Rolling up his copy of the document, Conal sat back at his table and searched the candle-smudged darkness for details to add to his plan.
Chapter 23
Pumpkin Faces in the Night
Modern day
Her visibility reduced to a few yards by the downpour, Doris drove the Audi at a snail’s pace.
When lightning crashed—every thirty seconds or so now—it had them all jumping.
“This isn’t any normal storm,” Doris remarked, looking along the side of the road for a pull-off. “Maybe we should stop for a few minutes.”
Though she was accustomed to Kerwin relying on body language for much of his communication, Doris was not prepared for his abrupt, scrambling recoil.
When she followed his gaze, her eyes went wide as silver dollars. She slammed on the brakes.
Brinke caught herself as she pitched forward. What she saw beyond the windshield was beyond even the realm of her strangest experiences.
Three pumpkins, big around as dinner tables, clambered across the road some twenty yards ahead, on viney spider-legs that sprouted from their crowns.
“Good God in heaven…” whispered Doris.
Brinke spun to check behind them. In the harsh red of the Audi’s taillights, raindrops veiled another of the horticultural horrors.
Then two more crawled out from behind it.
* * * *
Speeding up his windshield wipers, Hudson impulsively reached for his big orange travel mug, forgetting, for the fifth time, that it was already empty. Leticia only filled it half full these days.
“You worry enough,” she had said, as she stopped him from topping it off. “Ember Hollow doesn’t need a jittery sheriff.”
“Still just deputy, ’Teesh.”
“You heard me.”
Further micromanaging, she had gone by the sheriff’s offices and informed his coworkers of Hudson’s coffee-cutback protocol. No one dared defy her polite request to keep an eye on him.
Hudson tried to make do with the radio—tuned to WICH, of course—playing something by the Japanese band Balzac. He had to resort to cracking the window an inch, which was enough to allow in a few chilly, invigorating drops.
The weird lightning and loud thunder certainly helped, but they didn’t change the fact that he was going on very little sleep.
Patrolling the eastern part of the county as usual seemed unnecessary, given the storm. These pumpkin fields and cornfields were as quiet as ever. He would turn around at the next—
Hudson hit the brakes, as something rolled out into the road, casting a long shadow away from the headlights.
Luckily, he wasn’t going fast enough to slide. But after two Halloweens under the threat of a serial killer who wasn’t shy about performing decapitations, seeing a head-sized object tumble into his path was all the stimulant he would need for a few hours.
It was just a pumpkin, but that offered little reassurance. Surely no Devil’s Night tricksters were dedicated enough to wait out here in the rainy woods on the outskirts of town just to toss a pumpkin in front of a county cruiser.
Still—Everett Geelens.
On this section of road, fields lay to the left, while woods lined the right side. The pumpkin had come from the right.
Putting his car in park, Hudson drew his revolver. After a moment’s thought, he reholstered it and took the shotgun from its bracket. Opening his door, he stood up and shone his spotlight all around the vehicle’s perimeter and into the woods from which the pumpkin had tumbled, then back to the squash. It was as far as the beam, diffused by fat raindrops and haze, would reach.
Hudson stepped out. “Sheriff’s Department! Who’s up there?”
Only the sound of rain answered.
“I’m armed!”
“Somebody’s gonna come up on this and brake too hard,” Hudson mumbled to himself. “Have themselves an accident.”
Hudson went to the pumpkin. Thinking again of Everett Geelens, he prayed it was not, say, hollowed out and filled with intestines.
Kicking it gently, Hudson was, despite his preparedness, shocked when it rolled over. He reflexively stepped back with a yelp, keeping his eyes on it to be sure he wasn’t imagining what he saw.
Human features—distorted and devious.
The pumpkin had a face. And it grinned at him, spreading lumpy lips to show ghost-white baby teeth.
Brown eyes, complete with sclera, iris and pupil, blinked.
Tendrils extended from its stem, working to move the abomination.
Hudson raised his shotgun and fired. The pellets sparked off the pavement as the pumpkin leaped out of the way, deft as a black widow.
“Dammit!” Hudson shouted.
There was no sign of the thing anywhere, yet his instincts told him it was just out of sight, in the dark beyond the headlight beam. He swiveled and took one step toward his cruiser, then realized the thing could have crawled underneath it, where it waited to ensnare him with those viney tentacles.
Hudson cradled his shotgun and leaned to shine his flashlight under the cruiser. The beam danced madly as the little demon leaped from the dark and bit into him.
Hudson dropped the shotgun, stunned by the stinging, sharp pain of tiny incisors sinking into his forearm. He wildly shook and swung his arm to throw it off, realizing quickly it wasn’t going anywhere.
Hudson punched the orange goblin in the “face,” landing three solid blows before it dropped off. Hudson spun to find the shotgun. It lay steaming at the edge of his headlight beam. The bugger could be just a foot beyond, and he wouldn’t be able to see it.
Hudson drew his handgun and pressed it side by side with the flashlight, listening for any scrabbling or scratching sounds or…
“Hell with it.” Hudson decided to leave the shotgun. He got in the cruiser and reverse-turned hard. His heart sank along with the car’s rear end, as it slid violently into the deep ditch at the road’s edge.
“Son of a bitch!”
Though he knew it was pointless, Hudson pushed the gas, then tried alternately gunning and letting off to try and rock it out, cursing when he felt the rear sink deeper than before.
He lifted the scanner radio microphone, preparing to call dispatch, when a sibilance—scrabbling, scratching, skittering—passed across the roof, barely louder than the rain.
Hudson moved to power up the
