The Pumpkin in the Graveyard

There are a few basic rules to life: Eat dinner before dessert to keep your Momma happy, floss if you want to keep your teeth, and never, and I do mean never, try to steal from a pumpkin in a cemetery.

---

"Come on man!" Ted said. He was in his annoying stage of excitement. "I read all about it, I can't believe we haven't ever been up there. It's legit haunted and it's October! Perfect time for a little adventure."

"I have work in the morning," I said to him, turning back to the TV.

"Yeah OK, I get that, but it won't take more than half an hour tops, plus all you do is work and study," Ted said.

"Do you even know how much it costs to go to school here?" I asked, truly not sure that he did. I shouldn't have turned, shouldn't have looked my roommate in the eye, he was almost hypnotic when we really wanted something.

"Live a little, plus, when you're on your way to being a big shot writer and don't have anything else to write about," He said, visibly discovering his great idea in front of me, "You'll have this fantastic story to write about!"

"If we live through it," I said.

---

And just like that we were in the beat-up Camry with the door that wouldn't open and the muffler that belched loudly at every stoplight heading outside of town to some little ugly patch of weeds and cold night air to rummage about a cemetery my roommate, Ted Szalinski had read about on the internet.

Smart, right?

I quickly forgot all arguments as we rolled up onto the tired old road that fed us to the overgrown thicket where the cemetery was supposed to be. The whole area felt like every horror movie I had ever seen before.

Ted punched my arm and grinned at me, "Creepy-as-shit am-uh-right?"

Ted was right, the place was definitely creepy and if there were any ghosts anywhere around, they'd be here.

"There's an opening into the woods over here!" Ted shouted, not even bothering to get a flashlight. He held his cellphone up over his head and charged into the woods like a fool.

I glanced around as I popped the trunk and got out a flashlight. There was a little mist sticking to the ground like a wet blanket, and darkness in every direction. Just ahead, some distance away, the orange light of a farm could be seen, but it stood alone like a dying star in a haunted galaxy all by itself.

I turned to where Ted had disappeared into the woods and slowly began to follow after him. A primal feeling of caution at the base of my skull buzzed loudly at me. I knew this was a bad idea, but I kept going anyway.

---

We tripped and fell through a thick bramble of thornbushes and wild trees. Ted made me angrier and angrier as he laughed and had a great time despite it all, and all I could think about was the paper I had due by Friday and the 8 AM shift I had to open for tomorrow.

And then the woods opened up again, and this time to a hauntingly horrible sight. Dead center in a little clearing with not so much as moonlight able to puncture the canopy of bony trees laced overhead was a wrought iron fence leaning like a crooked grin and a worn-out gate standing wide open inviting us in.

Just beyond a small plot of tombstones stood - or mostly stood - weathered, beaten, and forgotten.

Ted turned to me, his smile stained with excitement, "How friggin' cool is this??"

"This is a cemetery Ted, people have mourned here," I said, an edge I didn't expect to hear or feel suddenly taking me. I was scared, I knew why I was getting sharp, I didn't want to be here.

"People have mourned everywhere," Ted said. "The real question we should be wondering is who would bury anyone here in the first place."

"And why should we wonder that?" I asked.

Ted snapped his head back to me and locked eyes with me, "Because a hidden cemetery means unwanted people, and unwanted people make the best kind of ghosts!"

---

We ventured into the cemetery then and after a few minutes of going from one tombstone or another, not quite making out names or dates at all, the elements had rubbed all trace of human hands from them. Either that or no one had really bothered to even mark who was down there below our feet.

I hugged myself a little tighter just then, feeling a chill that had more bite than the early Autumn night should have had. Maybe Ted was right, maybe this was a place where the unwanted was buried and maybe the whole place had been forgotten on purpose.

"Look at this!" Ted shouted.

I turned and looked to where he was standing. I couldn't see anything around him, so, with a grunt, I went and stood beside him.

"John A. Hinkleford…" I read from the tombstone. "God help his soul."

Ted whistled.

"Don't do that!" I shouted at him.

"Do what?" he said, half laughing.

"Whistle in a graveyard," I said, looking around.

"Did you see the pumpkin?" Ted asked, visibly amused.

I looked to where he was pointing and sure enough, there was a big fat Jack-O-Lantern by his foot, sitting prominently next to the only tombstone we could read. A soft glow came from inside.

"Is that a candle inside?" I asked.

Ted bent over and began to look, "No, a trick of the light, but there is something in there…"

---

"Hey, look," Ted said, pointing excitedly inside the Jack-O-Lantern's mouth. "There's money in there!"

I was half turned around, suddenly feeling anxious when Ted reached inside the jagged toothy mouth of the pumpkin. No, stop! 

I wanted to scream, but no words came, and even if they had it would have been too late.

The Jack-O-lantern's jaw snapped shut on Ted's hand.

"What the hell?" Ted said, his voice rising noticeably higher. I went to him, but there was nothing I could do. The mouth hadn't just shut around his hand, it had completely disappeared. His hand was sealed inside the pumpkin.

"Smash it!" I said.

Ted tried lifting the pumpkin but couldn't. His face contorted with visible pain and the color drained from it. I reached down with both hands and tried to help him lift the pumpkin, but it felt like solid lead. Something held it in place.

And then something even more terrible had begun to happen. Ted's skin closest to the pumpkin had begun to turn an October shade of orange. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself.

It didn't take long once it began to happen to fully take Hold. Ted screamed and I didn't blame him. Then he looked at me and whimpered. I took my pocket knife to the heavy gourd but I couldn't even scratch it. Nothing worked on the damned thing.

And then Ted pissed himself and passed out. I was in the middle of trying to revive him when a blinding bolt of light flashed around us and knocked me on my ass. When I came to, Ted was nowhere to be seen. And the ugly pumpkin we had tried stealing from had its grin back. It looked fatter somehow, bigger than before and it looked satisfied with itself.

Sitting next to the big pumpkin was a smaller pumpkin with a little face carved onto it that felt familiar.