Weird right?
It was adorable.
We were growing our own pumpkins for Halloween this year.
I remember one of the seeds was kinda shaped like a cat head. We laughed about it. It probably wouldn’t grow but we thought it’d be funny if we planted it anyways.
We didn’t think anything of it at the time.
And as far as we knew, it didn’t grow. Well I guess we were wrong.
I woke up that morning to scratching at the back door.
When I went to take a look, this orange blur zipped right by my feet and took off into the basement.
I screamed and my partner went to take a look assuming the neighbours cat had gotten in.
“Honey, you gotta take a look at this!”
That’s how we met Spooks.
Spooks was just a little round cat shaped pumpkin with a carved kitty face.
Not sure what else to do and pretty sure nobody would believe us, we tried to go about as normal.
Spooks didn’t eat. Or at less not cat food as far as we could figure out.
Spooks just demanded to be let out into the garden at night and would be back the next morning.
It became routine.
We never questioned what Spooks was doing. This whole situation was absurd after all. As far as we guessed, Spooks just laid in the dirt and leave’s outside to rest.
One morning, Spooks had some new carvings and a flame.
We panicked at first, thinking some neighbourhood residents had gotten their hands on Spooks but the little pumpkin cat didn’t seem bothered.
Spooks was really starting to look like a jack-o-lantern.
This was perfect!
She was the perfect decoration.
The whole neighbourhood was asking where we bought her or how we made her. We were the talk of the neighbourhood!
That was until the kid 3 doors over ran away from home.
I was concerned of course but damn, they were putting such a damper on the holiday.
That kid ran away all the time. I would too if I lived in a hoarder house.
I guess our mood must have been obvious at home. Spooks was acting kind of on edge too. Yelling to be let outside.
We figured what’s the harm?
The next morning, Spooks was back. But the pumpkin cat was bigger this time. The carvings were more intricate and the flame was taking on a greenish tinge.
A police officer came by that afternoon. They were asking about the kid. Well neither of us had seen them. But I made an admittedly rude comment about checking that disgusting house. Maybe the kid never left.
The house was surrounded by cars that evening. They hasn’t found the kid but the owner of the house was found dead in their basement. They looked like they’d been running from something.
When an officer came to our door that evening, we still knew nothing.
Thankfully I wasn’t the only one to comment on the state of that place so I wasn’t a suspect.
That poor kid when they came back…
But no time to worry about that and it wasn’t my business anyways really, tomorrow was the big night!
Spooks was itching to go out again.
The next morning, I opened to door to a shock!
The neighbour kid who had gone missing was there beside Spooks. He asked if he could stay for the day. The house he had to go back to wasn’t exactly a comfort and he’d been crashing at a friends place.
He even offered to help out with the last minute details of decorating.
Something was off about him. He had a kind of blank stare when he said all of this.
It was a selfish decision but I didn’t want to break the news to the kid on such a fun holiday.
My partner argued that we needed to but I promised that I’d drop the kid off at the police station after trick or treaters.
I never got the chance.
A little later that day, the first trick or treaters came.
And an hour later, everything was in full swing. Somewhere in that chaos, I didn’t notice the carving on Spooks change again. Nor the flame growing.
By the time I noticed, Spooks was more flame and hollow than actual pumpkin.
Spooks was beautiful.
And huge.
I’ve never seen anything like it before even at the carving competitions.
The pictures people were taking looked unreal.
This was the best Halloween I’d ever had, never mind the weird circumstances.
By the end of the night, I was getting ready to take the neighbour kid to the police station but when I turned back, I couldn’t find the kid.
Or Spooks.
I searched the whole house and the yard and a couple streets around my house but there was no sign of either of them.
I drove around looking for both of them for the better part of the whole night.
The kid turned up a few days later. Completely disoriented and slightly dehydrated in the park.
Thankfully he was fine. Better than fine actually. His mother ended up taking him in and together they cleaned up the house 3 doors down and moved in.
The kid hasn’t run away since.
As for Spooks, we never saw them again.
But a bit of an urban legend has popped up.
Let the cat in.
During the Halloween season, a pumpkin cat appears.
It feeds on life energy but there’s no need to hide.
It only takes those who hurt others.
And in return gives a better life.
So if a spectral cat comes scratching at your door.
Let the cat in.
Spooks only wants to help.
It’s a silly little thing but every Halloween season the crime rate plummets in this town.
Last year we found out that a lady 2 streets down was not exactly kind to those in her family.
The pictures that had been released looked like she’d been literally scared to death.
The husband is remarrying a lovely woman from the library this year.
They had a sculpture of Spooks at the wedding.
“This never would have happened without Spooks”
I guess they were right.
But that wedding opened the floodgates.
As the sightings increased over the course of the year, more of these sculptures started to appear throughout town.
On counters, on keychains, in people’s homes.
It wasn’t just the children telling tales of a spectral lantern cat making an abuser stop anymore. It was everyone.
And the more places the statues appeared, the more Spooks appeared.
Then someone came across a seed. A cat shaped seed. Just like the one we planted 10 years ago.
Most of the town was ecstatic.
But in the 10 years since Spooks first appeared, there has been an increasingly vocal minority speaking out against Spooks.
Those losers all probably had something to hide. I mean, that woman from 2 streets down turned out to be hurting her entire family. What were they hiding?
We’re not afraid of Spooks. We have no reason to be.
Spooks was never wrong!
The seed was planted in the spring in a greenhouse. While it was never arranged officially, some people tried to put up a 24/7 guard.
It went pretty uneventfully and fizzled out after a month. It was pretty funny.
Until the little pumpkin went missing.
Oh all hell broke loose when it went missing.
Overnight, all eyes turned to the hate group. Which decided that then might just be a good time to clam up.
I’ll spare you the details but when the town rounded them up in the park, it wasn’t pretty.
But we washed our hands and moved on.
Everything was perfect here.
And all I had to do was carve a pumpkin seed and steal a little pumpkin.
Now you’ll have to excuse me, sounds like someone with those god awful long fake nails is knocking at my door. Those things are a crime!