The reaction is immediate. Brutal.
Flesh hisses and steams. Seeds nearest the flame toast and pop like fireworks, snapping sharp and frantic. The inside blackens and collapses as the heat chews through rind and rot. The stench of burnt vegetables and gasoline stings my nose. A county fair dragged straight to hell.
The pumpkin shrieks without lungs. A furious, gurgled sound tears through its vines as they convulse. Fred’s body bucks on top of me, slamming my head into the dirt, rattling my teeth. My vision flickers. For a second I lose the flare. I shove blindly and feel it sink deeper, my hand enveloped by squishy pumpkin guts.
The inside turns to mush. Charred pulp sloughs off in hot globs. Smoke pours from the eyeholes in thick black plumes. The carved grin caves inward.
It rears back, flailing, trying to remove the burning flare still eating it from the inside out.
The weight lifts off my chest.
I drag in air so hard my lungs burn, every breath scraping like broken glass. I roll away, scramble to my knees, and kick Fred’s body aside with everything I have.
The thing collapses in on itself. Vines curl and snap, smoking. The pumpkin claws at its own face as the fire worms inward, until there’s nothing left but a sagging, blackened husk. Its clothes burn and start to melt the flesh.
I stagger up and the world tilts sideways. The patch swims. For a second I don’t know which way is Val and which way is fire.
Val screams.
I spin toward the sound.
She’s on the far side of the patch, fire at her back. Drew’s body surges through the smoke toward her, massive and furious, a nightmare wearing a crown. The ground between us writhes as smaller pumpkins twitch and roll, roots tearing free of the soil.
The world narrows to one point. Her. Everything else blurs into heat and noise.
I run. Or I try to.
Two steps in, the ground betrays me. Vines cinch around my ankles, holding me in place. The soil liquefies under my feet. Cold mud climbs over my ankles. My boots sink. The ground swallows. Something moves under the dirt. Something brushing my calves from below.
“No,” I snarl, teeth bared. “No. No. No.”
Val swings the pitchfork, misses, giving Drew’s pumpkin vines the opening to slash across her arm, splitting it open. She growls through the pain and brings the handle across its face.
I tear the vines, their flesh digging under my nails. Pulling my feet up.
Three smaller pumpkins erupt from the soil and scramble toward me, fast and jerking, like spiders with teeth. Vines lash out and loop my wrists, wrenching my arms wide and tipping me over.
My hand scrapes over wood.
The axe.
I curl my fingers around the handle and feel the splinters bite into my palm. Good. Real. I lift it and start hacking.
No plan. No finesse. Just rage and steel.
The blade chews through vines, juice stinging my cuts. Roots shriek and recoil. I swing again and again, breathing fire, lungs burning, vision locked on the shape of her through smoke and flame. My carved arm spasms when I swing. The skin splits wider. Blood slicks the handle.
I don’t stop.
I won’t stop.
Even if I have to crawl.
Until I reach her.
TWENTY-THREE
SMASH THIS
