Creepy - Day 31 - Dry Drowning & My Neighbor's Pumpkins Never Rot

Episode Date: October 31, 2022

Dry Drowning***Written by: Sum Gigh and Narrated by: Michelle Kane***Content warning: child death***My Neighbor's Pumpkins Never Rot***Written by: John Beardify***Content Warning: bullying***Tickets for the "Creepy" live show can be purchased at: https://bit.ly/BloodyFM***Check out our reward tiers at patreon.com/creepypod***Sound Design by Pacific Obadiah***Title music by Alex Aldea***Intro/Outro Narration by Joe Stofko Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Day 31. Can you believe that another 31 day? of horror is coming to a close. I'd like to thank everyone who listen this year. Whether you're new to the podcast or been with us since the beginning, thank you all so much for listening. October is especially exhausting for us.

It seems like we keep finding new ways to make ourselves busier. So you all taking the time to listen is so appreciated. I'm tired, and if you can hear, the cold that I've been fighting is finally fighting back. So I'm going to take a nap

for a couple of days before we get back to a regular schedule. And for those of you with tickets to the Chicago Live show, it's coming soon. November 10th at the music box theater. One night only. But first things first. No. This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepy pastas and urban legends in the world. Whether these stories truly have to be. happened or simply fabrications is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised.

Creepy presents the 31 days of horror. Day 31. Dry drowning. Written by some guy and narrated by Michelle. It's called dry drowning because it doesn't happen when you're in the water. It happens afterward. I'd never heard of it. Isn't that just how it goes? We were up at a friend's cabin, my husband, my daughter, and I. It was a get-together with friends, four families, everyone in their mid-30s, everyone with children. During the day, there were games around the cabin, kids chasing.

seen each other. Laughter and playful screams as the older boys chase the girls with water toys and vice versa. The younger children cried as they tried to keep up with the faster ones, their chubby little legs churning in vain as they struggled to carry their own water balloons. There were hours out on the lake, sitting in the sun as we relaxed on the pontoon, the kids begging the adults to jump off the side. Cannonball! Do a flip! Their voices layering with each other, echoing in that beautiful sound of gleeful children,

just being happy. Music played, stories were told, drinks were enjoyed. Nothing crazy, just adults trying to relax surround all the kids. There was fishing off the dock. This simple activity, brand new and entrancing to most of the kids,

especially. our daughter. She wasn't the youngest of the kids, but pretty close. Not even three, and wanting to do everything that the other kids were doing, not wanting to be left out. Her short blonde hair, always done up in pigtails, flipping around as she chased the other kids. She used to squirm so much and complain as I ran my comb through her thin, silky hair, but still demanded that it be done. I helped to unload things from the boat as my husband handed our daughter the little Dora the explorer fishing pole. Pink with the smiling characters emblazoned on the side. He didn't know anything about fishing, but she wanted to because the other kids were doing it.

That's all that mattered. I didn't see it happen, didn't even hear it amongst all the other noise of the cabin. I looked back and saw my husband lifting our command. completely soaked daughter out of the water onto the dock by that little loop on the collar of kids' life jackets? That was the one thing we demanded. Kids that were on the dock or boat needed to wear their life jackets. I remember seeing her little cough and that panicked look with her sopping hair matted to her head, suddenly free of her pigtails, as she frantically swatted at it to get it out of her eyes.

My heart pounded as my mind flashed with everything that could have gone wrong. What if she hadn't had the life jacket? What if she'd hit the boat when she fell in? But everything was okay. We didn't know the warning signs. Even if we did know the warning signs, I don't know if it would have mattered. Difficulty breathing, fatigue, irritability. We had a toddler who ran around all day.

long. How would we have known the difference? It's called dry drowning because you get water in your lungs. It triggers an effect in your body where the muscles in the airways spasm and make it harder to breathe. I didn't know then, but I know now. That night, everyone got to work getting their kids ready for bed. A bonfire had already been lit, marshmallows had already been roasted. The children whined their plaintive words of disapproval, wanting to stay up, wanting to play. But the parents wanted to stay up free of the children. We wanted to drink and tell stories and laugh and forget that in just a few hours, we would be up and chasing kiddos again.

