Wanted

  I mean, this field was a horror movie waiting to happen.

  But I had to act brave for the girls. I’m the older brother and that’s my job, right?

  I tugged free of them and took a few steps back. The fat leaves brushed the legs of my jeans. That sent chills up my spine.

  And in the darkness, I suddenly saw two glowing green eyes. Cat eyes. Zeus had followed us again.

  The girls were dancing faster and faster, circling the big pumpkin and singing:

  “Jack Jack Jack-o’-lantern

  Jack-o’-lantern come ALIVE!

  Come alive! Come alive!

  Jack Jack Jack Jack.”

  “Come alive? Are you kidding me?” I shouted over their shrill little singing voices.

  They both laughed.

  “Where did you learn that song?” I asked.

  “We made it up, stupid,” Dolly replied.

  “Yes, we make up songs all the time,” Dale said. “Why won’t you dance with us, Devin? Don’t you think it’s cool to dance in the dark like this?”

  “Not cool,” I said. “Totally not cool. Let’s go back to the house. It’s getting cold.”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  See? I’m always wrong.

  “Jack Jack Jack-o’-lantern

  Jack-o’-lantern come ALIVE!

  Come alive! Come alive!

  Jack Jack Jack Jack.”

  “Stop singing that!” I shouted. Their dumb song was giving me the creeps, too. I was shivering. Really.

  Hey, I’m a city guy. I grew up in New York City. My first seven years, at least. Before we moved to Dayton, Ohio. I don’t belong on a farm.

  I can’t believe Dad leased this pick-your-own-pumpkin farm. But he lost his job last year. And he’s been scrambling around, trying to find ways to make money ever since.

  So, I try not to complain. I only tell him how much I hate it here five or ten times a day.

  A strong gust of wind came blowing down the length of the field. The trees near the fence bent and made weird groaning sounds. The pumpkin leaves rattled and shook at my feet.

  “I … I’m going inside,” I said to the twins. “Are you coming?”

  I didn’t wait for their answer. I turned and started to jog toward the house, jumping over the long, fat vines.

  “WHOOOOAAAA!”

  I tripped over a vine.

  Nothing to grab on to. Nothing to stop myself from falling.

  I saw the glowing cat eyes watching me as I went down.

  I landed with a thud. My head hit something hard. A pumpkin? A rock?

  My knees throbbed. Pain shot up and down my body.

  Everything went black. Blacker than the night sky.

  I fought it. I forced my eyes to open. Pain danced around my head, circling me. I could feel the blood pulsing at my temples.

  “Ohhhhh.” A low moan escaped my throat. I shook my head hard, trying to shake away the pain.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Devin, are you hurt?”

  My twin sisters leaned over me, staring down with wide eyes.

  “No. Not okay,” I said. I held my hands out and let them pull me to a sitting position.

  “What’s wrong?” Dolly asked.

  “Didn’t you see what happened?” I cried.

  They both shook their heads. “You tripped?” Dale said.

  “No,” I said. “Didn’t you see that vine move? That vine right there.” I pointed to it. “It moved. It tripped me. Really. I saw it move!”

  The girls just laughed. They thought I was joking, but I wasn’t.

  Squinting into the darkness, I could swear I saw the vines crawling over the ground, twisting, tangling over one another as they stretched and slithered.

  I stood up and rubbed my head. I could feel a bump on my forehead from where I hit. No blood. But I knew I’d have an ugly bruise.

  The cool wind felt good on my hot face. Except for the clapping of the leaves, the pumpkin field was silent. No night birds. The crickets of summer were all gone.

  “Come on. Into the house,” I said. “Enough thrills and chills for one night.”

  That’s when a long creature rose up in front of me and attacked my face.

  “Snake! Snake!” Dolly shrieked.

  I screamed.

  The girls burst out laughing. Dale waved the vine in my face. She had it gripped in both hands.

  I should have known she was moving the vine. But I was freaked from my fall.

  “You two are about as funny as moldy pumpkin guts,” I said.

  That made them laugh even harder. Okay. Fine. Let them enjoy their joke.

