Pumpkin Jack Skull
And Other Tales of Terror
By Jacob M. Drake
Published on Smashwords by Crescent Suns eBooks
Second Edition
Copyright Jacob M. Drake 2011
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Smashwords 2nd Edition, License Notes
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FORWARD
The various stories contained within this book were written over the past couple of years. The title story concept, that of Pumpkin Jack Skull, was something I came up with around Halloween of 2008 and decided to write just to see where it took me; after all, stories have a way of writing themselves, going where they want to go, not where the author thinks he wants them to. I wrote the first story and was pleased with what I came up with in the form of Jack-O-Lantern. Then later I realized I had another story to go along with this one inside of me and along came Pumpkin. Still later I realized that there was one final story in this vein that was needed in order to tie it all together and Jack Skull was born as the main protagonist who started this entire tale of jack-o-lanterns that went in search of worthy prey. I hope that when you get to Jack Skull you don't assign his lack of social skills and his aptitude for dismembering people to this author. I have never so much as removed the wings of a fly - living or dead. Jack Skull is in another realm all of his own.
He is not me. He really isn't. Seriously, ok?
The other stories were an assortment of ideas I had along the way and had to put down in
words in order to get to sleep at night. Of course the trauma inflicted upon Benjy in Witch Spawn wasn't of my doing, either. That story insisted on being written that way. Seriously. I had no intention of inflicting such horror upon a small child as that, especially where it came to dealing with his own mother. Sheesh. There's an entire book in each of these stories once I get around to writing them as such, and the Pumpkin Jack Skull trilogy just has to be made into a movie one day. Anyone know of a movie producer looking for his next great horror film? Hmmm?
I hope everyone who reads these stories enjoys them as much as I had writing them. Please feel free to contact me at any time by e-mailing this author at: eternal.naturist2@gmail.com.
Although I am busy with writing more stories every day as the plots and characters appear within my over-active imagination, I do attempt to read and respond to all e-mail I receive in a timely manner.
Tales in this collection:
JACK-O-LANTERN
When teenage Will Duncan is placed on restriction by his parents and forced to remain home on Halloween while they go to a costume party he discovers there is more than trick-or-treaters who come to his door.
BECOMING DRACA
Nic Draca has always been an average youth with an exotic name, all the way into his early
twenties. Then he wakes up lying in a puddle behind a bar and discovers a tattoo across his face he never had before. How the tattoo got there and what the meaning of it is begins Nic on a new life that shows him the real meaning of being part of the Draca lineage.
POWER EVOLUTION
If you had the opportunity to become imbued with powers beyond the scope of mortal, man
wouldn't you take that opportunity? What then if you realized there was no one compatible to you who you could share your life with? Robby Burns discovers his greatest gift has become his biggest curse, and possibly for that of all mankind as well.
PUMPKIN
Paul Walker takes his small son Danny out searching for the right pumpkin to be carved into a Halloween jack-o-lantern. He never expected to unleash an incarnation of evil that would end his life - and set loose a terror that would encompass the entire world.
WITCH SPAWN
Seven year-old Benjy lives in daily fear - of his mother, whom he believes must be a witch.
One day he realizes he simply can't take the constant beating any longer. That's when he discovers that the supernatural power inherent within his mother is his to control as well.
TO KILL THE JABBERWOCKY
Detectives Bud Lorimer and James Credo are assigned to a murder case that leads them into the cyber-world of online role playing games. The question they have to ask themselves, however, is how can what happens in a RPG possibly affect the outcome of life and death in the real world?
OUT OF THE SHADOWS **NEW**2011
Mark Embly loved the darkness. Ever since he was a country boy walking the backroads at night he'd always felt more at home in the dark than in the light. Until many years later when the darkness decided to follow him home and kill him.
JACK SKULL
**** WARNING **** The following story contains scenes of highly graphic torture and mutilation. Not recommended for the squeamish.
Jack "Skull" Schuyler has spent his adult life as an enforcer for the local crime syndicate. He gets all the jobs no one else has the stomach for - except him. Then the day arrives when the syndicate he works for decides their enforcer is a liability and Jack Skull finds himself under the death sentence he has placed so many others under.
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JACK-O-LANTERN
Copyright 2008 Jacob M. Drake
“Can you believe it’s Halloween and there’s nothing on TV?” Will Duncan clicked the power button on the remote. The TV blinked to black. He threw the remote across the room, where it barely missed landing on the sofa. The small television control bounced off the edge of the cushion, landing on the carpet.
Will knew if his dad ever saw him doing that he’d be grounded for at least a week. Tonight he didn’t care. Tonight was his night to have fun, but his parents had restricted him to staying inside the house. All because he’d been caught cheating on a Science test.
A Science test! Who doesn’t cheat on Science tests? It’s one of those subjects that almost nobody knows enough about. Not that anybody wants to know about Science, Will reasoned in his mind. It was a worthless subject to him.
But because he’d been caught, he was now sitting at home, handing out candy to those snot-nosed-little-shits that kept coming around, ringing the damned doorbell and shouting, “Trick-or-treat!”
And where were his parents? They were out at a Halloween party at a friend’s house. That’s where. They were enjoying themselves like little kids while he was stuck here at home! It wasn’t fair! They were the parents. He was the kid! Not a little kid, either. A thirteen year-old in middle school. The perfect age for Halloween, 'cause it was the number that scared everyone with their superstitious beliefs.
