The Legend of The Great Pump-Kin

Zoey froze in mid-step, she'd heard the words, spoken in a sibilant voice, in her mind not through her ears.

"Especially the womenfolk, and in turn they take good care of their man."

"Holy shit," she whispered as a chill ran through her.

"What's the matter?" Nathan asked. You're crushing my hand, you see something?"

"No, just getting a weird vibe from this place." She resumed walking slowly through the water which wasn't just warm, but sticky from the scum floating in it.

"It was always that way, and should be that way again, isn't that right fruit of my seed?"

"Grandpa?" she thought the word, wondering if it would work.

"No, he has passed from this world, both in body and spirit. I am who you seek and the true patriarch or our special family"

They reached the other side of the mucky water, but Zoey hesitated to approach the clearing in front of her which was littered with cairns, some still standing, others knocked over, rocks strewn everywhere.

"No cause for fear, my beautiful daughter. I mean you no harm, I seek retribution on the descendants of those who hung he who I gave my seed to in hopes to further the oldest and most powerful love, that of family."

"Sis?" Nathan squeezed her hand, his eyes filled with concern. "You okay? You look like you seen a ghost, and I don't mean that as a joke."

"I...I'm okay."

"You sure? We can just get out of here if you're scared."

"No," she shook her head and took a deep breath. "I need to do this for Mom and Mabel and everyone in between. I can't stop."

"I don't know what you're supposed to do, but if it's that important, tell me, and I'll go do it for you and you can stay here, how's that?"

Zoey, overwhelmed with affection, threw her arms around him and kissed his cheek.

"I love you, Nathan, you know that?"

"Love you too, sis," he awkwardly returned the hug, but she heard him inhale deeply, taking in the scent of her hair and perfume. "You sure you're okay?"

"I am now," she leaned back, still smiling. "My brave brother is here to protect me."

"He is a brave lad, but you know he is protective of you for more than being his sister, do you not?"

"Yes, that's why mama said its time." Zoey replied in her mind.

"Your mother is right, dear one. Tis the time and the season for both love and retribution. Come to me, my golden haired beauty, no harm will befall you from the spirits of the dead and disgraced, they only rage at night, and you will be gone before then."

"Come on, Nate," she slipped into her sneakers, stepping on the backs of them rather than putting them all the way back on. "It should be right on the edge of the burial ground. They kept him separate from the others because they didn't want to piss off the remaining Nipmucs by putting a white man among them."

"How do you know that?" he mimicked, her, just sliding his feet into his shoes.

"Mabel," she hefted the journal. "What else you want to know?" she flinched when a rock from the top of the small cairn they'd just passed rolled off the top and just missed her foot. "Talk to me."

"What happened to his family? If they hung him for incest wouldn't they have done that to them?"

"Mabel said that as soon as he realized he'd been spotted in the barn with both his daughters, the town would come for him."

"Both? Damn." Nathan shook his head. "Kinky old goat."

"He told them to lie and say he coerced them that he put a spell on them and they couldn't control themselves."

"They bought that?"

"It was the 1800's they still bought everything especially here in the northeast," Zoey reminded him. "The daughters were told to add they were afraid to say no because he was their father."

"The town took pity on them but wanted to send them all off to a convent. They agreed, but the carriage that was to take them there was hijacked by robbers, and they were never seen again."

"Whoa, they were killed?" Nathan came to a sudden stop when another rock, rolled off a pile even though there was no wind and it was several feet away.

"No, the robbers were the farm hands that worked for John and Mabel, she paid them to ambush the carriage and knock out the two men in charge of getting them to the convent, when they woke up the women were gone they assumed they ended up being sold to brothels or murdered."

"Back then there were no id's and not much for detailed records so they went to New York, then further west and the family kept spreading out. Remember Nana saying she was born and raised in Oregon before coming to Florida?"

"Wow, and I thought we were from a dull family."

"We're a wild bunch, Nate," she gave him a playful wink despite her nerves. "You'll see just how wild soon and hear more later."

They made their way across the circular clearing, twice jumping out of the way of rolling rocks. Not that they were big enough to really hurt, but both somehow knew they shouldn't come into contact with them.

"That has to be it," Zoey pointed to a thin path between two enormous trees with crude drawings carved into the bark.

