few of the gardens around his place had their stuff wrecked, too."
"So has anything changed around here since the attacks started? Any new people move in?" I asked him.
"Someone moved in where those poor folks were murdered by Brady, but that's all the folks I can think of," Uncle Seward answered
"Misty, I'm going to need some help with the pumpkin muffins," Aunt Ma chimed in as she swooped into the room with a tray full of steaming cups of cocoa.
"The cocoa will be enough," Roland insisted.
"Pish-posh. You're as thin as a rail. A little pumpkin muffin would do you good," she argued.
"Ma, he's a vampire. Of course he's gonna be as thin as a rail," Uncle Seward reminded her.
"Just because he's pale doesn't mean he has to be skinny, too. Come on now, Misty. The tray's too heavy for me," Aunt Ma ordered me. She hurried back into the kitchen.
I slipped out of my seat and glanced at my uncle. "How many did she make?"
He frowned. "I wasn't joking when I said she went through twenty pumpkins to make that one jack-o-lantern."
"Ah. That many," I commented.
I went into the kitchen and found my aunt at the counter opposite the door. She stood beside a heaping pile of warm, steaming pumpkin muffins that, if it collapsed, would have caused the earth's sea levels to increase dramatically. In the left-hand corner beside the back door was a small mountain of pumpkins fresh off the vines. She must have planted an acre of the stuff, and all the pumpkin world quaked beneath the shadow of her butcher's knife.
"You really don't have to do this," I told my aunt as I came up beside her. "I don't think food makes Roland fat."
"Then it won't hurt him, either," she quipped. She tossed more muffins out of the pans and dug out some muffin mix from a bowl as deep as the Great Lakes. The muffin mix went into the empty tins and those dozens of muffins were destined for a fiery end in the oven. "Now tell me how things have been going between you two."
I shrugged. "We're not dead. Well, I'm not."
"No little vampire babies yet?"
I choked on my spit. "What?"
She looked up at me and blinked. "Are they not called that?"
"Nothing's called anything! I'm not pregnant!" I told her.
Her face fell. "Oh dear. Having problems?"
"Aunt Ma, we're not in that kind of relationship!" I insisted.
She sighed, shook her head, and resumed her cooking. "Pity. You two would make adorable babies."
My shoulders drooped. "Aunt Ma, he's a vampire, I'm a human. I don't think we'd click."
She ducked down to open the oven door. "Then why do you keep him around?"
I frowned. "Come again?"
Aunt Ma shoved the filled baking tins into the oven and turned to me. "Pat and I didn't raise you to let freeloaders butt into your life. If you don't like him then why are you keeping him around?"
"It's not that I don't like him, it's just that I don't like him-well, that way," I told her.
My aunt smiled. "Are you sure?"
"I'm pretty sure I know my own feelings," I insisted. "We're just partners in grime. You know, getting into and out of messy trouble."
Aunt Ma sighed. "Well, if that's all then I suppose I'll have to return those baby clothes I bought at the second-hand store."
My face fell. "You did what?"
She stuffed the plate into my arms and spun me around so I faced the living room door. "And I was so hoping to be a great-aunt. Now get along before your uncle dies of hunger. This is his breakfast."
She gave me a push that sent me across the kitchen. I turned at the doorway to look at her. "Our relationship isn't like that," I repeated.
Aunt Ma smiled. "Of course it isn't, dear, now get along. I'll be-" A loud clop came from the front porch.
Aunt Ma's hands flew to her mouth. "My pumpkin!"
She flew past me and into the living room. I deposited the tray on top of the pile of its living brethren and ran after her. The men were just ahead of us as we rushed out onto the porch. There we found the ruined remains of the pumpkin on the ground just beyond the steps. Jack's grin was now a terrified scream and his candle flickered out. Uncle Seward stepped back inside and came back out with his gun.
"They couldn't have gone far," he commented.
Aunt Ma moved towards pumpkin, but I held her back. "It's quiet. Too quiet," I told her.
Roland walked past us and down the steps to the murder victim. He brushed his hand over the ground and I saw the same strange hoof prints as at Old Ben's farm.
"The same people?" I guessed.
"If that's what we're dealing with," he replied.
Aunt Ma broke from me and hurried down the steps. She knelt beside her monster masterpiece and picked up the ruined rinds. The orange goop slid through her fingers and she shook her head.
"Now I'll have to start all over again," she told us.
Uncle Seward's eyes narrowed and he cocked his gun. "You stay here, Ma, and I'll go see if I can find the hoodlums who did this."
