The Pumpkin Man

CHAPTER

FIFTEEN

“Do you think they’ll find the house?” Jennica asked, washing a potato in the sink and then peeling it.

Kirstin looked up from the copy of Cosmo she’d picked up in the city a few days before. “Well, we found it. In the dark. And we’re not even from the area,” she pointed out.

“I guess,” Jenn agreed, tossing the spud in a pot and then picking up another. “Do you think they’ll come?”

Her friend snorted and stood. “You worry too much.” She laughed. “They liked us. They saw us naked, how could they not? They’ll be here. Just don’t fuck up the food, okay?”

Jenn rolled her eyes. “Could you find me something bigger?” She paused from peeling her current potato to point at the small pot already full past its brim. “This one’s just not going to work.”

“So make fewer potatoes,” Kirstin complained.

“Lazy-ass.”

“I’m looking, I’m looking.”

Kirstin opened the cabinet next to the stove and clanged a few pots together, but she didn’t pull anything out that was any bigger than the one Jenn already had. “Nothing here,” she announced, then pulled another cabinet open on the other side of the stove. Shrugging, she checked a deep-looking drawer at the end of the cabinetry, near the kitchen door that led to the backyard. It didn’t budge. Trying again, she noticed the black keyhole on the drawer’s upper lip.

“This one’s locked,” she said.

“Try one of the keys in that other drawer,” Jenn said, peeling another potato.

Kirstin rattled around until she came up with the key that had opened the door to the basement in Jenn’s bedroom. She tried it on the drawer, and the key turned. She smiled in silent victory, set the key on the counter and opened the drawer. And screamed.

Jennica dropped the potato in the sink and rushed to her friend’s side. Kirstin’s eyes bugged out as she stared at the deep wooden drawer’s contents. Jenn’s own eyes bulged as she looked over Kirstin’s shoulder.

“Whoa,” she whispered.

“Those are right here next to the stove,” Kirstin said. “Where we cook.”

“I’m pretty sure they’re dead,” Jennica answered. But that didn’t make either of them feel much better.

The empty black sockets of a dozen human skulls stared up at them from the bottom of the drawer. They were piled one on top of another, jawbones open and full of yellowed teeth. They were stripped of flesh but clearly real, dusky white with mottled yellow and gray.

“If you get them out of here, I’ll find you a bigger pot,” Kirstin promised.

“I could probably cook a few less potatoes,” Jenn answered.

Kirstin pushed the drawer shut, and they both stepped away. Her brow slanted as she looked at Jenn and asked, “Who keeps skulls in their kitchen?”

“I guess . . . my aunt?” Jenn shrugged. She tried to lighten the mood by adding, “Maybe they make good seasoning for stew.”

Kirstin punched her in the shoulder. “Gross!”

“So I shouldn’t try it out tonight?”

“No!” Kirstin yelled. “I don’t even want to eat anything that’s been cooked in here.”

“Gimme a break.” Jenn laughed and reached to pull the entire drawer out. It squealed open, and loose bits of teeth or vertebrae rattled in the bottom. The skulls leered up at her, but she gave the drawer a good hard tug and the whole thing came free to rest in her hands. She stumbled at the sudden weight.

“Get the door,” she said, and Kirstin quickly cleared the way to the backyard.

Jennica walked the drawer outside and down the four steps of the back porch to the yard, where she set it down in a flower bed. Then she went back inside.

“Um, what about the drawer?” Kirstin asked. “And should we call the police or something?”

Something inside of Jenn’s chest clenched, and an invisible voice in her head hissed, “No.”

She forced a laugh. “No, we’re not calling the police. I don’t think my aunt was murdering people and then boiling their heads. You can get real skulls through science catalogs. Maybe she ordered some that way. Don’t you remember? Matt Johnson in the science lab had a couple of them.”

In her heart, Jenn wondered if she was doing the right thing, but a part of her felt it would be disastrous to involve anyone else in whatever had gone on here. And whatever it was, it was long over now. Meredith had been dead for months.

