The Pumpkin Man

The Pumpkin Man

    It was a dark and thundery night when Lexi, Kate and Avia were having a sleepover, it was one week before Halloween and the girls were planning their costumes. Avia had come up with the perfect idea of being Disney princesses. Avia would be Cinderella, Lexi would be Snow White, and Kate would be Rapunzel. The three of them were part of a drama group at college and were the popular ones. They all met at a very young age and lived on the same street. They were brought up together and were inseparable all through school and then college. They all enjoyed the same things and wanted to be a performer as a career. Kate was the one with killer vocals, Lexi with her awesome bass guitar skills and Avia with her dancing. Lexi, the wild one out of them all, came up with the idea of throwing a Halloween party where they'd invite everyone from anyone, as long as the party was huge and unforgettable, it didn't matter who showed up. 

    Avia and Kate each had their laptops and were searching the internet for their costumes. Lexi came upstairs carrying some wine and other bits and bobs, "We sorted girls?" She asked. Kate and Avia nodded with big smiles on their faces, trying to contain their excitement. They put on a film, drank their wine and the night went on. BANG! Kate jumped up out of her sleeping bag and ran over to Avia, "wake up" she whispered. Avia was dead to the world but Lexi woke up, "What's going on?" She grumbled. "I heard a loud noise outside, it sounded like something hit the window" Lexi got up, opened the curtains and looked outside, "There's nothing there, go back to sleep" Kate was scared and stayed by the window hoping to see something logical to explain the loud bang; but nothing. Just as she was about to get back in to her sleeping bag, she saw something out of the corner of her eye, a dark shadowy figure lurking, staring. She looked away for a second to wake the girls but when she turned back around.......it had gone. She checked the window was locked and tried to get some sleep. The next morning came and Lexi was the first one up, the others were woken by the sound of Lexi’s mum (Hollie), "I'm home girls!" Lexi started to panic, the house was a mess from the night before and she knew that Hollie would really kick off. She dragged Kate and Avia out of bed and they quickly started tidying the best they could. They could hear Hollie walking up the stairs, "Quick, look innocent" Lexi said. Hollie came walking in, "did you have a good night girls?" They all nodded in agreement. Hollie smiled and went out of the room "thank god for that, she's too hungover to care" Lexi said. They all slumped on the bed, nursing their own hangovers and fell asleep for about an hour or so and eventually got dressed. Kate was tidying her sleeping bag away and brought up the loud bang she heard and the dark shadow she saw. Avia and Lexi didn't seem to care very much, Kate was always the scaredy cat out of them all and worried about nearly everything, Avia went and put her arm around Kate, "just forget about it, it was probably just your imagination playing tricks on you" Kate looked frustrated, she was sick of not being taken seriously so she got up off the bed and stormed out. "Kate! come back!" Lexi shouted, SLAM! Went the front door. The girls sighed and carried on tidying while Hollie was still in bed, sleeping it off.

      It was a little later in the day and Avia and Lexi went around to Kate's house to see if she was ok. They rang the doorbell and Emilia (Kate's mum) opened the door. "Is she in?" Lexi asked. Emilia's face dropped, "I thought she was still with you?" Lexi and Avia looked at each other and began to worry. They went inside and tried calling Kate, but no answer. They sat on the sofa nervously waiting, hoping that they'd hear from her soon. A few hours went by and Kate came walking through the door. They all ran towards her "where the hell have you been!?" Emilia demanded. Kate went red in the face, she hated being told off in front of her friends, she was eighteen and still got told off by her mum, how embarrassing. "I went for a long walk" she quietly replied. Emilia sighed with frustration and relief then went into the kitchen. "My house again tonight?" Lexi suggested. Kate said she didn't feel up to it and that she'd be taking the night off college. The day went on and Lexi and Avia had their sleepover, without Kate.

