The Pumpkin Man

“C’mon, man,” Brian said, and grabbed Nick’s arm. “Let them think what they want.”

“Just go,” Kirstin said, and pointed to the door again.

Brian dragged Nick with him as Kirstin knelt by the couch. Jenn’s sadness was audible now, as the reality of her dad’s death washed fully over her. She clenched her hands to her chest and curled in a ball, wishing over and over in her heart that she could go back, that she could see him just one more time. Hug him. Talk to him. The door slammed, but neither girl really noticed.

“I want him back,” Jenn sobbed.

“I know, baby,” Kirstin said. “I know.”

Outside, a car engine rumbled to life. With an angry gunning sound and of churning gravel, it disappeared down the hill and into the night.

Jenn got herself under control after a couple more minutes and forced herself to come out of her ball. She wiped tears from her reddened cheeks while Kirstin got her a tissue.

“I don’t think they did it,” she said, after blowing her nose. Her eyes were still moist.

“Of course they did,” Kirstin said. “They were screwing around.”

“I don’t think so,” Jenn argued. “Nick isn’t that way.”

“They’re all that way,” Kirstin said. “Guys are all assholes. They were playing with you.”

“Something was here,” Jenn insisted. “I could feel it.”

Kirstin raised an eyebrow. “Uh-huh.”

“I want to try again.”

Kirstin rested a hand on her friend’s shoulder and squeezed. “No way. Jenn, you’ve gotta let him go. I know it’s hard, but that’s part of the reason we came out here. To leave all of that behind. If you just keep dredging it up, you’ll never heal.”

Jenn blinked back another rush of tears. She nodded and swallowed hard. “I know,” she agreed. “But . . . maybe there’s a reason we ended up here in the middle of magic central. And we just happened to find a Ouija board. And it just happened to have contacted spirits the first time we tried it.”

“It didn’t—”

“Then humor me and try it once more,” Jenn said. “Because now I really need to know if this stuff works for real.”

She got up from the couch and retrieved the planchette from where it landed near the fireplace. Dropping down, she sat Indian-style on the other side of the coffee table.

“What, right now?” Kirstin asked.

Jenn held out her hand.

Kirstin sighed. Clearly, arguing wasn’t going to do any good. Perhaps the only thing that would satisfy her friend would be watching the wooden board as nothing happened. Perhaps then she would finally realize she’d been had. Or, considering Jenn’s stubbornness, she’d probably just find some other excuse for why it hadn’t worked this time.

Her friend rested a finger on the planchette, and Kirstin reluctantly did the same.

Jenn didn’t say anything for a couple minutes, just letting the silence of the room wash over her. “We are here again,” she said finally. “We call to the spirits of this place and ask for your help. We want to talk with Richard Murphy, my dad. Is he near?”

The planchette did not move. Kirstin stifled a knowing smile and struggled to keep her eyes closed.

“Please focus,” Jenn hissed. “If my aunt is near, perhaps she would help us. We are caring for your things now, Aunt Meredith. If you are here, I’m sorry I never got to know you better. Please help me reach my dad? Just for a moment.”

The planchette seemed to shift. Jenn squinted down at the board, trying at the same time to keep her mind blank. The wooden ring now rested over the letter I.

It moved again, very slowly. It rested for a bit on each letter before shifting to the next. The sequence spelled:

I LOVE YOU

Jenn couldn’t help but smile. But, who was saying it? She was about to ask when the planchette moved again, faster this time. Kirstin whispered the letters one by one, the hoop’s movements sharp and jagged across the board:

BEWARE THE PUMPKIN MAN

Behind them, the flames in the hearth flared up with a soft roar. The warmth that had crossed Jenn’s heart vanished.

“The Pumpkin Man,” she read aloud. “Who is that?”

The planchette did not move.

Another ember popped, and Jenn was suddenly aware of the quiet, crackling fire. That was the only sound in the room.

“Tell us what you mean,” she said. “Meredith? Dad?”

The planchette remained still.

She called out again and again, but Kirstin broke the link. “It’s over,” she said. “Whatever it was. I didn’t do that,” she admitted. She looked spooked.

Jenn shook her head in agreement. “Neither did I.”

Without another word, she picked up the wooden board and its eye and placed both back in the hole in the fireplace. Then she carefully replaced the stone.

“I think I’m going to go to bed now,” she said abruptly. “We can clean up in the morning.”

CHAPTER

SIXTEEN

Teri Hawkins hadn’t thought about the Pumpkin Man in years. Now, here he was again, encapsulated in a headline about a headless body.

Teri read the article for the fifth time and shook her head. It couldn’t be the Pumpkin Man; she knew that for a fact. They had killed him. She had been there. And as she read those three horrible words, other words came flooding back.

“We’ll meet you at Echo Hill at eleven o’clock.” That voice. It was Erik. “He’s down at the Tide’s Inn every night from nine to ten thirty or eleven. We’ll wait for him outside.”

“I want to be there when you catch him.” That was her speaking, Teri. “I can help.”

“If something goes wrong, I don’t want you hurt.”

“I’ll wait in the car. But I want to be there when the bastard gets his.”

“You will be.”

There had been seven of them who met at the Tide’s Inn at ten o’clock that night, seven parents of children who over the past three years had gone missing or turned up dead, in pieces. Seven parents who were sure that the Pumpkin Man had killed their babies. The police had never been able to prove anything, but they knew. Knew! All of the kids had disappeared in the fall after visiting the pumpkin patch. Their bodies had been found later, lodged in the rocks and weeds at the mouth of the estuary. But only the bodies.

“He took Billy’s head,” Teri whispered to herself for the thousandth time as she waited in the backseat of Erik’s Ford. She imagined her ten-year-old’s soft cheeks and freckled nose and stifled a tear. How could anyone do that to a child? How could anyone touch an innocent that way? And, what had he done to her boy before he cut off that sweet face?

God, what had her Billy felt? She was haunted by visions of him crying out in terror and finally dying under the knife of his killer, all while feeling betrayed because, for the first time in his life, when he really needed her, his mommy wasn’t coming.

The pain turned to ice in her belly and every second thought she’d had about Erik’s plan for vengeance