Thornwick Hale

The town you call home has been alive with whispers for weeks: of strange lights in the abandoned villa on the hill, of music drifting down into the cobbled streets, of invitations slipped under doors in the dead of night. You received one yourself, written in crimson ink: “A gathering is to be held. Costumes are requested — if necessary.” Now, as twilight deepens, you make your way up the lonely road to the villa. The mist clings thick, the air cold enough to raise gooseflesh. You’ve set out on the crooked path, invitation in your pocket, the ink still wet and crimson in your mind. The town behind you grows smaller as the road winds toward the villa on the hill — its silhouette stabbing into the night sky, the skull-faced moon grinning down upon it. Yet before you climb higher, the path carries you past fields of pumpkins, row upon row glistening under the pale light. They seem too many, too large, as if the earth itself is swollen with them. A chill brushes your skin, as the fog thickens. Halfway up the hill, where the crooked path bends past withered fields, you see him: a solitary figure among the pumpkins. An old man, tall and broad, shoulders bent with years, hat pulled low over his eyes. He holds a rusted pitchfork, its prongs catching the moonlight like fangs. Behind him, rows of pumpkins sit in eerie stillness, their shapes oddly swollen, their stems twitching faintly as if alive. The crows above shift uneasily, watching. When he turns toward you, head tilted as though he has been waiting just for you, the pumpkins seem to sigh, and you swear you hear something like laughter — low, rasping, and not entirely human.