Halloween Story: The Pumpkin Patch

The Pumpkin Patch

It was uncommonly mild for the end of October.  The summer had been longer and hotter than in past years.  The rains had been few and far between.  The harvest had suffered from the strange weather.  The corn had been stunted, and the kernels sparse on the cobs.  The tomatoes, too, had been uncommonly small, and there had been few of them, although the plants that had survived until the gentler, moister weather of September had blossomed again, and had yielded a small crop of late fruit. 

I rummaged through the closet in the spare bedroom.  I pushed aside bits of filmy, gossamer stuff, and gaudy, sequined monstrosities,  Fur, feathers, felt, and fringe, all passed by in the search for the one costume I knew was in there.  Finally, I found it!

I pulled on the long, flowing gown of emerald silk, and carefully tightened the side laces until the bodice was smooth, even, and just a bit more than modestly tight across my chest.  I finally had a chest worth the dress, and I was going to show it off a bit, since my parents had left early for the Halloween party at the Masonic Lodge, and would return late.  My little sister, Penny, was trick-or-treating with her best friend, Michelle, and was staying the night at Michelle’s house, so I’d got out of babysitting.  I was going out with my own friends, for a change.  Roger was going with us, and this costume might just get him to notice me at last.

I tied the gold kirtle over the skirt of the gown.  It was one of those filmy things I’d ignored before, but now I decided it would be perfect.  It was open in the front, so the shimmering emerald showed through.  The green gown was cut high in the front, skimming my knees, and the shimmery gold overskirt went to the floor, framing my legs and the glittering gold shoes I slipped onto my feet.

I wobbled slightly.  I wasn’t used to wearing heels, but these weren’t too thin, so I got my balance quickly enough.  I walked around the bedroom, just to make sure I could.  I didn’t want to fall on my face in front of Roger!

It took time to braid and twist my hair up the way I wanted it, with the strings of gold and green beads woven into the braids, but I finally had a crown of dark hair and sparkling gems on top of my head, with just a few locks hanging free at the back of my neck, and a few framing my face.  My smallest curling iron soon turned those into tight spirals.  Admiring the effect, I added a pair of fake emerald earrings that sparkled as I turned my head, and a matching necklace, heavy with the glass gems and shiny golden settings, with a large, gold cross hanging from the middle, the end of it just nestling in the top of the cleavage at the top of the dress.  That would get Roger’s attention.

I was ready when the car pulled into the driveway.  Johnny’s mom was going to drop us off at the big party out at Harmond’s Orchard.  They were being all politically correct by calling it a Harvest Festival, but there hadn’t been much of a harvest, and everyone was going in costume.  It was really a Halloween party, and we all knew it.

“Hey, Deb!” Johnny called from the passenger window as I navigated the gravel driveway in my heels.  I saw Carly squeezed in between him and his mom in the front seat, predictably wearing a black witchy hat. 

“Hey, Johnny!”  I called back, making my way to the car.  Thankfully, I managed it without a wobble.  Maybe the heels would be okay.

The back door on my side opened, and Roger climbed out.

“Oh my God!”  I thought, feeling my skin flush.  “He looks gorgeous!”

“Squeeze in the middle, Deb,” Roger said, offering me a hand getting in. 

I gulped.  He was dressed as a Greek god, with a pleated white tunic that fell to his knees and covered only half his chest.  The hand he held out was attached to an arm that was completely bare, except for a shiny gold cuff around his upper arm.  As I reached to take his hand, I saw that he wore a gold belt and gold sandals that laced up his calves.  I looked up at his face, and barely noticed the wreath of gilded laurel leaves crowning his dark brown curls above his impossibly blue eyes.

“Okay?” he asked, guiding me to the door.

“Yeah, thanks,” I replied.  “Great costume.”

“Thanks,” he returned, tucking my skirt in around my legs as I scootched over close to Eddie, who already had Jenny, dressed this year as Little Red Riding Hood, perched on his lap. 

“Hi, Deb!” the girls greeted me in unison.

“Hi Carly.  Hi, Jenny,” I replied.  “Hey, Eddie.  Hi, Mrs. Edwards!”

