Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
WATCH OUT
COLE
Where the hell is Drew?
I’ve already hauled five loads of pumpkins from the field to the games area, and he’s nowhere in sight. No jokes. No commentary. No dumb grin. Just me, the tractor, and my rapidly deteriorating sinuses.
I sneeze again, sharp enough that my eyes water.
My head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton and thick syrup.
My sinuses are waging war on my skull, and I’m losing.
I probably deserve it after the stunt I pulled on Principal Parker this week, but still.
Allergies plus manual labor equals a personal hell.
Chemistry is kicking my ass. Again.
And Parker made sure I knew it.
I’d barely sat down in his office before he launched into it. The disappointment speech. The your parents expect more speech. The no college worth a damn will want you speech. Like he had a laminated checklist taped to his desk drawer.
He talked about real jobs. About how people who mess up get fired and replaced. Like I was already obsolete at seventeen.
I’d heard it all before. Usually I tune him out. Stare at the motivational cat poster on the wall. Count the cracks in the ceiling. Wait it out.
But this time something snapped.
My leg bounced against the chair, fast and uncontrollable. Adrenaline burned through me while his voice just kept going, pounding against my ears like it wanted inside my skull.
Screw him.
Screw the system that decides you’re worthless before you even get a chance to be anything else.
Another sneeze rips out of me, violent enough to bend me forward.
God, this sucks.
I’ve been trying. Actually trying. Late nights hunched over notes.
Flashcards spread across my bed. Cramming until the sky starts to lighten and my brain feels like mush.
I worked my ass off just to get a shaky grip on formulas that refuse to make sense.
Chemistry and I don’t speak the same language, and no amount of caffeine is fixing that.
Screw anyone who thinks I don’t give a shit.
I give all the shits.
So yeah. That night, after Parker’s office and his voice drilling holes in my skull, I went home and did what any rational, sleep-deprived teenager with a bruised ego would do.
I planned revenge.
A grin tugs at my mouth as I remember it. Principal Parker’s shrill voice echoing across the student parking lot, his face turning the exact shade of those cinnamon Red Hots candies.
“Mr. Trotta! Get your ass over here. NOW!”
Still perfect. Every detail.
He stormed across the lot, huffing like a busted engine, arms flung wide when he saw his office. Or rather, saw that it looked exactly the same as he’d left it the night before. Desk. Chair. Filing cabinet. Even the pencil sprawled across his blotter hadn’t moved an inch.
Right in the middle of the parking lot.
Students gathered fast, circling his desk, whispering and snickering like it was a museum exhibit. Phones came out. Laughter followed.
I didn’t bother hiding mine.
“I know this was you, you little shit.” His knobby finger jabbed at my chest. “You’re putting everything back. Then you’re serving Saturday detention for a month.”
I shrugged, calm as could be, and tossed the last bite of my breakfast burrito into his trash can.
His eyes locked on it. Burning. Furious.
“And,” he snapped, voice climbing, “I’m adding community service hours on top of that.”
Worth it.
And now here I am, paying for it. Sneezing my lungs out in the middle of a farm, eyes burning as the wind shoves dust and hay straight into my sinuses.
I straighten with a groan, cracking my back. Sweat runs down my spine, soaking my shirt as the dying rays of the sun beat down on my neck like it’s personal. I scan the games area, searching for a flash of Drew’s stupid, bright red letterman.
Nothing.
Figures.
Of course he bailed. Probably off flirting with that blond girl from the barn while I’m hauling pumpkins like an idiot.
“Unbelievable,” I mutter, heaving another pumpkin onto the tower. It lands with a dull thud, jostling the others. I thought he was different. Not just another loud jock who ghosts the second the work gets boring. Guess that one’s on me.
The tractor engine ticks as it cools, the sound sharp and hollow in the heat. Somewhere metal pops. Beyond it, the corn maze rises in tight rows, leaves brushing together in a constant whisper. Less like a maze, more like a wall. Like something you don’t come back from once you step inside.
