The Pumpkin Man

CHAPTER

FORTY-EIGHT

The pounding caught Jennica by surprise. She was in the kitchen, cleaning up the dishes from dinner. Nick had barbecued hamburgers, so it was simply plates with grease rather than armies of dirtied bowls and burned pots.

“I’ll get it,” she called, drying her hands off on a dish towel before walking into the front room. Behind her she heard Nick close the back porch door, probably headed to the front room as well, wondering who was here.

As soon as she opened the wooden door, a voice began to speak. “You used it, didn’t you?”

The small dark-haired man at her door was the man from the supermarket; Jenn recognized him almost immediately. The thirty-years-out-of-date Buddy Holly glasses. The slightly hunched demeanor. She could picture him in a white stock coat instead of the gray T-shirt he wore now. He stepped inside, not waiting for an invitation.

“You used the Ouija board, didn’t you?”

Jenn shrugged. “Sure, I guess.”

He rolled his eyes as his shoulders sank. “Then we’re all screwed,” he said.

Nick walked in and stopped short when he saw the shopkeep.

“Travis Lupe,” the short man said, holding out a hand. “I work at the general store.”

“Hmmm,” Nick said. “Great. So, why are you here?”

“You all used the Ouija board that Meredith left behind,” the man repeated.

“I wanted to call her,” Jennica said in her own defense.

Nick stepped forward, trying to help. “How do you know?” he asked. “And why do you care?”

Travis absently pushed his glasses up with one finger and then answered, “Because I used to use it with Meredith. And because the Pumpkin Man’s back.” He looked around the room as if expecting something to jump out at him. “So it’s your fault.”

“Whoa,” Nick said. He pointed to the couch, and Travis walked over to it. Nick shut the door behind him. “Tell us how.”

The man from the grocery looked from Jenn’s eyes to Nick’s, and then he nodded, quickly. As if he were going to cop to a very big secret.

“Look,” he said. “Meredith was nice to me. She always tipped me good when I delivered groceries up here. One day, she asked if I could stay a little longer after my delivery to help her out with something. The next thing I knew I was holding her palm with one hand and the wooden circle of a Ouija board thing with the other, we were sitting here in a dark room calling for spirits—and she was happy about it!” He paused. “Oh yeah, she was really happy, ’cuz then I was helping her talk to, like, devils.”

“The Pumpkin Man,” Nick urged. “You said that we were responsible because of the Ouija. How?”

Travis looked at him over the top of his glasses and laughed bitterly. “He’s not a man,” he said. “He’s some kind of devil. Meredith used to call and tell him what to do using the Ouija. So, if you’ve used it, that explains why he’s loose again. Why he killed Teri Hawkins and Erik Smith.”

Jenn sat down on the couch. “We did use the board, and it worked, but we didn’t tell anyone to kill—”

“You opened the connection,” Travis interrupted. “You let him back in.”

“Bullshit,” Jenn snapped. “He’s been here for a while. He killed several people before I came to River’s End. Hell, he killed my father all the way out in Chicago. I didn’t start this.”

“I didn’t say you started it,” Travis admitted. “I just said you opened the connection again and made it easier for him to come back. Meredith set it in motion and then you made it worse.”

Jennica snapped. “Blame me as much as you want,” she said, “but tell me what we have to do to stop him. That’s all I care about. We have to stop him.”

“We need to use the Ouija again,” Travis said. “But this time we need to do it right.”

“Meaning?” asked Nick.

“This time we need to keep him from ever coming back.”

“And you know how to do that?”

“I know how to try.”

“And how is that?” Jennica asked.

Travis watched her for a long time, his lips drawn in a tight line. Finally he spoke. “We need to talk to your aunt. Meredith started this. She is probably the only one who can finish it.”