“Anyway,” she said, “we’re not doing anything about the drawer right now. I’ve got dinner to finish. Eventually . . . well, I think we probably should bury them.” Yes. They were real skulls. She’d always thought it kind of sad, the ones on display in science lab. They deserved to be buried.

Kirstin grimaced. “I hate bones,” she said. “Especially skulls. They creep me out.”

“Well,” Jenn suggested sweetly, “why don’t you start cutting up some onions for the roast? That’ll take your mind off it.”

“I hate onions almost as much as skulls,” Kirstin complained. “They make my eyes puffy! Plus, I need to get ready. I’m not wearing this tonight.” She fingered her gray Old Navy T-shirt and frowned.

Jenn rolled her eyes and finished the dinner herself—as she had always known she would.

The knock at the door came an hour later. Kirstin answered, now clad in a tight-fitting pink half shirt that complemented her tan and managed to reveal cleavage on top and a belly button ring below. Low-riding jeans accentuated the effect.

Nick and Brian were waiting on the porch. Brian gave a whistle when he saw her.

“It’s nice to see you again, too.” She laughed as they both stepped inside and held out bottles of wine.

Jenn walked in. She’d not tried to compete with her roommate for tease appeal; she wore a loose orange T-shirt with the University of Illinois Chief Illiniwek Indian in a feathered headdress logo, and dark jeans. Where Kirstin wore thin-strapped leather sandals, Jenn wore white socks. Her philosophy was simple: take me as I am or move on!

“We’ve got chardonnay from Napa and a zin from Sonoma,” Brian announced. “We weren’t sure what you were cooking, so . . . there are a couple more choices in the car!”

“Maybe we can just drink them all,” Kirstin suggested.

Jenn laughed. “We’re having my dad’s favorite sherry-and’shrooms pot roast with mashed potatoes and—”

“Skulls!” Kirstin blurted.

Jenn slapped her shoulder as the guys looked confused. She explained their macabre discovery.

Brian grinned. “We should use one as our dinner table centerpiece.”

“Um, no,” Kirstin said.

They set the wine in the kitchen and took a quick tour of the house. Jenn let Kirstin lead and do most of the talking. She was focused on the warm feeling of Nick’s hand in hers. He hadn’t said much, but he’d given her a hug along with the bottle of wine, and she’d felt butterflies; she was oddly more nervous seeing him this way than she’d been standing naked in the water with him on the beach. Maybe that was because last weekend had been crazy and spur of the moment and this was a planned, adult date. What if he found on the second time around that he really didn’t like her that much?

“And here’s Jenn’s room,” Kirstin was saying. “Notice the very stylish granny squares bedspread—”

“That was my aunt’s!” Jenn protested, feeling her butterflies vanish.

“—and the locked door to the basement Jenn won’t go down into.”

“As if you would?” Jenn hissed.

“A locked basement, huh?” Brian said. “Maybe the skeletons that match the skulls are down there.”

“Nice,” Nick said under his breath. “Freak them out even more.”

“Maybe we can check it out after dinner. That’ll make everyone feel better,” Brian suggested.

A beeping noise began in the kitchen. Jenn excused herself, saying, “Well, dinner is just about ready!”

Nick followed, wanting to help. She tasked him with lighting the centerpiece candles and setting out the potatoes, while she moved the roast to a platter and poured gravy into an antique-looking red gravy boat. They were soon all seated around the kitchen table draped in a red tablecloth Jenn had found in a closet and set with yellowing china edged in a red vine design.

“Well, this looks very grown-up,” Brian commented.

Jenn smiled. “We figured if you were driving all this way . . .”

“That we’d be hungry?” Brian nodded. “Yup!” He slopped a heavy helping of meat on his plate and pronounced, “Let’s eat!”

After the food was put away and the dinner dishes dropped in the sink, they brought the wine to the front room to sit and talk more comfortably on the couches. Brian knelt down in front of the fireplace and opened the blackened glass doors.

“Let’s start a fire,” he said.

“Is it safe?” Nick asked.

“Seems to be,” said Jenn. “We tried it last week. There’s some wood stacked on the side of the house.”

“Let’s give it a shot!” Brian said.

