saw her walk into possible oblivion. He gurgled and moaned and clomped with all his speed, and angled between her and the horde just in the nick of time. Terrified by the sudden onslaught, the horde decided decided its blind panic was needed elsewhere.
He turned to the lady and gave his best debonair grimace. Her one eye widened in fear. She looked confused for a second, then she gurgled, dropped the worm and fled in the opposite direction. He sighed, and was beginning to dislike Halloween.
By the time Ned saw the silhouette of his decaying house on the hill, he was exhausted and just wanted to hit the grave early. He slowly ambled up the driveway, past his carefully landscaped front graveyard and looked up. The twilight had turned into a mediocre night. It would be better if there were more clouds and maybe a lighting storm, but he supposed it would do. At least a full moon was rising above the rooftop, and a chilly mist was rolling in.
He’d taken a shortcut through a field of pumpkins on his way home and had impulsively grabbed one. Now he carefully set the pumpkin down on the porch and looked at it for a moment. Yep, it was how unlife should be: Inanimate, quiet, non-threatening and without unpleasant odor.
Ned sighed again and went inside. What a disappointing night. He was just about to take off his make-up and stinky costume and get ready for his grave when he heard a strange sound. Now what? His commute had shown him that normalcy was probably impossible nowadays, so he doubted it was a Trick-or-Treater.
If he listened carefully, he could hear other sounds. There was a quiet thump, then a soft scraping noise. It was quite odd. He made his way out of his dusty dressing room, through the parlor, past the conservatory, and into the foyer, searching for the source of the strange acoustic emanation. It seemed to be coming from beyond the front door. He wondered if it could be Trick-or-Treaters, after all. They hadn’t knocked on the door. Maybe they were just skipping right to the “trick” part. In his day, they’d often spread fresh flowers and sometimes even rose petals on porches as a prank. It was annoying to try to get rid of all the foul smelling things, and the unfortunate victim would always seem to miss at least one or two when they tried clean up the mess.
Ned grimaced fondly at the thought, and wouldn’t mind at all. It would be worth the trouble just to know somebody else out there still had the Halloween spirit. He quietly grasped the doorknob in his skeletal claws and then suddenly yanked the door open.
In the moonlight, he could very clearly see a hideous, yet very tiny Invader standing on his front porch. At least, that’s what he thought it was. He was so startled that, for a moment, he was frozen in shock. The little Invader looked up at him and smiled, which made her look even more frightening. She had long golden hair and wore a little black pointy hat and a little black robe. She was very strangely dressed for an Invader. She stood right by his pumpkin. He groaned in amazement when he saw that the little Invader had dissected it. She had sliced off the top of the pumpkin, and all of its innards were missing. He’d never seen such a horrific thing in all of his undead nights.
She looked up at him and smiled. “Happy Halloween!” She said in a squeaky little alien voice.
Now it spoke! He couldn’t believe it. His righteous indignation at the the situation overcame any feelings of fear or danger. “What are you and why have you eaten my pumpkin?” He demanded.
She smiled again and made a type of gurgling sound he’d never heard before. “I’m a girl, silly. I mean, I’m a witch!” She looked at him strangely. “Are you supposed to be a Zombie?”
Well, she was a rude little witch, that was for sure. He refused to answer such a question.
She whispered: “Sorry, but your Zombie costume isn’t very good.”
Ned couldn’t believe he was being insulted by a tiny living witch. He spun on his heel, went back inside in a huff and slammed the door, all at lightning speed, relatively speaking. Inside, he furiously rubbed off the makeup, tore off the odiferous alien clothes, and threw on his best graveyard suit.
The little girl looked up as the door opened again, and Ned stomped onto the porch. She squealed and clapped her hands in delight. “Wow, you look amazing!”
That was more like it. “Now I demand to know why you ate my pumpkin!”
She wrinkled her nose, which made her look not quite so repulsive. “Yuck. I didn’t eat it. I threw the glop in that weed patch.”
He looked at the weed patch. Sure enough, there were the missing innards of his pumpkin. He had to admit, it was an improvement to the weed patch.
“Well,” he said, “Why did you attack my pumpkin, then?”
She sighed in exasperation. “I was carving it, silly. Here, check this out.”
He watched in astonishment as she turned the pumpkin around. Not only had she ripped the insides out of it, she had also committed vandalism to the outside of the poor gourd. It looked like she had cut out whole chunks of pumpkin rind.
Before he could say another word, she pulled some kind of mysterious alien technology from her tiny witch robe. “What’s that?” He asked uneasily.
“A light stick!”
It did look some kind of weird yellow stick. She bent it until it went crack! which made him flinch. Now the stick glowed with bright yellow light. She put the light stick inside the pumpkin, replaced its sliced-off top and set the pumpkin down at his feet.
A glowing yellow pumpkin face grimaced up at Ned. It was the most amazing thing he’d ever seen.
“It’s… It’s… It’s incredible!” He stammered.
She made that gurgling sound again, only this time louder. She pointed at the pumpkin. “His name is Jack.”
“What kind of witch did you say you were?” He asked.
She whispered again. “I’m not really a witch.”
“Oh.”
“I’m a girl. A human girl. My name is Terra.”
A human. So that’s what the alien Invaders called themselves. He looked from the glowing pumpkin to the human girl. “Nice to meet you, Terra. My name is Ned. I’m, umm, a Zombie.”
She reached out and shook his boney hand.
“Are you a real Zombie?” She asked.
He nodded.
“Cool! Well, I’d better be going,” she said. “Happy Halloween, Ned!”
Then he watched in amazement as she skipped away.
“Happy Halloween, Terra.”
After she disappeared down the driveway, he turned back to the pumpkin.
“Well Jack, it looks like the spirit of Halloween isn’t gone after all.”
THE END
AUTHOR'S NOTE
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading The Human Ate My Pumpkin!
Feel free to check out Mythik Imagination #1, the first installment of a unique series of Sci-Fi and Fantasy short stories in the spirit of the old Pulp magazines from the ‘30s and ‘40s. And coming soon, just in time for Halloween, is a special Weird West Edition in Mythik Imagination #2.
If you liked this story (or even if you didn’t) please consider leaving a review. For more info about upcoming projects and all kinds of cool SF/Fantasy stuff, please visit me online:
Blog: www.jonmac.me
Twitter: @JonMacWriter
Facebook: JonMacWriter
Email:
[email protected] About the Author:
Jon Mac writes SF/Fantasy stories, some with more “pulp” than others. He's had jobs picking raspberries, babysitting Coyote pups, working in a recycling plant, directing live TV newscasts, and encoding HD video for Blu-Ray discs. He likes dancing and shopping. No, that's not really true. He's still waiting for flying cars and videophones to become popular. He lives in Los Angeles with his lovely wife and their wonder dog, Baxter.
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