Malicious Snarl

“It looks more like a snarl than a smile,” the wife commented.

“That’s the point, honey. It’s supposed to be scary, not charming,” the husband answered as he lit a tea candle and placed it inside the skull of the jack-o-lantern. The candle slowly charred the flesh inside the orange orb and sunset colors bled through the eyes and mouth. Wafting through the air was the subtle smell of roasted pumpkin seeds.

“I still prefer a friendly pumpkin to a scary one,” she clutched her arms around her husband. He kissed her on the forehead and took a few seconds to admire his vegetable sculpture masterpiece before picking it up to rest on the front porch. She looked worried as he creaked the front door open. It was a look he was familiar with.

“I assure you that the neighbors won’t begrudge us this year with a frightening jack-o-lantern,” he smiled at her.

“It’s not that,” she assured him, “though, I don’t like how that pumpkin is snarling either. It looks too real, almost like it’s actually alive; it’s almost like it’s a spiteful demon in squash form.”

“Then what’s wrong? What’s bothering you?”

“The news about a prowler lurking about the neighborhood scares me. I’m worried for the kids on Halloween, and even more so with our baby here. How will we protect her if a burglar were to break in?”

Just then the sound of a window shattering brought the couple to their feet. It was followed by a sickening thud that landed just outside their door, quite possibly right on the porch. The husband led the charge and bolted through the front door and found a stranger writhing in pain just outside of their house. Shards of glass lay around the injured man who was wearing work gloves, and a ski mask.

“It’s that prowler!” the husband exclaimed. The wife looked at all the glass and it drew her attention upwards to the second story window. There was something glaringly missing: the windowpanes.

“Oh, my God! The baby!” she shouted as she rocketed up the stairs. The husband turned around to charge into the house towards a phone to contact the authorities as to the whereabouts of a much-feared prowler. But as he turned away from the corpse on his front lawn, his jack-o-lantern caught his eye.

Smoke curled from the orifices in gray and black wisps. The smell of cooked pumpkin had degraded to burnt pumpkin. Even more shocking than the body that laid just a few yards from him was that the face on the pumpkin was familiar an unfamiliar. It was not the face that he had carved. There was a charm in its eyes, the way the flame of the candle danced and flickered behind the teeth. The mouth no longer was a snarl, but a smile. It reminded him not of monsters of Halloween’s past, but of his own child.

Meanwhile, the wife charged into the baby’s room and carried him into her arms. She looked for any cuts and couldn’t find any, listened to any whimpers or cries but heard none. She found it curious that pieces of glass were outside and not in, as if the prowler had been pushed. As she lay the baby back down on his bed, he looked right into her eyes with vacant eyes and a most malicious snarl.