"Look at this," Nathan stopped in front of the one on the right which showed a drawing of a stick figure in front of a circle with a leering face drawn in the center.

Beneath it was a depiction of two people having sex, one figure bent over with the other behind it. There were several more pairs of copulating stick figures and next to each the round face looking on.

"Wonder what this says?" He pointed to a series of symbols that had the appearance of a language.

"Beware the gourd that corrupts the heart and loins."

"You can read that?"

"No," she opened the journal and showed him the exact tree Mabel had drawn a hundred fifty years ago. "See?"

"Damn, that's freaky."

"Told you this is all real." She pointed to the smiling circle. "That's the Great Pump-Kin."

"That's not the Charlie Brown version, that's for sure." He looked up at the sky, then his watch. "It's only three, but it seems like it's already getting darker," he looked up again. "All of a sudden too, no?"

"Even the sun won't shine on the cursed dead," Zoey said softly. "Nor does it want to nourish the gourd."

"Oh, my gourd with this," Nathan forced a nervous laugh.

"Ouch," Zoey winced. "Better squash those jokes."

"Double ouch!" Nathan grinned.

"Children," there was a sigh in her mind that caused her to laugh.

"We going to do whatever it is you're supposed to do?" Nathan turned serious, "I don't want to be up here in the dark, and I don't know how long the flashlights in our phones would hold up."

"Okay," she hefted the bag on her shoulder, and went to step between the trees, but Nathan cut her off, going in front of her.

"Jeez, look at this place."

Zoey cleared the trees and found they were standing before another circle, this full of thick bushes and brush, but also a thick tangle of vines that were interspersed with grey desiccated husks of pumpkins.

"Something tells me that's what we're looking for." Nathan spoke softly while nodding to her left.

Zoey followed his gaze to see an old rotting casket sitting atop what looked like three feet of dried up vegetation that was grey and black on the bottom, but much greener just beneath the coffin.

"Assholes didn't even bury him."

"They did," Zoey pushed herself to approach what she knew was the 'altar' Mabel had described in the journal. "Look at the old dirt and rocks along the base of this growth, the casket has been pushed up from the ground over the years."

"That's fucked up." Nathan walked in a circle around the casket, holding his phone up. "Hey, my camera isn't working."

"This isn't meant to be photographed." When she saw the look on his face, she tapped her chest. "Take one of me."

Nathan clicked his phone and frowned when the flash went off. He stared at the picture of her, then once again tried to take one of the coffin.

"This is fucked up," he lowered the phone. "You...you think this isn't really here, like some kind of ghostly image?"

"Maybe," Zoey's focus was on the thick grey vines that crisscrossed over the cracked lid of the casket. In the center was a large deflated black shell of a pumpkin.

She tentatively reached out, her fingers grazing it, then cried out when a flash went off behind her eyes and she saw an image of what she knew she had to do appear before her.

"What's wrong?" Nathan was immediately by her side. "You jerked your hand back like you were shocked or something."

"I felt something like that, a charge." She left out what she'd seen but had the feeling the same image had been in her brother's mind many times lately.

"Not just mind, but heart. It's here that is the key, only because of his feelings is this the time, pretty one."

"Right," Zoey replied aloud, and slipping the large bag from her shoulder, handed it to Nathan. "Do me a favor, there's a blanket in there, spread it out for me."

"What are we going to do, have a picnic with old gramps here?"

"Just do it, please," she said softly as she reached back and removed the scrunchie from her ponytail and shook out her long curly hair.

"Okay," he unzipped the bag and after taking out the two bottles of water, pulled out the old black blanket she'd folded up and shoved in there this morning.

"There's candles under it, put them on the corners of the blanket and use the lighter in the inside pocket."

"Now I guess it's a séance," he mumbled.

As Nathan shook out the blanket, then put the four small Yankee candle jars on the ends as she'd asked.

"Pumpkin scented, what a shock." He found the cheap plastic Bic and opened each jar to light the candles.

"Phew!" he waved his hand under his nose. "That's not just pumpkin."

"Mom melted in some nightshade incense," Zoey bent over, and took a deep breath of the acrid smoke."

"Nightshade?"

