CHAPTER 3

 

 

We returned to the house to find my aunt and uncle weren't quite done with their squash squalor. They stood in the kitchen in front of the mountain of pumpkins. Aunt Ma had her hands on her hips and frowned at my uncle. He glared back at her.

"I'm not packing out any more failed faces. The pigs'll explode," Uncle Seward warned her.

"But Elmira's been bragging all summer about her squash, and I just can't let her win without a fight," Aunt Ma insisted.

"Elmira?" Roland asked me.

"Aunt Ma's arch-enemy in the Squash Festival," I whispered. "She and my aunt have a feud running so long it circumnavigated the world decades before I was born."

Uncle Seward glanced in our direction. "You find anything out there?"

"Whatever it was lost us at the creek," I told him.

My uncle frowned and turned to Aunt Ma. "See? If you make more they're just going to get broken."

"My pumpkin was murdered, and I am making more whether you pack the innards or not," Aunt Ma insisted.

"All right, make your pumpkin, but just don't leave it out so any dog can come by and wreck it," Uncle Seward demanded.

"Fair enough," Aunt Ma agreed. She turned to us and her frown was replaced with a smile. "You two are coming to the Squash Festival in a few days, aren't you?"

I shook my head. "Nope. I've got to work."

Aunt Ma looked to Roland. "What about you, young man? The Festival's open at nights for the jack-o-lanterns."

"I can make no promises, but we shall see," Roland replied.

Aunt Ma gave a nod. "Good, then we'll see you there."

"That isn't quite-" I jabbed Roland in the side. He smiled and bowed his head. "Very well."

"Now you two get along before the sun comes up. I've got a lot of carving to do and the Festival's judging night is in only two days," Aunt Ma insisted. She turned her back on us and started her hideous carving of a new jack-o-lantern.

Uncle Seward followed us to the hall where he shook his head. "That woman's more stubborn than a pig with its head in the trough."

"But you will guard her?" Roland asked him.

My uncle whipped his head to Roland and glared at him. "She's my wife. Even she was baiting trouble with the devil I'd protect her with my dying breath."

Roland bowed his head. "I didn't mean offense."

Uncle Seward sighed. "I guess I'm just jumpy. Damn weird things happening around here." He glanced down at the box in Roland's hands. "It doesn't happen to have anything to do with that, does it?"

"We'll know when we apprehend the attacker," Roland told him.

"Well, get on it, then, so I can get to sleep knowing Ma isn't going to be calling me up this early to haul the innards to the barn," he commanded.

"We'll track it down and convince it to stop attacking defenseless pumpkins," I promised.

"Then get along with you," Uncle Seward replied.

Roland and I walked outside and got into the car. I turned to him and his box.

"Please tell me you can track it down and convince it to stop attacking defenseless pumpkins," I pleaded.

Roland stared straight ahead and furrowed his brow. "What else did the trucker tell you about the attack?"

I shrugged. "Just that he couldn't deliver to the Depot and it wouldn't be on the train."

"Does the Depot store a great deal of squash produce?" he asked me.

"Yeah, why? You think the squash squasher's going to raid the Depot for more victims?" I guessed.

"It is possible. The attacker was able to find your aunt's pumpkin seated on the porch. It's plausible it could also follow the scent of the truck tires from the fields to the Depot," he proposed.

"And find the warehouse with all the squash and carve a bunch of jack-o-lanterns with its teeth," I finished.

"I would suggest you alert Sherry to the trouble and see if she won't assist us in protecting the warehouse," he suggested.

I leaned back in my seat and sighed. "It's a good thing it's once in a blood moon and I've got tonight off. I have a feeling this is going to be a hell of a night." I noticed Roland frowned. "What?"

He shook himself and slouched in his seat. "It's nothing, but we should hurry. The sun will soon be up."

 

 

I dropped Roland off at the apartment and decided I wanted to try out the insomniac life, so I drove out to the Depot in Northton. The soul box sat in the passenger seat beside me. My eyes flickered to the dark paperweight.

