John-O-Lanterns

"Witchcraft," answered the seventeen year old honor student, Sebastian Holmes, at Lincoln Woods High.

"Correct," replied Lady Talla, the elderly Mythology teacher who also owned the town brothel, "Drec, wake up and pay attention!"

"How can I pay attention to the same thing every year? You teachers need to teach us new things," Drec barked.

It was the day before Halloween and since this was the first year that Drec was too old to go Trick-or-Treating, he and Sebastian decided to dress up and petrify the local kids. They climbed into Sebastian's Bronco and headed for the local costume parlor. Drec bought a very expensive, very gory costume of a man with a nail through his eye. Sebastian bought a costume of a skunk with a bow in its hair. Drec was never one to retain his opinions, so he told Sebastian that his skunk costume was the gayest thing he'd ever seen. Sebastian being the kind hearted person that he was, just ignored the comment and proceeded to the door. If it weren't for Sebastian, Drec's mouth would get him into all sorts of trouble.

On the way home Drec saw something that he didn't see on the way to the costume shop, it was a humongous field full of pumpkins. Sebastian pulled over to check the prices because his family still didn't have any pumpkins for Halloween. There wasn't anyone there, so the boys decided to "borrow" a couple of them. They weren't going to waste them, they were going to carve them and put them out on Sebastian's front porch. So they didn't feel as bad about stealing. They loaded up the Bronco and headed home, hoping nobody saw them take the pumpkins. The first thing that they did when they got home was carve the pumpkins that they came across. It was late, so Drec went home and prepared for the next day of complete excitement.

Little did they know, three hundred miles away, two men were planning to "borrow" a few things of their own.

The next morning Sebastian's parents were missing; there was no note or anything. So he called Drec, Drec has the same problem. Fifteen minutes later, Drec and Sebastian arrived at an empty police station with no clue where anyone is. They have already tried making calls on the radio and over the town broadcast system, but they had no luck. They went to Lady Talla's house in hope of finding some information about where everyone is. Sebastian knocked on her door multiple times, but no one came. So Drec picked the lock and they just walked right in. In there, lying on her floor were the bodies of the entire town. Each of the townspeople had a different citizen carved on their back.

Sebastian freaked out and began to cry, while Drec just stood there in awe. They didn't know what to think. Drec started to search the house for more bodies, Sebastian followed. They climbed up the stairs and went to Talla's room. They could hear something going on in there, it sounded like something was being sawed. They opened the door and saw two creatures; they looked like pumpkins with arms and legs, carving a face into Lady Talla's back. The boys ran out of the house not looking back.

They ran into Sebastian's house and tried to formulate a plan to stop the pumpkin people. Sebastian thought back to the faces carved into the townspeople's backs and he remembered that the pumpkin people were carving a face into Lady Talla. They had to go back and see who it was that they were carving. Sebastian armed himself with his father's gun and gave Drec some heavy duty herbicide. They decided to wait until the creatures left Lady Talla's house and became out of view before going back over there. Both boys had a deep emotion rising in them that they had never felt before. It was a deep hatred mixed with an unimaginable fear for their own life.

The time came and they made their way into the house and up the stairs to the resting place of Talla's disfigured body. Sebastian reached the body first and realized that the picture carved on Talla's back was of the person standing next to him. He had no idea why his best friend was carved into an old woman's back. There was a horrible crash on the first floor. Both boys stared

...