Wanted

  “Help! The pumpkins are ALIVE!”

  Oh, wow. “I knew it!” I muttered. “I knew it!”

  I slammed the cash register drawer shut, leaped over the counter, and ran to help my sisters.

  “Dolly? Dale?” I frantically screamed their names. “Are you okay?”

  As I searched in a panic, it started to rain a little harder. I could hear the raindrops pattering on the pumpkin leaves. A light mist had settled over the field. People were hurrying to their cars.

  I spotted the twins at the edge of the field. They were standing behind a row of three large pumpkins. All around them, the fat leaves trembled from the wind and sudden rain.

  “What’s wrong?” I cried breathlessly. I ran up to them, my eyes on the pumpkins. “What’s happening?”

  The girls both burst out laughing.

  “The pumpkins —” I said. “What happened? What did you see?”

  “It was a joke,” Dale said. She and Dolly bumped knuckles.

  “We knew you’d believe us,” Dolly said. “Because you’re crazy.”

  All a joke. And I fell for it.

  It made me angry. I don’t like being fooled by two little squirts.

  “Who says I’m crazy?” I barked.

  “Dad says,” Dale answered. They both had big grins on their faces.

  “Dad says I’m crazy? I don’t believe you.”

  “It’s true,” Dolly said. “He says ever since you got to this farm, you’ve been acting like you’re nuts.”

  “What did I say?” Dad stepped between us. “Who is nuts?”

  “Nothing,” Dolly said. “Nobody.”

  “We were just teasing Devin,” Dale told him.

  “Well, why don’t you tease him out of the rain?” Dad said. “It’s starting to come down hard. Go. Go with your mother.” He motioned to Mom, who was busy collecting everything off her table and putting them in a red wagon.

  Dad turned to me. He slapped my shoulder. “We had a good day. Good work, Devin.”

  I followed him to the cash register. He removed the money drawer, turned, and motioned toward the farmhouse. “Are you coming?”

  “In a second,” I said. I saw Haywood standing under a tree. He held a black umbrella over his head. He seemed to be watching me.

  I watched Mom, Dad, and the twins hurry down the path to the farmhouse. Behind me, the pumpkin leaves clattered and shook, pattered by the rain.

  Pumpkins appeared to glow in the eerie yellow-gray light. Outside the field, the tall trees bent and swayed.

  It’s like everything is strange. Nothing is normal.

  I trotted over to Haywood. He moved the umbrella so I could get under it, too.

  “Don’t know where this rain came from,” he said. “The day started out so nice.” He had a line of dirt down one side of his face. He was drenched in sweat, and his stringy hair fell over one eye.

  “You worked hard,” I said. “I had the easy job.”

  He snickered. “Maybe you want to trade?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said, and I laughed.

  He motioned to the field. “Still a lot of pumpkins left for Halloween tomorrow. Your dad said it might be even more crowded than today.”

  The wind made a howling sound through the trees. The pumpkin leaves shook hard, slapping loudly against one another.

  “I heard what your sisters said about the pumpkins coming alive.” Haywood peered at me, his expression suddenly serious. “Maybe it isn’t a joke.”

  “Excuse me?” I said. “What are you talking about?”

  My heart started to pound a little faster. Was he about to explain why so many weird things were happening to me on this farm?

  “You don’t know about this place?” I could barely hear him over the drumming of the rain. He suddenly was speaking in a low voice, just above a whisper.

  I shook my head. “What about it?”

  He studied me for a long moment. “Maybe you don’t want to hear it, Devin. It’s kind of a scary story.”

  “Tell me,” I said. “I need to hear it. I need to know what’s up with this place.”

  “Follow me.” He led the way to the little shed where I had spent the day. There was just room for the two of us. At least it was out of the rain.

  “Guess what used to be here on this land?” Haywood said. He pointed to the pumpkin field. “A graveyard.”

  I swallowed. “Really?”

  “A very old graveyard,” he said. “My dad told me it went back to the Civil War.”