We were in the middle of a very, I want mommy, phase, so I was saddled with getting on her jammies and reading her favorite bedtime story, the paperbag princess, and singing her some songs as she snuggled into the air mattress. I remember how tired she looked, and I remember asking if she was okay, still shaken by what happened on the dock. Part of me was just worried that we had scarred our daughter for life,

and she'd never want to go on a boat or learn to swim. The other part was, I don't know, just a feeling. But she just smiled and said, I'm okay, Mommy, before hugging her stuffed kitty and pulling the covers up to her chin. I walked out the door, leaving my daughter lying there, bathed in the soft glow of the nightlight. She was our good little sleeper.

Even with the baby monitor in the room, we never, we never heard a peep. That was the last time. I saw her alive. During the night, the adults did exactly what we had wanted to all day. Stop chasing around kids. Stop drying eyes after falls and hurt feelings. Has some drinks, share some uninterrupted stories. We were drunk when we went to bed. I think I remember gently easing my way past the air mattress, so worried that I would wake her up. or even trip and accidentally fall onto her.

I think that image almost made me laugh out loud in the moment. Come morning, I woke up on my own. I never wake up on my own. Our daughter always woke up first and found her way from her room to hours, practically crawling onto my chest as she nuzzled under our covers. The flash of panic subsided when I considered how time. tired she probably was. Still worn out from the night before, sleeping in a new place, things were just different. As I reached down to touch her arm, the slightly blue tinge to her skin hit me,

just as my fingers reached her and I felt, I felt how cold she was. I can't tell you what the siren on the ambulance sounded like. All I remember are the sounds. of my own screams and my head. After the funeral came the counseling. First, one-on-one, then with my husband, as we tried to talk through what happened. At first, even though it was just myself and the doctor in the room, I didn't talk much about the idea of blame.

I didn't want to say those words. I didn't want to open myself up to the idea of who I blamed for the law. of our daughter. The idea of blaming my husband meant that I had to blame myself. I stopped watching her too. I didn't know the warning signs. I failed to know what dry drowning was. I was the one who put her to bed that night and didn't check on her again until she was hearty gone. So instead of all that and really opening myself up to the pain, I talked about my daughter. And I cried. I talked and I cried. It was supposed to help, but honestly it didn't. Where were you when it happened? The doctor asked. On the dock, I was unloading things from the boat.

The kids were fishing. I had just dropped some stuff on the shore when it happened. I didn't see it. I barely even heard it. I'm sure the doctor saw something wrong too, and that was when he recommended that we do group counseling with my husband. I don't think we were more than ten minutes into the first session together before it happened. We were fishing, my husband said, retelling the story to the doctor.

his eyes focused on the coffee table in front of us. She never fished before, and she wanted to do it like the other kids were doing. There wasn't even any bait on the line. She just wanted to cast it out. And then what happened? The doctor asked. My husband took a deep breath and gulped. I don't know.

I mean, I looked away. for maybe a second, and that's when she leaned forward, slipped off the dock. As soon as I saw her fall, I was reaching for her, and she wasn't underwater for more than a second tops before. I couldn't stop myself from saying, but she was still underwater. My husband stopped and looked at me. We were about to go someplace we hadn't gone before, and we both knew it. We were about to switch from that place where we wanted each other to feel better, to a place where we knew we'd never come back from. She still fell in and you were right there the whole time, I said.

He switched to defense, saying she slipped that it was an accident. I couldn't stop myself as I asked why he even looked away in the first place. The tears already forming in my eyes. eyes. And it just happened. I accused him of staring at my friend Jenny. My husband stared back at me blankly. He was caught. Jenny was a friend of mine. She was the sort who was very proud of her body and took every advantage to wear a swimsuit in the summer, usually something barely covering herself, even with children around. He stammered out that. He stammered out that he'd only looked over for a second.