Roland stood and shook his head. "This is too dangerous. Misty and I will follow the attacker."
My uncle glared at him. "I'm not going to stand around when my property's been attacked. I'm-"
"Pat," Aunt Ma spoke up. She stepped forward and grasped his arm. "Let the kids go. I need you to stay here and protect the pumpkins."
Uncle Seward frowned, but lowered his gun. "All right, but if it does turn out to be something strange I'm tossing those pumpkins to it. They aren't worth getting killed over."
Aunt Ma leaned back and folded her arms over her chest. "Patrick Seward, you'll do no such thing. I won't have my pumpkins fed to any otherworldly creature. Except Roland, of course."
He glared at her. "They're a bunch of pumpkins, Ma!"
I grabbed Roland's arm and tugged him away from my aunt and uncle. "We'll just go check on these prints."
I followed the tracks in the dust and pulled us over to the closed door of the barn. My breath was eerily white in the cold autumn air. The pre-dawn world was quiet and dark except for the bright moon over our heads.
"I hope you're good at tracking because we don't have much time until the sun comes up," I reminded him.
"It depends on the trail," Roland replied. He knelt down and looked over the ground. "Your aunt is very fond of her pumpkins," he commented without looking up.
"It's her hobby, and since it comes around only once a year she's a little overprotective of it," I explained.
Roland stood and looked to me. "What are your hobbies?"
I blinked at him. "Is this really the time or place to be asking that? We're supposed to be tracking some sort of devil, remember? It could pop up at any moment and try to slurp out our eyeballs."
Roland glanced past the barn at the fields. "It went into the dry grass, and I am curious to know."
I looped my arm through his and tugged him towards the fields behind the barn. "And I'm wanting to know what we're up against. You think this has something to do with your old friend with the red, pointy tail? The one you pilfered your soul from?"
Roland shook his head. "Any suggestions are pure conjecture unless we find more clues to its identity. Do you have any favorite books or movies?"
I whipped my head to Roland and glared at him. "Why the sudden interest in my life outside the weird and non-diner?"
"Your uncle regaled me with stories of your youth, and I-"
I stepped in front of him and turned to face him. "What did he tell you?"
Roland glanced past me at the fields. "We must follow the trail."
I pressed my palm against his chest. "The trail can get as cold as Ralph's Soup Surprise, for all I care. What did he tell you?"
Roland raised an eyebrow. "'Soup surprise?'"
"The surprise is the soup's colder than the Atlantic, but you didn't answer my question," I persisted.
"He merely told me about your infatuation with salt lick," he revealed.
"And?"
"And perhaps some dog food."
I ground my teeth together. "And?"
"And your uncle gave me the impression he was very hungry."
I rolled my eyes and turned away. "I guess I'll accept that, but don't tell anyone I had a taste for kibbles. The guys at the diner would be leaving forty-pound bags of dog food at the door."
"If you're satisfied, will you now answer my question?" he asked me.
"What was it again?"
"What are your hobbies or interests?"
I crossed my arms over my chest and frowned at him. "Fine, but what I'm about to tell you doesn't leave the field. Got it?"
He bowed his head. "Of course."
"I. . .I like to sing in the shower," I revealed.
A smile spread across Roland's lips. "I've already heard about that one."
My eyes narrowed. "That's all you better have done."
"You have my word as a gentleman," he swore.
"A lot of arguments have started like that, so let's get going on this trail before the sun K.O.s you," I quipped.
We followed the strange hoof prints across the field and into a clump of trees at the northeasterly corner of my aunt and uncle's property. The trail led along a path I remembered playing along as a kid back in the days where monsters were only on TV and neighbor's squash patches stayed intact. I saw the branch I fell out of and thought I broke my arm, the root I tripped over and skinned my knees, and the rock on the short hill that tried to make me two-dimensional. For me, the teenage years were an exercise in extreme survival.
The trail led past my survival course and to a small creek that bubbled its way through the trees. It meandered down and joined the river that was north of Ralph's diner. I looked across the fifteen-foot stream of water.
"I don't see any demonic hoof prints," I told Roland.
He shook his head. "Nor do I. Whatever made the prints has concealed its trail with the water."
I turned back towards the house. "Then let's get back and make sure Aunt Ma isn't using the butcher's knife to to convince Uncle Seward she needs to stab more pumpkins."
CHAPTER 3
We returned to the house to find my aunt and uncle weren't quite done with their squash squalor. They stood in the kitchen in front of the mountain of pumpkins. Aunt Ma had her hands on her hips and frowned at my uncle. He glared back at her.