  “Wow,” I said. “You mean dead people are buried under this field?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. See, that’s the problem. This was a graveyard for over a hundred years. Then some farmer came along and decided to plow right over it and start a farm.”

  My brain was whirring. I didn’t quite understand. “You mean he didn’t dig up the graveyard first? He didn’t move the bodies?”

  “No, he didn’t,” Haywood said softly.

  We both stared out at the field for a while. The mist had settled low over the ground. It swirled and curled over the pumpkins like a floating ghost.

  “He left the dead bodies in the ground,” Haywood continued. “And he planted his crops right on top of them.”

  I swallowed again. My mouth suddenly felt very dry. “So we are walking around over a lot of dead people?” My voice came out tight and shrill.

  Haywood nodded. “That’s where the stories about this farm got started,” he said.

  “Stories?”

  “Well, some say the dead are very unhappy here. The poor people who are buried in this field don’t have gravestones or anything. It makes them angry.”

  I stared hard at him. I didn’t like this story. But I didn’t want him to stop.

  “Sometimes weird things happen on this farm,” he continued. “Frightening things. Things that can’t be explained.”

  “I … I know what you’re talking about,” I stammered.

  “They say it’s the dead people. They are showing how unhappy they are.”

  “The dead people …?” I repeated. I felt a shiver run down my back.

  “Come with me,” Haywood said. “I’ll show you something.”

  I followed him out of the tiny shed. The rain had slowed, but the mist swirled around us in gusts of wind. It was almost like walking inside a cloud.

  He led the way along the pumpkin vines till we got to a corner of the field. A mouse scampered over my shoes and disappeared into the shaking leaves.

  We stopped. Haywood bent down. He pulled the green leaves away from a fat vine. “Devin, look here,” he said.

  He held the leaves to the side so I could see the vine clearly. This was where the vine started. I could see where it sprouted up from the dirt.

  “See? The vine goes straight down,” Haywood said. “The vine goes straight down into one of the dead people. It’s sprouting from a dead body.”

  “Huh?” A gasp escaped my throat.

  “The vines sprout from the corpses down below,” Haywood said, still holding the leaves. “And some people say … Some people say the angry dead send their spirits … their souls … through the vines. They send their anger up from their graves … through the vines … and into these pumpkins.”

  I gaped at him in silence. Another shiver rolled down my back.

  Was that story totally crazy?

  Did it make any sense at all?

  I struggled to understand. “You mean, in a way, these pumpkins really are alive?” I choked out.

  He nodded solemnly. “The pumpkins are alive. Alive with the anger of the dead people they sprout from.”

  “But — that’s crazy!” I blurted.

  Haywood shrugged. “You don’t have to believe it if you don’t want to.”

  “But … some strange things have happened to me,” I said. “Do you think maybe —?”

  “There’s more,” he said. “Do you want me to tell you the rest?”

  I stared hard at him. “I g
uess….” I turned to the field — and gasped as I saw a pumpkin move. It rolled toward us. Even in the thick mist, I could see it move.

  I grabbed Haywood’s shoulder. “Did you see that?” I asked. “Did you see that pumpkin move?”

  He shook his head. “It’s very foggy. Are you sure?”

  I kept my eyes on the field. Were all the pumpkins moving now? Were they all rolling on their vines? Moving through the heavy white fog?

  “Now I’m not sure,” I said. “Can the spirits of the buried people make the pumpkins move?”

  “I don’t know,” Haywood answered. “I’m just telling you the stories I’ve heard. There’s one more. The story of the person they call the Grave-Master.”

  As he said that word, a burst of wind made the whole field tilt and sway. The fog curled along the vines. The pumpkins were invisible in the mist.

  “They say that the angriest dead person of them all rose up through the vines,” Haywood continued in a whisper. “His angry spirit traveled through the vines and into a pumpkin. After a while, he learned how to shift his shape.”

  “I … I don’t understand,” I stammered. “Shift his shape?”