You keep... You keep saying that, I interrupted. Like how long you looked away makes any difference. All that matters is that you looked away and she fell and she got water in her lungs because of it. He was cornered, but he wasn't the sort of person to back down.

It's not like I pushed her in. It was an accident. Where were you? Huh? You put her to bed. Why didn't you notice she wasn't feeling good? What I did was an accident, but you didn't even care how she was feeling.

You just wanted to go to the bonfire and get drunk. How much had you already had to drink? I didn't tell the doctor that part. It was the truth. There's no sense in my lying about it anymore. Those things I was setting down on the shore were a beer cooler and a big jug of something we called not juice. mostly ever clear with a few other things that ended up tasting like apple juice.

We even mix it in a large apple juice bottle, making sure to label it, not juice in big black letters, so the kids don't get anything from the wrong bottle. I'd had more than a few beers and drinks from the not juice. I really wasn't thinking about anything else. And there had been a few times on the boat where I wished the kids kids weren't around so we could just enjoy ourselves without having to play police and arbitrator. The session didn't get better from there. Words like, get over it and heartless bastard were just the tip of the iceberg. He was trying to move on. He was accepting that she was

dead and thought I needed to do the same. I guess that's how easy it is. I guess that's how easy it is for some men, at least for one. That was the beginning of the end for us. Maybe it had started before that, but in that moment, we both knew that our marriage wasn't going to survive the death of our daughter. As it turned out, my husband didn't survive at all. We had just separated when it happened. I got the call late at night, being the emergency contact he had listed on his gym membership. No one saw it happen, but his body was found floating in the men's locker room hot tub. They think he slipped trying to get in, but the autopsy never showed any sign of head trauma. Not only that, but I know for a fact that my husband hated the gym hot tups.

The ones in locker rooms always seemed extra filthy with the same. with people treating them like they were a bath. Some men even having the audacity to shave in them. So gross. After his funeral, I got into my car and started the long drive up to our friend's cabin. The only thing I knew was that he wanted to be cremated, but what was I supposed to do with his remains was anyone's guess. I decided he should go back to the lake, where we lost our daughter.

It was almost a three-hour drive. Their cabin is on the aptly named Loon Lake. Being the state bird and all, there's probably actually more than one Loon Lake. I suppose I only mention that because of how clearly I can hear the call of a loon in my mind. It's gentle and just sort of seems to bubble in the air. There's something calming about it and seeing the image of the black and white bird bobbing serenely in the distance. feels right. I rolled into the cabin just after 9 a.m. pulling up the loose gravel driveway through an arch of trees into the little clearing where the cabin sat. It's a beautiful cabin, the sort of thing a lot of people dream of retiring to. Pushed back into the woods, it was the sort

of place you didn't find unless you were looking for it. And even then, it was easy to miss. Closing my car door, I walked straight past the house towards the lake, down the hill toward the dock. My body was on autopilot. I just wanted to get it done. There was something else in the back of my mind. Something else I didn't want to admit to at the moment. My friends are good people. They love the outdoors, love camping and everything they can do in the water and under the sun. Their pontoon boat bobbed on the side of the dock, tied up and looking exactly how it had. a year ago as I watched my husband pull our daughter from the water. I didn't give it much more than that consideration as I walked to the small garage they kept just off the beach for their added

gear. My focus was on one of the kayaks. I unhooked the bungee cords that held up one of the long yellow one-person crafts. It was light enough to easily drag the 20 or so feet before leaving it on the edge of the water to go back and grab a paddle and a spray skirt. I didn't bother changing clothes, and I wasn't wearing a swimsuit as I stepped into the hoop of nylon, pulling the suspender-like straps up over my shoulders. It shifted and swung awkwardly as I gingerly stepped into the kayak, trying not to slip and fall into the water. Before pushing off, I stretched the skirt around the kayak's cockpit, making an almost waterproof connection. I hadn't used one since I was in college and took a kayak trip up to the Apostle Islands,