“Happy Halloween, Debbie,” Mrs. Edwards greeted me cheerfully, as Roger climbed into the tightly-packed back seat, slammed the door, and slipped his arm casually around my shoulders.  I shivered.

All the way to the party, Johnny and Roger teased Eddie about his costume.  It was hard to see him in the dark car, but I gathered from the teasing that he was wearing a sharp, black suit; crisp, white shirt; smart, black tie; shiny, black shoes, and a pair of dark Ray-Bans. 

“What?” Eddie asked, deadpan.  “Look out, aliens!”  He pulled a gadget out of his pocket and flashed a light in Roger’s face.  “Now you won’t remember you ever saw me.”

We all laughed at the movie reference, but Mrs. Edwards said, “Not in the car, Eddie.  I can’t see the road when you flash that.”

“Sorry, Mrs. Edwards,” Eddie apologized, sticking the gadget back in his inside breast pocket.

We got to the orchard just a few minutes later, and Mrs. Edwards dropped us off.

“It’s just after six now,” Mrs. Edwards told us.  “I’ll be here to pick you up right at ten.  Does anyone have a watch?”

“I do, Ma’am,” said Eddie, showing her the watch on his left wrist.

“Okay, good,” she said.  “No excuse for being late, then.  Stay together, have fun, and behave yourselves!”  She waved as she pulled out of the parking area.

“What’re you s’posed t’ be?”  Roger asked, looking curiously at Johnnie.

“It was Mom’s idea,” Johnny sighed.  “Think she got it all at the Salvation Army.  She said I’m s’posta be a farmer.”

“More like a scarecrow!” Roger replied, nearly doubling over with laughter.

Poor Johnny did look a bit like a scarecrow, and his recent growth spurt really didn’t help.  His gangly, too-tall frame was clothed in a faded, red, flannel shirt, open at the neck; a pair of bib overalls, to which his mom had sewn several square patches of mismatched, brightly colored fabric, with large, colorful stitches; a pair of worn, leather work boots; blue-and-white checked bandana, tied around his neck, and tucked into the front of his shirt; and a wide-brimmed straw hat, hit a high, slightly crumpled crown. 

“All he’s missing’s a pair of leather gloves and so0me wisps of straw,” I thought, sympathetically.

From his overalls pocket, he pulled a pair of worm, leather work gloves, and pulled them on.  I couldn’t help giggling.  All the others laughed, too. 

“Yeah, whatever,” Johnny sighed, sounding defeated. 

“C’mon, Farmer Brown!” Jenny said gaily, grabbing his arm.  “Let’s go inside.”

Johnny and Jenny led the way inside.  Roger offered an arm each to Carly and me; I got the arm that was draped in white linen, while she wrapped both hands around his bare right arm.  I eyed her short-short, black skirt, flounced out by several layers of netting underneath, and covered with a shimmery, purple spider’s web, complete with a furry, black, plush spider at her waist.  I felt my lips draw into a pout as Roger drew us along behind the Scarecrow and Red Riding Hood.  Eddie, looking like Tommy Lee Jones.

Inside, the huge warehouse and packing area of the orchard had been turned into a Halloween Wonderland.  Spinning strobes and black-lights flashed across walls draped in orange and black crepe paper and huge, whitish spider-webs.  Skeletons and gravestones lined the wall, and clustered in the corners, between stunted, blacked, leafless trees.  Dozens of large, black bats swung from the ceiling, moving slightly in the breeze from industrial-strength ceiling fans, around which they were carefully spaced.  Above the abundantly full refreshment table, groaning under its load of cakes, cookies, and candy apples, several large, hairy spiders hung waiting in the webs that were strung there.  At the end of the table, a fake fire “burned” with fluttering bits of orange streamers above glowing, red, electric coals amid the logs.  In the middle of the fire was an enormous, black cauldron, as tall as the table on its own, but raised up on a wooden platform created by the logs.  The cups piled next to it at the end of the table identified the cauldron as the punch bowl.