  “From inside a pumpkin, he can shift to another shape. Another body. He can be a human or an animal. And then he shifts back into a pumpkin. That way, he cannot be found. He cannot be sent back to where he belongs. His power is strongest on Halloween.”

  “Uh … wow.” I had to think about this. This was hard to get my brain around.

  “He is called the Grave-Master,” Haywood said. “But he can be anywhere his anger takes him. And he wants only one thing. He wants to terrify people and drive them away from —”

  Haywood stopped. He didn’t finish his sentence. His mouth opened in a startled O.

  I followed his gaze. To the field. Into the heavy fog.

  And I saw a dark spot through the misty cloud. A black object.

  The fog curled away, like a gray-white snake. And the dark object Haywood stared at came into sharper view.

  The black cat. Zeus.

  Standing stiffly at the edge of the field. Eyes glowing eerily. Trained on us.

  Haywood gripped my arm. I could see the fear on his face.

  “That c-cat,” he stuttered. “How long has he been standing there? Did he hear what we were saying?”

  The cat meowed, a sour cry, as if answering the question.

  To my surprise, Haywood let the umbrella fall to the ground and took off running, darting into the fog. A few seconds later, he was gone.

  Dad was excited at dinner. He kept pounding his fork and knife on the table and saying, “What a day! What an amazing day!”

  Mom squeezed his hand. “Take it easy, Allan. Your face is all red.”

  “I can’t take it easy. Did you see all those people? We took in over a thousand dollars today.”

  “Does that mean I can have a new American Girl doll?” Dale asked.

  “Me, too?” Dolly chimed in. “With two sets of outfits?”

  Mom and Dad laughed.

  “Stop being selfish,” Mom scolded. “This money is for the whole family.”

  “Dale and I are in the family!” Dolly protested.

  “What a day!” Dad said for the tenth time. “The rain is already stopping. So tomorrow should be even better. We’ll sell every pumpkin — even the scrawny ones. Those vines will be bare.”

  I pictured the bare vines stretching across the field like long snakes. The thought gave me a shiver.

  “You girls were awesome!” Dad said. He took another helping of roasted potatoes from the big bowl and passed it to Mom. “You were the best greeters!”

  “Yaaay!” the twins both cheered.

  “It was totally fun,” Dolly said. “Except when that little dog got lost.”

  Mom and Dad both blinked. Dad stopped chewing his chicken. “Little dog?”

  The girls nodded. “Didn’t you see it?” Dale asked. “These people brought their little black dog, and it slipped off its leash?”

  “It ran away,” Dolly added. “Just ran off and got lost under the pumpkin leaves.”

  “I missed this drama,” Mom said.

  “Didn’t you hear the people shouting, ‘Chewy! Chewy!’?” Dolly said. “That was the dog’s name. Chewy.”

  “What happened?” Dad asked. “Did they find it?”

  “Dale found it,” Dolly said. “It was right behind us the whole time. It found a piece of pumpkin rind or something, and it was chewing on it.”

  “Maybe that’s why they call him Chewy,” I said.

  Mom laughed, but no one else did.

  “So the story had a happy ending,” Dad said. He started eating his chicken leg again.

  “And the man gave Dolly and me each a dollar for finding the dog,” Dale said, beaming with pride.

  “A dollar each? What are you going to do with it?” Mom asked.

  “You can’t have it. We’re saving it to buy Twizzlers in town,” Dolly said.

  “Good choice,” I said. I love Twizzlers.

  Dad turned to me. “You did a good job, too, in your little shed. Did you enjoy it?”

  “Not really,” I said.

  He sighed.

  “I know, I know. I’m supposed to change my attitude. But I have to tell you something I heard.”

  I’d been dying to tell Mom and Dad the story Haywood told me about the farm, the graveyard, and the angry dead people. I wasn’t sure the dinner table was the right place to tell the story.

  But now, here it was, bursting out of me. I really couldn’t hold it in any longer.

  Dad reached for the string beans. He pointed to my empty plate. “Devin, how come you’re not eating?”

  “I want to tell you what I heard. About this farm,” I said. “Did you know it used to be a graveyard?”