“Oh no,” Nick interjected, holding up a palm. “We’ve been down this road before.” He looked pointedly at Jenn and said, “We tried to talk to Meredith at my apartment, and the next morning we found a bunch of pumpkin pieces and Jenn’s best friend Kirstin was gone. If the Ouija board is what gets the monster moving, then I don’t think it’s a very good idea to use it again.”

Travis made a face, his frustration palpable. “Don’t you see? The only way to get the genie back in the bottle is to open the bottle fully and—”

Nick shook his head. “No! I don’t want to wake up dead tomorrow.”

“Well, you wouldn’t really wake up, then, would you?” Jenn asked.

Nick rolled his eyes. “Very funny. Do you really want to do this? Risk this?”

Jenn sighed. “I would like to reach Meredith just once. I don’t think that was really her before.”

“And why would it be any different now?”

Travis butted in. “Because you’re in her house,” he said. “She’s closest in this location. You said you guys tried reaching her in another apartment, so God knows what kind of ghost you talked to there. Probably some old guy who hung himself in your bedroom.”

“I don’t think anyone ever hung themselves in my bedroom,” Nick argued.

“Whatever,” Travis said, before Jenn interrupted.

“We did try to reach Meredith here,” she said. “But if she came, she never was able to stay . . .”

“If you try to reach Meredith here with me in the room, I think it might work better.” He held up both hands, asking them not to interrupt or ask why. “Please,” he implored. “She knew me. And I need to talk to her one more time myself. And I really think she can help us stop this. I don’t think you want anyone else to die.”

Jenn looked at Nick and bit her lips. “Let’s give it one more try.”

Watching Nick’s face, she could tell he was going to give in. Somewhere along the line he had completely fallen for her. He would do whatever she asked, no matter what he thought of it. It was a feeling of power she’d never had before. So this was what it was like to be loved. She felt drunk with the feeling of possession. Human possession. It felt good.

“I don’t want to wake up in the morning with a pumpkin for a head,” he warned.

“I’ll ask him to use a cucumber instead.”

“Nice.”

“Just trying to be helpful.”

“To who—you or me?”

Travis looked pained. “Could we just try?” he asked again. “Please?”

Jenn nodded. “I want to do this. I want to stop this. And”—she looked at Nick—“I want to know where Kirstin is.”

Nick looked torn. “Once more,” he finally agreed.

Jenn smiled and jumped up from the couch. Opening the stone from the fireplace, she pulled out the Ouija board and planchette and turned to set them down on the coffee table.

“Not here,” Travis said. “There’s a better place.”

“Where?” Jenn asked.

“There’s . . . there’s another room in this house,” Travis said. “A room with no windows.”

“The room off the kitchen?” Jenn asked.

Travis nodded, looking surprised she knew it. “Meredith always said the wall to the other side was thinnest there.”

Nick frowned. “Maybe that’s because she was trying to talk to the Pumpkin Man, and all of the bones of his victims are right there. I don’t think that’s who we want to reach.”

Jenn shook her head wildly. “No!” she agreed.

Travis didn’t blink. “The bones from the Pumpkin Man aren’t the only bones there, and they’re probably not the most powerful. I think the reason the room is useful has more to do with the things that have happened there.”

“Such as . . . ?” Nick prompted.

“Death. Sex with virgins. Ritual bloodletting. Burials.” Travis paused and pointed at the books on the bookshelves, the ones Nick and Jenn had been reading. “When the Perenais witches needed power for their spells, they went to that room. Meredith told me as much.”

Jenn’s eye roved to the Book of Shadows. She had only had the chance to look at a small bit, but one of the themes amid its cryptic, rune-riddled pages was the importance to magic of place. She’d seen that in Meredith’s journal as well, and in some of the other books she’d skimmed in her aunt’s library. Magic was all about using symbology to tap into the power of the beyond. Symbols held power because of the truths they represented, places held power because of their stories. Spirits were drawn to both symbols and places.

“Let’s go,” she said. “Do we need candles or incense or anything?”

Travis shook his head. “Meredith lit candles, but there should still be some down there.”