Thirteen. The perfect number for this holiday he should be out enjoying to the fullest.
Instead he was handing out candy to bratty little kids.
Who gave a shit about those stupid kids and their ratty-assed costumes? Will should be out with his own friends, trolling the neighborhoods. Snatching candy from those same little kids who thought it was such a fun thing to be out ringing people’s doorbells, expecting to receive candy.
Nobody thought to actually trick any of those shitty little bastards when they came to the door of a house.
Wasn’t that what this night was all about? Trick or treat? It was one or the other, right? Not just always a treat.
Will had decided to do the opposite. From now on, whenever someone came to his door, he would make sure they got the first part of their stupid saying.
Turning off all the lights in the house, Will had put on the rubber mask he’d bought for using tonight when he was supposed to be out with his friends. They were all going to wear monster masks that fit over their entire heads, so nobody recognized them and called the cops for the way they stole candy from kids a lot smaller and younger than they were.
When he heard kids coming up his walkway to the small porch in front of his house, he’d open the door just enough so it wasn’t actually closed, his hand resting on the doorknob. Then, just as those rotten little bastards reached for the doorbell, he’d fling open the door, jump in front of the opening, and raise his arms, screaming and growling like the monster he really was deep inside.
It had worked great the couple of times he’d done it. The kids on his porch had screamed and fallen all over themselves and each other, pissing their pants and trying to get away from this howling creature that they just knew was trying to eat them.
A couple of parents standing back on the sidewalk, watching to make sure their kids were all right, had gotten angry and yelled at him. One, a really irate mother, had stormed up the walkway and almost barreled through his door before he’d thought to slam it in her face and lock it.
That bitch! Who did she think she was? This was his house. She was the one who made the decision to take her “li’l angel” out door-to-door, begging for candy, not him.
The whole thing had pissed Will off enough that as the woman finally stopped beating on his door with her fists, screaming obscenities through the closed door, he had flung back the door and thrown a handful of small, hard candy at her, striking her in the back of the head with it. Then he’d slammed the door once more just as she was turning back toward him. The look on her face that time! Boy, was she ever pissed. He thought sure she was going to call the cops on him, but so far nothing had happened. Guess he'd lucked out on that.
That was awhile ago. There hadn’t been any trick-or-treaters since then. Will had gotten bored and had decided to watch television. Only there wasn’t anything on, except old re-runs of stupid shows that were supposed to be comedies, but weren’t. They never made him laugh. They were just stupid.
Now he heard something on his porch. Like someone was doing something out there.
He sat up straight in his dad’s recliner, peering intently at the closed door. What was going on out there? It didn’t sound like little kids. They were always so noisy he heard them out on the main sidewalk before they even turned up to come toward his house. This was different. More like a scratching, scuffling sound. Like someone rearranging things on the porch.
Immediately he thought about the Halloween decorations his mother always put out every year. She had a lot of fun decorating the front porch, making it look like witches and ogres lived in this house, instead of normal people.
God! How Will hated being normal. Maybe his parents were normal, but he sure as hell wasn’t. That was why he always got into so much trouble at school. Because he was special. Above normal. He was one of the leaders in his grade. He was one of those who told the other kids what to do, and if they didn’t like it they’d get a punch in the snoot or the belly. Some times, if they were certain kids he really didn‘t like, he’d slug ‘em in the crotch. Punch ‘em right in the Old Johnson. It was lots of fun watching those kids fold over in half, puking on their shoes when he slugged ‘em in the crotch.
That’s why he was a leader in school. Kids feared him. He himself wasn’t afraid of anybody.
Not hearing the scratching, shuffling sound any longer, Will finally overcame the fear that had frozen him so that he couldn’t get up from the recliner. Slowly he moved toward the door, picking up his baseball bat his dad liked to keep by the front door, “Just-in-case”, his dad liked to say. Just in case someone tried to break in during the night.
Yeah, right, he scoffed at his dad’s reasoning. What good would it do to have a bat right next to the front door if someone had already broken in and was inside the house?
What a lame-brain his dad was.
Holding the bat now in his right hand, resting on his shoulder in case he had to swing it fast, Will carefully took hold of the doorknob in his left hand. His fingers felt sweaty, slippery, as he tried to turn the knob and failed.
He released the knob and wiped his sweaty hand on the left leg of his jeans, then tried once more, this time being more successful at turning the knob.
Slowly he inched the door open, peering through the small crack to see who or what might still be out there.
All he saw was the glow of a jack-o-lantern’s face staring back at him from the “Enter At Your Own Risk” welcome mat his mother always put out for Halloween.
Where had this jack-o-lantern come from? It wasn’t there earlier. He hadn’t even carved any pumpkins this year. It was a stupid ritual his dad kept trying to get him to continue, but he wouldn’t have anything to do with.
Like most everything else about Halloween, at least the portion of the holiday that pertained to little kids, it was just plain stupid. Who in their right mind would want to spend hours carving out a pumpkin, cleaning all those slimy seeds and guts out, and then taking so much time at carving some stupid scary face into the front of the orange-colored gourd that really wasn’t scary at all?
He had to admit, though, as this particular face stared up at him from where it sat on his porch, that it was a really good carving job. Whoever had carved this jack-o-lantern deserved a prize for the best and scariest carving he’d ever seen.