    Kate spent the night watching chick flicks and stuffing her face, feeling sorry for herself. Avia kept texting her, saying it wasn't the same without her, she tried and tried to persuade her to go over, but she ignored all of the messages and put her phone on silent. A couple of hours later, Kate had fallen asleep, Emilia came into her room and left her a note on her side table, saying that she was going out with the girls from work and that she wouldn't be back until morning. Around 3am, Kate woke up and saw the note, she read it and suddenly became scared as hell, she was tempted to text the girls and say she was going over, but she stood her ground and stayed on her own. She got back into bed and turned the tv off. Two hours went by and …...BANG! Kate jumped up and screamed at the top of her lungs, she caught her breath and slowly made her way over to the window, scared of what she might see. She pulled back the curtains and....... there he was, the shadowy figure staring back at her. She started to panic and felt as if she couldn’t take her eyes off of him in case he disappeared like before. She kept her eyes on him at all times and reached for her phone, she held it up against the glass and took pictures, for proof she wasn't crazy. His head was moving from side to side as if he was taunting her. A cat ran past the light sensors and triggered them to turn on for a split second, the shadowy figure stopped moving his head as his face was revealed. Kate stood in fear, she couldn’t move, her phone dropped to the floor. The light went off again and just like that...... he was gone. Kate couldn't believe what she saw, was it someone pranking her? She regained movement and sent the pictures to the girls and told them she was coming over, she got dressed and grabbed her dads torch from the hallway. She slowly opened the front door, being cautious and quiet, hoping the shadowy figure had gone for the night. She locked the door and set the lights to be on constant. She got to the edge of her front gate and looked around, it was safe. She closed the gate behind her and made her way down the street, Lexi lived at the end house at the side of some woods, she couldn't see Lexi's light on though, so she tried phoning her, still slowly making her way there. No answer, she considered turning back, she didn’t have the spare key Lexi had given her and didn’t want to wake anyone up. She stood still, half way between her house and Lexi's. She tried phoning her again and again but still nothing. She didn’t know what to do, she took a deep breath, composed herself and carried on towards Lexi's house. She started hearing things, like her mind was playing tricks on her, she picked up the pace, she was getting closer and closer until.......she stopped. Standing about five meters away was.......the shadowy figure. She took a step back and he took a step forward, moving his head from side to side as he did before. Kate stood still and managed to speak, " who.......who are.... you?" She lifted up her torch and shined it in to his face, he wasn't very happy about that. His head stopped moving as his face was once again......revealed. Kate lowered her torch and started laughing, "is that you Callum? Is this some kind of prank?" She asked. The shadow was wearing what looked to be a pumpkin mask which made Kate feel a little less scared, so she edged herself towards him, "come on the jokes over now, you got me" The shadowy figure didn’t move or say a word, Kate was almost in reaching distance when...... he leaped forward and grabbed hold of her arm, her torch fell to the ground as he dragged Kate’s fear stricken body away. When Kate regained consciousness she realised that the shadowy figure had taken her deep into the woods. There he was, wearing a large pumpkin head, almost life like with blinking eyes and a moving mouth. He reached inside his mouth and his head lit up like an actual pumpkin, "wow, your costume is awesome, must have cost you a fortune? but you're taking the prank too far now, come on" Kate angrily said. The shadowy figure let out a thrilling laugh and the light went off. "Come on, just take it off already! It's not even Halloween yet" Kate's voice started to sound terrified again. It was silent, he didn't move and neither did she. Kate tried talking to him again, "come on pumpkin man, show me your actual face" Still no response from him. Kate began to look around and slowly started to stand up, the shadowy figure quickly lifted his head up; she'd got his attention. He was shaking his head at her, Kate knew she had to get away, he clearly wasn't someone she knew. Kate bolted through the woods, the shadowy figure behind her, getting closer and closer. She could hear him laughing at her as he rapidly caught her up, she could feel his breath on her neck. He flung himself forward on top of Kate, squashing her innocent face into the mud. The pumpkin man dragged Kate through the woods once more, banging her head against the floor each step he took. He slumped Kate on to the ground next to a log. The Pumpkin man sat across from her, still staring, creeping her out. She no longer had the courage to speak, she was terrified. He stood up and started to walk over to Kate then bent down in front of her, tilting his head from side to side, as if he was examining her with his eyes. He opened his mouth, it got wider and wider, Kate now knew for sure that this wasn't a prank, that he was some kind of...... creature. His mouth was as wide as he could get it, his sharp jaggered teeth on show, drooling all over Kate's bloodied head, she thought this was the end. He took her by surprise and …... closed his mouth, Kate quietly sighed with relief but then........ His mouth opened and.... chomp......chomp......chomp. Kate went numb, she looked down, her own blood surrounded her, the pumpkin man had...... Bit her leg clean off. He chuckled to himself, "mmmmm, flesh" Kate started to feel drowsy, she was bleeding out. The pumpkin man licked his giant lips and prepared to continue his feast, but all of a sudden, voices could be heard from the distance, they started getting louder and louder, the pumpkin man panicked, he groaned at Kate and scurried off into the distance. The voices got loud enough to recognise, it was Avia and Lexi along with what sounded like police, they'd got Kate's message and once they’d realised she was missing they immediately called for help. Kate managed to scream "over here! I'm over here!" Lexi spotted her and ran straight over, "omg are you ok? what the hell happened to you? How did you end up in the woods?" Kate didn't know what to say, she knew people wouldn't believe her, she couldn't even believe it herself. Avia saw Kate's mangled leg and threw up, "omg how the hell did you manage to do that to yourself?" The girls were really freaked out and shouted over the policemen "she's over here!" The police called an ambulance as Kate stayed on the floor, she started feeling drowsier and passed out.

    Kate woke up in hospital with her leg all bandaged up. One of the policemen was standing beside her bed, "can you answer a few questions for me?" Kate nodded but didn’t know what she would say. He began to question her, she couldn't tell him what he wanted to know and so all she said was "I....I just wanted to prove I’m not the scaredy cat everyone thinks I am, and I just got lost and fell over, my leg got stuck or something, I can't quite remember, it all happened so fast" The policeman wrote everything down but didn’t seem convinced by Kate's story. "No further questions Miss Rhodes, feel better soon" The policeman left the room and Lexi and Avia entered, "well?" Lexi asked, "what actually happened then?" "just me being clumsy, nothing more to it" Kate joked, hoping the girls would believe her. They bought Kate's lies and started discussing the party. "We have to cancel now right?" Kate shook her head, "you guys have fun, I'll still help with the preparations" Avia and Lexi both smiled, gave Kate a hug and said their goodbyes, leaving Kate in the safe hands of her mum.   

    Halloween arrived, and Kate was alone in her hospital room, Lexi and Avia had visited Kate earlier in the day to show her their costumes, and to fetch her some sweets to snack on. It was 7pm and the party would have just started, the girls would have been having a blast, playing drinking games and judging the costume contest. Kate was sat by the window looking outside, she was trying to come to terms with what had happened to her. Her pain medication was starting to kick in, she felt drowsy and began to close the curtains, as she was about to walk away she saw something unusual, in the distance. She got closer to the window and tried to focus her eyes, it was...... the pumpkin man, staring at her from the woods across the road, Kate froze in fear and tried focusing her eyes even more, but it was too late......he'd gone. Did the pumpkin man return for Kate? Or was it just her imagination?