A year ago I'd taken our daughter out in the same boat, but with the two of us in there it wasn't enough for the skirt too. Just her squirmy little gleeful body sitting on my lap as we paddled around just out from shore. I dipped the end of the paddle into the water and shifted my weight back and forth, inching my way into the water until I finally felt my weight drop slightly

as the kayak pushed away from the shore. I didn't want to spread his ashes by the dog. Something felt wrong about that, so I moved further out into the lake. It was still early, but the sun was bright and hot, with something else in the air. I took my time paddling through the overgrowth of lake grass and weeds. I had time, no sense in hurrying up just to wait. I listened to the water swirl each time I dipped my paddle into the still but cloudy water. I watched as the drops of water ran down the handle when I put the other end of the paddle in, back and forth, back and forth, gradually making my

way out to the middle of the lake. It didn't take me long to get out far enough from shore. The lake bottom dropped to maybe 70 feet, where I finally stopped paddling and rested the paddle across the bow. I looked to the sky and closed my eyes, feeling the warmth of the sun on my face and neck. I listened for the song of the loon, but heard none. Instead, in the distance, just the faintest sound of thunder rolling through the air. Right on time. For once, the weatherman actually called it, I cracked open the urn and gently spread the ashes just over the surface. I didn't want to want any of it to blow back up at me, and I'm pretty sure that it's illegal to dump human remains in a lake in any capacity. The rain would help wash it all away. That and... Within a few

minutes, the first drops of rain were plinking off the plastic surface of the kayak. I kept my eyes closed and waited for the rain to run down my face, soak my hair, surround me. As the wind picked up For just a moment, I thought I heard the call of a loon in the distance. Maybe it was a call to her young, trying to protect them from the coming storm. Maybe it was a call to me, chastising the stupid woman just waiting for the storm. The waves weren't huge, but they were enough to shift the kayak pretty well, and I did nothing to stop them. After just a minute or so, I got impatient and rocked with the shifting water, feeling those moments of near weightlessness, as I thought I was about to tip over, only to write myself again, and repeat.

Finally, it happened. A particularly strong gust of wind, coupled with an unexpected wave smacked into the side of the kayak, and my shifting weight helped to dump it over. The shape of the kayak immediately forced the craft into an inverted position. The spray skirt I wore kept me firmly in place, upside down, underwater. All I had to do was lean forward, pushing my hands into the rim of the skirt, and it would free itself so I could go back to the surface. But I didn't. I sat there, eyes closed, mouth closed, and waited. It was quiet. I don't remember hearing any sounds. Not the rain on the bottom of the kayak. not even my body's reaction to the lack of air as it struggled against the building pressure in my lungs and chest.

Make no mistake, regardless of why you are there, drowning only feels like panic. The panic my daughter must have felt, even being underwater for just seconds, her world going dark, her fear, her confusion. before being pulled to the surface by my husband. But he wasn't with me. His remains were on the way to the bottom of the lake. No one was with me. There was no one there to pull me back.

I was about to open my mouth, about to pull in a gut full of water, and let my body fill with death when I heard it, almost like a whisper. in the darkness, my mind recalling what I thought I'd heard. I'm okay, Mommy. My panic doubled as whatever horrible thoughts I had raced from my mind. What was I doing?

Why did I want to do this? My body immediately switched to survival mode and I moved to free myself. That was when I felt it. I felt something pry past my lips and wrench my mouth open. Tiny little wriggling things like night crawlers that pulled at my jaw and the sides of my mouth so hard that I thought the skin was going to rip open. And I heard it. The sound wasn't in my mind. I really heard it.

That voice, but not sweet, not cut. comforting, vicious, bitter, vengeful. The words I actually heard, It's not okay, Mommy. I tried to look around, but there was no sun to illuminate the cloudy waters. I slashed my own face trying to fight with that like tiny hands away, but there was nothing there. Still, I could feel them.

I could feel them dig into my skin, fingernails arching into the tender tissue of my mouth. Forgetting about the pain, I pushed the skirt free and struggled to get back to the surface. My head bursting upward as I gasped the deepest, coldest breath I've ever had. Filling my lungs again as I screamed and coughed and cried. I reached my arms over the bottom side of the kayak, and struggled to pull myself from the water and away from whatever had tried to rip my mouth open, whatever had tried to drown me. And I cried.

