The Mammoth Book of Halloween Stories: Terrifying Tales Set on the Scariest Night of the Year!

by Stephen Jones

  Don’t you go thinking bad of Momma. The reason this is such a particular memory is because it was out of the usual. If she’d frequently screamed at me and flung birthday cards at me, I’d have nothing to remember, would I? In a way, this only shows how patient she was with me every other day of my childhood. It should only define her in your head as a strong and worthy mother. But that said, at the time my feelings were hurt and I was picking up sticky sparkles from my bed for weeks.

  Just as my parents did, I spent a lot of time thinking about the Pumpkin Kids. About what I might have been. Should have been. How I’d been cheated out of my birthright—but there was no one to blame but myself, I had done the cheating: right from the moment I was born I had fucked things up royally and I would never be special and I would never be of any use. Sometimes I got angry too. They say that when I was a baby I used to lie in my cot and rant and kick and yell, and I had to be injected with a sedative the doctors had prescribed just so my poor parents could get some rest.

  But the awful truth is this—some days I wouldn’t mind I’d not been born a Pumpkin Kid. I’d even feel relieved. Some days, and more and more as I got older. I would always be an also-ran, and that was better. And I despised myself for that, just as my parents despised me, just as the neighbors did, and the school teachers, and Pastor Lewis. How feeble I was, that I embraced failure. Maybe that was the point? That I didn’t feel strong enough to be a Pumpkin Kid, to be born with all that responsibility, to know that I’d have a Christ-witnessed purpose to live up to, that would justify my life and the lives of the parents who had spawned me, forever and ever and ever, amen. Oh, easier not to bother. Easier to hide in the shadows, if you can find shadows big enough to hide in—and stay still, and be quiet, and do nothing.

  I guess if I had been born a Pumpkin Kid, I would have been born with that Pumpkin Kid strength, and I wouldn’t have had these doubts. But then, I wouldn’t have been me.

  Half an hour after Momma left there was a knock at my bedroom door. “Are you asleep?” It was my Da. I wasn’t asleep, I couldn’t have slept, right at that moment I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to sleep again. Da came in and sat on my bed—which he never did—and he stroked my head—which he never did neither. “Momma was drunk,” he whispered. “Or she wouldn’t have said such things.” He didn’t tell me he was sorry, and he didn’t tell me Momma hadn’t meant it, and that was good, falsehoods are doorways to the Devil. He didn’t say anything else for a while, and I just lay there and I closed my eyes, and I tried to keep them open too so I could enjoy my father being there—and I make-believed that for all the hate my mother felt for me my father felt the same amount of love. And he said eventually, “This day of the year, it’s hard to be around you. It was on her birthday, when she’d been drinking, I got her into bed with me. It was on this day that you were conceived, and everything in our lives went wrong.”

  I miss my Da. He died only a short while later. I came home from school and Momma told me he was in the bathroom hanging from a rope. I asked if I could go and look, and she said no. “With Heaven’s favor, we’ll see him again soon.” But we haven’t yet.

  So I gather, this is what happened.

  I was expected on the last day of October, some time early afternoon. There was no reason to anticipate any problems with that—the pregnancy had gone without a hitch, my mother had been strong and healthy throughout, she hadn’t even suffered so much as a twinge of morning sickness. There are never problems with Pumpkin Kid pregnancies—all other children are conceived in sin and guilt, and the struggle to bring them into the world only reflects that; Pumpkin Kids are pure. And my parents were pure too, I knew they were, and this was the pregnancy they deserved, because they loved Jesus with all their might.

  They were admitted into their own private suite in the hospital, paid for by the Council. From now on, and for the rest of their lives, everything would be paid for by the Council—we honor those who create the miracles. Doctors and nurses all came in to pay their respects, and asked if there was anything they could do to make my mother more comfortable. There wasn’t. She was serene.