The bat still resting on his shoulder, Will stepped out further onto the porch. He went to the edge of the step, leaning out far enough so he could see past the edges of the house. Was anyone hiding out there somewhere? He didn’t see anyone.
So why had they left this jack-o-lantern here? After all the time it had taken to carve out such a large pumpkin, and this one was large with a capital L. Bigger than any he had ever carved when he was a little kid. Why just leave such a magnificent piece of Halloween artwork on someone’s porch? Looking all about the front lawn and down to the sidewalk in front of the house, Will couldn’t see any signs of anyone lurking about. He turned back around and stared at the back of the jack-o-lantern.
The face glowed eerily up at him.
How the hell? How did the jack-o-lantern get turned around so it was staring at him? It had been facing the house when he stepped out here. Now it was staring directly at him again.
He stepped back involuntarily, forgetting he was already standing on the edge of the step. His feet slipped. Flailing his arms as he fell backward, Will was unable to stop himself from falling.
The bat in his right hand didn’t make it any easier. In fact, the bat had thrown him off balance.
Made it even more difficult to try and regain his balance while he was falling.
The back of Will’s head struck the concrete slab that was part of the walkway up from the driveway. He felt the impact before he ever heard the "crack!" of his skull striking cement.
Shit! That really hurt! Trying not to cry, Will rolled about on the walkway, both hands holding hard to his head, as if his brains were about to spill out through a crack in the back of his head all over the sidewalk.
Tears welled up in his eyes from the excruciating pain, but he refused to cry out loud. He was too old for that. No one was going to call him a cry-baby, no matter how bad this hurt.
Sitting up with his knees almost to his chest, Will pulled his hands away from his head and looked at them through tear-filled eyes. Blood covered his hands. His blood. He reached back with his right hand and felt the knot that was already forming on the back of his skull.
Damn that hurt. He touched it once more, even though doing so caused pain to shoot through his head, just because it felt so terrible and odd.
He tried to stand, but felt a little dizzy, so he turned over onto his knees in order to stand. The position made him think of his grandfather, a couple of years ago when his grandparents had been visiting for Christmas. The old man had tripped and fallen and couldn’t get up on his own. He’d had to turn onto his knees, and even then Will had needed to help him to his feet. Will gritted his teeth in anger and frustration.
He was not like his grandfather. He was thirteen and in the prime of his life. Strong. Muscular. Tough. Fearless.
Pushing himself up from the walkway, Will stood to his feet. He still felt a little wobbly, but at least he wasn’t falling back over.
He turned back toward the house and sure enough, there was the face of the jack-o-lantern, staring straight at him. Although now the expression carved into the hard pumpkin shell seemed as though the damned thing were laughing at him, not grimacing evilly the way it had been when he first saw it.
He stepped up onto the porch and walked around the carved pumpkin. He stood at the back of it, looking at the smooth, uncarved surface.
The face had been toward him when he’d first opened the door and looked outside at it. Then, when he had stepped to the edge of the porch and turned back around, it was staring at him again.
Only that couldn’t be possible. He hadn’t turned it around. And no one else had been on the porch.
Maybe someone had slipped onto the porch when he was peering out over the front lawn, turning the jack-o-lantern so it faced him. That had to be the answer, even though in his subconscious mind he knew it couldn’t be possible for anyone, no matter how skinny they were, to squeeze past him and the corner of the house next to the porch.
It was the only answer that made any sense at all to his dizzy brain. It had to be the right answer.
Will walked all the way around the gourd, examining the smooth, round shape of this large pumpkin. He studied the face carved into the front and once more was surprised that it had scary features carved into it, not mocking, laughing features the way it had appeared when he’d fallen.
It didn’t matter. It was just a trick of his imagination after hitting his head so hard. Without thinking, he touched the knot at the back of his head once more. Ouch! It hurt even worse now that it had grown larger.
He looked once more at his hands, seeing the smeared blood from his wound covering them.
Shaking his head at his own clumsiness and stupidity, Will stooped to pick up the jack-o-lantern.
Even though he didn’t know who had put this here or why, he had decided it was his now. Maybe he no longer wanted to carve such things at his age, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate a face that was as scary as this – and so well-carved that it really did look pretty frightening.
His bloodied hands made grabbing hold of the smooth, orange skin difficult at first. His hands slipped off the pumpkin flesh and he’d had to wipe his hands on his jeans in order to clean them enough so he could get a hold on the thing.
He found that as big as this pumpkin was, it wasn’t easy to pick up. He wrapped both his arms, not just his hands, around the gourd, straining with his back muscles as he leaned backward, picking the gourd up with his entire body.
Damn, it was heavier than he’d expected, too. He stumbled toward the door with his heavy burden held securely in his arms. At least the damn door hadn’t closed when he’d stepped out onto the porch. That would have been a real pain-in-the-ass, since his dad had insisted on building this house with a front door that locked immediately when it closed.
The pumpkin was so big, however, that Will had found it difficult to squeeze through the door with it held in his arms. It had been a tight squeeze, but he’d finally gotten through, stumbling and almost falling over once more as he pushed through into the house. Using one foot, he gave the back of the door a shove. It slammed closed with a loud bang. He smiled at how mad his dad would have been to hear him slamming the door that way.
“Don’t slam the damn door,” his dad had always yelled at him. Like it wasted electricity – another thing he was always bitching about – to slam the damn door.