"It's known to be an aphrodisiac," Zoey slipped her sneakers off, and briefly stared down at her black tipped toes, wiggling them in the cool dirt.

It felt good, the soil beneath her feet surprisingly vibrant and strong, as if there were an energy flowing through it.

"Like goat weed?" Nathan asked.

"Something like it," Zoey placed the journal flat on the edge of the coffin, flipping through the pages until she came to the spell she'd been practicing with Mom for the last six months.

She could most likely do this from memory, but in case her nerves kicked in and her mind went blank, she wanted it in front of her. Zoey found the spell, then swallowed nervously when the black shapeless husk slid several inches down the lid of the coffin towards her hands.

"Whoa! I saw that!" Nathan started to step towards her, but she put her hand up. "Stay on the blanket."

"But..."

"Do your part for me," Zoey gave him an encouraging smile. "Remember what I said will happen for you if I succeed here."

"No idea what this has to do with that, but okay." He stepped back into the middle of the blanket.

"Take your shoes off, and sit down, get comfortable," she instructed.

Nathan shrugged and did as she asked, and Zoey's eyes narrowed when she noticed the smoke from the candles drifting toward him. There was no breeze, and even if there were, it wouldn't explain how smoke from all four corners would be drifting inward and into his face.

He blinked, and at first waved at the wisps of smoke, then stopped and seemed to relax as the incense laced grey tendrils swirled around his head.

"You know, this stuff kind of grows on you, it smells good."

"Glad you like it," she whispered.

"Turn his mind to where it needs to be before you begin." The voice, which seemed much closer and louder, hissed in her head.

"Hey, Nate can I ask you a question?"

"Shouldn't you be doing whatever it is you think you need to do?"

"I need a few minutes to let my energy build," she lied. "Let's talk."

"About what? The cool stories I'll have for my friends when we get back home about haunted pumpkin patches?"

"I don't think you should talk about what we'll be doing here," her voice seemed different. Lower, with a smoky, sultry rasp to it, and she was speaking slower than she usually did. "Now be a good boy and answer your sister's question."

"Good boy?" he gave her an odd look.

"You are a good boy for me, Nate. You do anything I ask of you, don't you?"

"Usually, you okay? You sound stoned."

"I think I sound sexy, don't you? Let's see," she turned and gave him a sultry smile, her normally wide eyes now narrow and smoldering with intensity. "Hmm, I like that little brother," she released a purr that would make a phone sex operator proud. "Yeah, baby, you want to make your big sister happy, don't you?"

"What the hell, Zoey?" he demanded his face flushing and not from the heat of the candles. "What kind of weird shit is this?"

"My question," she eased back on the porn star voice, but kept her eyes on his, holding him with her stare. "Is what's with all that porn you watch?"

"What kind of question is that?"

"One your sister wants an answer to," her smile changed to disarming, and she let her eyes widen, trying to get him relaxed. "We've never had secrets from each other," she cocked her head. "Have we?"

"Uh, no, no," he stammered. "I...well, uh, you know. I don't have a girl so I..." he looked away. "Need something to get off to."

"Sure, makes sense, I jill off myself sometimes," she giggled. "Nothing wrong with some me time, right?"

"I guess, shouldn't you be..."

"But even the sites that said family, all the videos marked as watched were brother and sister." She kept her tone casual even though out of the corner of her eye a ripple flowed through the black husk and it was now slowly pulsing.

Mom had said that would happen; it was a sign it recognized her as the blood of one's who'd born the seed of forbidden lust.

"Oh, well, I..." he stuttered the way he did when he tried talking to a girl, and on cue he pushed his glasses up on his nose, his tell whenever he was nervous or lying. "I guess maybe it's kind of...because the girls and guys are around our age so I think it's what sex would be like."

"Plenty of young porn stars not pretending to be someone's sister," she paused to lick her lips and saw his eyes widen behind his lenses. "But other thing I noticed is the sister is always the big sister, never the little sister, and in some of them, the brother was a virgin."

"Why are we talking about this?" Nathan asked. "We're in a damn cemetery and it's getting dark and..."

"You think about it, Nate?"

"Think about what? Sex?"

"Sex with me."

"Fuck no!" he exclaimed. "Jesus, why would you say that?" he pointed to the casket. "You're getting that from that sick fucking story about the molester in that box. Got it on the brain."