  It was only as afternoon passed into evening that Momma began to show any concern. And the doctors tried to reassure her that the timing of birth is never an exact science—little miracles must be allowed a degree of willfulness! Baby would come out when Baby was ready. But my mother was right—and as the hours ticked by she began to get so distressed there was nothing anyone could say to calm her down. “Why won’t it come out?” she cried. “What’s the matter with it?” And she battered at her swollen belly with her fists, clawed at it with her nails as if to prize it open. “What bloody game does it think it’s playing in there?”

  Past eleven o’clock, and still no sign of contractions. My mother begged the doctors to induce the birth. They refused. They couldn’t intervene with a miracle, God would see. Halloween wasn’t over yet, they told her. The baby could still come out in good time. And you can imagine that the doctors must have been panicking too—Pumpkin Kids were never born late, this wasn’t how God willed it. Forty-five minutes. Thirty. Ten. At five minutes to midnight my mother let out a groan so profound that for a moment the medical staff assumed the baby must have finally given up the fight and popped out—but no, my mother could feel all she had ever wanted and all she had ever dreamed of slipping away from her and she’d given a cry of heartbroken despair: her child would be nothing, she was nothing, there was nothing to hold on to any longer. At midnight the nurses helped my mother up out of bed, and supporting her by the shoulders moved her from the luxury of her suite and into a public ward.

  I was born on November 1st, a little after four o’clock in the morning. “I don’t want it,” my mother said. “I don’t want it.” But there I was.

  Pastor Lewis was by her side. He’d been in attendance thinking to bless the arrival of a miracle; now he was on hand to offer good counsel. “You’re still a young woman,” Pastor Lewis said, “and you’re still fertile. You have a Pumpkin Child in you, I know it. You mustn’t be discouraged by this near-miss. Go to it again. Go to it, and breed for us all something outstanding.”

  But my parents didn’t breed again. I remained their only child. I don’t know why they didn’t, Pastor Lewis was right, they were clearly capable—and the sin was mine, it wasn’t on their heads, was it? Was it?—and yet all my life I remember them only sleeping in separate beds, at opposite sides of the room, as far away from each other as they could get. I never saw them kiss, or hug, or touch.

  One Sunday I decided to stay after church and talk to Pastor Lewis. I liked church. I liked the way that I felt part of a community. I could sing the hymns along with everyone else, and pray, and nod my head and say “Amen”—and just for a little while I didn’t stand out and nobody judged me.

  And I liked the way that when we lined up before the altar, and Pastor Lewis gave us a sip of wine, how it became coppery and thick when it turned into the blood of Christ. I liked how those little wafers of bread became fat hunks of raw flesh. I felt awe that something so simple could be transformed by the grace of God, I dared to hope that through that grace I too could be transformed.

  Pastor Lewis glared as I approached him. Of course he did. He raised an eyebrow as I told him I needed his help. “I want to be a Pumpkin Child.”

  “Indeed?”

  “I’m very nearly a Pumpkin Child already. I was very close.”

  He sighed, and began collecting up hymn books. “You can’t nearly be a Pumpkin Child, any more than I can nearly be Jesus Christ. You either are, or you’re not.”

  And I started to cry, because I knew it was true, but up until that moment I had allowed myself a little hope. I didn’t want to cry—I’d quickly learned that my crying just irritated people—and I expected the pastor would be irritated too. Instead he put the books down, and turned to me with an expression that seemed almost sympathetic.

  “Look at me,” said the pastor. “Can you guess when I
was born? I was born on April 16th. More years ago than you can imagine. I could never have been born a Pumpkin Child, that was never my destiny. But I determined to do my best with the limitations I had, and I became a priest. It’s all we can do. We take what God has given us, and make the best of it.”

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “But you,” he said. And he wasn’t trying to be cruel, but he couldn’t help it, his lip twisted into a sneer. “God offered you everything. He chose you. All you had to do was lie back and relax and get born. And you wouldn’t do it. You decided not to. What little slice of evil was already in you, boy, so to take God’s bounty and fling it in His face?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to.”