A chill slides down my spine, completely ignoring the heat.
I wipe my nose on my sleeve and glance across the field.
That’s when I notice the scarecrow.
One of Fred’s ugly ones stands a few yards away, slumped on its post. The flannel hangs stiff with grime. Straw guts spill from its torn belly as though an infernal embryo burst out of it.
Nope. I don’t need to add fuel to my nightmares, thank you very much.
I bend for another pumpkin and stack it with the rest beside the smashing station. Lift. Set. Repeat. Mind-numbing work does its job, and for a minute I disappear into the rhythm.
That’s when I notice how quiet it’s gotten.
No wind. No rustle of corn. Even the insects have shut up.
I’m setting the last pumpkin on top of the pile when—
Snap.
The sound cracks through the air like a bone breaking.
I freeze. My pulse picks up, stealing my breath. Slowly, I scan the rows. Pumpkins sit fat and motionless. The corn stands tall, barely swaying. Nothing moves fast enough to explain that sound.
My eyes slide back to the scarecrow. Its head is turned all the way around.
That’s not right. It wasn’t like that before.
I blink hard. Once. Twice. Maybe I missed it. Maybe the heat’s frying my brain. Maybe—
Then I see the hair.
Long. Blond. Tangled.
“. . . Sandie?”
My pulse kicks into overdrive as I take a step closer. The air turns sour, like something left too long in a drain. Flies buzz around the post, thick and lazy.
I swallow and force myself forward.
When I step around the post and look up, my stomach twists inside out.
It isn’t straw holding her head in place.
It’s roots.
Thick black vines crawl from her eyes and spill out of her open mouth, threading through her scalp, stitching her to the wood. They pulse faintly, slick and alive. Her face has gone gray, lips split and cracked. Mascara streaks down her cheeks in thick black lines.
I stagger back, bile burning my throat.
“Jesus Christ!” The words rip out of me and vanish into the open field.
Then I turn and things are much worse.
Three shapes stand just inside the corn maze, half swallowed by the stalks. Their carved faces stare straight at me. Jagged smiles split too wide, pulp and seeds drooping from their mouths in stringy curtains, like jack-o’-lanterns forgotten too close to a flame.
One steps forward.
The axe drags behind it, blade scraping the dirt in a leaden, patient rhythm.
Shhk. Shhk.
The sound crawls up my spine and settles behind my eyes. The other two slide into place at its sides, perfectly synchronized.
My brain tries to lie to me.
Halloween prank. Stress. Hay fever hallucination.
Then the truth punches through.
Those aren’t just pumpkins.
They’re sitting on bodies.
Drew. Fred. Sandie.
Bent wrong. Twisted wrong. Vines dig into their shoulders, their ribs, their legs, pulling them along like puppets. Their boots leave crooked tracks in the dirt. Their arms jerk when the vines twitch.
Drew’s fire-red letterman jacket flares against the field, bright and wrong, a splash of school spirit in a place that stinks like mold and blood. Guilt punches through me.
This can’t be happening. This doesn’t happen in real life.
Drew lifts the axe.
This isn’t a scare.
This is a harvest.
At the glint of the raised blade, my brain finally stops arguing.
This is very much real.
So I do what any normal freaked-out person would do.
I run.
Pumpkins roll under me, crack open, burst. Seeds smear my jeans and cling to my skin. I almost eat dirt and catch myself on the trailer rail, lungs screaming, glasses sliding down my nose with every ragged breath.
Behind me, the field comes alive. Thuds. Heavy, uneven footfalls. The creeping scrape of metal that makes my hands shake.
They’re close. Too close.
I vault into the cab, slam the door, lock it. My hands shake so hard the key rattles against the ignition. Miss. Miss again.
“Come on,” I gasp. “Please.” I grab the key with both hands finally hitting the bullseye.
The engine coughs. Dies. Coughs again.
