Blame it on the Pumpkin

By Pamela K. Kinney, S. P. Mount and Greg Patrick

What's the best-and worst-part of Halloween?

The pumpkins, of course!

Enjoy these 8 scary stories centered on a Halloween event- a pumpkin patch festival, a pumpkin-growing contest, a séance...

Just beware of those rotting jack-o-lanterns.

Includes stories by Pamela K. Kinney, Jennifer Kyrnin, Greg Partick, S. P. Mount,

• Language: English
• Publisher: DreamPunk Press
• Release date: Oct 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9781954214170

Book preview

Blame it on the Pumpkin

Horror Tales for Halloween

Edited by Tara Moeller

© DreamPunk Press 2022

All other rights remain with the authors

ISBN: 978-1-954214-15-6 (OpenDyslexic)

978-1-954214-16-3 (Déjà vu)

978-1-954214-17-0 (ePub)

978-1-954214-18-7 (Kindle)

Contents

From Pumpkin to Jack-o'-lanternhere

Moonlit Hunthere

Pumpkin Hollowhere

Vampire Gourdhere

Nasty Old B!tchhere

Flock of Badbhere

Alone on Halloweenhere

Dance of Masks and Fire The Witchfinder’s Shadowhere

Trick or Treat: Once Upon a Hunter’s Moonhere

The Halloween Seanceshere

About the Contributorshere

A Note about the Cover

The cover art was created by Brit Austin Art

and turned into our lovely cover by Portfoli-Mo.

Read more about these artists—and find out where to see more of their art—on the back pages of this book.

From Pumpkin to Jack-o'-lantern

Nonfiction

By Marjory E. Leposky

How does a pumpkin turn into a jack-o'-lantern? It all starts in the spring after the last frost, when the ground is warm – but don’t plant them too early. Otherwise, they may ripen and rot before Halloween.

Growing pumpkins begins with plowing the ground. First the growers plow the ground. If they planted a cover crop in the fall to protect and enrich the soil, they turn it over in the spring before planting.

Two different ways exist to plant pumpkins on a large commercial farm. Both involve a tractor that pulls a drilling machine. In direct seeding, people sit on the drilling machine. At regular intervals, they drop seeds into holes drilled into the soil to a specific depth. Transplanting involves growing seeds in a protected place and then dropping the young seedlings into the prepared holes.

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Either way, the layout of the field depends on whether the crop will be irrigated; whether it will be weeded by hand, with a plow, or with chemicals; the height of the mature plant; proper sun direction and coverage; the soil type; whether the rows will be covered in plastic; and how any fertilizer might be applied. All of this is carefully planned before any planting takes place.

In a small plot or back yard garden, a person might use a hoe or shovel to make the holes about four feet apart.

Typically, two seeds are planted in each hole to improve the odds that at least one will grow. As the plants sprout and develop leaves, growers typically remove the weaker ones, giving the stronger ones a better chance to grow and produce fruit.

Pumpkin blooms need bees for pollination, so the growers always have beehives in their pumpkin fields.

Vines come up, and pumpkins grow on the vines. The pumpkins sit on the ground, unless the growers spread straw on the fields to prevent them from rotting.

In September, the growers harvest by hand. They walk through the fields and find ripe, damage-free pumpkins with the correct shape. They cut the stems one day, allow them to dry, and pick them up the next day.

The workers line up these pumpkins along the drive rows (the paths in the fields where the tractor will travel). Then they drive through the fields with the tractor, pulling a flat-bed trailer full of large cardboard bins. (They don’t harvest pumpkins in rainy weather because the rain causes the bins to get wet and fall apart.)

They pick the best pumpkins, with the best stems. Some may weigh 25 pounds or more. Workers on the ground toss pumpkins up to workers on the trailer, who fill the bins with 40 or more pumpkins per bin.

Once the bins are full, the workers take the pumpkins to the grower’s warehouse. The same day or the next, other workers driving forklifts load the bins into tractor-trailers to go to wholesalers, who distribute them by truck to individual retail stores.

When the pumpkins arrive at the grocery store, they are unloaded and arranged at the front of the store to attract customers.

To choose the right pumpkin, look for one with a flat surface without bumps so you can cut into it. Very carefully load the pumpkin into the car. Wrap a seatbelt around it like a small child to transport it home. Bring the pumpkin into the house and put it at the center of the dining room table to await the arrival of Halloween.

Carve the pumpkin on Halloween Day. Clean off the dining room table and lay down newspaper. Set out a large bowl, a large metal spoon, and a large cutting knife.