  He reached out his hand, and cupped my chin, and stared right into me—and I flinched, because no one ever touched me, and because his fingers were bony and sharp. “I don’t know,” he said. “Could it be that you’re not wicked at all, but clumsy and indolent?”

  “Yes, that’s it,” I said, too eagerly, and my chin waggled in his grip. “Clumsy and indolent! I’m clumsy and indolent!”

  He nodded at this. “Then it’s not impossible. Maybe there’s a little pumpkin inside you after all. Shall we go and see?”

  I’d never been in the vestry before. It smelled of old books and pipe-smoke. He went to his desk, opened a drawer, and took out a knife. “This is my pumpkin knife,” he said. I had honestly thought it would be a lot bigger.

  “Now,” he said, “every year, before it’s Halloween, I go and visit all the little Pumpkin Children, and find out whether they’re ripe or not. You’ve got to check! Jesus only wants the ripe ones! We can’t expect much, but I could apply the same procedure to you, see if I recognize any familiar signs… .”

  No one had ever been quite this nice to me my entire life. “Yes, please!”

  “Keep your head still,” he said. “This won’t hurt a bit.” That wasn’t true. It did. He made a slice at my neck. “Now, now!” he chuckled. “Don’t cry out, that’s not the way proper Pumpkin Children behave! We have to make a second notch across it, so it’s the sign of the cross.” And he cut at me again, and I could feel the blood running down my skin, and this time I clenched my teeth tight and it didn’t hurt so much.

  I asked if I were now a Pumpkin Kid, and he laughed. “I can’t tell just by looking at the blood,” he said. “What do you think I am? I tell by taste.” And that’s when he pressed his lips against my neck, and his tongue lapped away at the gash he’d made, and the stubble on his chin was rough and tickled but it wasn’t the sort of tickle that makes you want to laugh. I wanted to pull away but didn’t for fear of spoiling the magic.

  “Well?” I asked when at last he stopped. I dared to hope.

  Pastor Lewis frowned. He smacked his lips a few times as if he was appreciating a fine wine, then sighed, and wiped the blood from his mouth away with the back of his hand. “I’m afraid,” he said gravely, “I can’t taste any pumpkin in you at all. No, more than that. I’d say there was less pumpkin in you than an ordinary person.” He passed me a paper towel. “Clean yourself up.”

  And I wanted to cry again, and my neck was smarting, and I felt crushed, and also betrayed somehow. Yes, betrayed—as if everything that could have made me good and decent and worthwhile was just arbitrary, and God didn’t care, and Pastor Lewis didn’t care either. But I didn’t cry, and I wasn’t going to cry, not ever again, not for anyone. I would be like a proper Pumpkin Kid, I would be patient and unfeeling and I would never say a word. I turned to leave, and then the pastor said, “Of course, it could just be that you’ve not ripened yet. We could try again. If you want to. If you ever feel a little riper, come back and see me.” And I didn’t thank him, and I didn’t say yes or no, I just left the vestry and closed the door behind me.

  When I got home my parents didn’t notice the cuts upon my neck, or the blood upon my shirt, or maybe they did, and just didn’t say anything. And every week I’d go back to church, and sometimes Pastor Lewis might catch my eye, and give a subtle nod towards the vestry door. Had I ripened? Had I turned pumpkin yet? And sometimes I stayed behind to find out, and sometimes I didn’t.

  II

  It wasn’t until Momma brought one home in the trunk of her car, gagged and all trussed-up like a turkey, that I had the chance to see an unripened Pumpkin Kid up close. They don’t go to school like the rest of us, they don’t need to learn the stuff we do, and they are mostly kept at home away from prying eyes—after all, we’ll get to see them properly all in good time, we don’t want to spoil the Halloween treat! But once in a while you might see one out on the streets, always flanked by two chaperones, and you never want to stare, that would be rude. Rude and ungrateful. We’ll mutter a “Thank you for your service,” look down, and hurry past.