"I'm not packing out any more failed faces. The pigs'll explode," Uncle Seward warned her.
"But Elmira's been bragging all summer about her squash, and I just can't let her win without a fight," Aunt Ma insisted.
"Elmira?" Roland asked me.
"Aunt Ma's arch-enemy in the Squash Festival," I whispered. "She and my aunt have a feud running so long it circumnavigated the world decades before I was born."
Uncle Seward glanced in our direction. "You find anything out there?"
"Whatever it was lost us at the creek," I told him.
My uncle frowned and turned to Aunt Ma. "See? If you make more they're just going to get broken."
"My pumpkin was murdered, and I am making more whether you pack the innards or not," Aunt Ma insisted.
"All right, make your pumpkin, but just don't leave it out so any dog can come by and wreck it," Uncle Seward demanded.
"Fair enough," Aunt Ma agreed. She turned to us and her frown was replaced with a smile. "You two are coming to the Squash Festival in a few days, aren't you?"
I shook my head. "Nope. I've got to work."
Aunt Ma looked to Roland. "What about you, young man? The Festival's open at nights for the jack-o-lanterns."
"I can make no promises, but we shall see," Roland replied.
Aunt Ma gave a nod. "Good, then we'll see you there."
"That isn't quite-" I jabbed Roland in the side. He smiled and bowed his head. "Very well."
"Now you two get along before the sun comes up. I've got a lot of carving to do and the Festival's judging night is in only two days," Aunt Ma insisted. She turned her back on us and started her hideous carving of a new jack-o-lantern.
Uncle Seward followed us to the hall where he shook his head. "That woman's more stubborn than a pig with its head in the trough."
"But you will guard her?" Roland asked him.
My uncle whipped his head to Roland and glared at him. "She's my wife. Even she was baiting trouble with the devil I'd protect her with my dying breath."
Roland bowed his head. "I didn't mean offense."
Uncle Seward sighed. "I guess I'm just jumpy. Damn weird things happening around here." He glanced down at the box in Roland's hands. "It doesn't happen to have anything to do with that, does it?"
"We'll know when we apprehend the attacker," Roland told him.
"Well, get on it, then, so I can get to sleep knowing Ma isn't going to be calling me up this early to haul the innards to the barn," he commanded.
"We'll track it down and convince it to stop attacking defenseless pumpkins," I promised.
"Then get along with you," Uncle Seward replied.
Roland and I walked outside and got into the car. I turned to him and his box.
"Please tell me you can track it down and convince it to stop attacking defenseless pumpkins," I pleaded.
Roland sta
red straight ahead and furrowed his brow. "What else did the trucker tell you about the attack?"
I shrugged. "Just that he couldn't deliver to the Depot and it wouldn't be on the train."
"Does the Depot store a great deal of squash produce?" he asked me.
"Yeah, why? You think the squash squasher's going to raid the Depot for more victims?" I guessed.
"It is possible. The attacker was able to find your aunt's pumpkin seated on the porch. It's plausible it could also follow the scent of the truck tires from the fields to the Depot," he proposed.
"And find the warehouse with all the squash and carve a bunch of jack-o-lanterns with its teeth," I finished.
"I would suggest you alert Sherry to the trouble and see if she won't assist us in protecting the warehouse," he suggested.
I leaned back in my seat and sighed. "It's a good thing it's once in a blood moon and I've got tonight off. I have a feeling this is going to be a hell of a night." I noticed Roland frowned. "What?"
He shook himself and slouched in his seat. "It's nothing, but we should hurry. The sun will soon be up."
I dropped Roland off at the apartment and decided I wanted to try out the insomniac life, so I drove out to the Depot in Northton. The soul box sat in the passenger seat beside me. My eyes flickered to the dark paperweight.
"So you know any good jokes?" I asked the box. The thing didn't give any reply. "Maybe some block-block jokes? You hear the one about the box that went from being two-dimensional to three? It went from hip to square in no-time flat." The box sat there with its tight-lipped lid. I shrugged and looked at the road. "Everybody's a critic. . ." I mumbled.
We got to the Depot twenty minutes after the sun and just in time to join the long line of trucks and cars as the employees herded their way to the warehouses. I took the path less traveled and turned off just outside the gates. The guy in the guardhouse watched me park, and so did a familiar face in a rundown van.
Sherry pulled up to me and rolled down her window. Her eyes flitted to the soul box in my hand. When she talked I could see her white breath in the cold morning air.
"Dad isn't in more trouble, is he?" she asked me.
I shook my head. "No, but my aunt's pumpkins and your squash might be in mortal danger."