  I didn’t feel like laughing. I was pretty miserable.

  I mean, I had to spend a whole week on this farm. A whole week of caring for the pumpkins, and hauling them to peoples’ cars, and helping guide the visitors, and working the cash register, and just general farm work.

  A whole week away from school and my friends.

  As soon as we came inside, I phoned Lu-Ann to see how she was doing back in our neighborhood.

  “I’m still dreading Polly Martin’s party,” she said. “It’s going to be so lame. Brad and Marcus and I are thinking hard. But we can’t come up with any good ideas to help make the party exciting.”

  “I know what you can do,” I said, rubbing the bump on my forehead. “You can come here. There’s plenty of extra rooms. And you can do all of my jobs! Fun, right?”

  She didn’t laugh. “You know I can’t come there, Devin. No way my parents would let me miss school so I can go pick pumpkins on your farm.”

  “But, Lu-Ann,” I said, “this farm is less than an hour from your house. Maybe you could —”

  “Forget it, Devin. No way. Not happening.” She shouted something to her mom. I heard them talking for a minute.

  Then she came back to the phone. “Are you hating it there?”

  “Hating isn’t the right word,” I said. “I think maybe despising is the perfect word.” Lu-Ann and I are always looking for perfect words.

  “Well, when you start to feel bad, just think about how lucky you are to be missing Polly’s party.”

  I started to answer, but something caught my eye. A reflection in my bedroom window. Something bright and fiery.

  I stared hard at the reflection in the window. It took me a few seconds to realize it was a large jack-o’-lantern. The reflection of a flaming, grinning jack-o’-lantern. Floating inside my room!

  I let out a shocked cry. I spun around.

  Nothing in my room. No jack-o’-lantern. No floating pumpkin.

  I turned back to the window. And saw the grinning pumpkin in the glass. It flickered brightly. A reflection from my room.

  I spun around again. No jack-o’-lantern in the room.

  Then, as I turned my eyes to the window, I saw the pumpkin slowly fade in the dark glass. It faded to nothing. Disappeared as I stared, my heart pounding.

  Whoa.

  How can there be a reflection of something that isn’t here?

  “Devin? Devin? What’s wrong? Why did you scream?”

  I heard Lu-Ann’s alarmed voice in my phone.

  “I … I’ve got to go,” I said. I kept my eyes on the window. Black as the night now.

  “But are you okay?”

  “Yeah. I guess. Later,” I said. I clicked the phone off and tossed it onto my bed. Then I bolted out of my room. Ran down the hall and out the back door.

  A burst of freezing wind blew me back. But I ran to the side of the house, my eyes searching the darkness for the bright jack-o’-lantern.

  No. Not out here.

  Not in my room. And not outside. But I didn’t imagine it. No way I imagined it.

  I rubbed the bump on my head. It hurt a lot.

  Was it causing me to see things?

  Hallucinate. That’s a perfect word.

  “Anyone out here?” I called. My voice sounded strangely hollow in the heavy night air.

  Silence. Except for the
clatter of the pumpkin leaves. And the scrape … the scrape … scrape … scrape of the long vines as they crawled over the soft dirt.

  No. Wait.

  Why were the vines making that sound? That wasn’t normal — was it?

  Wrapping my arms around myself to keep warm, I took a few steps away from the back of the house. I stepped out of the light from my bedroom window and moved toward the pumpkin field.

  It took a while for my eyes to adjust to the blackness. It was so dark, I couldn’t see where the sky ended and the ground began.

  But as I moved closer, I could hear the slither of the vines clearly. Yes. I could hear them stretching … stretching …

  The vines were moving. Dozens of them.

  Crawling toward the house, dragging the pumpkins with them.

  I realized I wasn’t breathing. I’d been holding my breath. I let it out in a long whoosh. My breath steamed in front of me.

  And as the steam floated away, my eyes focused on some pumpkins on the ground. Large, round pumpkins right in front of me.

  I gasped when I saw them moving. Their sides moved in, then out. Tiny movements. But I could see them.

  In, then out.

  They were breathing.

  The pumpkins were breathing.

