Town in a Pumpkin Bash (6 page)

She started with the tale of the cursed monument of Colonel Jonathan Buck, who founded
the town of Bucksport, Maine, in the mid–seventeen hundreds. “There are a number of
variations to this story,” Candy told the passengers, “but they all say the same basic
thing. At some point during his time in the area, Colonel Buck became secretly and
romantically involved with a young woman—some stories say she was his maid, others
that she was a local native woman. In any case, the woman became pregnant, which caused
Colonel Buck to lose his cool. Apparently he was afraid his reputation would be damaged
should the secret affair become public knowledge, since he also happened to
be the local justice of the peace. So he ended the relationship and, to cover up his
indiscretion, started spreading rumors that the woman was a witch. And his plan worked.
In time, a few years after the birth of her child, the woman was brought before Colonel
Buck with allegations that she was indeed a witch, and he pronounced her death sentence—she
was to be burned, as all witches are.”

There were a few gasps and nervous giggles around the wagon as Candy continued, her
tone becoming more dramatic. “As the flames were taking this innocent young woman,
she cursed the colonel, telling him that she would stomp on his grave until the end
of time. And then a strange thing happened. While the rest of her body was being consumed,
one of her legs fell out of the fire, and a child—her young son, it is believed—rushed
forward and made off with it. That’s all he had left of her to bury, some say. And
her curse worked. Several years after Colonel Buck passed away, a tall monument was
erected at the center of town in his honor, and a short time later the distinct outline
of the witch’s leg and foot appeared on the stone, as if she was stomping on his grave,
and it’s been there ever since. Some call it a stain, and there have been numerous
efforts to remove it from the stone. They’ve even replaced the stone itself twice,
but whatever they do to it, the image of the witch’s leg and foot returns—and you
can see it to this day if you visit Colonel Buck’s cursed monument!”

As they rolled along, she told the tales of a redheaded ghost who haunted a nearby
lighthouse, and a headless woman who regularly appeared to motorists on a dark road
in rural Maine, asking for a lift. “Refuse her,” Candy said ominously, “and you just
might feel the full force of her wrath.”

Next she told the tale of the mooncussers—land-based pirates who, a couple of hundred
years earlier, used large lanterns as decoy beacons to lure unsuspecting ships onto
the rocks of Maine’s craggy coast, where they would then murder the crew and steal
the ship’s cargo. And she
recounted the story of a pirate’s moaning ghost, who still rattled his chains when
anyone approached the haunted coastal cave where he had hidden a treasure centuries
earlier.

“Pirates frequently sailed the treacherous waters along Maine’s coast,” Candy said
to her passengers, “and there have been hundreds, perhaps thousands of shipwrecks
on the rocky headlands and islands, leaving behind the restless souls of those who
perished in the cold waters and continue to haunt our foggy shores.”

At one point, as Candy paused between stories, T.J. leaned forward with a curious
look in his eyes. “And what about this haunted house in town?” he asked. “I’ve heard
you have a firsthand experience with that place.”

“There’s a haunted house in town? I’d love to hear that story,” the elderly woman
from Virginia said excitedly, “especially if you have an inside scoop.”

Candy raised her eyebrows and let out a breath. How to approach this one? She indeed
knew the inside scoop, but much of it was still unknown to the public.

“Yes, it’s true,” she finally said, “there is a ghost who haunts this town, though
not in the traditional way of a haunting. It’s more like her spirit looms over everything
that’s happened over the past few years.”

“You’re referring to Sapphire Vine, the Blueberry Queen who was murdered a few years
back?” T.J. clarified.

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“And you think she has something to do with the other murders that have taken place
locally?” T.J. asked, his voice low.

“I don’t know,” Candy said, shaking her head. Hesitant to go into the details with
children and out-of-towners in the crowd, she leaned in closer to T.J. and said softly,
“Why don’t we talk about this later, okay? It’s…somewhat complicated to explain.”

T.J. took the hint and indicated with a tilt of his head and
a slight grin that he’d drop his line of questioning—at least for the moment.

They had made the loop around the northern end of the pumpkin patch and were just
heading through the line of trees into High Field. Candy took advantage of the change
in geography to talk about the pumpkin patch itself.

“As you can see, we’re leaving Low Field now, as this front patch is called,” Candy
told the passengers as the wagon bumped over the rough, rocky boundary between the
two plots of land, “and heading into an adjoining patch, called High Field. You’ll
notice a number of different types of pumpkins in this upper area, including heirloom
and ornamental varieties. Off on the right, you’ll see some Long Island Cheese, which
are those squat pumpkins with pale orange skin, and over there are my favorites—the
Cotton Candy, which are the white ones in the traditional pumpkin shape. Most people
use them for decorating, but they make great pies as well.”

While Candy was talking about pumpkins, several of the children had begun pointing
out the various displays along their route. In quick succession they passed a couple
of mannequins dressed as a ghostly married couple, a stuffed scarecrow sporting a
wicked grin, a crude wooden door over a cleft between two large rocks labeled
HAUNTED CAVE—DO NOT ENTER
, a series of black tombstones with funny epitaphs written on them, and several large-winged
bats entwined in the limbs of a crooked tree. The kids particularly loved the sight
of a hideous troll with a long white beard—also a mannequin, that of a small child
they’d found at a yard sale, which they’d dressed appropriately—peeking out from behind
a nearby stump, a stuffed bag of booty resting close by and gold-painted coins scattered
around its feet. They’d also carved scary faces into numerous large pumpkins that
lined their route.

