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The Unscary Pumpkin Patch Peril · Shallow Nights: Scary Bedtime Stories

• 0:04
  By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire.
• 0:09
  Dad. I called.
• 0:11
  The autumn leaves of the apple trees are on fire.
• 0:15
  No reply. I guess this was up to me now.
• 0:19
  I ran towards where the hose should be, coiled up like a
• 0:22
  snake. The hose wasn't there.
• 0:25
  Strange, very strange. I circled the house for an hour
• 0:30
  and finally came to the very front of the house.
• 0:32
  And there, standing, watching the crisp leaves burn in the
• 0:35
  scorching sun, was my father, his black hair frayed at the
• 0:40
  tips, blowing in the wind. What are you doing, Dad?
• 0:44
  I asked. Where's the hose, Ashlyn?
• 0:47
  Celeste, Charlize, what do you think I'm doing?
• 0:50
  He replied. And why do you need a hose?
• 0:53
  You're practically watching the burning down the family fortune.
• 0:57
  You are not doing anything. If all of those apples had sold
• 1:02
  well, then we might have been rich.
• 1:04
  Why of all days did you just have to stand there?
• 1:08
  Why are you doing something? I yelled at him.
• 1:12
  Where's your mother? He said cautiously.
• 1:15
  She's in bed and sick, remember? The wife that you don't seem to
• 1:20
  care about anymore. Don't seem to care about What's
• 1:25
  gotten into you lately, Ashlyn? He pestered me.
• 1:29
  What's gotten into me? The fear of my mother dying and
• 1:33
  you doing nothing. You burning down the family
• 1:36
  fortune, that's what. How am I burning down the family
• 1:40
  fortune? I am not the son or the person
• 1:43
  to be blamed. Ashlyn, stop saying my name.
• 1:48
  That's it. I'm leaving and I'm not
• 1:51
  returning, and I expect those leaves to be cleaned up by you,
• 1:56
  the person who has done nothing all this time.
• 1:59
  As I walked off, my father cleared his throat.
• 2:02
  Has done nothing. Ashlyn, come back.
• 2:06
  But I didn't listen. I just kept on walking and I
• 2:10
  would not stop. I couldn't change the fact that
• 2:13
  my mother was dying of cancer, but I could stop my father from
• 2:17
  being not a father. I drove to a couple streets away
• 2:20
  from home and parked my car on the side of the road and the
• 2:24
  winds watched as droplets of water formed on my cheeks and
• 2:28
  slid off my face like an icy slope.
• 2:31
  The noisy sobs echoed along the road.
• 2:34
  My sobs. How could he do this?
• 2:38
  Just watch and do nothing? It's nearly Halloween, what does
• 2:42
  he have planned? A funeral?
• 2:45
  Funerals at this time of year. What does he want, a award?
• 2:50
  I think not. I turned behind me and there was
• 2:54
  a long fence that goes all down the side of the road with open
• 2:58
  gold fields of hay and wheat, and on the fence there are fresh
• 3:02
  pumpkins with spooky faces drawn on the faces.
• 3:06
  I remember before my older sister Celeste left for college
• 3:11
  for Halloween, we painted our pumpkins with the twins jumping
• 3:14
  all around, massive grins upon their faces.
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  It was so much more child friendly than carving them.
• 3:21
  We placed them on the steps with a candlelit lamp, so proud of
• 3:25
  our family's handicraft. And as an added bonus, because
• 3:30
  they were still whole, we could make them into seasonal soups
• 3:33
  and other dishes after. It was delicious.
• 3:36
  I remember, but that was ages ago.
• 3:39
  I haven't seen her since Celeste is 23 years old and she is my
• 3:45
  most favorite person in the entire world, in case you were
• 3:48
  wondering. The pumpkin closest to me stared
• 3:52
  at me straight in the eye, watching me.
• 3:56
  I felt chills up my spine as I watched the pumpkin move.
• 4:00
  How could it move? I blinked twice and rubbed my
• 4:04
  eyes. And crawling on the ground
• 4:07
  towards me were spiders. I couldn't see them, but I knew
• 4:11
  they were there, thousands of spiders running towards me and
• 4:15
  they were hungry. Howling with fear, I opened my
• 4:19
  eyes to face a man, the pumpkin on his head.
• 4:22
  He had no eyes, and as my mother said, if you have no eyes, you
• 4:27
  have no soul. I crawled away slowly as he
• 4:31
  staggered towards me and dragging me towards him by my
• 4:34
  feet. Instead of me screaming, he did
• 4:37
  a strange thing. In this intense silence, he
• 4:41
  somehow screamed with his whole body, the eyes wide with horror,
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  the mouth rigid and open, his chalky face gaunt and immobile,
• 4:50
  the fists clenched with blanched knuckles and the nails digging
• 4:53
  deeply into the palms of his hand.
• 4:56
  That's cute, But Sir, you think you're scary.
• 5:00
  But Sir, I've seen scary and you haven't got a smile.
• 5:04
  I said grinning as I slowly I tried to get up, but quickly
• 5:08
  realized how futile it was when I had to bite my lip to keep
• 5:12
  from crying out. Sharp hurling pain lanced
• 5:16
  through my head and colorful spots flashed in front of my
• 5:19
  eyes. It felt like my whole body had
• 5:21
  been beaten and every movement caused some muscle or bone to
• 5:25
  ache. Regardless, I needed to get out
• 5:28
  of here, away from this thing. Wincing and throbbing pain, I
• 5:32
  started to grab at the cracks in the road to help me pull myself
• 5:36
  away. I was careful to not look at the
• 5:39
  man I was pushing myself away to move, and extra careful to not
• 5:43
  to place my hands on the glass. But there was one second.
• 5:47
  One second I would look back and see the body of someone I knew.
• 5:51
  And so I recklessly started crawling forwards again and
• 5:54
  crack. My hand came down on a piece of
• 5:57
  glass and I hissed in pain as the man's face swiveled around
• 6:02
  and looked at me. I'm not scared of the cemetery
• 6:05
  of the monsters at Halloween or my nightmares.
• 6:09
  This certainly wasn't going to scare me.
• 6:11
  But it did. A knife in one hand, he poured
• 6:15
  gasoline onto the spark of fear in my belly, sinking it in with
• 6:19
  cold black eyes. All I ever did was offer love
• 6:23
  and ask for help. As he slid the knife in my
• 6:27
  pulsing heart, he said one word. Glow.