She gave me a push that sent me across the kitchen. I turned at the doorway to look at her. "Our relationship isn't like that," I repeated.
Aunt Ma smiled. "Of course it isn't, dear, now get along. I'll be-" A loud clop came from the front porch.
Aunt Ma's hands flew to her mouth. "My pumpkin!"
She flew past me and into the living room. I deposited the tray on top of the pile of its living brethren and ran after her. The men were just ahead of us as we rushed out onto the porch. There we found the ruined remains of the pumpkin on the ground just beyond the steps. Jack's grin was now a terrified scream and his candle flickered out. Uncle Seward stepped back inside and came back out with his gun.
"They couldn't have gone far," he commented.
Aunt Ma moved towards pumpkin, but I held her back. "It's quiet. Too quiet," I told her.
Roland walked past us and down the steps to the murder victim. He brushed his hand over the ground and I saw the same strange hoof prints as at Old Ben's farm.
"The same people?" I guessed.
"If that's what we're dealing with," he replied.
Aunt Ma broke from me and hurried down the steps. She knelt beside her monster masterpiece and picked up the ruined rinds. The orange goop slid through her fingers and she shook her head.
"Now I'll have to start all over again," she told us.
Uncle Seward's eyes narrowed and he cocked his gun. "You stay here, Ma, and I'll go see if I can find the hoodlums who did this."
Roland stood and shook his head. "This is too dangerous. Misty and I will follow the attacker."
My uncle glared at him. "I'm not going to stand around when my property's been attacked. I'm-"
"Pat," Aunt Ma spoke up. She stepped forward and grasped his arm. "Let the kids go. I need you to stay here and protect the pumpkins."
Uncle Seward frowned, but lowered his gun. "All right, but if it does turn out to be something strange I'm tossing those pumpkins to it. They aren't worth getting killed over."
Aunt Ma leaned back and folded her arms over her chest. "Patrick Seward, you'll do no such thing. I won't have my pumpkins fed to any otherworldly creature. Except Roland, of course."
He glared at her. "They're a bunch of pumpkins, Ma!"
I grabbed Roland's arm and tugged him away from my aunt and uncle. "We'll just go check on these prints."
I followed the tracks in the dust and pulled us over to the closed door of the barn. My breath was eerily white in the cold autumn air. The pre-dawn world was quiet and dark except for the bright moon over our heads.
"I hope you're good at tracking because we don't have much time until the sun comes up," I reminded him.
"It depends on the trail," Roland replied. He knelt down and looked over the ground. "Your aunt is very fond of her pumpkins," he commented without looking up.
"It's her hobby, and since it comes around only once a year she's a little overprotective of it," I explained.
Roland stood and looked to me. "What are your hobbies?"
I blinked at him. "Is this really the time or place to be asking that? We're supposed to be tracking some sort of devil, remember? It could pop up at any moment and try to slurp out our eyeballs."
Roland glanced past the barn at the fields. "It went into the dry grass, and I am curious to know."
I looped my arm through his and tugged him towards the fields behind the barn. "And I'm wanting to know what we're up against. You think this has something to do with your old friend with the red, pointy tail? The one you pilfered your soul from?"
Roland shook his head. "Any suggestions are pure conjecture unless we find more clues to its identity. Do you have any favorite books or movies?"
I whipped my head to Roland and glared at him. "Why the sudden interest in my life outside the weird and non-diner?"
"Your uncle regaled me with stories of your youth, and I-"
I stepped in front of him and turned to face him. "What did he tell you?"
Roland glanced past me at the fields. "We must follow the trail."
I pressed my palm against his chest. "The trail can get as cold as Ralph's Soup Surprise, for all I care. What did he tell you?"
Roland raised an eyebrow. "'Soup surprise?'"
"The surprise is the soup's colder than the Atlantic, but you didn't answer my question," I persisted.
"He merely told me about your infatuation with salt lick," he revealed.
"And?"
"And perhaps some dog food."
I ground my teeth together. "And?"
"And your uncle gave me the impression he was very hungry."
