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Even as the sun was setting making the sky turn into a blanket of stars and causing the world shift towards night; the pumpkin patch was crowded with families and groups of friends as they each picked out their pumpkins from the section of Mr. Palmer’s farm that he had dedicated for the public to come and buy the large pumpkins that he grew.
You were smiling brightly as you looked around at the different pumpkins that covered the area. This was always one of your most favorite things to do when the Halloween season rolled around. You loved going to the pumpkin patch with your family or a few of your friends and picking out the perfect ones to carve into jack-o’-lanterns.
As you walked down the dirt path with your older brother Chad beside you his arm slung over your shoulder, you couldn’t help but wonder what face you would carve this year.
“We need to hurry,” Chad spoke, bringing your attention to him as he looked down at you. “I think he’s about to lock the place down for the night,” He explained upon seeing the confusion on your face. “And you know how Mr. Palmer hates people being here after dark,” He says as he looks around, his arm falling off your shoulder.
“Still think he replaces trespassers’ heads with pumpkins?” You ask in a teasing voice letting out a little squeak as Chad pinches your arm making you jump back and glare at him.
You glare at him while rubbing the now sore spot on his arm as he smiles at you innocently as if he did nothing wrong. You roll your eyes at him as you bring your hand up and give him a little shove, making him laugh as he catches his balance with ease.
“You go to the left and I’ll go the right we’ll meet back in the middle once we find out pumpkins,” Chad explains laying out the little plan he had come up with on the spot.
“Sounds good to me,” You say as you slip your hands into the pockets of your dark overalls.
You watch your older brother nod before he turns his back to you and starts to walk down the dirt path that was next to him. You watch him for a moment wondering why him leaving you alone gives you a sudden uneasy feeling, but you push it away and chalk it up to the fact that even after so long the events that involved an evil dummy and creatures from books coming to life still made you uneasy and on guard.
You turn towards your own path before heading down it silently telling yourself that everything was going to be okay.
Your high-tops kick up some small clouds of dirt as you look around, stopping every once in a while to bend down and inspect a pumpkin. It’s not until ten minutes after leaving Chad do you notice that the area you have wondered in has no people around.
You stop noticing how dark things have gotten and how quiet it seems, even though there were families everywhere a few seconds ago.
A sudden uneasy feeling spreads through you, but you try to shake it off as begin to look at the pumpkins that are around you.
You notice that these are a bit bigger than the ones you had been looking at before, which helps to fill your mind with ideas of what you’re going to create. As you bind down to inspect a big pumpkin that you were near, you wonder if you should go with a cute idea, a funny idea, or a scary idea for your future jack-o’-lantern.
You reach one of your hands out to feel if the pumpkin is rotten in any spots, but before you do a rustling from somewhere near you catching your attention.
You freeze staying in your bent position as you look around squinting into the darkness trying to see what had made the sound.
Your hand stays frozen in midair as you try to find the source of the sound once you hear it again. You listen closely, trying to find where the noise will come from next. Your eyes stay focused on a dark spot as a weirdly shaped creature scurries across your line of sight.
Your eyes widen in shock as you watch the creature you go to move towards it but before you can get very far a sharp pain runs through your arm having started at your wrist. Your head quickly snaps towards your hand only for a panicked and horror-filled scream to leave your mouth not even a second later.
You scream louder as you look at the deformed and crudely carved face that was now on the pumpkin. The vine around your wrist tightens and suddenly you are jerked forward, causing you to hit the ground on your hand and knee.
You struggle against the grip of the vine, your other hand becoming scrapped up as the pumpkin drags you forward once more.
Panic races through your blood as your face gets closer to the creature’s own. You try to calm down your panicking mind, but it’s hard as you look into the creature’s empty eye-sockets that are filled with hunger.
As fear pumps through your blood, you are able to push yourself back and away from the creature, but that causes the vine around your wrist to grow tighter than before. You ignore the pain though as you throw yourself back to where your feet are facing the creature's face and before you or the creature can catch your barrings; you begin to kick as hard as you can.
