It was cold for September. The kind of evening where your breath hung in the air, signaling the end of summer and the fast approach of the coming frost.
The bright leaves had already begun falling from the trees, and the local festivities were about to begin. For Greenvale, it was a special time of year—the time for the annual Harvest Festival. But that was an event for the very young and the very old at heart. For those somewhere in the middle, it was a source of embarrassment. Another thing about their small town that made them cringe. Teenagers sneered, and it was teenagers who wandered the old country roads that night.
Linda and Dean weren’t so much looking for trouble as they were looking for entertainment. They weren’t bad kids. They came from good homes; they just had idle hands. It’s a common issue in many small towns, one that often leads to drug abuse, high rates of teen pregnancy, and petty criminality. But that wasn’t an issue in Greenvale. In Greenvale, there was a lot of country to get lost in, and idle hands… they had a tendency to go missing.
“Seriously, Dean, try to keep up. I want to be home before ten,” Linda called out.
They weren’t trying to hurt anyone. They just wanted to smash some pumpkins.
“Then why don’t we just go home?” Dean asked, taking a deep breath of fetid farmstead air. “Also, keep your voice down. We’re going to get caught.”
Linda gracefully vaulted over a wooden fence.
“Risk of getting caught is half the fun,” she said, sweeping her dirty blonde hair from her freckled face. “Besides, you said you thought he was a creep, too.”
“Just ‘cause he’s a creep doesn’t mean I want to smash up his property.”
Dean was less limber, still navigating a recent growth spurt that had sent his pale, lanky form into the stratosphere. One of his big, clumsy feet caught on the fence, sending him tumbling to the ground in a heap.
“His property,” Linda said, waggling her eyebrows. “That old man really loves his pumpkins, doesn’t he?”
Dean rolled his eyes. His friends said he lacked a sense of humor. He was fifteen going on forty, but the truth was that he wasn’t into sex jokes.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said before sighing a cloud of breath up at the stars.
Linda slapped his denim-clad shoulder.
“You know why they call him ‘Old Man Humpkin’, right?”
“Yes, it’s because he fucks the pumpkins,” he said dismissively.
Linda pouted.
“You know, you’re no fun.”
“I just think it’s a dumb joke.”
Linda laughed to herself.
“You know what we’d call one of his pumpkins after you carve it?”
This one stumped him.
“No, what do you call it?” he asked, already dreading the answer.
“An ejack-o’-lantern!”
Dean grimaced.
“That’s vile.”
Linda smiled up at him, her brown eyes dark in the moonlight.
“Shut up, you know you love me.”
And it was the truth. He did. Sure, it was his first relationship, but he knew that’s what love felt like.
She held out her hand.
“Come on, you wiener. Let’s go bash some prize-winning pumpkins.”
They walked hand in hand through the field, taking their time crossing between the rows of ripening corn. Now and then, Linda would kick at a stalk, but it was the pumpkin patch they were really after.
Smashing a jack-o’-lantern—that was everyone’s game. Halloween night in Greenvale was a complete massacre. Linda was big on unique experiences.
If we’re going to snuff out a potential jack-o’-lantern, I want to destroy a prize-winning one.
When she said that, there was a glimmer in her eye that made Dean nervous and excited at the same time. So, with anticipation in his heart, he followed her over the ridge and into the pumpkin patch.
There must have been hundreds of them.
Pumpkins were scattered all over the ground, connected by a web of crisscrossing vines. Frames held up the largest ones. The wooden pedestals held them straight and kept the vines above, delivering nutrients straight into their fat, orange flesh.
As he gazed across the patch, Dean’s eyes fell upon the perfect prize: a massive pumpkin that dwarfed all its surrounding kin. Most prize-winning pumpkins were deformed—strange record-breaking puddles of fibrous orange flesh poured out before a gawking crowd.
Not this one. It was perfect, kept upright by meticulous wooden scaffolding supporting its almost unnatural bulk. It was even bigger than the winner from last year, which had been over six hundred and fifty pounds. If they kicked this one in, they’d be living legends.
“We might need some tools to take that thing out,” Dean said, studying its bulk.
“I don’t know,” Linda said, waving her foot. “I have my shit-kickers on tonight. Should make short work of that thing.”
She punctuated her speech by walking over and kicking one of the smaller pumpkins. She laughed as the pumpkin caved in, spilling orange goo over her boot.
Her smile faded as she tried to pull out her foot. She kept yanking, but the pumpkin held fast, as if bolted to the ground.
“Dean, help me out here. I’m stuck.”
She thrashed, but the pumpkin wouldn’t let go.
Dean crouched and tried to pull her free. He grasped her calf just above the ankle and tugged. He started gently, but, feeling no progress, he slowly put all his weight into it. He ground his teeth, straining every muscle in his back, but he couldn’t move the gourd, let alone his panic-stricken girlfriend.
“Wait, what’s happening?” he asked, wondering if it was one of her jokes.
With a sudden wrench, her foot slid further into the pumpkin. It sloshed like a bowl of undulating noodles as it swallowed her leg up past the ankle.
“Oww, Dean, help! It hurts!” she cried, fresh tears rolling down her cheeks.
The broken opening of the pumpkin closed around her ankle like a bear trap. Sharp snapping noises rang out from the wounded gourd.
Dean wondered if he should run for help before a sudden rush of vegetation tangled around them both, ending any hope of escape.
The teens flailed, but their struggle only wound them tighter in the surrounding vines. With unexpected sturdiness, the vines constricted, choking their breath and pulling them down. Linda shrieked, but it was short-lived as the vegetation spun around her throat.
The vines pulled Dean flat against the ground. Fear flooded his mind as Linda’s muffled screams were silenced by a wet, cracking noise, not unlike the sound of the pumpkin she had crushed.
He couldn’t see her, but as he stared up at the night sky, the smell washed over him. The crisp night air was now rank with the heavy musk of death.
But, against his sorrow, the pain continued to grow. The vines were trying to pull him down into the hard-packed dirt. The pressure built, as if he were stuck in a vice.
Vegetation wrapped around his neck and mouth, choking out what little breath he still had. The ones around his limbs cinched so tightly that he could feel his skin tearing beneath them.
The ground was firm, and it wasn’t giving way. Ultimately, something had to give. The ground was winning. Pressed against that unyielding soil, he felt himself eviscerated in a drawn-out series of painful ruptures and soggy explosions.
Once his innards were spilled out across the field, death was mercifully quick.
The field drank up what it could; the rest was smothered under shifting foliage.
AUTUMNBORN releases on December 20th. Pre-order today!
Jacob Marsh 