Wobbling over to the dining room table, his mother’s pride and joy, her prized possession, since it was an antique table, not just a normal table, like all his friends’ mothers had in their dining rooms, what with all its fancy scroll-work and intricately carved designs along the edges of the top surface and down along the legs. He deliberately set the pumpkin down hard.
Whump! The heaviness of the jack-o-lantern shook the table. Will shoved the gourd back from the edge of the table, not wanting it to fall off and shatter on the floor. Though he had to admit, it might be a nasty surprise for his parents to come home from their party and find shattered pumpkin shell all over their expensive, plush carpet.
He turned the shell around so the face was looking at him. Once more he noticed it had seemed to change appearance, though he knew it couldn’t really have altered the way it seemed.
Now it almost seemed as though it was leering at him. Like it held some private secret in its seedless, hollow shell that only it knew about. One that Will wouldn’t like if he learned what it was.
“You have got to get ahold of yourself, Willie-boy” Will murmured to himself with the nickname only he could use without getting upset, stepping back and getting a better look at the face. He noticed that the sides of the jack-o-lantern were covered in smeared blood. His blood. He glanced at his hands and saw there was still some dried blood on his skin where it hadn’t wiped clean on his jeans.
He grinned. The addition of the blood, regardless of whose blood it was, made the whole event seem more eerie, more like a scary movie, a horror story.
Turning away from his “captured” prize, Will walked over to the wall and flicked off the light. He turned back and stared transfixed at the glowing, malevolent face that stared back at him in this darkness. Good thing he’d had the rest of the lights off already. It made the whole scenario perfectly creepy.
He grinned more broadly and nodded with pleasure. This was perfect. A perfect scene for a horror movie. The kind he enjoyed, but his parents always said he shouldn’t watch. They forbade him from going to the movies whenever it was a scary movie. He went anyway, just not with their permission.
Wouldn’t they be freaked to come home and find this sitting on the table.
Will stared at the glowing eyes for long minutes before he finally realized the glow wasn’t flickering the way it did when there was a candle burning inside the jack-o-lantern. If it wasn’t a candle, what was it?
Will leaned over and peered into the cut-out mouth of the jack-o-lantern, but for some reason the glow prevented him from seeing what was actually causing the glow. He moved about, looking from every angle possible as he stood in front of this caricaturized orange gourd, but he was unable to see past the glow.
Even more curious now than when he had first noticed the glow wasn't flickering, he walked toward the table and reached forward, taking hold of the cut-off and dried up vine that served as the handle for the lid that was on every jack-o-lantern he’d ever seen. He tugged on it, but it was stuck tight, almost as though it had been fastened closed so no one could open it.
That was ridiculous. Why would anyone make a jack-o-lantern that couldn’t be opened?
He pulled once more, but it still wouldn’t open. Maybe he needed something to give him leverage.
Going into the kitchen, Will looked around until his eyes fastened on the paring knife his mother had used for cutting up the potatoes they’d had for dinner. That might work. And if there was anything inside the gourd that was holding it closed, though Will had no idea what that might be, the knife would be able to cut through it, as well.
Back in the dining room, Will once more took hold of the vine handle, but this time only for support as he placed the tip of the small knife at the edge of the lid where it had already been sliced through. He tried pushing the blade between the lid and the body, but found it was solid. That was even crazier. Why would anyone go through all this trouble of carving such a perfect jack-o-lantern, only to seal it so it wouldn’t open?
Replacing his left hand so it was flat on top of the pumpkin‘s lid, he changed his point-of leverage, pushing harder on the knife, trying to shove it into where the gap should be for forming a lid on this thing.
The knife suddenly plunged deeply within the shell, moving faster and easier than he’d expected. The sudden movement had caught him off-guard, however, causing him to slice into the webbing of flesh between his left hand’s thumb and forefinger.
“Shit!” he screamed even louder than he had before, releasing the knife and grabbing hold of his cut hand. Will danced about in the dining room for several minutes, alternately holding onto and then sucking on the cut in his hand, waiting for the pain to subside before going any further.
As the pain settled down enough for him to think rationally once more, he glared at the offending gourd that had been the cause of all his trouble and pain tonight. The paring knife stuck out from the edge of the lid where he’d left it - as though taunting him.
Anger flooded inside of him from having been hurt twice already since this jack-o-lantern had appeared on his doorstep. The teenager rushed up to the table, grabbed hold of the vine handle with his still bleeding hand, his other hand holding the pumpkin onto the table. He yanked upward with an explosive pull.
The lid still didn’t come free, so Will tugged harder, putting all his strength into the effort.
The lid finally popped off, coming free in his hand so that he staggered backward, his head striking the wall behind him. Once more he cracked his head. Once more he swore at the unexpected impact that brought about so much pain.
“Damn it!” He felt the back of his head with his right hand, his left hand now holding the lid that had suddenly come free from the offending pumpkin. When he once more pulled his right hand away from the back of his head and looked at it, he saw even more blood on it. Turning, he could see there was a spattering of blood at the impact point where he’d struck the wall. His mother really wasn’t going to be happy about that. Neither would his father. Most likely he’d get grounded for at least another week for that blood ruining his parents’ perfect wall in their perfect house.
Now he was really angry. Looking at the freed lid held in his hand from the pumpkin, Will flung it across the room, watching it hit the wall on the far side of the dining room.