In the rain and wind I was soaked. But the water on my face wasn't rain. It was only my tears. Tears for my daughter. Tears for my husband. Enough tears for a lifetime. I was losing it. My mind was broken. I imagined. I don't know what. All I knew was that whatever ideas I had had about ending my own pain were gone. I only wanted to live, to breathe. The fear of that moment, the feeling of drowning. I can't. I managed to get back to and into the cabin where I collapsed in the shower, puddles of rain and piles of my sopping wet clothing

leaving in a trail from the door to the bathroom. I curled up in the shower stall, naked and cried, letting the warm water cover me. Eventually I stood up, resting my hands against the walls. My legs were so weak that I felt like I could collapse just under the weight of the running water. As the shower began to run out of hot water, I reached for the knob. But my head was suddenly snapped back in pain, hot stabbing pain as something ripped at a handful of my hair, forcing my head back and up as the water cascaded down my face and into my eyes. I couldn't move as I felt something crawl across my skin from the back of my head like some massive spider with impossibly thick legs. I still couldn't drop my head from the water as I tried to scream.

I felt the sides of my mouth rip open as two small hands pulled at my lips and jaw, forcing my head up into the jet of the shower. I flailed and gagged, trying to shake free as whatever held my head pushed it closer and closer to the faucet. I thrashed my arms until my hand found the knob and I was able to slap the water off. Immediately, whatever was on my head and in my mouth disappeared, and I collapsed to the ground in a puddle. Covered in water, in tears. I shivered uncontrollably as the world went black. I don't remember crawling into bed.

I don't know if I called anyone or looked through the house for an intruder. All I know is that I opened my eyes to find myself dry and curled up in covers. My body hurt and everything in my being just told me to just close my eyes. I was so tired. That kind of tired that nothing will make you want to keep your eyes open. Nothing made sense anymore. A dream, it must have been some horrible dream. Just fragments of ideas twisted in on themselves.

guilt. As I fell asleep, I dreamt of our daughter. I watched her playing on the end of the dock by the beach. My husband was standing beside me, looking away down the other end of the dock. In my hand was a fishing pole. I looked back at my daughter and saw her face scowling at me. There was no sound, but her mouth moved as she shook her head. Before I could make out the words, I felt the shock of panic and darkness. I was drowning. I tried to breathe, tried to grasp for precious air. Again, I struggled and thrashed. Pain burst in my hand, and I woke up to see that my hand had crashed into the nightstand.

But that idea meant nothing, as my vision was mostly obscured by the waterglass at my lips. No, not at my lips, at my face, the rim of the glass pressing harder and harder into my mouth, my cheeks, the bridge of my nose. So hard blood began to run from my face as the glass ground and twisted against my skin. Water sloshed and turned pink, and I gagged against the glass that welded itself to me in front of my eyes. I fell out of bed rolling around. around until I was finally able to get the glass from my face, the contents spilling onto the floor in a sick mix of water and my blood. I shook with pain and fear as I stared at the glass in shock. Then I heard it again. It's not okay, mommy. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I don't know if I'm

just insane and doing this to myself out of guilt? Or if there's really some presence trying to drown me, trying to fill my lungs with water? I'm afraid to drink so much as a drop of water. Maybe I'll have to be committed, fed by IV. I'm afraid to take a shower or go out in the rain. I've been in this cabin for two days. I've shut off. the main water and broke the handle to turn it back on. I've locked the doors. The lake is so close. I'm afraid to call for help because I'll have to open the door. I spend my waking hours crying and saying I'm sorry, but I don't know if she can hear me. I'm so thirsty. I don't think I can live much longer without water.

I suppose in its own way, this is my dry drowning. I'm going to try one more thing. I'm going to try going down to the dock where my daughter fell. I'm going to beg her forgiveness, tell her I was wrong and that I would do anything for her to be alive again.