The room was already packed with kids from the high school. In the eighth grade, we were almost the youngest kids at the party.  The scared seventh grade kids huddled in small groups near the walls.  I remembered feeling like that, but I’d grown a little taller over the summer, and I’d filled out.  Johnny, Roger, and Eddie had all grown, too, so they were taller than Carly, Jenny, and me.  This year, we weren’t scared.  This year, we were going to have fun.

The six of did stay together, but more because we were best friends than because Mrs.  Edwards had told us to.  Roger danced with Jenny, Johnny danced with Carly, and I danced with Eddie.  When the music changed, we switched around, and I danced with Johnny.  I finally got to dance with Roger, and it was a slow dance.  I laced my fingers together behind his neck, he put his arms around my ribs, and we swayed with the music.  I felt his chest against mine.  When I looked into his eyes, he smiled at me.  His eyes were so blue.  I wanted to get lost in his eyes, but all I found there was … nothing but a friend.  I sighed, and the music changed.

Eddie grabbed us each by the arm.  The others were close beside him.  They looked nervous.

“Let’s get outta here,” Eddie urged.

“An’ go where?” Roger demanded.

“Out that door at the back,” Eddie said, nodding toward a door at the far end of the large room.  It was ajar, and I could see the evening twilight through the gap.

“We’re s’posta stay here,” Jenny said nervously.

“Mom said t’ stay outta trouble,” Johnny agreed, holding her hand.

“Aw, c’mon,” Eddie urged.  “We won’t go far.  Just go see if they got all the punkins in yet.”

Half excited and half reluctant, we followed Eddie, pretending to dance as we skirted the edge of the loud, hot, crowded room.  We reached the door at last.  We all paused, looking out for chaperones, and then we slipped out the door, one by one.  Eddie went first, then Jenny, then Carly.  Roger followed me out, and Johnny slipped out last.

“Better get away from the door,” Johnny gasped, looking scared.  “I think Mr. Jenkins mighta seen me.”

We all followed as Eddie grabbed Jenny’s hand, and led her across the hard-packed dirt service road behind the old, barb-board warehouse, and in under the craggy, skeletal apple trees.  Roger held my hand to help me along, but I was too nervous to feel hopeful about it.

We hurried under a dozen or so rows of apple trees, and then came out on the other side, where the ground was bare, but hardly flat.  Mounds of shriveled vines, and wilted leaves lay in lumpy rows, between narrow bands of lower, flatter, dirt paths.  The Halloween moon was just rising in the lavender twilight sky, and the shadows were deep and dark.

“Let’s go!” Eddie called back, already three rows away.  Jenny and Carly giggled nervously as they clambered over the remains of the harvest after him.

“They never get ’em all!” Eddie added.  “Let’s find a punkin!”

What was I doing, walking through the pumpkin patch on Halloween Night?  I thought it should be safe enough, with my best friends right there with me, so I grabbed Roger and Johnny by the hands, and tugged them along with me.

“Might as well,” Roger assented.

“Guess so,” Johnny agreed.

I’d been wrong about the heels.  They were fine while I was swaying in Roger’s arms, but they definitely weren’t okay for climbing through a dark field.  I wobbled and tottered with every step.  Roger kept a good hold on my hand to help me, and twice he caught me around the waist to keep me from falling face-first into a pile of half-rotten leaves.  Johnny was helping Carly.  She was having similar problems with her tall, spiky heels, but at least her high, leather witchy boots weren’t slipping off her feet.  Jenny, dressed as Little Red Riding Hood was wearing a shiny pair of black patent Mary Janes, with no heels to speak of.  She and Eddie were way ahead of the rest of us.

“Hey, wait up!” Carly cried after them.

Laughing, Jenny called back, “c’mon, catch up!”

This was not the Halloween adventure I’d been looking forward to.  I’d been expecting to dance with Roger, and have him get me a cup of punch, and, hopefully, get him to actually notice me.  Instead, we were stumbling in the dirt.  My skirts were a filthy mess, and even Jenny’s shorter-than-short skirt had smears of dirt on it.  Roger’s adorable Grecian tunic wasn’t doing much better, and Johnny had managed to add those missing wisps of straw to his now-grubby overalls.  At least Roger was holding my hand, and being very gallant, even if there wasn’t a scrap of romance in it anywhere.