He and Nick went outside and brought back twigs for kindling and a few large hunks of chopped wood, and they stacked some atop a wrought-iron stand on the hearth. They set the rest to the side of the mantel. Then Brian grabbed the stone on the edge of the opening and levered himself to duck his head and shoulders inside. He reached up with one hand, and there was an echoing rasp of metal on metal.

“Flue’s open,” he pronounced. “Anyone got matches and some newspaper?”

Orange flames soon began to flicker up from a bunch of balled newspaper and through the stacked wood, and Brian leaned back on his haunches to watch the blaze. After a couple minutes of shifting sticks, he closed the fire screen and grabbed the edge of the mantel to hoist himself up. The rock he grabbed, however, moved, just as it had previously for Jenn.

“What the heck?” He put both hands on the rock. It shifted easily, and he pulled it out of its place.

“Oh, that we know about,” Kirstin offered. “Check out what’s inside.”

Brian set the stone down and reached a hand into the hole. He pulled out the Ouija board and gave his second whistle of the night. “Nice.”

He turned the witchboard around and nodded. “I know you said your aunt was a witch,” he said to Jenn. “But this is pretty cool. Looks like the real deal! Have you tried it?”

Kirstin shook her head. “Didn’t seem like a good idea. I mean . . . it’s a witch’s board, right? What if it really works?” She smirked, stifling a scoffing laugh.

“If it really worked, I’d talk to my father,” Jennica said quietly. “But you know better.”

Brian grinned. “Well, then, we should try it. If it does work, Jenn can have some closure.”

Kirstin frowned. “I don’t—”

“What can it hurt?” Nick interrupted. “I don’t think this shit really works, but why not try? I mean, c’mon. These boards are parlor games.”

“Jenn?” Kirstin asked, suddenly serious. “What do you think . . . ? Do you want to do this?”

Jennica imagined being able to tell her dad good-bye—if not to his face, then at least remotely, knowing he really could hear her. She wanted to give him a last hug and kiss, though she knew that could never be. She’d never really believed in hocus-pocus stuff, but Meredith sure had. Maybe there was something to it.

“It’s just bullshit,” she said. “So there’s no harm in trying.”

They set the board down on the coffee table in front of the couch.

“I’ve got an idea,” Brian said, and he disappeared into the kitchen. He returned with the three-candle holder that they’d used as the centerpiece at dinner. He set it on an end table next to the couch and turned off the lamp. “It’s a better atmosphere this way.”

Nick reached out and turned off the other lamp. Everything now glowed with the reflection of the flames in the fireplace or from the three small candles.

“So, how does this work?” he asked, kneeling on the floor next to Jennica. Brian and Kirstin knelt on the other side of the table, the Ouija board between them.

“You do all know this is ridiculous?” Jenn said. “But based on every horror movie I’ve ever seen with séances and Ouija boards, and the little bit I read in one of these books the other day, basically we need to put our fingers on the planchette and focus our energies,” Jenn said. “I think it helps if you close your eyes and focus your mind on reaching out to the invisible. Try to blank out all the everyday thoughts and just be . . . open. The more you believe that there are spirits out there to talk to, the easier it is to reach them. That’s what they say, at least.”

Nick laughed. “We’re doomed.”

“Just try to empty your mind,” Jenn replied.

“Won’t be hard for Nick,” Brian offered.

“Fuck off.”

“Just put your hand—or actually, a couple fingers—on the wooden planchette,” Jenn repeated. “Then we reach out with our minds and ask questions. If it works, the spirits will use our joint energy to move the planchette around the board to answer us.”

“That, or we could have dessert,” Kirstin said.

“Scared?” Brian asked.

She shook her head but looked serious. Leaning over, she whispered something into his ear. The smile slipped from his face and he nodded.

“Let’s do this,” Nick said, taking Jenn’s hand. She pursed her lips and nodded, reaching out to take Brian’s hand, who in turn took Kirstin’s. They each put their index fingers on the wooden planchette.

“I don’t really know how to start,” Jenn whispered. Suddenly she felt a hint of fear at trying this, but it was too late to back out now.

