As you walk through the patch, pondering over which pumpkin to pick, you start to get to thinking about the random clothes scattered about the ground. There were socks, shoes, pants, dresses, shirts, underwear… you name it, you found it out here. It makes you wonder who left them all here. Besides that, you found wallets and stuff in the pockets. You figured you should take these down to the police station later.
The pumpkins themselves were also of particular interest to you. For one, most of them were absolutely gigantic! They all seemed to measure five, six, even seven feet tall, to say nothing about of sheer incredible width! You’d have no chance of getting these prize winners home without a truck, and you didn’t feel to keen on carving something so huge anyway. Besides, the cleanup when it eventually spoiled would be torture! You just had to keep your eyes peeled for a more manageable sized pumpkin. Then again… the more you look at these gigantic pumpkins… oddly the more human they seemed to be.
Suddenly, you felt a tap on your shoulder. You jumped a little, but you quickly supposed it was just the owner of the patch. You turned to face them when with ice in your veins you realize who it is. Jack-o-lantern head… plaid green shirt… patchy blue overalls… old straw hat… It was the scarecrow from earlier, walking around like a human being. From his ghastly carved face emanated a ghostly green glow, as though some kind of dark magic were animating its towering body.
“Have you come to join my collection?” the scarecrow asked in a raspy voice that sounded like straw, “You’d make a lovely addition to my patch.” You find yourself instinctively backing away from the scarecrow, eyes transfixed in spooked fascination. You bump into one of the giant pumpkins, which suddenly lets out a muffled yelp of surprise. You turn around to get a better look at the gigantic gourd, and a heavy lump of realization drops into your stomach.
This pumpkin isn’t just a pumpkin! This pumpkin is also a human! Worse than that, it’s a girl who you once recognized from school. Judging from her voice, it was this year’s Homecoming Queen, Patricia Martin. You can see her tiny flapping hands sticking out of the side of her segmented spherical body, fat lumps that were probably her breasts, and the top half of her head and her blonde hair sticking out of the top. You saw a vine growing out of the top of her head, seeming to keep her rooted in place. It looks like it could be pulled out, but…
“Beautiful, is she not?” The Scarecrow cooed, “She’s a lovely addition to my patch. You will make a lovely addition as well, just like the rest of the world. My magic pumpkin vines make sure of that. Even if you were to pluck one off the vine, they would likely stay a pumpkin! You will learn to love being a pumpkin, too. Now then, let’s put you on your vine so that you can join my collection.”