  Mom uttered a surprised cry. “Excuse me? A graveyard?”

  Dolly squinted across the table at me. “You mean, like, with dead people?”

  “Yes,” I said. “There was an old graveyard here. Right where the pumpkin fields are.”

  “That’s crazy. Where did you hear that?” Dad demanded.

  Before I could answer, Mrs. Barnes came through the kitchen door. She had two bags of groceries in her arms. Dad jumped up to help her carry them to the kitchen counter.

  “Did this farm used to be a graveyard?” he asked her.

  Mrs. Barnes blinked a few times. She smoothed down the front of her flannel shirt. “You hear a lot of stories,” she said. “You can’t believe them all, you know.”

  “Haywood told it to me,” I said.

  She laughed. “Like I said, you can’t believe every story. That boy of mine has a strange and wonderful mind. He’s a good boy. But he lives in some kind of fantasy world. Not the world we know.”

  Dad sat back down at the big kitchen table. Mrs. Barnes reached into a bag and started putting away groceries.

  “Go on,” Mom said. “What’s the rest of the story? Is it too scary for the girls?”

  “Nothing scares us!” Dolly declared.

  I glanced around the table. They were all staring at me. I knew none of them would believe me.

  Mrs. Barnes was right. It had to be some kind of crazy fantasy story.

  Dead people don’t send their anger up through pumpkin vines. Pumpkins aren’t alive with the spirits of people who died a hundred years ago. And no one can rise up from the dead and take the shape of …

  … of a black cat?

  I lowered my eyes to the floor. Sure enough, Zeus stood right beside my chair. The cat was gazing up at me, as if waiting for me to finish my story.

  No. No way. The whole thing was crazy.

  But then, why had Haywood looked so frightened when he saw Zeus watching us from the field? Why did he run away like that?

  Was he just putting on an act?

  “I’ll tell you the whole thing later,” I said. “It’s just a crazy story.”

  I had no idea the story was about to
get a lot crazier.

  After dinner, I watched a movie on TV with the girls. It was a comedy about a boy who switches bodies with his father. It was totally embarrassing, but the twins thought it was a riot.

  The farmhouse had no wireless or Internet connection. So my laptop was useless. If my friends were trying to reach me online, too bad.

  “You guys should get to bed,” Mom said. “Tomorrow is a big day. Halloween.”

  The twins scurried off to their room. I wasn’t feeling tired, but I went to my room and read for an hour or so. I was reading one of these dystopian novels. That’s a book about when all the cities have been destroyed, and there are only a few survivors struggling to get by.

  This book was about these people who find out they’re the last family on Earth. They’re not too happy about it.

  Can you imagine if my family was the last family on Earth? Ha. Now that would be a horror story!

  I didn’t know how late it was. There was no clock in my room. Just a creaky, hard bed with a smelly quilt on it and a beat-up dresser and nothing else.

  But my eyelids felt as heavy as rocks. And I was yawning and yawning. So I figured it was time to go to sleep.

  I thought about tomorrow. I hoped Dad would let me work the cash register again. I felt safer in that little shed.

  I changed into my pajamas. They were Spider-Man pajamas. My dad’s idea of a joke. He knows I’m not into superheroes. At least they were warm.

  I clicked off the ceiling light, climbed under the ratty quilt, and pulled it up to my chin. The pillow was soft, but I could feel the feathers inside it on the back of my head.

  A glow of silvery moonlight washed into my room from the window facing my bed. The window was open, I realized. The curtains fluttered softly on both sides.

  It had stopped raining, but I could still hear the patter of raindrops falling from the trees. The wind through the window felt warm, warmer than during the day.

  I gazed at the window, waiting for sleep to creep over me.

  Something moved. Something outside.

  In the silvery moonlight, I saw shadows at the window. Something rose into view, then slid back down.

  Blinking, I sat up straight. And peered through the dim light at the open window.

  Again, I saw shadows reflected on the fluttering curtains. Something stretched up … straight up. It appeared to coil toward the window.