Sisyphean Attempts at Self-Improvement

The Pumpkin King

The Brennan family had won the festival's pumpkin contest seventeen years running.

Tom Brennan walked through his patch at dawn, coffee steaming in the crisp October air. The pumpkins were perfect this year: massive, unblemished, their orange skin practically glowing in the early light. The largest one, his prize winner, weighed nearly eight hundred pounds.

"Morning, beauties," he murmured, running his hand along the prize pumpkin's ridges.

It was warm to the touch.

Tom jerked his hand back. Must be the morning sun. But the sun had barely crept above the horizon, and the other pumpkins were cold with dew.

He leaned closer. Was it his imagination, or could he hear something? A rhythmic thrumming, like a heartbeat, coming from inside the massive gourd.

"Dad?"

Tom spun around. His son Billy stood at the edge of the patch, still in his pajamas.

"What are you doing up?"

"Couldn't sleep. Had weird dreams." Billy rubbed his eyes. "About the pumpkins."

"What kind of dreams?"

"They were talking. They said their king was coming."

Tom forced a laugh. "Too much Halloween candy before bed."

But that night, Tom couldn't sleep either. He stood at his bedroom window, looking out at the patch. The pumpkins seemed to glow in the moonlight, pulsing with their own inner light.

By morning, three more families had called to withdraw from the contest.

"Same story," Judge Harrison told Tom at the general store. "Kids having nightmares. Pumpkins talking about their king. Nonsense, but you know how superstitious folks get."

Tom knew he should feel relieved. Less competition meant another guaranteed win. But something cold settled in his stomach.

That afternoon, he found Billy in the patch, kneeling before the prize pumpkin with his hands pressed against its skin.

"Billy! Get away from there!"

His son turned, and Tom's blood froze. Billy's eyes had changed. The whites were now orange, the pupils shaped like seeds.

"He's almost ready, Dad. The one who rules the harvest. The one who's been growing inside, feeding on what we feed the soil."

"Billy—"

"Seventeen years you've won. Seventeen years you've used the special fertilizer. The one from the unmarked bags. Did you ever wonder what was in it?"

Tom had wondered. But the results spoke for themselves, and questions might have ended his winning streak.

"Blood and bone, Dad. Human blood and bone. And now he's grown strong enough." Billy's smile was too wide. "The pumpkin king is coming."

The prize pumpkin split open with a wet, tearing sound. Something unfolded from within; something that might have once been human, if humans were made of vine and pulp and had faces carved from nightmare.

It stood seven feet tall, its head a grotesque jack-o'-lantern that burned from within. When it spoke, its voice was the rustle of dead leaves.

"Seventeen years of tribute. Seventeen years of growth. Your harvest has been generous, Tom Brennan."

Tom tried to run, but vines erupted from the soil, wrapping around his ankles.

"Now it's time for me to harvest you."

The patch was empty by sunrise. Just the pumpkins, larger than ever, and three new scarecrows that hadn't been there before.


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525 words

PROMPT: “I am the pumpkin king.” — from The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

Written for ""13" - 2025 Edition"