The Pumpkin Man

“He cried and ran blindly through the night. But his captors were not blind. They herded him with purpose toward the strands of wire they knew surrounded the field to the west. They counted on Mr. Brown’s panic getting the best of him, and they were rewarded.

“He ran faster and harder; his legs moved in a blur through the night as the knife blades prodded him onward. When at last his flight ended, it was with an initial air of confusion. His pursuers had fallen behind, and he’d thought victory was at hand. He would be free, and he could circle back to rescue his Sarah. Retrieve his clothes. Then the cold metal bit his neck, chest, groin. His flight came to a sudden, painful stop.

“He began to scream but found himself choking as hot blood filled his throat. When he fell to the ground, his pursuers encircled him, watching. Then, as his eyes saw the light of the stars one last time, they began to open him with their knives to retrieve the magic of his heart.”

“Whoa,” Jenn whispered, ceasing to read aloud. “Now that’s nasty!” She kept leafing through the book, though, which appeared to include nothing but violent death.

“Soooo, you want to tell me a little more about this aunt of yours?” Kirstin said.

Jenn shrugged. “There’s not much to tell. She moved out here like thirty years ago and didn’t keep in contact with Dad much. I don’t think they really got along. She was kind of wild, into all sorts of stuff. And Dad was . . . well, you know.”

“Dull?”

Jenn smacked Kirstin’s shoulder. “No. He was kind of a hippie, too, but just . . . more conservative.”

“Like his daughter.”

“What are you saying?”

“That neither one of you really knew how to have a good time.”

“I don’t consider this a good time,” Jennica retorted, holding the book out and open to a scene of evisceration.

“Well, apparently your weird old aunt did.”

Kirstin got up, walked over to the mantel above the fireplace, ran her fingers over a series of strange statuettes and candles. A black iron moon sculpture dominated the shelf, and above that was another sculpture, hung from leather strips nailed into the bricks, this one of three interconnected triangular shapes. It seemed to resemble nothing so much as a pentagram.

“Did you know that your aunt was a witch?” she asked.

“My dad always called her a spiritualist—and an herbalist,” Jennica hedged, pulling down another book from the shelf. This one was titled The Seven Secret Plants of Power. She’d been thinking of her aunt as a witch herself, but not really in an “evil” way. Now that things were getting creepier, she found she favored her dad’s definition. She didn’t know if she was willingly being blind, though.

“Herbalist my ass!” Kirstin laughed. “Look around you. This room is filled with gargoyles, candles, books about death and dark spells, and there’s some kind of Satanic symbol above the fireplace. Your aunt was a witch, Jenn. That’s why your dad didn’t like her. And I don’t think she was Glinda the Good, judging from the look of this stuff.”

Jennica had flipped to a middle page in the Plants book, but instead of finding recipes for tea she found a picture of a man who had literally turned green. On the page next to him was the illustration of a peculiarly shaped leaf with the name Persinambulus, its Latin genus, and a description of how a single brush against its hairy leaves could poison a man so fast he might not know he was ill before he fell to the ground. The fine cilia implanted spores that quickly hatched and grew upon meeting the oily warmth of human skin. Within hours, the area of contact turned bright green. The new colony of plant spores fed and spread, and often the victim’s body was fruiting a new colony of Persinambulus before he was even noted missing, leaves rising above his cheeks and neck, already ciliated and ready to seek their next victim.

She closed the book with a snap and pushed it back onto the shelf. “Yeah, maybe not,” she agreed.

“Is this her?” Kirstin asked. She’d pulled a photo album from the top drawer of an end table by the couch.

Jenn peered over her shoulder to see a smallish woman with dark wavy hair leaning against a man in overalls and a checkered shirt. The top of her head barely reached his shoulder. She looked privately amused, as if she were laughing at some in-joke while the photographer snapped the shot.

“That’s Aunt Meredith,” she confirmed.

They flipped through a handful of pages with photos featuring Meredith tending a garden and walking on a beach. There were also pictures of the man carving a Halloween pumpkin. The image triggered goose bumps on Jennica’s arms as she thought of the pumpkin pieces in her apartment and her father’s.

“Is that your uncle?” Kirstin asked.

“Yeah. I don’t think I ever met him, but I’ve seen pictures.”

“Whoa!” Kirstin exclaimed as they flipped the next page. “Now that’s some amazing work.”

The photo was a close-up of a jack-o’-lantern, but this was no ordinary triangle-nose-and-eyes type. It was intricately carved, rounded orb eyes above a nose and face that almost seemed animate. The mouth was small, gentle. The pumpkin looked like nothing so much as a small, mischievous boy.

The next page showed another pumpkin, this one carved in the likeness of a girl. Another looked so real it made Jennica shiver; it was the visage of an old woman screaming in pain, her mouth wide, her eyes squinted nearly closed. And the last page she flipped to revealed a series of pumpkins all in the shapes of feral animals.

“That is not the kind of dog I’d want to take home,” Kirstin said, pointing to the toothy snarl of a wolfish gourd.

“No,” Jenn agreed and said nothing more.

“Did your uncle carve all of these, do you think?” Kirstin asked. “’Cuz whoever did . . . was good!”

“It was him,” Jenn said and pointed out another photo. It was of the tall man’s arm. He was holding a knife to a pumpkin on the kitchen table, the same table as was in the other room. On the table was stacked a pile of orange triangles, and there was a mess of what looked like orange seaweed slopped on newspaper nearby. Pumpkin guts.

They paged through the last few photos, and then Kirstin put the book away. Jennica sat on the couch in silence.

“What’s the matter?” Kirstin asked. She’d felt the change come over her friend as they looked through the album. It was like a cold wave. “And don’t say ‘nothing.’”

“It’s stupid,” Jenn said. Her face was serious, though.

“Try me.”

Jennica rolled her eyes. “Well, it’s just that . . .”

“What?”

“They found pumpkin pieces in the apartment after my dad was killed,” she said. “And I found some by my bed last week.”

Kirstin looked confused. “Is your uncle still alive? Do you think he could have had something to do with . . . ?”

Jennica shook her head. “No. He died a long time ago. It’s . . . Those pictures freaked me out a little, that’s all. I’m just not feeling good about pumpkins these days.”

“Well, c’mon then.” Kirstin smiled and reached out to pull her friend up off the couch. “You wanna feel good? I’ve got just the thing. I saw it in one of the cabinets in the kitchen. It’s one hundred proof, and it rhymes with Latka.”

Jenn laughed. “Weak.”

“Oh no,” Kirstin promised. “This shit’s strong.”

“I meant the Taxi reference.”

Kirstin disappeared into the kitchen and returned with two glasses filled to the brim. “Drink up,” she said. “We’ll unpack tomorrow.”

Jenn tilted the glass back and coughed. Fire lit the back of her throat. Her eyes went wide, but the heat of the clear liquid felt good coursing through her chest. She took another sip. And another.

It wasn’t long before they were both slurring a bit. Jenn leaned back and stared at the dull white of the ceiling and sighed. “I miss my dad.”