Before you start cutting, decide what you will do with the pumpkin after Halloween. If you plan to eat it, or to recycle it at a wildlife center that will feed it to raccoons and opossums, don’t draw on it with a pen, pencil, marker, or anything else. Free-cut it – and be careful. You don’t get a redo.

First, cut inward at an angle around the top of the pumpkin, holding onto the stem. Then pull the stem and the top upward to make the lid. Using the spoon, scoop the pumpkin flesh and seeds into the bowl. Then dig into the pumpkin to remove all of flesh and seeds.

Now inspect the pumpkin and decide where to cut into its body to make the eyes, nose, and mouth. Cut inward at an angle, and put the pieces you’ve removed into the bowl.

Now you have your jack-o'-lantern. As the sun goes down, use a non-drip wax candle that you can reuse the next year. The wax is not good for the raccoons and opossums.

An average-sized pumpkin contains a cup of seeds. Pumpkin seeds can be eaten, dried or roasted. Many people like them – and so do birds and squirrels.

The first Halloween I carved my own jack-o'-lantern, we had a second full moon of the month – a relatively uncommon event called a blue moon.

The next day we carefully loaded the jack-o'-lantern into the car with a seatbelt again. At the wildlife center, our jack-o'-lantern joined a table full of others waiting to be animal food.

Moonlit Hunt

Flash fiction

By J. M. Silverleaf

Silvery waves shimmer on the night breeze.

A silhouette appears on the rocky shore, splayed claws that rip and rend, long snout upturned toward the bright full moon.

The branch creaks beneath my weight, heightening my fear, pine-scented.

A snort. The head turns.

Cold fear trickles down my spine.

Run!

Pumpkin Hollow

By Pamela Kinney

Rotting jack-o-lanterns and dead corn stalks appeared in a field overgrown with weeds. A silent, tall figure parted the middle of the stalks and stepped out. It was a scarecrow. It held a large black and orange envelope with writing slashed on it and a stamp with a jack-o-lantern in one gloved hand. The scarecrow tossed it into the air, and a sudden tornado of wind snatched the envelope and swooshed it away. The heavy, lingering scent of pumpkin spice, chocolate, and dying autumn leaves remained, but within seconds, that too disappeared like a specter. The scarecrow and the field faded, leaving behind only mocking laughter filling the air.

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After doing her usual 2-mile run, Penny made a stop to pick up her mail before heading indoors into her apartment. One envelope caught her eye. It wasn’t because the envelope was black and orange, though that did stand out among the plain white ones, most of those being bills. Or that it was bigger than the rest. No, she thought she detected a scent from it, mixing with the cool late October air; dying autumn leaves, pumpkin spice, and chocolate candy. Then it was gone, like a distant memory.

She unlocked the door to her apartment and stepped inside, hitting the light switch to light up the living room. She dumped the mail on the coffee table, shrugged off her jacket, and tossed her keys onto the couch. The mysterious piece of mail held her interest more than rubbing her aching feet or taking a shower.

She slit the envelope open with a fingernail and withdrew a single orange card with black words. Each letter raised from the cardstock, reminding her of shiny black oil.

Come out to Pumpkin Hollow, Virginia on All Hallows Eve to enjoy a Halloween festival and a special haunt in a cornfield on the edge of town. It all begins at five o’clock and ends at midnight. See you October 31st.

Penny frowned. I never heard of Pumpkin Hollow, and I’ve lived in Virginia all my life.

The card had directions to the town, with GPS coordinates too. It appeared to be in Nelson County, a couple of hours away. No website link or phone number to call for information.

Really? In this day and age, for any company or town to not have a website or even a phone number for any questions?

Penny enjoyed Halloween and loved being scared visiting the haunts that popped up everywhere beginning in September. But she had no wish to drive to a town she never heard of even for some Halloween celebration. There were places closer to home here in Richmond. She didn’t toss it in the trash. Unable to let go of the card, she sat down on the couch and stared at it in her hand.

Something about it. Something called her. Just something….

She took her cell phone from her purse and tapped a phone number. Her friend, Chris Thompson, picked up.

His sleepy male voice drawled from the other end. What’s up, Penny?

She smiled. He always had that ability to do make her feel good. Penny had been friends with the charming oaf since middle school. They both worked at Capitol One.

You want to check out a new haunt on Halloween, Chris?

I thought we got them all and agreed on doing King’s Dominion’s Halloween Haunt?

Penny picked up the card, staring at it. That was before I got this invitation in the mail for a Halloween celebration that includes a special haunt in Pumpkin Hollow.

Where? Pumpkin what?

A town called Pumpkin Hollow. It will have a Halloween festival and haunt. The directions came with the invitation. The town is about two hours away, in Nelson County. I never heard of it either, not until today.