Regardless of the mess the pumpkin lid must have made where it splattered on the wall, Will stepped up to the jack-o-lantern that sat lidless on the table. He bent over and peered inside; wanting more than ever to see what it was that was producing the light inside this glowing shell of holiday evil. After all he had gone through, it was the least he could do, finding out the secret behind this candleless illumination.
Something was definitely inside the jack-o-lantern, but Will wasn’t able to tell exactly what it was. It seemed round. No, that was wrong. Oblong. That was it. Whatever it was, it was oblong in shape. And white. Luminescently white. Whatever this was inside here, it was the source of the glowing light that lit up the inside of this jack-o-lantern.
His hands rested on the wide rim of the opening as he peered within, still trying to figure out this minor mystery. Blood from the cut on his left hand dripped inside the opening at the same time that blood from his right hand, from the injury on the back of his head, smeared on the rim of the shell. The drop of blood fell onto the oblong, white object inside, resting on the bottom of the carved out pumpkin shell, while the smeared blood caused the inside of the shell to turn light red, a streak of red running down to intersect with the object in the bottom of the shell.
The object turned. Just like that, without him touching it, it turned, rotated upwards so that the front of it that had been facing toward the features of this jack-o-lantern now looked straight up at his peering eyes.
The gleaming, glowing, dead eye sockets of a human skull stared up into his yet living eyes.
The two rows of full, white teeth grinned up at him, as though with full knowledge of what was going on and what was about to happen within this otherwise quiet house.
The eeriness of the evil face that stared back at him caused Will once more to step back from the pumpkin. Only this time he found the muscles of his legs and feet unable to move - as though they were no longer controlled by his brain.
Will tried to remove his hands from the edge of the rim opening, but found his hand and arm muscles equally as out-of-his-control as were those of his lower extremities.
“What the fu..?” he started to say, but quickly found his jaw muscles tightening up on him, cutting off his words as his teeth clamped together tightly, preventing him from speaking.
Beads of sweat instantly formed on his forehead. He could feel the presence of something evil prying open his mind, squeezing itself inside his brain, infiltrating every nook-and-cranny of his psyche, his soul.
The dark, hollow sockets of the skull staring up at him glowed with a luminescence that seemed all too wicked, delightfully wicked, as though they understood exactly what was happening to this youth who no longer had control over his own body.
As Will’s eyes involuntarily stared back into the depths of the lifeless sockets, he could feel the energy of this thing burning into his brain – straight through his eyes.
A searing, sizzling sound faintly came to his ears, causing Will to realize his eyes actually were burning. Whatever energy this was emanating upward from the skull within this jack-o-lantern, it was searing his eyeballs from the inside-out. Had this youth been able to look at himself from the outside, he would have noticed the once clear surface of his eyeballs begin to bubble, as though being cooked in a pan, fried in grease, like eggs being cooked for breakfast.
The bubbling of the membrane surrounding his eyes sizzled loudly until both eyes popped, sending tiny splattered pieces of them all about the room.
Yet even with his eye sockets no longer holding the small, oval orbs that had been there since birth, even with the excruciating pain which had accompanied the explosion of his eyeballs, Will found himself unable to scream, though he wanted so terribly to do so.
The glowing face of the skull burned brighter than ever before, enticing this eyeless Will, beckoning him forward, inward toward the skull that invited him to join with it, enter into this hollowed-out shell, become one with the essence of the unlife that permeated the skull.
Will no longer had any willpower with which to resist. The last vestige of his will had dissolved even as his eyeballs sizzled and exploded.
His hands moved forward now, inside the small space of the opening at the top of this gourd that had once lain so silently in a field, waiting for someone to come along and cut it free from the vine which tethered it to that one spot on the ground.
As Will’s hands moved into the hollow shell, filled solely with the unliving skull that beckoned him inward, the digits that once were fingers began to dissolve, as though touched by a corrosive chemical that disintegrated the very flesh it touched. Blood flowed freely now, Will’s blood, as the flesh that once held this life-fluid in check now disappeared, opening the veins in this body so that the red fluid coursing within cascaded now freely, pouring within the pumpkin shell, covering the once white skull with this sticky, red liquid.
The teeth of the skull separated, opening wide in order to receive the offering of blood this youth was making, as an initiate into a dark, sacred ritual of demonic lore offering up his blood, his very life, to the small, overpowering, all-controlling demon that was as a god in this instance.
Even as the freely flowing blood was received inside the open maw of the skull, the liquid seemed to vanish, as though swallowed within a non-existent throat, feeding a non-existent body that could not be seen.
The human flesh of what was once Will Duncan continued dissolving at an ever-increasing rate, first his arms moving inward through the opening that, although wider than most openings in a jack-o-lantern, shouldn’t have been wide enough for a boy his size to fit through. Next the very head of Will Duncan himself and then his hunched over shoulders, pushing through the cut-out opening that should have been too small, but somehow inexplicably wasn’t.
Every tiny bit, every ounce of flesh, of this once living, human youth, squeezed itself inward, being accepted as the offering it was by this hungry, devouring, all-consuming god of All Hallows Eve, this monster that existed in the darkness but once a year for the sole purpose of stealing the life from some unsuspecting human.
