The Demon Pumpkin
A short horror story. The Halloween from hell.
The roots of the pumpkin plant reached far deeper than the rest of the pumpkins in the field. Every day, its roots stretched deeper, almost desperate to reach their destination. Until they did. And the devil gingerly touched the eager root ends with his trident.
His mere touch sent a sizzle firing back up the roots, and finally to the pumpkin, which burst into the air and plopped back heavily to the dirt, glowing with a brilliant orange light.
The glow faded quickly. And then began the wait for harvest time and All Hallows’ Eve.
The day before Halloween, a newly widowed dad and his six-year-old son, Sam, picked the pumpkin out of all the others in the farmer's patch. Something just drew them to it.
They brought it home, talked about how they missed Mom, cleaned out the pumpkin guts, and carved a friendly smiling clown face into its side.
In the middle of the night, an exhausted Dad heard something moving beside the bed.
“Dad, I can’t sleep,” he heard someone say. The voice sounded muffled and distant.
The full moon shined through the cracks in the blinds enough to provide a little light. Dad opened his tired eyes to the jarring sight of the jack-o’-lantern floating a foot in front of him, right at eye level. A vicious scowl had replaced the friendly carved face. The utter shock made him lurch up in the bed.
A voice inside the pumpkin spoke again.
“Dad, I can’t sleep with this on my head.”
Dad flipped on the lamp on the bedside table.
His son stood beside the bed, his head inserted into the pumpkin from the bottom. Orange pumpkin flesh dotted his shoulders and T-shirt. He had the carving knife in his hand.
He could just make out his son’s face through the slits of the carved scowl and eye holes.
I would swear we carved a happy face on this thing.
“Son, what in the world are you doing with that on your head? And hand me that knife, please.”
“He told me to do it.”
Still trying to take in such a bizarre scene, Dad’s head jerked at his son’s comment?
“Who told you to do what?”
“He told me how to carve the bottom out and put it on my head. He stopped talking to me after I did what he asked.”
Dad didn’t know if that was good or bad.
“Now I hear him inside my head.”
Bad, definitely bad.
“He said to not take it off. It’s hard to sleep with it on though.”
Dad climbed out of bed and kneeled next to his boy, grabbing the knife. For an instance, there seemed to be something…something resisting giving up the knife. It passed so quickly that it may have been his imagination.
“Let’s get this thing off your head, son. What a mess, kiddo.”
“But he said…”
Dad ignored him and yanked at the pumpkin.
“OWWW, DAD,” shrieked Sam. “That hurts. A lot.”
Dad looked at Sam, confused.
“He told me it would hurt if you tried to take it off, Dad.”
Confusion began to give way to worry.
“Who, Sam? Who?” asked Dad as he examined the pumpkin, looking for some way to get it off his son’s head, desperation just beginning to creep in.
“The pumpkin, Dad.”
Dad really focused on the pumpkin, not absorbing Sam’s last words. The facial expression had definitely changed. It looked undeniably angry.
“Is this our pumpkin, buddy?”
The next words came straight from the jagged mouth of the jack-o’-lantern.
“Sam’s mine now. He’s coming with me.”
Dad stumbled backward against the bed, staring dumbfounded at the talking pumpkin settled on his young son’s shoulders.
“If you try to take me off, I will suffocate him right in front of you.”
Dad’s jaw dropped and his heart started to race.
“We are leaving,” said the pumpkin, matter-of-factly.
The pumpkin seemed to be controlling Sam’s movements now. The boy walked toward the bedroom’s porch door which led outside to the deck.
Dad jumped up and grabbed Sam.
“He’s not going anywhere.”
As soon as Dad’s hand touched Sam’s shoulder, Sam let out a pained screech.
“OWWWW. HE’S HURTING ME, DAD. LET GO.”
Dad dropped his hand but had no intention of letting this thing take his son anywhere.
“WE ARE LEAVING.” yelled the pumpkin as Sam opened the door and stepped outside.
The boy seemed not in control of his own movements and tripped over a dead potted plant that hadn’t been watered since Mom died.
As the pumpkin yelled at Sam to rise, the moonlit sky opened and rain began to fall in fat drops, getting heavier quickly.
The rain appeared to slow down the pumpkin a bit and for the first time since it started talking, he heard the sweet sound of his son’s voice again. Over the pouring rain, his son yelled “I DON’T THINK IT LIKES THE RAIN, DAD. IT’S GOTTEN QUIETER IN MY HEAD.”
On a hunch, Dad tried to yank the pumpkin off Sam’s head again.
“OWWW, STOP, DAD,” shouted Sam.
Dad stopped, frustrated, and terrified.
Sam grabbed his hand hard though and pulled him down close to the pumpkin’s carved mouth.
“Dad,” he said, loud enough to be heard over the rain, but not shouting now.
“It hurt less.”
Sam squeezed Dad’s hand tighter now.
“It’s because the rain is coming from heaven, Dad.”
And barely loud enough for Dad to hear him, Sam murmured, “I think Mom told God we needed help.”
Thunder now roared overhead and lightning bolts crashed across the sky high above the house.
The pumpkin’s face screamed something that Dad could not understand, like some ancient curse words.
Dad stared at his son for a second, thinking. He noticed a gutter overflowing from the deluge. He picked up Sam and ran under the gutter. He sat Sam down on the ground directly underneath the overspill.
“HANG ON, BUDDY,” Dad roared. “I’M GOING TO GET THIS THING OFF YOU. HOLD YOUR BREATH IF YOU HAVE TO.”
The gutter dunked a continuous waterfall over the pumpkin and Sam’s head. The horrid carved mouth erupted in a raspy howl. A howl of pain. Dad let the rainwater cascade over the creature for as long as his patience allowed. Then he yelled to Sam.
“ARE YOU OKAY, BUDDY?”
Sam nodded firmly, the pumpkin bouncing back and forth with the nod.
“HOLD ON, SAM.”
The gutter was still spilling on Sam’s head as Dad gripped the base of the pumpkin with frantic determination and pulled up. Hard.
The pumpkin came off Sam’s head with a wet thoop. Sam’s face had never looked so relieved.
No hesitation from Dad. No time to celebrate.
“Stay here, buddy,” Dad said and sprinted with the demon pumpkin all the way to the back of the yard. He stopped at the stack of firewood and dropped it on the stump he used to chop wood.
Then he grabbed his ax that leaned against a nearby tree.
The pumpkin seemed to gather one more bundle of energy and screamed.
“PUT ME ON YOUR HEAD.”
“Fuck you,” muttered Dad, as he raised the ax high over his head. He brought it down with all his might, again and again and again.
Even over the storm, Dad heard an audible sigh as a gray mist seeped from the broken gourd and dissipated into the rainy night sky.
Dad kept chopping. As the bits of pumpkin sprayed all over, a lone seed flew out of the orange mess and rolled through the grass. It kept rolling as Dad finishing chopping and stomping the mass to bits.
Dad rushed back to Sam and hugged him tight as the rain eased, then ceased, and the wet sky began to clear.
“It’s okay, buddy. It’s over.”
The next morning, Dad made sure to take the pumpkin guts — seeds and flesh — out of the kitchen trash can and feed them directly into the sink’s disposal, comforted by the harsh grinding sound.
Late the next spring, in the woods behinds the house, the wandering seed germinated and, as the tiny pumpkin plant grew, its roots searched deeper and deeper.