I rolled my eyes and turned away. "I guess I'll accept that, but don't tell anyone I had a taste for kibbles. The guys at the diner would be leaving forty-pound bags of dog food at the door."
"If you're satisfied, will you now answer my question?" he asked me.
"What was it again?"
"What are your hobbies or interests?"
I crossed my arms over my chest and frowned at him. "Fine, but what I'm about to tell you doesn't leave the field. Got it?"
He bowed his head. "Of course."
"I. . .I like to sing in the shower," I revealed.
A smile spread across Roland's lips. "I've already heard about that one."
My eyes narrowed. "That's all you better have done."
"You have my word as a gentleman," he swore.
"A lot of arguments have started like that, so let's get going on this trail before the sun K.O.s you," I quipped.
We followed the strange hoof prints across the field and into a clump of trees at the northeasterly corner of my aunt and uncle's property. The trail led along a path I remembered playing along as a kid back in the days where monsters were only on TV and neighbor's squash patches stayed intact. I saw the branch I fell out of and thought I broke my arm, the root I tripped over and skinned my knees, and the rock on the short hill that tried to make me two-dimensional. For me, the teenage years were an exercise in extreme survival.
The trail led past my survival course and to a small creek that bubbled its way through the trees. It meandered down and joined the river that was north of Ralph's diner. I looked across the fifteen-foot stream of water.
"I don't see any demonic hoof prints," I told Roland.
He shook his head. "Nor do I. Whatever made the prints has concealed its trail with the water."
I turned back towards the house. "Then let's get back and make sure Aunt Ma isn't using the butcher's knife to to convince Uncle Seward she needs to stab more pumpkins."
CHAPTER 3
We returned to the house to find my aunt and uncle weren't quite done with their squash squalor. They stood in the kitchen in front of the mountain of pumpkins. Aunt Ma had her hands on her hips and frowned at my uncle. He glared back at her.
"I'm not packing out any more failed faces. The pigs'll explode," Uncle Seward warned her.
"But Elmira's been bragging all summer about her squash, and I just can't let her win without a fight," Aunt Ma insisted.
"Elmira?" Roland asked me.
"Aunt Ma's arch-enemy in the Squash Festival," I whispered. "She and my aunt have a feud running so long it circumnavigated the world decades before I was born."
Uncle Seward glanced in our direction. "You find anything out there?"
"Whatever it was lost us at the creek," I told him.
My uncle frowned and turned to Aunt Ma. "See? If you make more they're just going to get broken."
"My pumpkin was murdered, and I am making more whether you pack the innards or not," Aunt Ma insisted.
"All right, make your pumpkin, but just don't leave it out so any dog can come by and wreck it," Uncle Seward demanded.
"Fair enough," Aunt Ma agreed. She turned to us and her frown was replaced with a smile. "You two are coming to the Squash Festival in a few days, aren't you?"
I shook my head. "Nope. I've got to work."
Aunt Ma looked to Roland. "What about you, young
man? The Festival's open at nights for the jack-o-lanterns."
"I can make no promises, but we shall see," Roland replied.
Aunt Ma gave a nod. "Good, then we'll see you there."
"That isn't quite-" I jabbed Roland in the side. He smiled and bowed his head. "Very well."
"Now you two get along before the sun comes up. I've got a lot of carving to do and the Festival's judging night is in only two days," Aunt Ma insisted. She turned her back on us and started her hideous carving of a new jack-o-lantern.
Uncle Seward followed us to the hall where he shook his head. "That woman's more stubborn than a pig with its head in the trough."
"But you will guard her?" Roland asked him.
My uncle whipped his head to Roland and glared at him. "She's my wife. Even she was baiting trouble with the devil I'd protect her with my dying breath."
Roland bowed his head. "I didn't mean offense."
Uncle Seward sighed. "I guess I'm just jumpy. Damn weird things happening around here." He glanced down at the box in Roland's hands. "It doesn't happen to have anything to do with that, does it?"
"We'll know when we apprehend the attacker," Roland told him.