Second-by-second the body, the legs, the feet of what was once, yet no longer could be recognized, as Will Duncan, found itself consumed within the hollowed out shell of this
pumpkin-turned-jack-o-lantern.
Minutes after the process began, it was completed. All that remained of the teenage boy who once lived in this house was a small stain of blood, a red spot, on the carpet beneath his mother’s prized antique table.
The malevolently glowing features of the jack-o-lantern turned and stared out from the table toward the front door. The complete and desolate darkness of the house made it seem all the more eerie.
* * * * *
A few hours later the front door opened, a man and woman entered from the darkness of the outside porch. The man was dressed to make himself look like a pirate and the woman was dressed as a fairy. Neither was a very good costume, but for people with little-to-no imagination they were the best that could be conjured up on such short notice.
“Damn that kid!” Walter Duncan the pirate-wanna-be groused, fighting to pull his key from the lock. “I told him to keep the front light on so we could see when we got home.”
“He’s probably watching TV in the dark, Walter,” Shirley Duncan the almost-fairy spoke more calmly, trying in vain to still the anger that always grew so quickly within her husband over any slight from their teenage son.
“If he is,” Walter Duncan peered through the darkness of the living room, “he’s watching it in his own room.”
His eyes were caught by the glowing face staring out from the dining room table.
“What the hell? I thought Will was finished with carving jack-o-lanterns?”
“That’s what he said, dear,” Shirley Duncan answered her husband, noticing the same eerie light he did. “Oh, I hope he didn’t damage the finish on my antique table.”
“Now who’s more concerned?” Walter chuckled, closing the front door behind them as his wife flicked on a light and crossed over to the dining room in order to inspect her table. She ran her hands along the smooth surface, ensuring herself that nothing about this table had been harmed.
Her husband turned down the hall and walked briskly toward their son’s room.
Opening the bedroom door, Walter flicked on the light. The illumination revealed no one present. He scanned the small room thoroughly, ensuring himself that his son wasn’t hiding anywhere in preparation for jumping out in an attempt to scare him.
“Will in the kitchen?” Walter called out to his wife, even as he himself walked through the open doorway to the room used most by everyone in this family.
“I don’t think so,” Shirley answered, still in the dining room. Walter had entered the kitchen and could see for himself their son wasn’t anywhere around.
“Damn it,” his face grew darker, more angry now. “He went out with his friends, even though we told him he couldn’t go anywhere.”
“You told him he couldn’t go anywhere, dear,” Shirley Duncan corrected her husband quietly, not wanting to make him angrier than he already was.
“He’s in seriously big trouble when he gets home tonight,” Walter thundered, entering the dining room. His wife was just repositioning the jack-o-lantern, satisfied that the large pumpkin hadn’t marred her table in any way.
Walter stopped beside her and glanced toward the gourd with the light glowing out of its wicked-looking face.
“Will’s never carved anything that intricate before,” he mused, studying the handiwork more carefully, as though it were a fine piece of artwork he’d just discovered in a studio.
“What’s that inside it?” He bent low, trying to peer past the carved face in the front to the inside.
“I’m sure I don’t know, dear,” Shirley had already turned away from the table’s new holiday centerpiece. She wasn’t all that interested in jack-o-lanterns.
“Let’s take a look,” Walter Duncan lifted the lid from the top of the jack-o-lantern and bent to peer inside.
* * * * *
BECOMING DRACA
Copyright 2008 Jacob M. Drake
**This story has now been expanded and published as a full-length novel under the title
Darkness in the Light.**
The throbbing in his head continued on and he knew it had no intention of stopping any time
soon. With an effort that seemed as though it was commanding every ounce of energy he had within him, he forced his eyes to flutter open.
Dirty water flowed past his right eyelid and crashed against the milky white orb within the socket. Blinking would require too much effort and he knew he didn’t have enough strength left within him for even that minor muscular movement. Instead he chose to lie with his face in the murky puddle and allow his open eye to bathe in the water that slowly grew deeper as the rain continued falling from the dark clouds in the midnight sky.
Eventually he could feel the water rising to cover his right nostril. It was then he decided he would have to force himself to utilize the energy needed for lifting himself from this puddle.
Remaining as he was meant he would eventually drown in this small amount of dirty water amidst this dank, stinking alley.
Nic Draca almost screamed from the exertion required to raise himself up to a sitting position. His head seemed to loll back-and-forth from one side to the other as he steadied himself in this upright position. He wanted to lift a hand to his head; to stop it from bobbing side-to-side. But that, too, required more effort than he had energy within him just now.
For the next few hours – or so it seemed to him – Nic Draca sat staring unblinkingly down in the pooling water of the puddle he yet sat within. The nearly half moon rose to a position high above him illuminating the water, causing it to reflect his image back up to his eyes, allowing him to see how dreadfully terrible he looked at this moment.
Then his hand finally did move upward toward his head. Only it moved not to steady the throbbing he yet experienced, but to allow his fingers to gently touch the freshly tattooed design that covered the left portion of his face. A design he had never seen upon his face until this moment.
Tracing the tattoo with his fingers, Nic sighed soundlessly. He had never desired a tattoo. Had never seriously considered getting even a small one on his shoulder the way so many others did, where it would not be noticed when wearing the normal amount of clothing in this society.
Yet now he not only did have a tattoo, but sported one so large, so predominantly obvious across nearly one half of his face, that he could never go unnoticed again.
