By way of introduction, E. W. Farnsworth is widely published online and in print. His horror collections include "The Black Marble Griffon" and Other Disturbing Tales and "Firstborn" and Other Stories and Poems of Horror. For further information about the author and his works, please see http://www.ewfarnsworth.com.
EXISTENTIAL PUMPKIN
by
E.W. Farnsworth
Randolph applied the knife so well skin came off in corkscrews leaving a translucent shell of horror. His chubby hands hollowed the insides by pulling out orange skeins and seeds creating space for one thick red candle. He tested his new Jack-o-lantern on his sister, whose objection was the jagged row of teeth he soon removed with a soon bloodied hammer. On the front porch it went to smile with others, a scary crew, himself included, on the one evening evil ruled earth.
The trick-or-treaters clamored for candy, but Randolph glowed and smiled saying, “I choose trick for you.” Nonplussed, the little ones wracked their brains and scrawled charcoal figures on the sidewalk or spread cobwebs along the outside sills of windows. Word got out and focused everyone on mischief. Black cats yowled and raised their backs and tails. Witches landed brandishing their brooms. People piled deadly nightshade berries black and red.
In the nearby asylum inmates rioted and broke through their restraints and the outer doors.
Deranged, they walked the streets indistinguishable from the others, as goblins, ghouls, the undead, monsters of all description. Yet no outreached hands could stop them and the havoc, mayhem, chaos, misrule they fomented. Foaming at the mouth as bipeds, ferocious beasts, ghosts and grave robbers, they thronged at Randolph’s steps admiring handiwork diabolically designed.
One remarked all the candles were red and threw gules of light through vegetable skins. Another ran screaming when in the image at the window she saw what she became. They were all transforming into what they saw. They morphed into pandemonium unwitting. Noxious, noisome flesh fell from bones. Rats scurried in terror. The male figure with the red scythe, the woman in the red mask, the eyeless ones with hands stretched out and waving. All this Randolph and his pumpkin witnessed. Then they went raving, and the foggy streets boiled and seethed. Bats filled the air, and huge all-devouring insects buzzed.
One muttered the soul of Cthulhu was approaching and the world would end. Another that he saw the Lord of the Flies and his unholy stinging train. The crows flocked and filled the bare tree branches. Some spread their wings and dropped to an earth so littered with body parts there was no place to land that was not piled with bones, offal, blood and bile. The stench was maddening. Carts full of the dead were drawn by the dying. Pyres of stacked corpses awaited the matches, but the matchbooks were soggy. The only fire came from Randolph’s red candles, fire that jumped to ignite the boy’s house as a beacon.
The boy raised his chubby hands and showed the stumps where his teeth had been before he hammered them. His face and his pumpkin were coeval twins, looking pained yet smiling with a rectal rictus. The croaking of frogs began and soon overcame the insect sounds. A running child screamed about Apocalypse but only Randolph listened. He nodded thinking of his sister as the sacrifice. Flagellants flogged each other in the street that ran by his flaming house. Their trick was to escort Susie to the altar at the street’s end where ladders led to a high scaffold where soulless hangmen draped rotting ropes and guillotines chopped continuously.
Randolph and Susie’s parents honked their horn and pressed through the multitudes. They held their ears and shouted, “Where is Susie?” Randolph only smiled and shrugged. They hurried from the car to the smoldering house shouting her name repeatedly. The witches were flying and cackling now, so plenteous their numbers blocked the moon. Sirens howled and flashing lights competed with red candles. Emergency vehicles circled as the emergency was everywhere at once. Mothers wept and impotent fathers cursed. The trick-or-treaters demanded treats. They had partaken enough of tricks for the night.
Then the factory whistle blew at midnight. The crowd hustled to the prescribed destinations. All fires were extinguished by unseen hands. A deadly silence pervaded the land.
Randolph heard his parents fussing over his sister. She was bawling her brother had caused all wrongs. He stood and walked to the end of the street. He pushed through the overgrown iron gate, which screamed on its unoiled hinges. The bronze mourners seemed to be chanting perpetual masses, to no avail. He entered the family crypt where his own slab received him. And as he lay down to continue his eternal rest, he felt the worm snakes curl around his corpse and lick and eat as they had done before Halloween.
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