"Well, get on it, then, so I can get to sleep knowing Ma isn't going to be calling me up this early to haul the innards to the barn," he commanded.
"We'll track it down and convince it to stop attacking defenseless pumpkins," I promised.
"Then get along with you," Uncle Seward replied.
Roland and I walked outside and got into the car. I turned to him and his box.
"Please tell me you can track it down and convince it to stop attacking defenseless pumpkins," I pleaded.
Roland stared straight ahead and furrowed his brow. "What else did the trucker tell you about the attack?"
I shrugged. "Just that he couldn't deliver to the Depot and it wouldn't be on the train."
"Does the Depot store a great deal of squash produce?" he asked me.
"Yeah, why? You think the squash squasher's going to raid the Depot for more victims?" I guessed.
"It is possible. The attacker was able to find your aunt's pumpkin seated on the porch. It's plausible it could also follow the scent of the truck tires from the fields to the Depot," he proposed.
"And find the warehouse with all the squash and carve a bunch of jack-o-lanterns with its teeth," I finished.
"I would suggest you alert Sherry to the trouble and see if she won't assist us in protecting the warehouse," he suggested.
I leaned back in my seat and sighed. "It's a good thing it's once in a blood moon and I've got tonight off. I have a feeling this is going to be a hell of a night." I noticed Roland frowned. "What?"
He shook himself and slouched in his seat. "It's nothing, but we should hurry. The sun will soon be up."
I dropped Roland off at the apartment and decided I wanted to try out the insomniac life, so I drove out to the Depot in Northton. The soul box sat in the passenger seat beside me. My eyes flickered to the dark paperweight.
"So you know any good jokes?" I asked the box. The thing didn't give any reply. "Maybe some block-block jokes? You hear the one about the box that went from being two-dimensional to three? It went from hip to square in no-time flat." The box sat there with its tight-lipped lid. I shrugged and looked at the road. "Everybody's a critic. . ." I mumbled.
We got to the Depot twenty minutes after the sun and just in time to join the long line of trucks and cars as the employees herded their way to the warehouses. I took the path less traveled and turned off just outside the gates. The guy in the guardhouse watched me park, and so did a familiar face in a rundown van.
Sherry pulled up to me and rolled down her window. Her eyes flitted to the soul box in my hand. When she talked I could see her white breath in the cold morning air.
"Dad isn't in more trouble, is he?" she asked me.
I shook my head. "No, but my aunt's pumpkins and your squash might be in mortal danger."
She raised an eyebrow. "Say what?"
I nodded at the warehouses. "It's about some squash that you're holding here. Roland and I think maybe somebody might come around tonight and gorge on some gourds."
Sherry jerked her head towards the empty passenger seat. "Get in."
I hopped into the seat and she drove us through the gates. We parked in the parking lot and walked towards the warehouses.
"So are we talking some sort of vegetarian vampire or what?" she questioned me.
"We don't know yet, but since it attacked one of your suppliers we figure it might follow the scent here," I explained.
We stopped at the door to one of the warehouses closest to the railroad tracks and Sherry turned to me. "You're talking about Ben Carson?"
I nodded. "Yep, and the thing took a bite out of my aunt's jack-o-lantern last night."
"You get a look at it?" she wondered.
"No, just its tracks. Some sort of hoofed animal," I told her.
Sherry crossed her arms over her chest and pursed her lips. "That's not much to get everyone around here excited about spending a night in the cold."
"They don't have to. Roland and I can look out for it," I offered.
She sighed, but nodded. "All right, I'll let you two in tonight myself, but it's just because I owe you both big for saving Dad."
"We might spend the whole night counting squash," I assured her.
Sherry smiled. "You'd need more than one night to do that."
She opened the door and gestured inside. I stepped into the warehouse and beheld a cornucopia of gourds. The rind-encased vegetables lay in stiff, three-foot tall cardboard bins, and those bins sat on metal shelves that reached to the ceiling. There were a dozen rows of the shelves that stretched from the front to the rear of the warehouse.
"Aunt Ma can never find this. . ." I murmured.