  I looked out of my bedroom window to see that Momma had come home from her job at the supermarket. I waited for her to get out of the car, bring in the bags of food she would cook for us. But she just sat there—she didn’t move. Her hands were gripped tight upon the steering wheel, and I thought she must be very angry with me that she didn’t even want to come indoors, I thought there’d be a big bulge upon her face. There wasn’t. There was nothing there at all.

  And I knew as I hurried down to find her that something was very wrong. I thought she might be dying, having a heart attack maybe. And I was frightened, yes—but mostly I think I was excited.

  I rapped on the car window. I didn’t expect Momma to look around. She did.

  “What have I done?” she said.

  “Momma?”

  Her voice was muffled behind the glass. “I don’t know,” she said, “what I’ve done.” And then it was as if she recognized me at last, her face came back to life, and hardened. “In the trunk,” she said. “Open it. Carefully.”

  I did so. I looked inside. Then I lowered the lid, and went back to my Momma.

  “Do you see it?” she said, and I nodded. “Is he still breathing?” I didn’t know, so I went back to check. She had stuffed some plastic bags from the supermarket in his mouth as a gag, but his nostrils kept flaring inwards and outwards, and I took that as a sign of life. I closed the lid again, and went back to tell her the good news.

  We waited until the coast was clear, and then we lifted the kid out of the trunk, taking one arm each and yanking until he was out in the open. Then we staggered with him up to the house. The kid didn’t help at all, but he wasn’t just being difficult, Momma had tied his legs together with tow rope, so it really wasn’t his fault.

  It wasn’t until the front door closed behind us and we let the kid drop to the floor that either of us dared catch our breath.

  “I just saw him there on the street,” Momma said. “A Pumpkin Kid, large as life. And so I took him.”

  “Where were his chaperones?”

  “He didn’t have any.”

  “Did anyone see you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Someone must have seen you, Momma. His chaperones.”

  “I told you, he didn’t have any. He was just staggering about on his own. I thought at first he was a drunk, until I realized he was wearing the orange smock. Wearing the smock, and it’s not even Halloween, anyone could have seen him! He was lucky. Anyone could have seen him, anyone could have hit him over the head, and stuck him in the trunk of their car. He was lucky it was me.”

  I don’t know whether the kid realized he was lucky. He was still lying on the floor, his head jammed against the skirting board, and he was twitching a little. We sat him up so he might be more comfortable. His eyes began to take in his new home slowly and incuriously.

  “He was just there,” said Momma. “I don’t know why I did it. But if I hadn’t done it, if I’d let this one chance just slip through my fingers, to get myself a real life Pumpkin Kid … I don’t know. I would have regretted it the whole of my life. Do you understand?”

  Of course I didn’t. “What are you going to do with h
im?”

  “Let’s put him in your room.” That wasn’t quite what I had meant, but I didn’t push the point further.

  “We aren’t going to hurt you,” I said to the kid, though I didn’t really know whether that were true. We laid him on the bed so he was staring right up at the ceiling.

  I asked if we could take out the gag, and Momma thought about it for a bit, and then said that we could. I pulled it out from his mouth, and Momma had pushed those plastic bags in pretty deep, I’m surprised he hadn’t choked. I then asked her if we could take off the ropes that were holding his arms and legs in check, and Momma thought about that too, and then said, no, best not—we’d already taken out the gag, we mustn’t get carried away.

  What did he look like? He didn’t look much like a pumpkin, really. Maybe there was a wet sheen to his skin, and his face was a bit fat. But if he hadn’t been in his orange smock, really, you wouldn’t have known he was part vegetable at all. He was just a kid. Younger than me, maybe twelve or thirteen. His orange smock was dirty. His feet were bare and bruised.