  “Nooooo.” A low moan escaped my throat. My whole body shook with fright.

  I turned and ran. My shoes slid on the loose dirt as I bolted back into the house. I burst down the hall and into my parents’ room.

  I know. I was supposed to knock. But I was too frightened to remember anything. I just lowered my shoulder and pushed the door open.

  They were sound asleep under the covers in their bed. “Mom! Dad!” I ran to the bed and shook them awake.

  “Huh? What?” Mom blinked her eyes in confusion.

  “Devin? What’s wrong?” Dad’s voice was clogged with sleep.

  “It’s … the vines,” I choked out. I was panting so hard I could barely speak. “They’re growing. They’re moving. I saw them. You’ve got to believe me. The vines are crawling like snakes. Crawling to the house. And the pumpkins — I saw them breathing!”

  “Yes, I know,” Dad said, raising his head from the pillow. “I meant to tell you about that.”

  “Huh?” I stared at Dad, my heart pounding.

  “Devin,” Dad said, “we also hired two dozen monkeys to sit on the pumpkins and keep them from hopping away.”

  Mom and Dad both burst out laughing.

  I stood there with my mouth hanging open. I waited for them to stop. “Uh … does this mean you don’t believe me?”

  That made them start laughing again.

  “No, we don’t believe you,” Mom said. She reached out and grabbed my hand. Her hand was very warm. Mine was frozen.

  “We don’t believe the vines were crawling or the pumpkins were breathing,” Mom said. “We know you don’t want to be here, kiddo. But making up scary stories won’t help you get home.”

  “I — I didn’t make it up.”

  She squeezed my hand. “Go back to bed, Devin. You were having one of your bad dreams.” She tucked her hand back under the covers.

  I turned and started to the bedroom door. “Sorry I woke you up.”

  I was pretty sure it wasn’t a bad dream. It’s true I have a lot of nightmares. And yes, they are very real. And I remember them all after I wake up. And sometimes I get confused and think they really happened. But not for long.

  And this time I knew it couldn’t be a nightmare. Because I wasn’t asleep. When I saw the reflection of the jack-o’-lantern, I was talking to Lu-Ann on the phone.

  I was finally starting to breathe normally. I walked down the hall to my room. This was an old farmhouse, and the floorboards all creaked as I walked.

  The house groaned and cracked and made weird noises all the time. And the old radiators hissed and rattled when the heat came up.

  Like a haunted house.

  I scolded myself for thinking like that. “Come on, Devin. You’re only going to be living here for a week. What could happen in a week?”

  I heard my sisters giggling in their room. It was nearly midnight and they were still awake. They were so excited about living on this farm and in this creaky old house, they could barely sit still. And they stayed up till all hours making up pumpkin games and songs.

  Why couldn’t I enjoy it like them?

  Pumpkins don’t breathe. And vines don’t slither like snakes.

  Why did I have to imagine these things?

  Just relax, Devin.

  “Ohh!” I uttered a cry as a large figure stepped into the dim hall.

  It took me a few seconds to recognize Mrs. Barnes. She stepped toward me with a smile on her round face. Her long braids fell down the back of her heavy gray nightgown.

  “Trouble sleeping, Devin?” Her silvery eyes studied me.

  “Uh … kinda,” I said.

  “You’re probably just excited. Farm life is more exciting than people think.”

  “Exciting?” I said.

  She nodded. “All the creatures in the outdoors and things growing everywhere. It’s a world apart from city life.”

  “You got that right,” I muttered.

  “I have just the thing for you,” she said, motioning with one finger for me to follow her. “A nice hot cup of pumpkin tea.”

  Huh?

  “Pumpkin tea?” My stomach did a quick flip-flop.

  “Just the thing to relax you, dearie.” Her silvery eyes didn’t blink. I knew she was trying to be nice. But she was starting to freak me out.

  “Uh … no thanks,” I said. “I’m fine.”

  Her face fell. She looked disappointed. I said good night, stepped into my room, and closed the door behind me.

  Pumpkin tea?

