{"id":2205,"date":"2013-10-04T02:40:18","date_gmt":"2013-10-04T02:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/?p=2205"},"modified":"2013-10-04T02:42:34","modified_gmt":"2013-10-04T02:42:34","slug":"the-white-pumpkin-by-grey-harlowe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/the-white-pumpkin-by-grey-harlowe\/","title":{"rendered":"The White Pumpkin by Grey Harlowe"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Ghoul Feeding by Paul Mudie<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The White Pumpkin<\/h1>\n

by Grey Harlowe<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s October 30th,\u201d warned Connor McCann. \u201cDon\u2019t go out alone tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTomorrow\u2019s Halloween, moron,\u201d said Aiden Paley from the front seat. \u201cWhy would anyone go out a night early?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTonight is worse than Halloween. Tonight\u2019s when they go hunting. Halloween\u2019s just when they get rid of the remains. Tonight is when you don\u2019t want to be out alone. Don\u2019t even go in your front yard.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen who goes hunting, Con?\u201d asked Bryce, Aiden\u2019s brother, who was driving. He was seventeen, which is why Aiden got to ride shotgun. He sounded amused.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cannibals,\u201d said Connor.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cannibals, eh?\u201d said Bryce, with a wry smile.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, they\u2019re out tonight, looking for a victim. They eat him for dinner tonight, and then bury the rest in the woods on Halloween.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, no\u2014\u201d said Aiden, joining in, \u201cI heard they don\u2019t eat all of him. Only his head.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHis head,\u201d repeated Bryce, sounding less amused now.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah. But there\u2019s no hunt. They get his parents to agree to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSomeone\u2019s parents would agree to that?\u201d said Connor, clearly preferring his version of the story.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the money. It\u2019s a sacrifice. The cannibals get their dinner, but they know a whole bunch of magic, right? The parents hand over their kid and then they get a bunch of money or good business, you know, until next year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bryce was silent a minute before asking the other boy in the back seat, who had been silent until now. \u201cSo what do you think about the cannibals, Ian?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d said Ian Hastings. \u201cKinda dumb, I guess. I mean, that\u2019s not possible, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

Bryce stopped the car at a light.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, it\u2019s not.\u201d Turning his head in Ian\u2019s direction he said, \u201cThese guys are pulling your leg. I heard this same story when I was in middle school, and nobody ever got eaten by a cannibal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe same story?\u201d Ian said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, but back in my time, it was supposedly a bunch of demon worshippers, looking for a family to give them a sacrifice. I remember, it was supposed to be the youngest child for some reason.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUh oh, Ian, you\u2019re screwed!\u201d said Aiden. They all knew Bryce and Aiden had a younger sister, Ella, and Connor had a baby brother named Zach.<\/p>\n

Ian\u2019s older sister was named Grace. She had been in a bad accident the previous winter while she was bicycling home from school. It was why the boys weren\u2019t allowed to walk home on their own anymore, even though they lived just a few blocks away. It had been a hard year for Ian\u2019s family, because of the medical bills, and Ian\u2019s father\u2019s business partners forcing him out of his share of the store.<\/p>\n

The boys quieted down while Bryce finished the drive to Connor\u2019s house. Connor got out and Aiden went with him. It was a Friday night, so Aiden was going sleep over at Connor\u2019s. Ian had wanted to go, but his mother had forbidden it.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, \u201c Bryce said after he started the car again, \u201cthat story really is a total lie. Cannibals don\u2019t exist\u2014not outside of the movies, anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay,\u201d said Ian. \u201cBut you heard it when you were in seventh grade?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, and it was a lie back then, too. The whole thing got started because, well, do you know what an urban legend is?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a crazy story that\u2019s based on a true event. People see something in the news, then everyone starts taking about it, blowing it out of proportion, and then what you hear in the end has nothing to do with what actually happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAlright.\u201d Ian was worried. He could see Bryce\u2019s face in the rearview mirror. It had a strange expression.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was your age, a family here in town had something happen to one of their kids. A boy who didn\u2019t show up for school one day, and eventually the police investigated. After they searched the family\u2019s property, they turned up a skull, but not the body. The whole thing happened around Halloween, so folks started saying it had to do with demons or Satan. Now it\u2019s cannibals.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s not true?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo.\u201d Bryce swiveled around to look Ian in the eye again. \u201cNo way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo cannibals don\u2019t go hunting kids so their parents can get tons of money.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course not. I mean, I don\u2019t blame you for thinking that, kids thought that in my day, too. Except it was the other way around.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHuh?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe demon worshippers or whoever\u2014they didn\u2019t look for the parents, the parents were supposed to look for them. They were supposed to do something to let the Satanists know they had a kid to sacrifice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bryce paused.<\/p>\n

\u201cAh, I remember. A white pumpkin.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d Ian felt cold.<\/p>\n

\u201cA white pumpkin. Not an orange one, like the other houses. White. That was the signal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bryce pulled up to Ian\u2019s front gate. \u201cYou alright? I didn\u2019t scare you too bad?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d said Ian.
\nIt was a long walk from the gate to his house, and he walked as slow as possible. The pumpkin was where his mother had put it that morning, at the edge of the stoop, carved neatly, with a wide toothy grin. White as a piano key.<\/p>\n

His mother met him at the door. She was holding something behind her back. He tilted his head and saw the edge of it. It gleamed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIan!\u201d she said. Her voice was odd. Determined. \u201cI\u2019m glad you made it. We have guests. You\u2019ll never guess what\u2019s for dinner.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt\u2019s October 30th,\u201d warned Connor McCann. \u201cDon\u2019t go out alone tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2207,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-horror"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2205"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2206,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2205\/revisions\/2206"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}