Autumn has always been my favorite season. I like the cool air and the turning of the leaves, and it has both Halloween and Thanksgiving going for it too. Every year I try to do some seasonal things to get into the spirit of it, be it going to a scare house or buying some apple cider at one of the roadside stands north of where I live, and this year was no different.
Except this year I took a different route up into the mountains in my search for roadside stands and brightly-colored leaves. I’d recently broken up with (been dumped by) my girlfriend of two years, and while I could have gotten one of my friends or my sister to go with me, I was looking forward to having some time by myself. I wouldn’t say I was depressed, but I knew I was more than a little mopey, and I didn’t want to inflict my bad mood on someone else. Plus, these trips always cheered me up, and I was hoping this one would be no different—especially with the adventure of going on a different route I wasn’t familiar with.
At first that seemed to hold true. I was paying more attention to where I was going due to the unfamiliar roads, and it didn’t take long before I started getting into areas with truly beautiful scenery. A little after noon I stopped at a small-town restaurant and grabbed some lunch before hitting the road again.
But as the day wore on, I realized I wasn’t hitting any other small towns, including one or two I had expected to run across. I was relying on memory, as I was trying to avoid using a map or my phone unless I truly got lost, but when I had glanced at the area a few days ago, I was sure there were other small towns dotting the area I was traveling through. It wasn’t a big deal—I had plenty of gas from refueling at lunch—but I was a bit disappointed. Worse was the lack of small country stores, fruit stands, and other mountain oddities you normally see. I always loved finding places selling art made out of logs and metal, weird tiny museums to obscure local heritage, and other quirky spots that I didn’t get to see in my day-to-day.
But this trip, all I saw was mile after mile of admittedly beautiful trees punctuated by the occasional rural road trailing off into the wilderness. As the sunlight began to take on the softer, orange tones of late afternoon, I started weighing my options. I hadn’t even seen a sign pointing toward a town or highway in probably fifty miles, and I had a good enough phone signal to pull up a map or use gps to find my way to a more familiar route heading back home. I started fumbling for the phone in the passenger seat when I noticed a white particleboard sign nailed to an approaching tree.
“Peches” it proclaimed in blood-red letters. The misspelling aside, my heart leapt at the prospect of finally finding some kind of obscure mountain trader.
“Cidar” the next sign shouted from a tree about fifty yards after the first. The signs were crude and poorly done, but they looked relatively well-maintained and new. Still, I kept my expectations in check, looking for a small weathered stand that might not even be open. Instead, as I rounded the corner, I found myself coming up on what looked like a small farm. As I slowed down, I saw it had a little orchard on one side that seemed to go on behind the medium-sized green farm house that sat in the middle of the property. I saw with growing excitement that on the far side of the house was a large and sprawling pumpkin patch. Far from picked over like many patches you see in October, this one was brimming with row after row of huge, beautiful pumpkins. The small white sign at the front of the driveway said “Raymond’s Cidar and Fruit” and had a crooked arrow pointing toward the farmhouse. Feeling a buzz of happy excitement, I pulled in and made my way up the dirt driveway.
When I got out of the car, I saw there was an old man in a ball cap sitting on the front porch watching me. Raising my hand, I got no response, and though I tried to look friendly as I approached, I felt a growing worry in my stomach that I had somehow made a mistake. When I got to the bottom of the steps I paused.
“Excuse me, sir. Is this Raymond’s Cider and Fruit?”
The old man nodded, a small smile playing across his face. “Yup. It is, young fella. And I’m Raymond.” His smile broke into a grin as he began to rock in his chair, a look of satisfaction spreading across his face as he began a well-recited sales pitch. “I’ve got some of the best peaches and apple cider you’ve ever tasted, all made from the trees you see around you. I’ve also got some rock candy and peanut brittle for sale, and though I don’t make that here, I can vouch for its quality.” As though to underline his guarantee, he smiled wider, revealing three missing teeth. Chuckling at his own joke, Raymond stopped rocking as he leaned forward in his chair. “So what’re you interested in buying?”