“Jenny, let’s go back,” Carly shouted.

“Yeah, c’mon, Jenny,” I added.  “’Nough’s enough!”

“What’s wrong with you two?” Jenny demanded, stopping a good ways ahead of us.  “Thought’cha wanted t’ have a good time!”

“Yeah!” I agreed.  “This isn’t it!”

“Seriously, Eddie,” Roger added.  “The girls can’t make it!”

Carly and I looked at each other, and then stared daggers at Roger, but he didn’t see it in the deepening darkness.

I thought they might give in, when I saw Eddie grab Jenny’s hand and move back our way.  They probably would’ve gone back, and things started to look better, until the ground started to tremble.

“What the heck?!” Johnny shouted, grabbing Carly around the waist to keep her from falling.  I slipped out of my shiny, gold shoes, and stumbled against Roger’s bare chest.  Under other circumstances, the arm he instantly wrapped around my waist would have given me goose bumps, but the strange, creaky scream that came from a larger than average pile of wilted leaves and shriveled vines a few feet to his left got there first.  Goose bumps covered my arms, and a shiver ran up my spine.

Johnny and Carly were only a few feet the other direction, and we stumbled toward them.  We reached them just as the ground shook again, knocking all four of us to the ground.  We landed in a pile, Roger and Johnny on top of Carly and me, shielding us from the clods of dirt that rained down.

I could hear Jenny screaming, about 20 feet away from us.  She sounded terrified.  With Roger’s shoulder blocking my view, I couldn’t see what was making her scream.

“Sorry,” Roger muttered, raising himself up on his forearms.  His weight on top of me was comforting at that moment.  “You okay?” 

“Uh huh,” I managed.  It wasn’t the moment to let myself look in his eyes again.  I placed my grubby palms against his chest, and shoved gently.  He cooperated, and rolled off me, and then helped me sit up.

“You guys okay?” Johnny asked, crouching beside us.  Carly clung to his left forearm with both hands.  Her witch hat was missing.

“Yeah,” Roger muttered, straining to see in the darkness.  We were way too far from the apple barn and the parking area for any of the floodlights there to help us at all.  “Eddie!  What’s wrong with Jenny?” he shouted.

“I dunno!” Eddie called back.  “Think maybe she’s just in shock or somethin’.”

“We can’t see a thing,” Johnny shouted.  “It’s too dark!”

“Yeah, hang tight.  We’re comin’ your way,” Eddie called. 

I saw the flash of Eddie’s little gadget illuminate several yards of dirt in front of him and Jenny, and then I heard them scrambling toward us.  It sounded like Jenny was crying, since she’d stopped screaming.

The flash of light lit up another patch of dirt, closer to us.  “Over this way,” Roger called.

“Right,” Eddie replied, and we heard more scrambling.  It sounded like they were crawling, more than trying to walk.  Jenny’s hysterical sobs got louder.

After one more flash, and more sounds of scrambling, Jenny literally fell across Carly’s and my laps, and Eddie scooted in close behind her.  Carly and I patted and soothed Jenny until her sobs stopped, and she sat up.  Eddie flashed his light at the three of us, and the sudden brilliance blinded me for a minute, so I couldn’t even see the moon.

“Everyone looks okay,” Eddie remarked, sounding relieved.

“Yeah,” Roger and Johnny both muttered.

“Let’s get back,” Roger said.  “Eddie, what time is it?”

Eddie flashed the light on his watch.  Expecting it this time, I looked away.

“Holy crap!” Eddie exclaimed.  It’s already nine-twelve.  We gotta hurry.”

“Mom’s gonna kill us,” Johnny muttered, helping Carly to her feet.  Roger helped me up, and Jenny, clinging to Carly and me, followed us up.  Eddie put his hands on her waist, from behind, to steady her, but Jenny turned and latched onto Johnny, instead.

“Fine, whatever,” Eddie muttered, clearly a bit peeved.

We all started back across the mounded rows, but we hadn’t gone far when the earth shook again.  We all clung to each other, and just barely managed to keep our feet.

“What in ….” Johnny’s exclamation trailed off.

“Aftershocks?” Carly ventured.

