A shrill scream pierced the autumn night. Adrenaline pumped through me as I forced my feet forward, my ears ringing from the high-pitched scream. #1 | | |
“Derrick, knock it off, you prick!” Chelsea—one of my classmates—shrieked as she raced past us in her slutty little bunny outfit, drunkenly stumbling through the cornfield. #2 | | |
One boy from our school ran after her, who was ironically dressed as a werewolf, pelting her with candy corn. #3 | | |
Just like the dozen other Hallow High students that had trekked to the town’s pumpkin patch, they were drunk. I was the only sober one. I was the only one who wasn’t having any fun. But I was used to being the odd one out. You couldn’t really avoid it when you came from a long line of witches so infamous we came with our own folktale. I mean, we weren’t actual witches. Or if we ever were, it had been lost somewhere down the family line. The only thing my mother could brew was moonshine. But since the New England witch craze, they’ve called the women in my family witches. With the most recent generations, they have added a few more words. Outcast. Weirdo. Whore was the newest one, thanks to my drunk of a mother taking on a new occupation around town when my dad left. #4 | | |
“Anything to pay the bills,” she’d said the first time I’d found out from one of the cruel boys at school, who’d seen her at his house, “entertaining” his father. #5 | | |
Someone nudged me in the ribs so hard I stumbled and had to catch myself. I glared up at the familiar face that leered at me, his dark eyes flashing malevolently from under the brim of his hat. #6 | | |
“Fuck off, Lucas,” I spat. #7 | | |
Lucas was the lead douche in what I’d coined “The Hallow Hill Hicks,” the ring of bullies who got off on making my life a living Hell. I was pretty sure most of them would leave me alone if it wasn’t for this dick right here. He was still pissed about what happened on the first day of my freshman year. He’d cornered me behind the school, completely smashed and looking for something I wasn’t selling. He’d fucked with the wrong bitch on the wrong damn day and had gotten his nose broken for the trouble. I was almost expelled, which was a total joke. I was the one who’d had to defend myself against a boy three years older and twice my body mass, all because he seemed to have an allergic reaction to the word no. #8 | | |
He had all the boys, and some of the girls too, calling me a whore the very next day. Oh, the fucking irony. I thought when he’d graduated two years ago, the torment would be over. But no. Lucas wasn’t going to leave town for college. Instead, he stayed in Hallow Hill to work for his dad on his farm. All the senior boys still worshipped him. Being twenty-one, he could buy them all booze. To them, he might as well be God. Lucas scoffed softly to himself, his vodka-rank breath making my stomach heave. I braced myself, ready to fight back if he decided to hit me. At least this time, there were witnesses. Most of them were assholes, but at least Chelsea would vouch for me if anything happened. In my periphery, Derrick tackled a giggling Chelsea in the cornstalks. She playfully slapped him away and sat up, picking a piece of candy corn out of her hair. Her laughter died, and her eyes narrowed through her bunny mask when her attention landed on us. #9 | | |
“Leave her alone, Luc.” #10 | | |
“What? I’m not doing anything but offering her a drink.” #11 | | |
He shoved the bottle of vodka toward me, probably hoping I’d flinch when he moved just a little too aggressively. His lips flattened when I didn’t so much as twitch. #12 | | |
“Come on, Little Moore Whore. Don’t you want to grow up to be just like mommy? Take a drink.” #13 | | |
I bristled at the nickname. I wasn’t going to be anything like my mother. I was going to do something no other Moore woman had done before me. Graduate and get the hell out of this town. #14 | | |
“I’m good, thanks,” I said, brandishing a too-sweet smile. “I’m not here to get trashed. I’m here because I took your stupid bet. After tonight you’re going to owe me two hundred bucks. Hope daddy pays you enough for cleaning up pig shit to cough up.” #15 | | |
The rest of my classmates gathered around us. Well, except for Chelsea and Derrick, who had laid back down, their tangled legs visible from behind a row of corn, where the sound of sloppy kissing was so loud it could be heard over the rustling stalks. #16 | | |