You close eyes tightly as you begin to kick where ever you can you ignore the sounds of what could be described as a wounded animal as you being to feel something smash against your feet. You feel like gagging as you heard crunching under your feet turn into a squishing sound.
Despite the sounds that made you sick to your stomach, you don’t stop kicking until you feel the vine around your wrist loosen and not even then until it falls away.
You feel tears stinging your face as you lift your head up from where it had been laying in the dirt to see the mess of the smashed pumpkin creature before you.
At that moment you just want to lay down where you’re at and catch your breath but the sound of rustling fills the air once more causing you to hurry to your feet. You stumble once or twice as you get up but you keep your eyes on the surrounding area.
Suddenly you hear rustling from above and your head instantly snaps up. You feel your gasping breath getting caught in your throat as you stare up at two glowing toxic green eyes. You can’t move as you stare into them and it’s only when you hear the familiar cackle do you break away from the fear-induced spell and begin to run.
You run as fast as you can, ignoring the looks you are given as you start to encounter people again. You know you look a mess you had just been attacked by a pumpkin monster so you didn’t really care how you looked.
You don’t stop running until you see Chad who is standing there, in the meeting spot you had both agreed on a large pumpkin in his arms. The sight of him makes you slow for a moment before you run towards him even faster than before. You can’t help but feel like a little kid again running towards your big brother for protection and safety but you don’t care.
“There you are,” Chad calls out to you as he sees you coming towards him from far away. “Check out this huge pumpkin I foun…” He’s cut off by you racing into him and knocking the pumpkin from his hands it takes everything you have not to kick the thing and destroy it like you did the last.
“What is your…” Chad starts to ask you before he cuts himself off, this time looking at you with wide eyes. “What happened to you?” He demands going to grab your arms to check you over.
You open your mouth to answer him, but the cold feeling of those toxic green eyes being on you once more makes you stop. You don’t bother looking around to see where they are this time. Instead, you pulled yourself away from Chad and grab his arm before pulling him towards the exit of the pumpkin patch, leaving the pumpkin you had knocked out of your brother’s hands in the dust.
“We’re getting out of here,” You tell him as you drag him down the dirt path before you finally pull him out of the pumpkin patch.
You can hear him behind him asking you questions as fast as he can and demanding answers to those questions not seconds after asking them.
You ignore him as you stuff your hand into your pocket to pull out your phone, fear fueling each movement as you do. You unlock your phone, ready to go to your contacts to find the number you need so desperately.
You only pause for a moment to look at your wrist, flinching in horror as you see the ugly blood bruises that are now wrapped around it. You tell yourself you’ll worry about it later when you two are far away from the pumpkin patch and you’ve made your phone call.
You’re still ignoring Chad who is still demanding answers as you scroll through the phone, feeling a small wave of relief as you finally find the contact that you had kept updated all these years.
The name Shivers glows up at you from the screen as you quickly swipe to call. You bring the phone up to your ear shushing Chad as you do so.
You press the phone to your ear as you keep pulling your older brother along. You hear the phone ring once, twice, and then a third time before he finally picks up.
Relief washes over you as you hear his strict voice from the other side of the phone.
“This is a private number if you’re selling…” The man on the other end of the line begins to speak but you quickly cut him off.
"Mr. Stine, Mr. Stine it's me," You say as you grip the phone tighter in your hand. "You need to come back," You tell him starting to feel the tears on your face start up again. "It's happening again," You tell him wanting so badly to break down in fear and in joy knowing that Mr. Stine would know what to do.
"Slappy's back, Mr. Stine," You say gripping tighter to your brother's hand as he stays silent looking at you with worry and fear.
For a moment there's not a sound coming from the other end of the phone and you're scared that you somehow lost the connection, but a wave of hope washes over you as you hear Mr. Stine speak.
"I'm on my way," Mr. Stine says, a sternness to his voice just like there always was. "It's going to be okay," He adds after a beat of silence, his voice much softer than before and then the call ends signing that he hung up.