Then the strangest thing of the whole night happened.

“Hey!” piped a small, shrill voice from several yards away, in the direction, so far as I could tell, of the explosion of earth.  “Hey, have you seen my brothers?”

Jenny, still a bit hysterical, started screaming again.  Johnny had to wrap his long, gangly arms around her to keep her from climbing up him like a scared cat climbing a tree.  She screamed again, and then collapsed, sobbing hysterically, against his chest.  He quickly got his left arm behind her legs, and scooped her up in his arms, holding her like a baby.

“Good thing you’re so small,” he muttered against the red hood that still covered her curly, blonde hair.

Before the rest of us could do more than gape at Johnny and Jenny in the pale moonlight, which had become noticeably brighter in the last few minutes, the piping voice spoke again, from maybe five yards away.

“Where’d they all go?  I fell asleep, and now they’re gone.”  The shrill little voice sounded worried.

Eddie flashed his light in the direction of the voice.

“Hey!” it piped, indignantly.

We all gasped, except Jenny, who was sobbing into Johnny’s bandana.

Eddie flashed the light again.  The voice had been only about ten feet away that time. 

“Stop that!” the voice yelled, sounding really annoyed.  It was only a yard away from Eddie now.

We all burst into laughter.  I couldn’t help myself.  The image was just too funny for anything else.

“Hey, Deb, does that gold part come off?” Eddie asked, a note of mischief in his voice.  Immediately, I had a similar thought.

Wordlessly, I untied the ribbon drawstring that held the shimmery gold kirtle over the skirt of my gown.  Feeling in front of me, I found Eddie’s suit sleeve, and then shoved the kirtle into his hands.  In the same moment, he put the flashy gadget it my hand.  We understood each other, as only best friends can.

“What’re you weirdos laughing at?” the piping voice demanded, right at our feet.  “Where are my broth…”

“Now!” Eddie said.

Before the voice could finish the word, I flashed the light at it, and Eddie, seeing it clearly, tossed my kirtle over it like a net, scooped it up, and held the ends of the kirtle tight in his fist, like the top of a sack.

Carly screamed, which set Jenny off again.  Roger and Johnny both shouted words that’re best not repeated.  Eddie scooped his free arm under the struggling bundle, supporting its weight against his chest.

“Ooh!” Carly squealed, excited, not scared.

Jenny stopped screaming and peered at Eddie, which gave Johnny a chance to set her back on her feet.  We all strained to look at the thing as it shrieked and screamed.

“Rog, can you get Deb an’ Carly okay?” Eddie asked.  “Kinda got my hands full!”

“Yea, I guess,” said Roger, a bit uncertainly.

“Let’s go,” said Eddie, leading the way with his noisy, squirming bundle.

We picked our way behind him, grateful for the increased moonlight.  Eddie managed to stay on his feet, and to keep hold of the bundle, which never stopped shrieking and screaming.  Roger and Johnny made sure Jenny, Carly, and I stayed on our feet, too.  I was relieved to see the skeletal branches of the apple trees at the edge of the pumpkin patch.

We passed under the trees without incident, aided by the flood lights mounted on the back of the apple barn.  As soon as we got across the road, we saw that the door we had used earlier was closed.

“Hafta go ’round,” said Johnny.  “Mom’s gonna freak!”

The apple barn seemed quiet, as we skirted around it toward the parking area.  I didn’t hear any sounds of kids or music.

“Crap,” I muttered.  Johnny was right.

When we got to the front of the apple barn, the security flood lights showed great mounds of undersized pumpkins for sale.  It showed big, red apples, cut from plywood, advertising apples by the peck or bushel, and fresh pies and donuts.  It also showed us one single, solitary, silvery-white station wagon, idling in front of the locked customer entrance.

We uttered a medley of unrepeatable words in unison.

The driver’s door opened, turning on the inside dome light, and we all saw the icy fury on Mrs. Edwards’ face before she stepped out of the car.

“Where the devil have you kids been?”  She spoke each word with icy clarity, without raising her voice.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” Johnny began.  “The earthquake….”

“Earthquake?” his mother cut him off sharply, turning paler than before.