I'll admit to her and the world that I wasn't there when she needed me the most. One way or another, my daughter is going to get what she wants, and everything, everything will be okay. We will all be together again. For your bonus episode, creepy presents, My neighbor's pumpkins never rot,

written by John Beardify. the butcher boys Chet, Eli, and Rex the bane of my existence They picked me as a target when we were still finger-painting and learning our ABCs Maybe it was because Rex, the youngest brother and my classmate

Didn't like the way I wrinkled my nose It is stench Maybe it was just because I sat next to him And I was smaller than he was Who knows I'll never understand what motivates people to hurt to other for fun, but whatever it is, the butcher boys had it in abundance. As soon as Rex told his older brothers Eli and chat that I was an easy target,

my life became a nightmare. Every day after school, the hunt was on. The moment that the yellow school bus turned the corner or the adults disappeared, the butcher boys materialized like demons out of the shadows. They appeared in the gloom with a pine forest shortcut, behind tall wooden fences or pressed up against the siding of empty suburban houses. I never knew which route home would be safe, because I never knew where they'd be. It was fun for them.

Like lions, they lay in weight. And also like big cats, they like to play with their food before eating. In the woods or along the sidewalk, I'd run until my pumping legs burned or my asthmatic lungs ran out of oxygen. The butcher boys were faster than me, and they knew it, so they'd let me get away, almost. At the last minute, my legs would be yanked out from under me, or had to be yanked helpless from the top of a fence. If I was lucky, I'd just get a snake bite or have my face rubbed in something nasty until I choked and cried. I wasn't always lucky. But else didn't understand that if I followed their advice and just told someone or fought back,

it would only make things worse. Things got worse by themselves as the butcher boys got older. Their taste for cruelty became more refined as a connoisseur developed a nose for fine wines. When neighborhood cats and dogs began to disappear, I didn't have to wonder where they went. When my English teacher was in tears over damage to her car that she couldn't afford to fix,

I didn't have to ask myself who did it. I wasn't the butcher boys' only victim by a long shot. but I was the only one who lived in their neighborhood, the only one whose parents weren't rich enough to just move away or change schools. I was the only target who was always available, the one I could count on when they ran out of windows to break or small creatures to torment. It goes without saying, of course, that I hated Halloween.

No matter the mask or costume that I hid myself behind, Rex Eli and Chet found me and did whatever they wanted after taking my candy. Year after year, however, my parents forced me to dress up and go outside, thinking would help me make friends. Yet since everyone knew that the butcher boys were after me, they avoided me like the plague. Later when I'd come home with my costume and tatters and my plastic pumpkin empty of sweets, I'd be grounded for not trying hard enough. Of course, I was mostly alone in my dislike for Halloween.

The whole town seemed to love the holiday, and people really got into their costumes and decorations. No one more than Miss Throgmorton, an older woman who lived alone in the house at the end of the cul-de-sac for as long as anyone could remember. The homemade caramel apples she gave out were delicious, although some people claimed they caused unusual dreams. Trayvon Banks, for example, said after he ate one he dreamed he turned into a toad and Miss Throgmorton used him as bait to catch other toads in the swamp, by the highway. Melissa Elder, too, claimed that after eating the apple, she went straight to her parents' diaries,

read all their passwords and juicy secrets, then went to Miss Throgmorton's house in her pajamas to repeat everything verbatim. Everyone thought Melissa was lying naturally, but we couldn't explain the ink on her fingertips or the cuts on her bare feet. Rumors are not, Ms. Throgmorn's apples were a Halloween staple,

and her decorations couldn't be bought in any store. animatronic talking scarecrows that always had an ironic comment or bad pun to make about your costume fake cobwebs that seem to skitter with real spiders and centipete ghostly figures that popped out from rose bushes or dropped from doorways cackling madly miss rogmoren made all of them by hand with loving care you could see how important halloween was to her in the way her eyes glittered as she watched us cat-like from her front porch rocking-chair nothing however compared to Miss Throgmoren's pumpkins. The year the high school football team made it to state, her carvings showed critical game moments in shades of orange and fire. All the years, they would poke fun at local leaders or current events. Sometimes they'd be your classic monsters and ghouls.