"So you know any good jokes?" I asked the box. The thing didn't give any reply. "Maybe some block-block jokes? You hear the one about the box that went from being two-dimensional to three? It went from hip to square in no-time flat." The box sat there with its tight-lipped lid. I shrugged and looked at the road. "Everybody's a critic. . ." I mumbled.

We got to the Depot twenty minutes after the sun and just in time to join the long line of trucks and cars as the employees herded their way to the warehouses. I took the path less traveled and turned off just outside the gates. The guy in the guardhouse watched me park, and so did a familiar face in a rundown van.

Sherry pulled up to me and rolled down her window. Her eyes flitted to the soul box in my hand. When she talked I could see her white breath in the cold morning air.

"Dad isn't in more trouble, is he?" she asked me.

I shook my head. "No, but my aunt's pumpkins and your squash might be in mortal danger."

She raised an eyebrow. "Say what?"

I nodded at the warehouses. "It's about some squash that you're holding here. Roland and I think maybe somebody might come around tonight and gorge on some gourds."

Sherry jerked her head towards the empty passenger seat. "Get in."

I hopped into the seat and she drove us through the gates. We parked in the parking lot and walked towards the warehouses.

"So are we talking some sort of vegetarian vampire or what?" she questioned me.

"We don't know yet, but since it attacked one of your suppliers we figure it might follow the scent here," I explained.

We stopped at the door to one of the warehouses closest to the railroad tracks and Sherry turned to me. "You're talking about Ben Carson?"

I nodded. "Yep, and the thing took a bite out of my aunt's jack-o-lantern last night."

"You get a look at it?" she wondered.

"No, just its tracks. Some sort of hoofed animal," I told her.

Sherry crossed her arms over her chest and pursed her lips. "That's not much to get everyone around here excited about spending a night in the cold."

"They don't have to. Roland and I can look out for it," I offered.

She sighed, but nodded. "All right, I'll let you two in tonight myself, but it's just because I owe you both big for saving Dad."

"We might spend the whole night counting squash," I assured her.

Sherry smiled. "You'd need more than one night to do that."

She opened the door and gestured inside. I stepped into the warehouse and beheld a cornucopia of gourds. The rind-encased vegetables lay in stiff, three-foot tall cardboard bins, and those bins sat on metal shelves that reached to the ceiling. There were a dozen rows of the shelves that stretched from the front to the rear of the warehouse.

"Aunt Ma can never find this. . ." I murmured.

Sherry came up behind me. "What was that?"

"That's a lot of jack-o-lanterns," I replied.

"And gourds for table decorations and some organic Gaia-worshiper drinking cups," she added. "So what time will you two be here?"

"Just after sunset," I told her.

She snorted. "Of course. Why'd I bother to ask? Well, when you come meet me outside the gate. I don't want to have to explain to security how two people managed to get inside the fence without setting off the alarm."

"Where's the alarm?" I asked her.

"It's connected to the entire fence and the doors. If they open without a key or someone breaks even a link we'll know about it," she promised. I covered my mouth to hide a yawn. Sherry leaned towards me and frowned. "You don't look so good. Getting enough sleep?"

"Just enough to keep me from getting my own coffin," I quipped.

"That doesn't sound like too much. That vampire boyfriend of yours running you ragged?" she guessed.

My mouth clattered shut and I glared at her. "He's not my boyfriend, he's just my roommate."

"So you two aren't a thing?" Sherry asked me.

"If by 'thing' you mean roommates, then yes," I replied.

"We're both adults, Misty. When I mean 'thing' we both know I'm talking about sex," she scolded me.

"I'd rather abstain from necrophilia," I quipped.

"Then why are you letting him hang around you?" she wondered.

I held up the box. "Somebody has to babysit this thing."

Sherry's eyes flitted between me and the box. "A box?"

I tucked the box under one arm. "It's a long story, but the box is important."

"Uh-huh. Well, you and your box should get some rest if you're going to stay up all night," she recommended.

We exchanged goodbyes and I walked to my car. I glared down at the box.

"You could've helped out with some flash or mist ooze or something," I hissed at it. The box sat on the seat like a metal log. I snorted and started the car. "You're a hell of a conversationalist, Boxy."