There was the sound of someone taking a deep breath in her mind, and a slow exhalation that had a blatantly sexual aspect to it.

"Ah, the scent of love laced lust for forbidden fruit, there is nothing like it. The ones before you failed for there was not a true desire for me to inspire. Even as a diminished spirit I feel his longing for his sibling's heart and body.

"It's time, daughter, speak the words that will make me whole, that will lead to you consummating your love, and my and your family's revenge."

"On the night of Samhain," Zoey recited in Latin. "I ask for love the world deem insane."

She reached into the pocket of her shorts and removing a small pocketknife snapped it open.

"Zoey, what are you doing?" Nathan's voice sounded far away and garbled from the sudden rushing in her ears.

She reached over the husk and didn't hesitate to draw the knife across her palm. She felt no pain from the cut and watched the blood drip onto the throbbing mass on the altar.

Tonight, I long to feel and see,

To share the love of family.

A lust so strong and love so right,

I yearn for in their arms tonight.

Love the righteous deem forbidden,

forcing us to keep it hidden.

Beneath her hand the mass swelled and a series of cracking sounds reached her ears. The rotted black skin burst open, healthy green tendrils sprouting from under it. Zoey spread her arms and lifted her head, her voice rising.

A love for which we've been taught shame,

within us fans that secret flame.

We burn within for those we crave,

those by morality enslaved.

Within them now unleash desire;

and now ignite that inner fire!

Pieces of decayed black vegetation exploded around and above her, but none of it struck her, as she continued the incantation. A feeling of light headedness overcame her and everything momentarily went dark. But her memory didn't fail and her voice shouted into her personal darkness.

Within the one whose love you seek,

desire for whom you dare to speak,

be there but a glowing ember,

spark of need for family member,

that tiny seed is all you need

Her vision returned and Zoey could see herself, as if she were floating above her body. Not just her, but the clearing. Nathan remaining on the blanket, still sitting, his eyes wide as he stared at what was happening on the altar.

The fresh greens were intertwining, forming a circular shape that quickly became a solid sphere. The green cracked away as the original husk had, now giving way to a familiar shade of orange.

Zoey stared down at her body where she stood, arms out as if in supplication, her head thrown back, and her eyes were now the same shade of orange as the transforming shape on the alter.

to nurture lust on which to feed

to quench the thirst of family first,

and scorn the laws of couplings cursed.

The flow'r thus will burst from cover

and each embrace their true lover.

The sphere had now morphed into a large pumpkin, and as Zoey watched from above, small chunks of it popped out of the front, two triangular eyes, a nose and a row of sharp fangs appearing, curved into a feral smile.

That seed you seek yet can be found,

in this unhallowed tainted ground.

Wisps of orange steam emanated from it, and a sizzling sound accompanied a small circle being burned into the top of it, around the stem.

The seed of the unholy gourd

surpasses laws of the false lord.

The root of lust will grow at last

And therefore it shall come to pass

That which is deemed the greatest sin,

through the power of the Great Pump-kin!

The top flipped off the pumpkin releasing a cloud of orange steam that encompassed her. Suddenly, Zoey was back in her body, coughing as the noxious fumes went up her nose.

She heard Nathan asking if she were okay, and saw him rising to his feet, but remaining still when the orange cloud billowed further around her, now so thick she lost sight of him.

"Daughter, take but this one seed you're reawakening of me has produced. Use it for yourself to help bond with your destined love. When the time comes, I will show you how to replenish me to exact our revenge."

The pumpkin before her shook and its mouth shifted, as if it were puckering up. Something small shot out of it and hit her in the chest. Zoey plucked the sticky object from her shirt, and saw it was indeed a pumpkin seed.

She held it between her fingers uncertain what to do. When no instructions came in her mind, she popped it in her mouth and swallowed it, grimacing at the taste as well as the slimy coating around it sliding down her throat.

She turned away from the altar to see the orange cloud dissipating enough to make out Nathan still on the blanket staring in her direction. It was time to do what she promised mom she would do, what she was meant to do, and what her brother needed and wanted her to do.

Become his first, and only, lover.

But now that the moment was here, she felt doubt creeping in.