What stood out, however, was the lifelike skill with which they were carved. That probably would attract the butcher boys, the chance to destroy something beautiful. As usual, I'd be forced out of my house in costume against my will that night. My classmates still crossed the street when they saw me. I was sulking beneath an oak tree opposite Mr. Ogmorns and daydreaming about life far away from this miserable town when the butcher boys caught up to me. For some reason, my costume that year was an adult-sized cat in a hat outfit.

I guess my parents had gotten it on sale. And it wasn't like I even tried anymore anyway. But the butcher boys put the costume size and goofy accessories to use, stuffing the huge hat in my mouth, straight-jacketing my arms inside the oversized sleeves, and hanging me from a tree limb by a costume cat's tail. My mouth tasted like dusty felt, and I could barely breathe through the sobs and the snot in my nose.

Blood rushed to my head as I swung helplessly from the creaking branch. I was too busy fighting to stay conscious to pay much attention to the brother's insults and laughter. Finished with me, they crossed the deserted street to Miss Throgmortons. I saw what happened next while swinging upside down to the point of losing consciousness, so I suppose must be taken with a grain of salt. The consequences, however, are undeniable.

Miss Throgmorton seemed to have gone in for the night, now the most trick-or-treaters have gone home. There's no one to stop chat from you, using the hockey stick from his Jason costume to smash a carefully carved cat pumpkin to smithereens, or to prevent Eli from stomping the sculpted wolfman. Nor could Rex be prevented from hurling the cut-out of a broom-riding witch into the street, where it shattered into waxy yellow chunks. It was around then that a dark shape appeared on the porch.

From where I hung, I couldn't hear what the butcher boys said to Miss Throgmorton, probably their usual blend of threats and insults. But when she spoke to them, The results were obvious and instantaneous. Like toy soldiers the butcher boy's hands snapped to their sides. They stood up straight before wobbling to the edge of the rose bushes where Miss Throgmorton's pumpkins used to be, once in place. They started to dig with the frenzy of starving dogs on earthing a bone.

A person shouldn't be able to dig a hole as deep as they are tall with their bare hands, at least not in such a short time, but the butcher boys did. careless of the pain and damage to their bodies, they kept digging. Even when their bleeding fingernails peeled away and their joints snapped sickeningly with each movement. When the holes were shoulder deep, they wormed their way inside. Only their faces were visible now. Pichette, Eli, and Rex were no longer sneering. Each face was as blank as a puppet waiting for its strings to be moved.

They didn't have to wait for long. Mr. Ogmore Wabbled down from her porch and covered each head with a brown potato sack the kind she often used around the garden then cackling to herself

she went back inside I passed out at some point the tree branch holding me snapped otherwise the butcher boy's little prank would have probably killed me when I woke up face down in the pre-dawn dew

I wasn't thinking about the three brown sacks across the street or the impossible things had seen all I cared about was getting home. My parents had left every light on and called the police. They were much too worried to be angry. I could see the love and regret in their eyes that they held me close and promised that they'd never forced me to go out on my own again.

Their feelings were only intensified the next day when Arnold Butcher reported his three sons missing. Man hunts, posters, and police dogs came and went. But the three sacks in Miss Throgmorton's yard remained. More out of curiosity than compassion, I tried to get a closer look a few nights after Halloween. Just as I was reaching out for one of the bags, however, I felt a presence behind me. Miss Throgmorton, leaning on a railing, grinning at me from ear to ear. I gulped, waved, backed away, and as soon as I could, I ran.

That was five years ago. Every year since, Miss Throgmorton has continued to outdo herself with the amazing question, quality of our decorations and, above all, the three pumpkins in her front yard. Nothing can match their lifelike expressions, or how they seem to be in real agony from the candles burning on their tongues. And if anyone in town made the connection between the three perennial pumpkins and the three missing boys, they've kept it to themselves, just as I have. Like me, they've probably noticed that Miss Throgmorn always has room for new decorations.

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