Must be a one-horse town if neither of us heard of it. The haunt probably is a bunch of local kids from the town’s only church who will dress up in Party City costume rejects and hide in some cornfield maze.

The card slipped from her hand to land back on the pile of mail on the coffee table. The card’s earlier scent reappeared, stronger this time, and wafted to her nose. Determination rose in her breast.

Chris, I’m doing it. I’m going to call Lynda and Judi and see if they will do it too. Are you in or out? Perhaps that odor meant to seduce her to want to go; it succeeded. Elation filled her with a fever pitch.

Well….

Look, she said, exasperated, if nothing else, we can leave early enough to stop for lunch somewhere and maybe if there’s enough time, we can stop at some farm or farmer’s market to pick apples. The leaves will have all turned and the colors will be gorgeous. I know it may not even be in the same class as King’s Dominion, but I got this crazy feeling it will be a night that we won’t forget. I don’t know why, but I do.

All right. I’m in. Can I bring my new girlfriend, Annie?

Sure.

Well, gotta go, so I can call her. And Penny.

Yes?

I’ll drive us there in my SUV, your car is tiny.

Thanks.

He hung up. She made two calls, one right away to Judi Manitoc, the other, thirty minutes later to Lynda Thompson who wouldn’t get home until then. When Penny had gotten ahold of both women, they agreed to go. Of course, they would. Like Chris, she knew them since middle school,

they, her, and Chris, all Halloween fanatics. A town none of them never heard of, its name sounding very Samhain, with a haunt it would be holding on Halloween. It called to their little orange and black hearts.

Just as she headed to the kitchen to make her dinner, her cell rang. It was Annie Sanders, Chris’s new girlfriend.

Annie here.

I know.

The other woman sounded puzzled. Wait. How did you…

Caller ID.

Oh, yeah, I’d forgotten about that. Anyhow, calling to tell you, I am going. Chris knows I am not into that scary gore stuff, but…he is cute. She giggled. Gotta go. See you Halloween morning.

Once the call ended, Penny noticed that her phone needed charging. Once it had been plugged in, she made it to the kitchen this time without interruption.

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Her head hit her pillow, and once Penny fell into the realm of Nod, she dreamed. She found herself in a field of pumpkins. Not pumpkins, as all had faces carved in their orange flesh. Grinning faces, evil sneers, laughing ones, every kind of expression she could imagine. Penny stopped over to pick up one small, white jack-o-lantern. It looked like it asleep when suddenly, it popped its eyes open. She yelped, almost dropping the little squash.

Hey, Penny, we’re waiting for you. We’ve been waiting for you, and your friends, for a long, long time. Five of us would like to leave this cursed land.

Shaken, she dropped the pumpkin. It hit the ground with a hard thud. It managed to roll over to reveal a smashed-in face with one eye melding with the other one, its mouth molding at one end to give it a nasty sneer.

Do you think this is only a nightmare? said the jack-o-lantern. Well, guess what? It’s not! We can’t wait for you to get here.

A stream of black shadow rose from the pumpkin’s openings, high and higher until it was the same height as her face. Her heart jerked, and her palmed sweated as she saw two red eyes in the middle of the darkness before it rose higher into the sky, cruel laughter erupting from it.

Penny sat up with a shriek. Her heart sledgehammered against her chest, and her nightgown, sheet, and blanket had glued to her sweaty body. She couldn’t remember the nightmare, but fear from it still held her in its grip. Still shaking, she tumbled out of bed and ran to the bathroom, where she kneeled before the toilet and threw up. Finally, her stomach emptied, and with the shakes gone, she sat there for a while before she got off the linoleum to tear off her wet clothing and toss it in the dirty clothes hamper. After a shower, she made it back to bed, where she drifted off, but this time nothing haunted her dreams.

The next morning, Halloween began cool and crisp. Nestled in her jacket, Penny only took her wallet, house key; a few more needed things she’d tucked in the pockets of her cargo jeans. A few minutes later, a black SUV rolled to a stop alongside the curb. Chris was driving, Annie sat in the passenger seat beside him. Lynda and Judi huddled in the backseat. They all tumbled out of the vehicle as Penny stretched, tested her door one last time to make sure it was truly locked, and jogged over to join them.

Ready to go? asked Chris with a grin.

Definitely.

Well, get in, said Judi, I didn’t have breakfast and I’m hungry.

Lynda gave her a look of affection. You’re always hungry, even if you’ve already eaten.

Yeah, well, it’s true, I’m starving.

Everyone popped inside the vehicle and Chris started the engine. He guided the vehicle into the street but jammed on the brakes, locking the tires, just as a speeding car streaked at them. At the last minute, it