“Just ask for your dad,” Kirstin suggested. “That’s what you want, right?”

Jenn nodded.

“Hello,” she called out. Her voice trembled. She felt foolishly formal as she added, “We are here to speak to my father, Richard Murphy. He passed through to the afterlife a few weeks ago. Please, any spirits who can hear me, tell him we would like to talk to him.”

Jenn felt cold as she spoke the words. It was one thing to say you’d like to talk to your dad’s ghost; it was another to stage a séance and call out to him in a room with candles and a Ouija board. She felt her skin crawl as if something were creeping up the back of her neck.

Nick gripped her hand tighter when her voice slowed and she stopped talking. His touch brought a smile to her face. He was giving her his strength.

“Dad,” she called out. “Are you here?”

The room went silent. Jenn opened her eyes for the first time since they’d begun and saw shadows writhing on the walls like spirits in anguish. She saw the slits of Brian’s eyes glimmering with the reflected fire. Kirstin still held hers shut.

Jenn realized she held her breath. They probably all did.

“Richard Murphy?” she called. “Dad, are you here?”

An ember popped in the fireplace, and Jenn could feel everyone jump.

“Spirits, if you can hear me, please answer,” she called. She was starting to feel silly. Just because her aunt had been into all this stuff didn’t mean—

She felt the wood beneath her fingers move. The other three opened their eyes to stare at their fingers as well. The wooden hoop slipped in a halting glide across the board until it came to encircle one word: NO.

“Is my father here?” she repeated.

Nothing happened for a second, and Jenn began to wonder if the first answer had been a fluke—or if, more likely, one of her friends had been trying to “help.” But the planchette moved again, this time to the opposite side of the board.

YES.

“Can you . . . ?” Jenn began to say, but the planchette began to move again, and she stopped to read.

The hoop stopped on the G before moving to E and then T. And then it moved with growing speed to spell the rest of a phrase:

GET OUT NOW

“Okay, who’s doing this shit?” Kirstin said through gritted teeth. “Because it’s not funny. Brian?”

“I’m not doing anyth—”

The planchette moved again. As Jenn watched, it zoomed across the board and she read the two words aloud:

“‘Too late’?”

The planchette suddenly shot across the board. Jenn felt her fingers lose touch with it just before it launched into space. The wooden hoop hit the side of the fireplace and clattered to the floor.

Kirstin stood up, angry. “All right,” she demanded. “Which of you did that?”

Brian laughed. “Oh, come on. What are you trying to pull? You’re saying we did it? I mean, if you wanted us to be the big strong men to hold you and protect you from the nasty spirits, there are easier ways to do that. We could have just watched a horror movie.”

Kirstin bristled. “You know you moved the stupid thing and made it say those words, didn’t you? Just admit it.”

“Oh, I get it,” Brian said. “I pushed the planchette and made it say ‘Get out now’ so that you girls would be scared and cling to us like we were in a horror movie. Okay, what if I did? Is that so wrong?”

“You bastard,” Kirstin growled. “Jenn is in a bad place right now. Her father just died—no, let me rephrase that. He didn’t DIE, he was frickin’ murdered. And she was hoping that this would let her say good-bye. Now, one of you has turned it into a stupid—”

Jenn felt tears welling up in her eyes, and she pushed back from the table. Stepping over to the couch, she couldn’t help herself from curling up on it.

“Whoa!” Nick held up a hand. “I think you’re overreacting a little. Brian’s kidding. He didn’t do anything. I mean—”

“Get out,” Kirstin said. She pointed to the door. “Both of you just leave. Please.”

Brian looked stunned. “Really? I was just kidding. I really didn’t do anything.”

Nick turned to Jenn. “You have to believe that I didn’t do anything to that board. That thing moved all by itself.”

Jenn didn’t answer. Kirstin’s finger still motioned for them to go.

“C’mon, man,” Brian said, and grabbed Nick’s arm. “Let them think what they want.”

“Just go,” Kirstin said, and pointed to the door again.