Sherry came up behind me. "What was that?"
"That's a lot of jack-o-lanterns," I replied.
"And gourds for table decorations and some organic Gaia-worshiper drinking cups," she added. "So what time will you two be here?"
"Just after sunset," I told her.
She snorted. "Of course. Why'd I bother to ask? Well, when you come meet me outside the gate. I don't want to have to explain to security how two people managed to get inside the fence without setting off the alarm."
"Where's the alarm?" I asked her.
"It's connected to the entire fence and the doors. If they open without a key or someone breaks even a link we'll know about it," she promised. I covered my mouth to hide a yawn. Sherry leaned towards me and frowned. "You don't look so good. Getting enough sleep?"
"Just enough to keep me from getting my own coffin," I quipped.
"That doesn't sound like too much. That vampire boyfriend of yours running you ragged?" she guessed.
My mouth clattered shut and I glared at her. "He's not my boyfriend, he's just my roommate."
"So you two aren't a thing?" Sherry asked me.
"If by 'thing' you mean roommates, then yes," I replied.
"We're both adults, Misty. When I mean 'thing' we both know I'm talking about sex," she scolded me.
"I'd rather abstain from necrophilia," I quipped.
"Then why are you letting him hang around you?" she wondered.
I held up the box. "Somebody has to babysit this thing."
Sherry's eyes flitted between me and the box. "A box?"
I tucked the box under one arm. "It's a long story, but the box is important."
"Uh-huh. Well, you and your box should get some rest if you're going to stay up all night," she recommended.
We exchanged goodbyes and I walked to my car. I glared down at the box.
"You could've helped out with some flash or mist ooze or something," I hissed at it. The box sat on the seat like a metal log. I snorted and started the car. "You're a hell of a conversationalist, Boxy."
CHAPTER 4
The rest of the car ride and day were a little darker.
Then the sun went down and Roland rose from my coffee table. I was on the couch and watched the lid rise up.
"You ever get splinters?" I asked him as he stood up.
"Very rarely," he told me. He took a seat in his chair and crossed his legs.
"Were you able to convince Sherry to allow us to guard the gourds?" he asked me.
"We're scheduled to go on gourd duty any time," I told him. "I told Sherry we'd be there a little after sunset."
We got into my car and drove to the Depot. The sun was completely gone and the only natural light was from the full moon in the clear dark sky above us. There were lights over the garage doors of the warehouses, and the warehouse with the gourds had all of its interior lights on. Sherry stood in the guardhouse with the guard and let me drive my car into the lot where I parked near the gate.
"So what exactly are we supposed to be keeping our eyes out for?" Sherry asked us as she walked up to the car.
"The creature is no larger than a human, and possibly as small as a dog," Roland told her.
"We sure we're not dealing with a kid who just really doesn't like squash?" she suggested.
Roland shook his head. "A human couldn't balance themselves on such small feet."
"Unless we're dealing with a demented circus performer who has a slasher tendency during the full moon," I spoke up.
The corner's of Roland's lips twitched up. "Perhaps, but we'll see what may come tonight."
"I told the guard not to let anyone else in or leave his post, and there's no one else here but us," Sherry informed us.
"Show me to the warehouse that stores the squash," Roland requested.
"It's right-" Beep. Beep.
"Somebody hit the snooze button?" I quipped.
Sherry whipped her head to the guardhouse. "That's the quiet alarm." She hurried over to the small shack with us behind her.
The guard pointed at a screen in front of him on the console. It showed a live feed from a camera. The area was dim, but I could make out the fence and a bunch of brush beyond that. "It's on the other side of the tracks," he told us.
Sherry pursed her lips and grabbed three flashlights from the desk. "That's clear across the compound. Come on," she ordered us.
Sherry stepped out of the guardhouse and tossed us each a flashlight. We raced across the concrete and past the warehouses to the railroad tracks. The rear of the warehouses had lights, but they only stretched ten yards from the buildings. The rest of the compound to the fence was, fifty yards of railroad tracks, bunches of short weeds, and the prospect of twisted ankles.