“Don’t be a cliché right now, you piece of shit. You’re better than that.” I keep twisting the key with no luck.
Footsteps slam into the trailer. The whole rig shudders. Vines slap against the metal with eager sound.
“Come on, baby. I didn’t mean it.” I twist the key one more time.
The tractor roars to life.
“Fuck yes!” I fist pump the air and floor it. Right toward Fred’s prize patch.
The tractor lurches forward, slow and stubborn, remembering it’s sixty years old and full of spite. Come on. Move.
In the rearview mirror, Fred’s body has attached itself to the trailer. Standing proud, its vines twist around the sides. The other two are running behind.
They jerk in bursts, limbs snapping into place, vines cinching tight and hauling their bodies forward. One stumbles, nearly collapses, then straightens, its arms raised, vines extending wide.
Bam. Bam. Bam.
The pumpkins on the ground are hurling themselves into the rig, bursting on impact like suicide bombers. The whole rig shudders.
“All right you little shitholes.”
I wrench the wheel and the tractor plows through a cluster of pumpkins. They burst under the tires, orange guts spraying the dirt like roadkill. The crunching noise echoes loud, causing the vines to hiss and the pumpkin monsters to run faster.
Whoops.
Another impact. Then another.
A fist smacks the rear window.
Crack.
Seeds splatter the windshield, streaking my view in sticky arcs. Vines slap and scrape, leaving wet smears that crawl downward. A carved face slams up close, so near I see pulp wobble inside its jagged mouth.
“Nope. Nope. Nope.”
The side window explodes inward.
Cool air rushes in, followed by a vine that snaps around my wrist. Hot. Slick. Strong as a winch cable. I scream and jolt back, skin burning as it tightens. Another vine coils up my calf and locks in, jerking my leg sideways. The steering wheel rips from my grip.
“No, no, no,” I gasp, kicking hard enough to rattle the cab.
The vine climbs anyway. Thigh. Ribs. Throat.
It tightens.
My fingers claw at it, nails skidding over slick, rubbery skin that refuses to give. Pressure swells until my ears ring. Black dots crowd my vision. Air thins to nothing.
The tractor bucks once, then dies. The engine coughs and chokes as the wheels sink into mud that sucks like a mouth.
Shit.
Something slams onto the hood.
Metal caves inward with a crunch. The pumpkin thing wearing Fred’s body crawls into view, its carved face sagging, pulp streaking the windshield like drool. It tilts its head the way a cat watches something already caught.
A vine whips through the shattered window and coils around my right arm.
“Wait,” I try to say. It comes out thin and useless.
The vine twists.
Snap.
Piercing-hot pain tears through me, clawing its way up my arm and into my shoulder. My scream shreds into a breathy whine as my hand goes dead, fingers tingling, bent at an odd angle. Oh shit.
The pumpkin leans closer to the windshield, its jagged mouth stretching wider than physics should allow. Seeds wobble inside like loose teeth.
It studies me.
And I know, with awful clarity, that it’s deciding where to break me next.
This is how I die. In a tractor. At a pumpkin patch. My guidance counselor is going to be so disappointed.
The windshield shatters, Fred’s body coming closer. I send up a silent prayer. Please, god, if you can hear me. I promise I’ll never pull another prank if you save me right now.
BOOM.
The pumpkin’s head explodes.
Seeds, pulp, and soggy orange chunks careen across the cab, splattering my face and chest. Fred’s body jerks, then slides off the hood and hits the dirt with a heavy thud.
The vines around my throat loosen. Drop. Slither away.
I drag in air, coughing hard, lungs on fire as I suck breath like I’ve never done it before. My vision swims. Beyond the cracked windshield, Shaun stands in the field, shotgun still raised, smoke curling from the barrel. His jaw is set, eyes wild.
Beside him, Val grips a pitchfork, stance wide, pieces of her red hair flying, absolutely feral.
A laugh bursts out of me and turns into a sob halfway through.
Thank god the jocks showed up.