Brian dragged Nick with him as Kirstin knelt by the couch. Jenn’s sadness was audible now, as the reality of her dad’s death washed fully over her. She clenched her hands to her chest and curled in a ball, wishing over and over in her heart that she could go back, that she could see him just one more time. Hug him. Talk to him. The door slammed, but neither girl really noticed.

“I want him back,” Jenn sobbed.

“I know, baby,” Kirstin said. “I know.”

Outside, a car engine rumbled to life. With an angry gunning sound and of churning gravel, it disappeared down the hill and into the night.

Jenn got herself under control after a couple more minutes and forced herself to come out of her ball. She wiped tears from her reddened cheeks while Kirstin got her a tissue.

“I don’t think they did it,” she said, after blowing her nose. Her eyes were still moist.

“Of course they did,” Kirstin said. “They were screwing around.”

“I don’t think so,” Jenn argued. “Nick isn’t that way.”

“They’re all that way,” Kirstin said. “Guys are all assholes. They were playing with you.”

“Something was here,” Jenn insisted. “I could feel it.”

Kirstin raised an eyebrow. “Uh-huh.”

“I want to try again.”

Kirstin rested a hand on her friend’s shoulder and squeezed. “No way. Jenn, you’ve gotta let him go. I know it’s hard, but that’s part of the reason we came out here. To leave all of that behind. If you just keep dredging it up, you’ll never heal.”

Jenn blinked back another rush of tears. She nodded and swallowed hard. “I know,” she agreed. “But . . . maybe there’s a reason we ended up here in the middle of magic central. And we just happened to find a Ouija board. And it just happened to have contacted spirits the first time we tried it.”

“It didn’t—”

“Then humor me and try it once more,” Jenn said. “Because now I really need to know if this stuff works for real.”

She got up from the couch and retrieved the planchette from where it landed near the fireplace. Dropping down, she sat Indian-style on the other side of the coffee table.

“What, right now?” Kirstin asked.

Jenn held out her hand.

Kirstin sighed. Clearly, arguing wasn’t going to do any good. Perhaps the only thing that would satisfy her friend would be watching the wooden board as nothing happened. Perhaps then she would finally realize she’d been had. Or, considering Jenn’s stubbornness, she’d probably just find some other excuse for why it hadn’t worked this time.

Her friend rested a finger on the planchette, and Kirstin reluctantly did the same.

Jenn didn’t say anything for a couple minutes, just letting the silence of the room wash over her. “We are here again,” she said finally. “We call to the spirits of this place and ask for your help. We want to talk with Richard Murphy, my dad. Is he near?”

The planchette did not move. Kirstin stifled a knowing smile and struggled to keep her eyes closed.

“Please focus,” Jenn hissed. “If my aunt is near, perhaps she would help us. We are caring for your things now, Aunt Meredith. If you are here, I’m sorry I never got to know you better. Please help me reach my dad? Just for a moment.”

The planchette seemed to shift. Jenn squinted down at the board, trying at the same time to keep her mind blank. The wooden ring now rested over the letter I.

It moved again, very slowly. It rested for a bit on each letter before shifting to the next. The sequence spelled:

I LOVE YOU

Jenn couldn’t help but smile. But, who was saying it? She was about to ask when the planchette moved again, faster this time. Kirstin whispered the letters one by one, the hoop’s movements sharp and jagged across the board:

BEWARE THE PUMPKIN MAN

Behind them, the flames in the hearth flared up with a soft roar. The warmth that had crossed Jenn’s heart vanished.

“The Pumpkin Man,” she read aloud. “Who is that?”

The planchette did not move.

Another ember popped, and Jenn was suddenly aware of the quiet, crackling fire. That was the only sound in the room.

“Tell us what you mean,” she said. “Meredith? Dad?”

The planchette remained still.

She called out again and again, but Kirstin broke the link. “It’s over,” she said. “Whatever it was. I didn’t do that,” she admitted. She looked spooked.

Jenn shook her head in agreement. “Neither did I.”

Without another word, she picked up the wooden board and its eye and placed both back in the hole in the fireplace. Then she carefully replaced the stone.

“I think I’m going to go to bed now,” she said abruptly. “We can clean up in the morning.”