“If you look closely,” Candy told the passengers as they trundled along, “you also
might see the ghostly image of the woman who died in this field decades ago and still
haunts it. She’s over there, hidden among the tree trunks, silently watching us.”

Several passengers pointed out the sheet-draped mannequin hidden in the midst of a
copse of trees, while others started laughing as they passed by one of the many piles
of pumpkins that dotted the field. “And who’s that?” someone asked good-naturedly.
“I don’t think he made it.”

“Who do you mean?” Candy turned and looked.

“Over there,” said the man in the bee costume, pointing and chuckling. “There’s a
leg right there, sticking out from under that pile of pumpkins—sort of like that leg
in the witch’s story you told us.”

Candy wasn’t sure what he meant. “What leg? Where?”

She saw it then. They were right. Not too far away, what looked like a man’s leg stuck
out from beneath a pile of pumpkins, showing the part of the body from the thigh down.
It was cantered at an odd angle, and wore brown pants and a relatively new hiking
boot on the large foot.

For a few moments it confused her, and she tilted her head, studying it. “I don’t
remember putting that there,” she said.

In fact,
she thought,
I don’t remember that pile of pumpkins being there at all. Maybe Maggie or one of
the helpers did it
.

But then the tractor came to an abrupt stop. Maggie twisted around and pointed urgently.
She’d seen it, too, and it had confused her as well at first, but now she’d realized
what it was.

“It looks like some sort of dummy or mannequin,” Candy heard one of the passengers
say.

But she knew that wasn’t the case.

The wind left her suddenly, knocked out of her by some invisible force as she realized
the truth.

“That’s not a dummy!” she heard herself say, though the words sounded strangely disconnected,
like she was talking underwater. “That’s a real person under there!”

T.J. was the first one out of the wagon, leaping over the side and starting across
the field at a sprint, but Candy was too shocked to move. Her body had frozen in place.

She wasn’t sure what was happening. Perhaps it was the suddenness of this horrific
discovery—and the possibility that something sinister had occurred right here, in
the pumpkin patch she’d been working in with Maggie for all these months.

She watched as, after a dozen or so long strides, T.J. reached the pile of pumpkins,
where he dropped to one knee and, with desperate abandon, started rolling and tossing
the heavy orange globes off the body buried beneath, sometimes using his arms to sweep
aside several at a time.

Could someone survive under that pile?
Candy wondered as she watched, still frozen.
Could the person buried underneath still be alive?

Candy saw Maggie jump off the tractor and dash toward
T.J., shouting toward the wagon for help, waving her arms frantically. In a few more
moments she, too, was digging into the pile of pumpkins.

Candy heard movement behind her and felt the floorboard shift. One of the male passengers
had jumped off the wagon and was running to help.

That snapped Candy out of whatever state she’d been in. She looked at the other passengers
in the wagon, most of whom were turned toward T.J. and Maggie and the activity taking
place in the field before them. But a few of them were watching her to see what she
was going to do.

Candy pointed to one of the younger women with dark curly hair. “Do you have a cell
phone?” she asked.

The woman nodded.

“Call nine-one-one,” Candy instructed her. “Tell them there’s been an accident out
at Gumm’s pumpkin patch on Willowbrook Road. Tell them they need to send an ambulance
right away.”

“What are you going to do?” asked a little girl sitting next to the curly-haired woman.

Candy did her best to smile reassuringly. “I’m going to see if I can help. You wait
here. I’ll be right back, okay?”

And with that, Candy rose, sidestepped her way through the sitting passengers, jumped
down off the back of the wagon, and dashed across the field, trying to fight down
the feeling of dread washing over her.

Not again,
she thought as she ran.
It can’t be happening again
.

But it
was
happening again. She knew it. She could feel it. Somehow she had known it would happen—not
when or how, but someday, somewhere.

But never, she thought, here in this pumpkin patch.

By the time she reached the pile, they’d moved aside a good portion of the pumpkins,
which were stacked heaviest around the body’s head and shoulders. Maggie and a middle-aged
man were rolling pumpkins off the legs and lower torso, while T.J. had cleared most
of them away from the upper portion of the body. He was huffing, his hair was tossed
about, and a line of perspiration had broken out along his forehead. His expensive-looking
clothes were caked with dirt and grime. He looked up as she bent to help him.

“It looks like it’s a he—and he could still be alive,” T.J. said between breaths,
giving her a faint ray of hope, “though how in the hell he got himself stuck under
here I’ll never guess.”

“Maybe it was an accident,” Candy said, “or a joke.”

T.J. shook his head grimly but said nothing.

He didn’t have to. They both sensed the truth. However this body had wound up in this
place, buried beneath this pile, it must have been a deliberate act.

Together they cleared away a few more pumpkins, and Candy began to see portions of
a face—a dirt-stained cheek, part of the forehead, matted dark hair. She had a pumpkin
in her hand, about to toss it away, but something about the face looked familiar.
She came to a standstill, trying to figure out what had caught her eye.

“Here, let me help you with that.” The man in the bee costume appeared by her side.
He took the pumpkin from her hands and tossed it away, then leaned forward to move
more of them.

T.J. and the man in the bee costume were working side by side now, and they were making
progress. Only a final layer of pumpkins remained. The body’s arms, legs, and part
of his chest were visible.

Candy stepped back, an expression of deep thought clouding her face.

“You okay, honey?” Maggie asked, coming over to stand beside her, brushing dust and
dirt off her clothes. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I think I have,” Candy said, and pointed.

Maggie saw it then—the face, and the beard.

She gasped, and her hand went to her mouth. “You don’t mean…?”