As brightly as the moon was shining, it wasn’t enough illumination in this dark corner of this night-time world. As reflective as the puddle was it wasn’t enough to allow him enough clarity for discerning exactly what was inscribed within his flesh. For that he would need better lighting and a real mirror.
Nic positioned his hand over the tattooed portion of his face and realized it wasn’t nearly large enough to conceal the entire tattoo. It really was going to be difficult to hide this marking from those who would shake their heads at his utter foolishness, even though he must have been far more drunk than he’d ever been before and not in his rightful mind when he had gotten the tattoo.
Otherwise, he reflected within himself, he would have remembered having something this large done. He didn’t even recall the pain such a large piece of artwork such as this should have engendered. Oddly enough, he noticed he didn’t feel any pain even now.
Sitting here was getting him nowhere, though. Nic finally forced himself to stand to his feet, though that major effort itself caused every fiber of every muscle that comprised his body to scream even more at him. It would be much easier to lie back down in the alley and allow the rain to end his troubles right here. Right now.
But Nic Draca had always been a survivor, even if he had also always been what he considered a loser. He’d always thought that someone sporting a name as cool as Nicolae Draca would certainly have been just as cool himself. After all, his first name Nicolae was of Romanian origin and meant victory of the people or victorious people, while draca was the Romanian word for dragon. How cool was a name that translated as victorious people of the dragon?
And yet he had never lived up to such a name as he owned. Most often he felt as though the name owned him. He had merely been an ineffectual tool for such a moniker and had failed miserably at trying to live up to such a heritage. Maybe his failure was due to the fact that he had no idea what his Romanian heritage was. It obviously had been passed down from his father’s side of the family, of which as far as his mother knew, had ceased to exist before his father had journeyed to America. Yet his father had died when Nic had been no more than three years old.
Certainly the elder Draca must have believed he’d have plenty of time to relate such a unique heritage as he’d bestowed upon his first and only son as they grew in their years together. Yet fate had intervened and erased the man’s slate so that his time had run out far too early.
He forced himself to turn from the dreariness of the alley and toward the street. With each movement he realized more and more how drained he was. He needed nourishment. Food.
Something to quiet this gnawing hunger within him that was growing stronger by each passing second, threatening to consume him by its own ferocity.
Music drifted to his ears and he knew there was yet at least one functioning bar still open and operating nearby. Perhaps there he would be able to find something to eat that would quiet this growling hunger that was growing more voracious with each passing minute.
Stumbling along the sidewalk, he followed the music as it grew louder. Halfway down the block he turned left and stumbled through the open doorway of the bar. Lights flashed. Music – loud and fast-paced – blared against his ears. He flinched from the volume, not because he didn’t like loud rock music, but because he was already in such pain – evidently from a hangover from a drinking binge he couldn’t as yet recall – that the throbbing, pulsating beat of the music struck hard at him as though it were a jackhammer pounding at the concrete it was assigned to demolish.
Nic began to push his way past those who crowded around the entrance at the stools lining the long bar. Suddenly the smell of food found its way to his nostrils and he stopped, turning his head in the direction of the smell. He peered past those who lined the bar, straining his neck muscles to see what type of food was pulling him that direction.
Nothing was evident. Not nachos, nor burritos, nor any of the pseudo-Americanized Mexican food he dearly loved. Not even the obligatory bowls of small dried pretzels or popcorn so many bars offered their clientele in order to keep them ordering drinks to wash the snack food down with.
He moved closer to the bar and noticed the only thing anyone in front of him had were their drinks. But that wasn’t what was assaulting his nostrils. Whatever it was, it was almost intoxicating in its aroma.
He moved in closer until he was nearly pressed up against the nearest person seated on a stool – a stout, burly man in his mid-thirties. The man could feel this intruder’s presence and looked back over his shoulder at the one who was invading his personal space.
“You got a problem?” the man half turned toward Nic, the expression on his face plainly evident he wasn’t one to suffer fools easily.
“I,” Nic’s voice cracked from the parched dryness he felt. He licked his lips and swallowed.
No easy task since he found he didn’t have even enough saliva for swallowing.
“Sorry. Just looking for something to eat.” Nic found his eyes scouring the man in front of him. He sniffed several times and was appalled at what he was experiencing. The smell of this man seemed to be what was calling out to him. How? Why? He’d never had any sexual inclinations toward men. Girls – voluptuous and overflowing their bras with firm, rounded breasts that were always fun to squeeze and play with while having sex, as well as the nipples so firm and hard that were enjoyable for nibbling and sucking on – these were what he’d always been attracted to.
And yet here he was, pushed up alongside a highly unattractive, at least as far as he was concerned, paunchy, balding man with a very intense five o’clock shadow. A man who stank not only of the stale beer that he’d recently burped up past his throat, but of the sweat that yet lingered all over the flesh of his body from the work he’d performed this previous day. Someone like him should really learn to wear more clothing to cover up such an offensive body odor. Everything about him should have repulsed Nic. So why was he attracted to this man?
“Well maybe you better move to an empty spot further down, ya feather-faced faggot!” the man growled, not liking the way this oddly tattooed intruder was moving closer to him. As if to emphasize his words, the man pressed the flat of one hand against Nic’s chest and shoved him roughly away from his face.