Everyone else had their attention on Luc, waiting to see what he’d do. His jaw flexed as his teeth ground audibly. Normally I wasn’t the slightest bit afraid of the bully, but the fact that he was dressed up like Freddy Krueger had my heart racing. Not because his striped sweater or the half-assed makeup he’d applied was even sort of scary. It was because he’d made the leather glove out of real blades he’d found around his farm. #17 | | |
My mom had come home on a couple of occasions with a black eye and various other bruises. Luc’s dad was one of her frequent customers, so I knew for a fact that he was a drunk who liked to beat up on women. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree, so I wouldn’t put it past Lucas to use his Krueger claw. One slash of that thing, and I’d be a goner. #18 | | |
“Look at Ada. She’s scared shitless. She’s white as a ghost,” Derrick cackled, peering through the cornstalks. He omitted a loud “ouch,” then dropped his voice. “Hey, what are you doing, babe?” #19 | | |
“Getting away from you. You’re being a douche.” A moment later, Chelsea emerged, her mask slightly askew with a few pieces of dried corn husk sticking out from her mussed hair. #20 | | |
I turned my attention back to Lucas and dramatically rolled my eyes. #21 | | |
“I look like a ghost because that’s my costume, numb nuts,” I snarled at him. #22 | | |
Chelsea walked back over to us, straightening her mask. #23 | | |
“You guys are all assholes. She already took the bet to go to the patch on Halloween. Did you really have to make her dress up as her ancestor? Kind of disrespectful, if you ask me.” #24 | | |
Lucas stared at me with unflinching hatred. #25 | | |
“Because the very first witch in the Moore family died on this night hundreds of years ago. After that, no Moore woman dared go to the pumpkin patch until Ada’s great-great-grandmother over a hundred years ago. She came back down, totally naked and completely insane, babbling about a pumpkin-headed devil. She got shipped off to the loony bin, and no one ever saw her again. So it seems Halloween isn’t a good night for the Moores.” #26 | | |
Luc’s gloved fingers curled around the neck of the vodka bottle, his metal claws clinking against the glass as he put it to his lips and took a big swig. He hissed through clenched teeth, vodka dribbling down his chin. #27 | | |
“Thing is, I don’t give a shit. No one made Ada take the bet. No one made her come. It’s not like anyone would blame her for not coming. Especially since Pumpkin Head has a thing for the Moore Whores.” #28 | | |
I cringed, but not at the cruel name he used for me. For some reason, it didn’t sit right with me whenever anyone referred to Jack Calloway as Pumpkin Head. Maybe it was because I felt sorry for him on some level, even if he died hundreds of years ago. Sure, the town called him a monster. Not because he was literally a monster. He was a male witch, but from the story, his only crime was his wild sex life with my ancestor, Adaline Moore—the woman I was named after. #29 | | |
Neither of them deserved what had happened. #30 | | |
I shivered as a chill that had nothing to do with the crisp fall night crawled into my bones. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had no business being here on this night, of all nights. That maybe I should have listened to them when they said to stay away from the pumpkin patch on Halloween night. #31 | | |
Instead, I’d taken the stupid dare to dress up like my ancestor, wearing a period dress of the time, and make this trip to the pumpkin patch on All Hallows’ Eve. The challenge was that when Jack didn’t show, it would prove there were no such thing as ghosts, as I repeatedly claimed. #32 | | |
I had to ignore the little alarm bells going off in my mind, so I could shut everyone else up and prove to them once and for all there was no pumpkin-headed specter haunting the town’s pumpkin patch, waiting for the return of Adaline Moore. #33 | | |
It was almost too bad I didn’t believe in ghosts. #34 | | |
There was nothing for me here in this shit town with these shit people. #35 | | |
I almost wished Jack Calloway were real, so he could take me far away from this shit hole. #36 | | |
Wherever he’d take me, even if it was Hell itself, it had to be better than here. #37 | | |
