Halloween and Other Seasons

1

Jody Wendt, five years old, saw the Pumpkin Boy through the window over the kitchen sink, outlined against the huge rising moon like a silhouette against a white screen. Jody had climbed up onto the counter next to the basin to reach the cereal in an overhead cabinet. Now he stood transfixed with a box of corn flakes in his hands, mouth agape.

The Pumpkin Boy had a bright orange pumpkin head with cold night steam puffing out of the eyes, nose and mouth cutouts, and a body consisting of a bright metal barrel chest and jointed legs and arms that looked like stainless steel rails. Even through the closed window Jody could hear the creaking noises he made. He moved stiffly, like he was unused to walking: his feet were two flat ovoid pads, slightly rounded and raised on top, made of shiny metal. As Jody watched, one of the feet stuck in place in the muddy ground; the Pumpkin Boy, oblivious, walked on, and then toppled over with a sound like rusting machinery. He lay on the ground like a turtle on its back, making a hollow chuffing noise like Saaaafe, saaaafe, saaaafe. Then he slowly righted himself, rising to a sitting position and then turned slowly to search for his lost foot. Finding it, he fell forward and clawed his way toward it. He closed his hands around it. His head fell forward and hit the ground, rolling away from the body, and the hands immediately let go of the foot and grabbed the head, realigning it on the stilt body with a ffffffmp.

Then the foot was reattached to the leg and the Pumpkin Boy stood up with a groaning, complaining metal sound.

The Pumpkin Boy reached back down, creaking loudly, to pluck two fat organic pumpkins from Mr. Schwartz’s field that grew in back of Jody’s yard, and began to move off, away into the night.

“Wow…” Jody whispered against the window pane, making it fog. He quickly cleared it with the cuff of his shirt, and watched the Pumpkin Boy stiffly climb the fence that bordered Mr. Schwartz’s pumpkin patch from another behind it. In the process the Pumpkin Boy lost hold of one of the pumpkins he held but paid no heed.

“Wow…” Jody whispered again.

Jody was alone in the house; it was the half hour in-between-time when the afternoon sitter went home and his mother came home from her job in town.

He had been told repeatedly that he was not to leave the house during in-between-time.

The forgotten box of corn flakes lay spilling cereal into the kitchen sink as he climbed down, pushed his arms into his jacket and opened the door which led from the kitchen to the back yard.

As Jody Wendt stood on the top step of the back stoop, the storm door closing with a hiss-and-bang behind him, he saw the Pumpkin Boy once again outlined against the moon, but moving quickly away. He was already two fields over, and would soon drop behind the slope that led down to Martin’s Creek and the valley beyond.

Mouth still open in amazement, Jody was working at the zipper to his jacket, which wouldn’t zip. His feet were already carrying him down the steps, across the yard, to the split-log fence.

He dipped under the fence, forgetting the zipper, and stood in Mr. Schwartz’s pumpkin patch on the other side.

The Pumpkin Boy’s head was just visible, and then the slope down made him disappear.

Jody hurried on.

Mr. Schwartz’s pumpkin field was furrowed, bursting with fat vined pumpkins that would soon be picked and sold for Halloween. Jody tripped over the first row he came to, and landed on his hands.

He found himself face to face with a huge oval orange fruit, its skin hard and strong.

It looked like a human head.

Jody pushed himself up and stumbled on.

He fell twice more. But still, in the distance, he could hear the metallic creaking sounds of the Pumpkin Boy. There were two more fences to manage, one again of split logs, which Jody scooted under, and the other of chain link, which he climbed with difficulty.

He nearly toppled over when he reached the top, but then, in the distance, he saw an orange flash in the moonlight: the top of the Pumpkin Boy’s head. He held on and descended to the other side.

There was a rock wall, which Jody had never known existed, separating two more pumpkin fields.

Jody was now in unfamiliar territory. Even from his bedroom window, just before harvest, the fields surrounding his house were awash in taut orange fruit, and now, for the first time, he knew just how complicated the layout was.

At yet another rock wall he paused to look back. He could no longer see his house.

He heard a sharp metallic creak in the far distance, and hurried toward it.

The pumpkin field ended in a tangle of weeds and brambles and a ledge. Abruptly, Jody found himself teetering at the top of the slope. A tuft of brambles caught his foot and twisted his ankle and, with a short surprised gasp, he was tumbling down the damp, soft bank.

At the bottom, he came up short against an uprooted oak trunk, and came to a stop with one of its gnarled roots pointing into his face like an accusing finger.

He sat up, soiled and wet.

Suddenly, he realized what he had done.

