I swallow and force a smile that feels more like a grimace. “Hey. One crisis at a time. Right now, the goal is not bleeding out on a barn floor while possessed produce plot our deaths.”
He huffs despite himself.
Outside, something scrapes along the wood. Unrushed.
Shaun snaps a look at Cole. “We’ll get help. And we’ll destroy those assholes.”
Cole doesn’t even blink. “With what? There’s an army of sadistic pumpkins killing people, chopping off heads, and wearing our friends.”
My stomach twists. Because he’s not wrong.
Shaun drags a hand through his hair and starts pacing. “Okay. Stop. We need to figure this out. What are we actually dealing with?”
“Pumpkins,” Cole says.
Shaun glares. “Helpful.”
I edge toward the doors and peer through a narrow crack. Cold air presses against my face. The pumpkin field stretches out under the sinking sun, rows glowing soft orange as the moonclimbs higher. Dozens of pumpkins sit there. Quiet. Perfect. Normal.
“Not all of them,” I whisper.
Shaun stops pacing. “What?”
I point through the crack. “Look. Those pumpkins aren’t moving. None of them are.”
Cole pushes himself up on his good elbow and squints. “So?”
“So,” I say, pulse thudding, “only the ones from Fred’s ‘special patch’ attacked us. The ones he wouldn’t shut up about. The ones he fed whatever nightmare fertilizer he bought.”
Shaun tilts his head. “Demonic pesticides?”
“Honestly,” I say, rubbing my arms, “that wouldn’t surprise me at this point.” I glance back through the crack in the door. The cornfield is calm. “My guess? I don’t think this was on purpose. I think the company tried to boost crops and went way too far.”
Whatever that fertilizer did, it didn’t just grow pumpkins.
It made monsters.
My brain latches on to the thought like a dog with a bone.Crops to Die For.
Catchy. Horrifying.
Maybe marketingismy calling.
Not now, Val.
“Fun fact,” I say, because humor is the duct tape holding my brain together, “your brain hates not knowing more than it hates danger.”
Cole stares at me like he’s deciding whether to scream or laugh. “Is now really the time?”
I swallow and point toward the door with my chin. “Yeah. Because whatever’s out there knows exactly what it’s doing. And it’s waiting for us to catch up.”
Cole exhales, sharp and humorless. “Great. So the evil pumpkins are patient.” He limps off, muttering about dumb old men and even dumber business decisions.
Shaun drifts toward the back corner of the barn and crouches near a stack of empty fertilizer bags. They’re smeared with dirt and streaked with dried orange sludge that looks way too much like old blood. He lifts one carefully, pinching it between two fingers, and squints at the label.
“I think,” he says, grimly, “I found the bags from Satan.”
We all stare.