“Yeah, Ms. Edwards,” Roger chimed in.  “It knocked us down, and….”

“What earthquake?”

We all froze, except for the squirming bundle, which had added spitting and hissing to its screaming and shrieking.

“What,” Mrs. Edwards asked, staring blankly at Eddie’s arms, “earthquake?”

I gulped.  A horrible thought occurred to me.

“Didn’t you feel it?” I asked, cautiously.

Suddenly, Mrs. Edwards’ expression changed.  I saw from her eyes that she finally saw how we all looked.  Her face turned red, then purple, and then drained to white again.

“I’ve been waiting here since quarter to ten,” she said.  “There was no earthquake.  There was a party, and there were lots of kids getting picked up right on time.  There were security guards checking the bathroom for six missing kids.  In five more minutes,” she paused and drew a breath, then let it out, “in five more minutes, I was going to walk over to that pay phone over there and call the cops.”

This was really bad. 

“Mrs. Edwards,” I asked, trying to sound very, very innocent, and fearing the answer, “how late are we, actually?”

She blew up.  “How late are you?” she shouted.  “How late?  Actually how late?” she put a horribly sarcastic twist into her voice.  “It is five minutes to MIDNIGHT!” she roared.

I felt about two inches tall, and knew we deserved being yelled at, because we’d snuck out of the party to go exploring.

Just then, her attention snapped back to Eddie’s bundle.

“Edward Joseph Carpenter,” she said with frightening calm. “What is that?”

We all shrank back from Eddie.  Middle names were a very, very bad sign with parents.  Especially when they weren’t your own parents.

“Uh, Mrs. Edwards,” Eddie began gamely, trying to sound coaxing, “we were gonna find out, just as soon’s we got it into th’ light, but we knew we were late, so we came t’ find you first.  We dunno what it is.”

With that, Eddie, way more bravely than I felt just then, stepped past Mrs. Edwards, into the brightest pool of harsh, white light.  The light fell in the center of a half-circle arc of mounded pumpkins, displayed for sale.

Mrs. Edwards whirled around to watch what he was doing, and we all pushed in close behind her, to see, too.

Eddie lowered the bundle to the ground as gently as its squirming allowed.  He pulled the kirtle away as he let it go, releasing the contents.

In the middle of my grubby, crumpled, gold kirtle lay what looked remarkably like a basketball, with green arms and legs, each with several long, spindly fingers or toes waving in the air.  As soon as it was free, and Eddie had dropped back a step, the thing stopped shrieking and screaming.  It wriggled and squirmed, until its legs were on the ground, and two large, round, yellow eyes were visible, just below the … stem?

The little creature, which looked like nothing so much as a cartoon pumpkin, stopped cold when its eyes found the mounds of pumpkins all around it.  Its eyes darted to the right, and then to the left.

“My brothers!” it cried, in its high, piping voice.  “My poor, dead brothers!  The Reaper came and took you all while I was asleep!”  Then it burst into tears.  We all stared at the creature, stunned.

Suddenly, it wobbled up onto its spindly, crooked legs, turned, and raced off into the darkness beyond the apple barn.  I heard its wailing sobs fade away into the distance.

It was several seconds before anyone moved.  Then, Mrs., Edwards said, “Debbie, get your skirt.  Everyone, in the car.”  She walked away, got into the driver’s seat, and slammed the door.  We all stared at each other in amazement for several seconds, and then rushed to do as we’d been told.

Mrs. Edwards took us all to her house that night.  She called all of our moms herself, and told them all there had been a little accident, but we were okay.  The next morning, she drove us home. 

We all missed school that day, but Mom said “a little accident” was worth a day in bed.  I stayed put for the whole day, grateful I had a phone extension in my room.  Mom went to work, so she didn’t hear me on the phone.  All of our moms had let us stay home, and we all practiced our story, until we all matched. 

There had been a little accident outside, after we’d left the party.  No one else from the party had been involved.  We were all fine.

I don’t think any of our moms wanted to know the truth, because no one asked for a single detail.  I think Mrs. Edwards wished she could forget the truth.  Some things are better not known, because they can’t be unremembered.