He looked back, up the slope, and shuddered with the thought that, even if he could climb the steep incline, he would not be able to find his way back home through the tangle of pumpkin fields.

A quick, hot shiver of fear shot up his back.

But then: in front of him, like the sound of the pied piper’s flute, there came the creaking sound of the Pumpkin Boy moving. The pumpkin head flashed through the trees, and Jody forgot his fear. His wonder renewed, he stood and ran after it.

~ * ~

The moon was partially hidden by a thick tangle of trees on the far bank of Martin’s Creek, which made shafts of gray-white light on the ground. Jody splashed into the water before he knew it was in front of him. His hurt foot slid down nearly to his shin into icy tumbling water and lodged between two rocks.

Jody cried out in pain. For a moment he couldn’t move, and panicked—but then, suddenly, one of the stones upended in the water and rolled over, and he was free.

Now, both sneakers were in the water, and the slight current tugged at his legs.

He tried to turn around, but the water hurried him out further.

He sank another half foot.

The current was trying to make him sit down, which would bring his head under water.

He gave a weak cry as he lost his struggle—and then there was water in his mouth and he could see nothing but the blur of moving wetness.

Almost immediately, his body pressed up against something long, dark and solid, and his forward progress stopped.

It was a half-submerged log.

Jody clung to it, and slowly pulled himself up.

To his surprise, the creek was only two feet or so deep here; the whooshing sound of water angrily churning around the log filled his ears.

He held onto the dry part of the log, and coughed water out.

He wiped his eyes with one hand, and had another surprise: not only was the water shallow, it was not half as wide as it had been just a few yards up-creek.

Holding the log, he pushed his way through the shallow water to the far bank.

He sat down, and his eyes filled with sudden tears.

I want to go home, he thought.

He stared out at totally unfamiliar territory: the creek, he now saw, twisted and turned, and he could not make out the spot where he had descended the slope, which was nearly a hundred yards away, and impossibly wide. At the top of the ridge, reflected in moonlight, were the green-vined tops of a few elongated pumpkins.

He turned, and saw that the line of woods was close, and darker than it had looked from the other side of the creek.

The trees were nearly nude, a carpet of yellow and red fallen leaves at their bases looking light and dark gray in the moonlight.

A few late leaves pirouetted down as he watched.

Deep in the woods, he heard the Pumpkin Boy move.

Jody looked once again behind him, and then back at the woods.

He got painfully up and hobbled toward the trees.

~ * ~

It instantly became darker when he entered the woods, a grayer, more sporadic light.

Almost immediately, Jody lost his bearings.

There were many strange noises, which confused him. He thought he heard the Pumpkin Boy nearby, but the sound proved to be a partially broken oak branch, creaking on its artificial hinge. There were rustlings and stirrings. Something on four legs scuttled past him in the near distance, and stopped to stare at him—it looked like a red fox, bleached gray by the night.

Jody tried to retrace his steps, but only found himself deeper within the trees, which now all looked the same.

Jody’s ankle hurt, and he was beginning to shiver.

He stopped, even hushing his own frightened breathing, and listened for the Pumpkin Boy.

The sound of the Pumpkin Boy’s movement was completely gone.

A soft wind had arisen, and now leaves lifted from the forest floor, as if jerked alive by puppet strings.

It had turned colder—above, the moon was abruptly shielded by a gust of clouds.

The woods became very dark.

Jody sobbed again, stumbling forward, and stopped in a small clearing surrounded by tall oaks. Again he heard scurrying in front of him and felt something watching him.

The moon blinked out of the clouds, and Jody saw what was, indeed, a red fox, regarding him with wary interest.

The fox became suddenly alert. As the moon’s nightlight was stolen again by clouds, the animal bolted away, seeming to jump into the gray and then darkness.

Jody stood rooted to his spot, trying not to cry.

Something was out there.

Something large and dark.

The bed of leaves shifted with heavy, creaking steps.

Something ice cold and long and thin brushed along his face in the darkness.

“I want to go home!” Jody blurted out in fear and despair.

The cold air was suddenly steamed with warmth.

Cold braces closed around Jody’s middle from behind.

He shrieked, and wrenched his body around.

He was blinded by something larger and brighter than the moon—a face staring down at him made out of a jack o’lantern, warm wet fog pushing from its triangular eyes and nose and impossibly wide, smiling mouth. A slight, mechanical chuff issued along with the sour, oily-smelling steam.

The slender mechanical steel arms tightened around Jody.

He shrieked again, a mournful sound swallowed by the trees and close night around him.

As he was carried away he saw, as the moon broke forth from the clouds again, on the forest floor, caught in gray light, the smashed leavings of a dropped pumpkin.