Nic stumbled backward, his body clumsily falling against the coat rack standing against the wall just inside the door. The clattering and motion of Nic’s flailing arms as he tried vainly to stop his movement caused those seated closest to chuckle. Each one turned enough on their own stool so they wouldn’t miss anything else that might transpire between the man at the bar and this obvious clown who was finding it difficult to extract himself from the coats that wrapped themselves about his arms and body.
With great effort Nic finally pulled free of the coats and once more stood to his feet. The hunger within him now pulled even more fiercely, his stomach growling with a ferocity that surprised even Nic.
He noticed the glare from the man who had pushed him and felt as though he should retaliate for the assault against him. A feral ferocity seethed deep within him, desiring to rip into this brutal opponent. But he knew he was too weak to get himself embroiled in a fight with someone who looked as though he could easily handle the likes of Nic. And he had never been a fighter. Not in school and not in the working world since leaving school not that many years hence.
That had been a great part of why he’d always felt himself such a loser. Someone with a name like Nicolae Draca should have been one hell of a fighter. He should have known every form of martial arts there was in existence, yet Nic didn’t know even one form of these Asian fighting techniques. He should have been a veritable champion at swordplay, yet he cut himself too often just trying to butter his bread.
And yet now, with his stomach churning and grumbling with such ferocity within him he thought perhaps just this once he might be able to take someone in a fight and kick his ass.
Nic turned from those gathered about the bar watching him and made his way further into the crowded room. Each person he passed exuded a scent that to him smelled as the most desirable aroma from the most delectable of foods. Male and female alike – it mattered not to him. They all had the same scent. The same delicious aroma wafting from their bodies and drifting across the slight currents of air to where they ended up deep inside his nostrils. His mind began to whirl from the greatly confusing thoughts that now filled his head. Thoughts of his teeth sinking themselves into the flesh of any one of these surrounding him.
The visions caused his mind to be horribly repulsed, which in turn caused his stomach to wretch, but as the sound emitted from his throat he found the urge to feed off human flesh redoubling itself.
He cast his eyes about. Certainly he would be attacked by everyone else around him if he gave in to his desires and bit someone, tore a huge chunk from someone’s throat, the way he was wanting to. He would never make his way out of this bar alive.
Pushing himself further into the crowd he soon found himself staring at a man who was screaming at the woman he was with, though the loud music playing from the jukebox helped to buffer the loud berating this woman received so everyone else could go on about their own business. They were seated off to one side within a small booth. The woman had her head bent down almost to the table where her hands clutched her beer bottle as though it was the only thing keeping her alive at this moment. Her hands were white not only at the knuckles, but all along the thin, bony appendages that should have been a lightly tanned shade of brown the way the rest of her body was. The only real color on this woman were the bruises that were displayed in several prominent places across her face and arms. They were all purple and blue and yellow, with the oldest of them tingeing on a sickly brown.
The man berating the woman was unkempt and rough. Far worse than the man who had accosted Nic near the door. The difference between that one and this, Nic realized as he continued studying this man, was that this one was far more drunk than the previous man. So much, in fact, that he was slurring his words as he spat them – quite literally – into the face of the cowering woman he was with.
Wondering what he was going to do, what he could do, with the scenario before him, Nic was surprised when the man suddenly lurched out of the booth and moved towards him.
Nic moved slightly back, feeling as though once more he was about to be struck by a stranger. The man shoved past him, however, not caring that he’d been so physical with a stranger he knew nothing about in a crowded room as this one, and moved unsteadily through the crowd to a door in a wall. The single word MEN was etched into a small plaque affixed to the door.
For the briefest of seconds Nic stood indecisive. Then his feet went into motion as though of their own volition and he entered the men’s restroom on the heels of the abusive drunkard.
The man was standing at a trough urinal, relieving his bladder of the many pitchers of beer he had consumed. Nic moved up next to him at the trough. He glanced quickly about and found no one else was currently around.
His face turned toward the man standing next to him. His nostrils flared from the desirable sweatiness of the other. Just as the man was about to turn toward this stranger, having noticed how close he was standing at an otherwise empty urinal, Nic’s mouth opened. His lips pulled back in a snarl, revealing two rather sharp canines that had not been in his mouth before this night. Before another second could elapse, Nic’s lips pressed against the man’s throat even as his teeth sank deeply into the throat’s flesh.
In more fear than he’d ever experienced in his brutal life before, this man who wasn’t at all used to being the victim began to struggle, but Nic wrapped his arms around his prey with a growing and renewed energy that strengthened itself as each second allowed the man’s blood to flow down Nic’s throat and into his ravenously empty stomach.
Sucking in great mouthfuls of blood, Nic continued drinking until he knew there was nothing more to drink.
Releasing his grip on the man, he found the lifeless shell that had only moments before been soft, living flesh, sliding to the floor. Sudden horror at what he had done filled Nic’s mind. He knew at any moment someone might walk in through the door and find this uncharacteristic, at least for this quiet city bar, tableau out of a horror novel. He would then spend the rest of his life in prison – or inside a mental institution. Either one was more than his tumultuous mind could fathom at the moment.
Grabbing hold of the body once more, he dragged his victim inside a toilet stall and seated him on the stool. He closed the door, though it couldn’t be locked from the outside, and quickly exited the restroom. Even if someone found the man, he would initially appear passed out. By the time anyone realized he was dead, Nic would be far enough away that no one would know where to find him, let alone connect him to this man’s death.
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