Relieved, I smiled back. “Well, I’d like to get some apple cider and a bag of peaches, and one of those big, pretty pumpkins you’ve got out there too.”
Raymond’s smile left his eyes as he glanced out toward the pumpkin patch. “The cider and fruit I can help you with, but no pumpkins for sale, I’m afraid.”
I couldn’t help but be disappointed, so I decided to push on a bit. “So that’s not your pumpkin patch, or you’re just not selling them?”
The old man looked at me steadily for a moment before answering. “Oh, it’s my land all right, just not my patch or pumpkins. Them’s are Mary Jane’s pumpkins.” He looked away as he said her name, rubbing his mouth distractedly.
“Mary Jane? Is she…,” I was going to ask if she was his wife, but decided I didn’t want to push my luck asking personal questions. “…around? Maybe she wants to sell me a pumpkin.”
His eyes found mine again, and at first I thought he was angry, but when he spoke, his voice seemed to tremble slightly. “No, she’s not around at the moment. Won’t return until tonight I ‘spect, and you need to be moving on well before that. So you want that cider and peaches?”
“Sure, sure.” I had brought two hundred dollars in cash along for the trip—a hundred dollar bill and five twenties. I handed him a twenty. “Is that enough? I don’t need change.”
Raymond eyed the money and then me. “Yeah, I reckon that will do just fine.” With that, he got up and shuffled inside the house for a minute before coming back with two paper bags and a glass jug of cider. “I gave you a bag of apples as well for the extra money.” He was glancing around more now, as though he was looking for something or someone, though we were the only ones there as far as I could tell. “You have a safe trip back home, young fella. Tell your friends.” His farewell and final bid for recommendations seemed half-hearted, and he looked increasingly anxious and preoccupied as I left the porch and went back to my car.
I turned around in the yard and headed back out on the road. I could have turned back the way I had come from, but instead I turned right and went on past his house down the road toward the pumpkin patch. I found myself going slow and continuing to look at the pumpkins, and that’s the main reason I saw the small dirt path that ran along the perimeter of the patch further down. Stopping the car, I looked back to see if I could see the porch of Raymond’s house, but the combination of the curve of the road and a swell of land blocked all but the top of the house from view.
I pulled onto the dirt path and sat for a moment. I knew I shouldn’t be doing it, but I really wanted one of those pumpkins, and what would taking one pumpkin really hurt? Still, it was stealing if I just took it. The compromise I finally reached between my conscience and my desire was to leave the hundred dollar bill under a rock near the pumpkin I took. That way, if they noticed one was gone, they’d find the money for it. If they didn’t notice, then no harm no foul.
I knew I didn’t have a knife with me, but I managed to find a flat-headed screwdriver to help work a pumpkin loose from the vine. My heart beating in my chest, I eased open the car door and headed around the front of my car and toward the edge of the pumpkin patch. The pumpkins were all oddly similar to one another, so it was easy to pick one from the first batch I ran across. I jammed and twisted the tip of the screwdriver into the thick, black vine that the pumpkin was attached to, but it was surprisingly durable. After a couple of minutes with little progress, I sat down the screwdriver and just tried twisting the pumpkin from the vine. To my surprise, it popped off easily, a light spray of liquid hitting me as it came loose.
I wiped my face on my sleeve and scooped the pumpkin up, staggering in the process. The thing was heavy. Really heavy. Grunting with the effort, I waddled it over to my car and sat it in my front passenger seat. Feeling a bit stupid but not wanting to take any chances, I put a seat belt on the pumpkin before running around to the other side to get in and drive off. As I glanced back in the rear view mirror for signs of pursuit, I realized I had forgotten to leave the money under a rock. I could go back and do it, but that would just increase the risk of me getting caught. Feeling somewhat guilty, I decided to drive on.
I was preoccupied with my thoughts after leaving the patch, driving pretty much on autopilot. I could have wound up more lost than before, but instead I realized with relief that I was back on a road I recognized. Smiling to myself, I patted the pumpkin next to me and headed home.
