The Pumpkin Man

CHAPTER

THIRTY-FOUR

The ghost light sparkled like a fever dream, faint and slippery, moving through the night with a hint of intelligence and a flash of mystery.

Jenn grabbed the key to the room behind the pantry from the kitchen counter where she’d left it and followed into the room beyond. Her heart pounded as she fumbled the key into the lock, because she’d caught just a glimpse of Meredith hovering near the back of the pantry. Then her aunt was gone.

She pushed the key into the lock and turned it until she heard the metallic click deep within the wood. When she pushed the entry opened, she was suddenly inside that strange dark place.

Death hung in the air like fog.

Nick rushed down the dark hallway into the kitchen. The pantry door was open, and he saw the pale glint of Jenn’s legs through the back door and headed into the hidden room.

“Jenn, wait!” he called. But she didn’t stop. She disappeared into the dark.

Nick followed into the narrow entry. He didn’t feel good about it, but he couldn’t let her go into that place alone. There was something bad there, something impatient. He’d felt it this afternoon. A presence. And, that had been when the sun was shining, even if the roof kept it away. Now the sun was gone and she was walking right into the arms of whatever waited in the darkness.

There she was.

The specter of Jenn’s aunt shone in the dark like a beacon, her aura lighting the way. And then she swept off, down past the long end of the room and around, into the edge of the L. There she disappeared.

Jenn stepped forward, but the light had gone out and she suddenly felt trapped. The dark closed in around her. A faint glow came from the doorway, but it wasn’t enough to see. It was a faint beacon back, but there was so much dark between here and there that she almost couldn’t move. She didn’t want to retreat, anyway. What she really wanted was to move forward.

She turned to where Meredith disappeared, but there was nothing, nothing but the cold fingers of dark closing in all around her. Jenn felt her chest contract. She was trapped by the night; all around her were the invisible bones of the dead. And apparently spirits lurked close at hand, too, anchored to those bones.

The mummified corpse was just a couple feet away. Jenn had a vision of that dead flesh shifting and moving, escaping its prison on the wall, slipping forward to corner her, pressing her backward until her feet stumbled on the bones of all those who had died here before. Other people had been lured into this place and never gotten out. Was it a boneyard or a torture chamber? She supposed it didn’t make a difference in the end; the dead were tied here by the past. And maybe they were hungry.

Jenn struggled to step forward—no, to go back the way she’d come, to escape the room before it was too late. Panic suddenly gripped her, locked her body in place, unable to move. From the faintly visible bones beside her, she saw a glimmer of something, a smoky movement in the dark. It crept slowly.

Inch by inch the ghost grew, its tendrils reaching toward her bare feet. Somewhere far away she heard her name, but she didn’t answer. She couldn’t. She watched the thing growing closer and closer, and all she could do was—

When Jenn opened her mouth to scream, nothing came out. Her vocal cords were frozen as surely as her legs.

Oh shit, she thought. Why did I follow her here after midnight? Why did she bring me?

“Jenn!”

Nick’s voice broke the silence, and suddenly a light appeared in the room. Only, this one wasn’t ghostly. It was definitely a candle. And it was moving toward her.

“What are you doing?” Nick exclaimed, slipping an arm around her. “Why are you in here without me? Why didn’t you answer?”

His touch broke the spell, and Jenn took a deep, broken breath. “I followed Aunt Meredith. Her ghost. Then she disappeared into the bones. Right over there.” She pointed. “I thought she was coming back a minute ago—her or something worse. But then you came.”

“Come on,” he said, pulling her along behind him. “Come back to bed.”

“But she was here,” Jenn insisted. “She was trying to show me something.”

Nick nodded. Then he held up his candle. Faint orange light bled off the stacks of old bones to flicker on the dusty floor.

“There’s nothing here now,” he said. “And I don’t think this is where we want to spend the night.”

Jenn grudgingly followed him down the long stretch of room, glancing back as they left to see that mummy nailed to the wall like some dark martyr. Its green marble eyes were following them, and she could still feel that dead gaze on her back when Nick pulled the door of the pantry shut behind them.

He pulled open the refrigerator door and poured two glasses of milk, handing one to her. The other he took a deep gulp of before setting it on the counter with a sigh.

“Helps you sleep,” he explained.

She shrugged. “We’ll see,” she said, and then drained her glass.

They went back to bed, but sleep came slow for Jenn. Her feet felt hot, then cold. She shifted beneath the covers and tossed from one side to the other. For a long time she lay staring out at the empty hallway outside, expecting movement. Expecting another beckoning glimmer. But the ghost didn’t return.

Nick’s deep breathing filled her ear, and Jennica finally closed her eyes and let the sound lull her to sleep. When she did, she dreamed of the bones in the pantry. The bones shifted across the floor like snakes.