Eerie, Indiana fanfiction: Jackolantern
It wasn’t easy to look menacing, all bundled up in a too-large anorak with a fur-lined hood. Simon shifted uneasily on the upturned milk crate, feeling the soft soil beneath yield under pressure. The mittens didn’t exactly help matters, but at least they kept the cold at bay and meant he could keep a firm hold on the torch he was shining under his chin. Then again, maybe a shaking flashlight would have added to the ambience.
The shadows that lay over the pumpkin patch moved in a way which had nothing to do with clouds drifting across the harvest moon. Simon brushed away a strand of synthetic fur that was tickling his nose and set his face in what he hoped was a suitably disapproving frown. Somewhere out of sight, sheet metal rattled and someone rubbed a lump of resin along a taut length of heavy-duty thread, producing an eerie wail. It was the thread Marilyn Teller used to stitch warded embroidery patches to their jeans and backpacks. Hopefully the things in the pumpkin patch didn’t know that.
Simon opened his mouth. All that emerged was a sort of dry squeak. He cleared his throat and tried again.
“Heed me,” he said, his voice quavering from the cold and the danger and the sheer awfulness of stage fright. “Harken, oh restless spirits of hollowed-out gourds.”
The darkness surged and the muted orange of the nearly-ripe fruits vanished in the thickening murk. Simon swallowed. He reached for a bulging pillowcase that lay at his feet.
“I bring offerings from the world of men,” he said. “We return to you your stolen innards, that once again peace might reign between man and... and seasonal vegetable...”
He heard Dash laugh, safe behind the wood-and-wire fence surrounding the pumpkin patch, and flushed. They’d not had a lot of time to work on the speech, and it owed a little too much to Edgar Teller’s collection of aging sci-fi paperbacks. It was what they’d had to hand. He heard Marshall’s answering hiss, too low and far-off to make out words but the defensive tone was obvious, and relaxed a little.
The mittens made it hard to grip the bulky, irregular-shaped objects they’d brought as offerings. He lost his hold on a dented tin of canned pumpkin and it thumped to the muddy ground and stuck there. The flung packet of pumpkin seeds that followed it went wide, landing near the far edge of the patch.
Tendrils of darkness, blacker than the surrounding night, moving over the ground. Briefly, they assumed the shape of broad-leaved vines before dissolving back into amorphous shadow. When one brushed against the milkcrate-cum-podium, Simon’s nerve finally failed him.
He upended the bag, sending its contents tumbling across the black earth. Pumpkin pies and pumpkin soup in bright-coloured Foreverware, jars of pumpkin spice and cans of pumpkin syrup and every Jack-o-lantern-shaped or orange-coloured cookie that Grandma’s Kitchen had baked that day scattered across the pumpkin patch. Then Simon was running, duct-taped Sky Monsters glowing dirty white in the moonlight, the duct-taped rubber soles crunching against the gravel walkway between the plants. He burst through the low wooden gate with its grinning pumpkin-headed skeleton guard, banging it closed behind him. The aged lock caught on the first try, and Simon stepped back, almost sobbing with relief.
He tripped over the discarded sheet metal and sat down abruptly. The two older boys, who had been trying without success to ignite the pilot light on a home-made flamethrower, set it down and moved to help him up.
“How’d it go?” Mars wanted to know. Dash gave him an exasperated look from beneath his pale fringe.
“He ran out of there,” he hissed. “How’d you think it went?”
Simon pushed his hood back, feeling the cool fall breeze lifting his sweat-damp hair away from his flushed and sticky face. He shook his head, trying to catch his breath after his flight from the haunted pumpkin patch.
“I don’t think they went for it,” he said.
“I told you,” said Dash triumphantly. “You can’t get a ghost-pumpkin angry about losing its guts to back off by just giving it a sack of guts. How would you like it if you lost a hand and somebody showed up with a bag of random body-parts as an apology?”
“We were trying to resolve it peacefully,” said Mars, every word emerging from behind tightly-gritted teeth.
