Smashing Pumpkins [a shorty story]

Seth gripped the black tape on the baseball bat, wound up, and with as much force as possible hit the side of a pumpkin with a violent thud. Three orange pieces dislodged and sailed through the air.

His friend Dylan screamed and pounced on the pumpkin with a crowbar to finish it off.

“You little bastards!” A voice rang out from the house's dimly light porch.

“Oh shit. Old man Wilkens.” Dylan abandoned the half-decapitated pumpkin and ran down the road.

Seth ran after his friend. They stopped at their old elementary school schoolyard.

“Close call,” Dylan said and sat down on a red and brown brick ledge.

“Yeah,” Seth sat beside him and fished a cigarette from his shirts breast pocket. He sparked a match, lit the cig, inhaled, and handed it to his friend.

Dylan’s pudgy cheeks sucked in smoke and he coughed. He handed the cig back to Seth. “Why didn’t you invite Sarah? I think she likes you.”

Seth blew out a large cloud of smoke and looked down at the ground. “She’d cramp our style.”

Dylan nodded. “So, where to next?” He twirled a blue crowbar in his hands.

“Cemetery.” Seth flicked the half-finished cigarette in the air.

The boys slung their implements of destruction over their shoulders and got up.

---

The gates of the cemetery loomed above them. A lone pumpkin sat at the entrance. Dylan wound up his crowbar but Seth put a hand across his chest.

“I got a better idea.” Seth picked up the pumpkin and gently hoisted it over the gate.

The boys climbed over. Seth took the pumpkin to the center of the cemetery where a large cross stood. He placed the pumpkin in front of the cross and got down on his knees. He motioned for Dylan to do the same. Dylan obeyed.

Seth began to chant words. Sinister sounding words. Silly made up words.

“Octa, locta. Pharatoo.”

The pumpkin began to float upward.

“Dude, this isn’t funny,” Dylan’s voice cracked as he got up and stumbled backward.

Seth froze with fear.

A body began to materialize below the pumpkin. The carved eyes and mouth glowed green.

“You will pay for your crimes against us,” the pumpkin spoke with a deep voice.

The boys looked at each other and then ran like hell. They scrambled over the gate.

“Wait up,” Dylan called after Seth.

They stopped to catch their breath. On the street pumpkin-like-men with orange bodies roamed house yards. Screams filled the night.

“What the hell do we do?” Dylan said between gulps of air.

“I started this, I gotta end it.” Seth looked at Dylan and nodded.

“No. No way, man. I’m not heading to the pumpkin patch with you.”

“Suit yourself.”

---

Seth approached the pumpkin patch, baseball bat in hand. Pumpkin-men guarded a large pumpkin which floated above them all. The leader.

“Hey.” Dylan came up beside him.

“Glad you decided to come.” Seth rested his hand on Dylan’s shoulder.

“Let’s get these bastards.” Dylan raised his blue crowbar above his head with both hands. “Charge!”

Seth and Dylan mowed through pumpkin after pumpkin, dispatching them with their bat and crowbar. Pieces of orange stringy guts rained down on the ground.

Only the large pumpkin remained.

“You shall pay!” The pumpkin boss grumbled.

“Check, please. Charge!” Dylan yelled.

The boys ran to either side of the pumpkin-boss and hurled their weapons into its head. The thing groaned and fell to the ground. They plunged their weapons into it and kicked it over and over until it was in smithereens.

They sat amidst the orange carnage.

Seth lit up a fresh cigarette. “Well, that was easier than I thought. Couldn’t have done it without you.”

“Maybe now you’ll have the guts to ask Sarah out,” Dylan said.

Seth smiled and blew a smoke ring into the cool night air. Maybe he just would.

---

I hope you enjoyed my entry for @mctiller's 24 hour short story contest with the prompt: the Jack-o-Lanterns in a town all come to life.

Pexels Image Source edited by me.