That was four hours ago. When I got home I was tired, but I also felt determined to go ahead and carve up the pumpkin into a jack-o-lantern. It was almost as though I felt that if I made immediate use of the pumpkin it would justify stealing it in the first place. Pushing that thought aside, I grabbed up a large kitchen knife and stuck it into the side of the pumpkin.
The blade went in an inch or so before meeting some kind of resistance. I pushed harder, and after a moment the knife plunged deeper into the pumpkin. When I went to pull it out, it seemed oddly difficult to do it, but I finally managed. All of this was strange, but I just attributed it to the size and healthiness of the pumpkin. I would just have to work harder to get through its tough skin.
So I did. I pushed and pulled, shoved and tugged, until I had cut out a large triangle piece that was meant to be the nose. As I pulled the wedge free, I saw a wisp of black hair trailing behind the removed chunk of pumpkin skin. It lay in that triangular hole like some kind of deadly snake, coiled and alien against the bright orange of the pumpkin. I jerked my hand back, dropping the wedge in the process. It took me a moment to summon the courage to reach out and touch the hair, having already half convinced myself it was just some kind of internal rot making the pumpkin’s innards look like dark hair.
But when I felt the hair, I knew the truth. I felt my gorge rise slightly, but I forced it down. Driven more by fear than reason now, I hacked away at the pumpkin again until a quarter of one side could be broken off. As it fell away and I saw what lay inside that pumpkin, I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t find the breath to do it.
It was a head. A bloodless, human head. From the looks of it, the woman had been in her mid-thirties when she died, and while she looked very pale and drawn, she wasn’t decayed or dried up. She also wasn’t bleeding or oozing from the cuts where I had struck the head with my knife. I considered it being some kind of joke, but she looked too real to be a fake. Besides, how would someone even pull off something like that, anyway? And what would be the point?
No, I knew it was real and there was no rationalizing it away. The best thing I could do would be to call the police, even if I had to admit stealing the pumpkin in the first place. I was reaching for my phone when it began to glow and buzz. My hand was shaking slightly as I answered the incoming call.
“Hello?”
“You took something that didn’t belong to you, didn’t you?” The voice was smoky but very feminine, and under other circumstances I might have found it sexy. As it was, I was terrified.
My hand started shaking worse as I tried to think of a response. A thousand things whirled through my mind like startled birds before I settled on one. “I can just give it back. I’m sorry.”
The woman gave out a short laugh. “No, why would I want that thing back? You ruined it as soon as you cut it open.”
“But I didn’t open it. I didn’t see anything.” I winced as soon as the last words left my mouth. Idiot. If I didn’t see anything, why would I know I needed to assure her I didn’t see anything? But she seemed to ignore my response as she continued.
“No need to worry, my new friend. What is done cannot be undone, but I’m open to reparations. Yes…that’s just what I need. Reparations for your sin against me.”
I was nodding into the phone frantically. “Sure, of course! How much do you think is fair for the pumpkin and…your trouble? One hundred? How about two, just so there’s no hard feelings.” I could have said a million, because I had no intention of paying her anything. As soon as I was off the phone I was calling 911.
Mary Jane laughed again. “Money? I have no need for that. No, what I have to get is a replacement for what you took.” She paused a moment, her voice full of mirth when she continued. “You know, for the head.”
I gripped my phone tighter as my breath caught in my chest. I was on the verge of just hanging up when I realized she was speaking again.
“What size hat do you wear, Wallace?”
How the fuck did she know my name? But then again, how did she have my cell phone number to call me in the first place? With growing dread, I pulled the phone away from my ear and ended the call before dropping the phone on the floor like it was hot. I glanced around the kitchen, letting out a short moan when I saw that the pumpkin was gone. In its place was a small piece of folded paper tented on the edge of my kitchen counter. Creeping up closer, I read it without picking it up.
"Don’t worry, my new friend," it said, "I’ll measure when I come for it. Be seeing you."
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