  A few seconds later, I climbed into bed and pulled the covers up. The bedroom window rattled, and I felt a cold wind blowing over the room.

  I shut my eyes and tried not to think about the farm. Instead, I thought about Polly Martin’s Halloween party, and Lu-Ann and my friends scheming to make it more exciting.

  I opened my eyes and gazed into the darkness. It took a while but I finally started to feel sleepy. Yes. I was about to fall asleep. My eyelids felt heavy … heavy …

  The last thing I saw was an orange glow on the bedroom window glass.

  Next morning, bright sunlight poured into the bedroom window. It warmed my face and woke me up. I sat up straight, instantly alert.

  During the night, I had a bad dream about scarecrows. Scarecrows in my house. No, wait. In the dream, my mom and dad and two sisters — they were chasing me through a farm field. And as they ran, they all turned into scarecrows.

  Crazy.

  I yawned loudly. I stretched my hands high above my head.

  The sunlight felt nice on my face. Today is going to be better, I told myself.

  Today I’m putting on my new face. A whole new attitude. I’m going to be like my sisters. I’m going to make the most of my two weeks here. I’m going to have FUN.

  I had a smile on my face as I turned, pushed back the covers, and lowered my feet to the floor.

  “Aaaaack.”

  I expected to feel the hard floorboards. But instead, my bare feet sank into something warm and squishy.

  I jerked my feet up in surprise. “Oh, yuck!”

  They were covered in some kind of drippy orange-yellow goo.

  Slowly, I peered down.

  “Oh, wow.”

  Leaning forward, I saw the round puddle of orange glop on the floor beside my bed. I quickly recognized the sour smell.

  Pumpkin meat. Pulpy, sticky pumpkin meat.

  I was staring down at a pile of it, a huge puddle of pumpkin guts.

  How did it get there?

  Someone dropped the puddle of pumpkin guts beside my bed. But who?

  It had to be a joke, a mean joke. Someone knew I would step in it and be totally grossed out.

  Dale and Dolly didn’t do this, I decided. It
just wasn’t their style. Their jokes were silly — not mean and disgusting.

  Someone had sneaked into my room during the night and left that pile of gunk there. Who in this house would do such a thing?

  I couldn’t help it. I left orange, pulpy footprints across the floor as I walked to the bathroom. I took an extra-long shower, and washed my feet at least five times.

  I was still thinking about the pumpkin guts as I made my way to the kitchen. The house has a big farmhouse kitchen with a fireplace on one wall, a long wooden table like a picnic table, and a super-sized stove and fridge.

  Dale and Dolly were already at the table, spooning up big bowls of cereal. Mrs. Barnes turned from the sink and smiled at me. “Did you finally get to sleep, Devin?”

  I nodded. “Yes. No problem.”

  “I’m making you a big plate of scrambled eggs and bacon this morning,” she said. “You work up a big appetite on a farm.”

  “Cool,” I said. I studied the twins. They were splashing milk on each other. Eating each other’s Corn Flakes.

  I knew they weren’t the pumpkin-goo culprits.

  Zeus hunched in front of the fireplace, watching us eat. He was the biggest cat I’d ever seen. Bigger than our old cocker spaniel. The cat never made a sound. Just watched us and followed us silently.

  After breakfast, Dad led Dale, Dolly, and me out back to a wooden shed. He pointed to a pile of small pumpkins on the ground in front of a low bench.

  “I brought these little pumpkins here for you to paint,” he said. He pointed to a small table with jars of red, black, and white paint. “Paint funny faces on them. You know. Some creepy ones. Some grinning ones. Some cute faces.”

  I picked up a little pumpkin and rolled it around in my hand. “And why are we doing this?” I asked.

  “People like to buy ready-made jack-o’-lanterns,” Dad said. “You know. Pumpkins they don’t have to carve.”

  “I get it,” I said.

  The girls were already sitting on the bench, opening jars of paint.

  “Go wild. Paint the funniest faces you can,” Dad said. “We’ll sell them for ten dollars each.”

  Dolly dipped a paintbrush in a jar of red paint. Then she raised the brush to Dale’s face. Dale tried to squirm away.