“Well, that went great,” said Dash. “All we did is deprive Eerie of pumpkin-spiced lattes just in time for Halloween. You think the Mayor is going to thank us for this? Or, more importantly, pay us the second half of our fee? It’ll be a miracle if he doesn’t ask for a refund.”
Simon rubbed his face wearily.
“All deposits are non-refundable,” he said. “It’s in the contract. Not our fault if he doesn’t read the fine print.” Dash looked suitably impressed. Simon shrugged. “So, what’s the backup plan?” he asked.
“We can’t get the stupid flamethrower to light,” said Mars. “I have an exorcism kit, but who knows if it works on root vegetables?”
“Squash,” Simon corrected.
“Whatever. Anyway, I don’t think we’re getting back in there tonight.”
The other two followed Marshall’s gaze. The entire pumpkin patch was covered in a roiling blackness. They had fortified the decorative wooden fence with a thin silver mesh before the sun had gone down, and so far it seemed to be holding the dark at bay.
“Oh,” said Simon.
Dash yawned.
“I vote we go home, get some sleep, and come up with a new plan tomorrow,” Marshall suggested.
“I vote we go home, get some sleep, fix the flamethrower tomorrow, then come back here and burn the place down in daylight,” said Dash. He paused for a moment, then added “And sell chargrilled pumpkin kebabs to the good people of Eerie afterwards, at a suitably high price given that every pumpkin-based foodstuff inside Eerie city limits has tragically been lost to a malevolent vegetable plot.”
Mars began rolling up the thread and resin. Simon separated the flamethrower into its component parts. Dash gave the sheet metal a series of experimental shakes, until Marshall told him to cut it out. Then he shook it harder and made stupid woo-woo noises to boot.
“It was good stage-craft,” said Simon, as they walked back to their small apartment. “I mean, I don’t know if pumpkins have enough of a sense of drama to really be intimidated, but I thought you guys did a solid job with the special effects.”
The motion-activated lights over their building’s front door blinked into life as the trio approached.
“Oh,” said Mars.
“Yeah, I think they have a sense of drama,” said Dash.
Sitting on the doorstep, black blood congealing on the pale paving slabs, the hollowed-out heads of Eerie’s missing pumpkin patch patrons smiled up at them, grinning a wide-mouthed and broken-toothed grin. Inside each one, a tealight candle flickered dimly in the fluorescent glare. Their eyes were scooped out and in the darkness of their empty skulls, the tiny flame glittered from deep in their gaping sockets.
“Shit,” said Marshall.
Microwave-verse
Bonfire by froodle, in which Pinocchio is ruined forever
Gingerbread by froodle, in which there is a witch in the Eerie Woods
Leaves by froodle, in which plantlife finds Marshall entirely too enticing
Offspring by froodle, in which there are dragons
Based on Your Previous Purchases by froodle, in which Mars should really pay attention to Amazon's reccomendations
Housework by froodle, in which a rota cannot be agreed upon
Breakfast by froodle, in which Dash's attempts at cookery do not go well
Ghost in the Machine by froodle, in which a new laptop opens an old wound
Consequences by froodle, in which an encounter with leprechauns leaves the boys very tired indeed
The Microwave by froodle, in which Andrea Fantucci returns to Eerie after a considerable absense
The Eldritch Abomination in the Room by froodle, in which the microwave is most definitely not discussed
Basic Household Maintenance by froodle, in which manticores are inconsiderate houseguests
Torrential by froodle, in which there is a storm, and the boys eat ice-cream
Linens by froodle, in which Dash X makes a bed
Night Music by froodle, in which Simon is woken by a nocturnal visitor
In For The Night by froodle, in which Dash refuses to leave the house
Hound by froodle, in which Simon makes a friend
Errands by froodle, in which Simon has a to-do list
Waterlogged by froodle, in which Eerie experiences heavy rainfall
Wildlife by froodle, in which Simon and Marshall go to the beach
Rainbow by froodle, in which Dash fails to properly appreciate Michael Flatley