Late
afternoon bit Pumpkin like a mangy dog,
leaving him quivering with agitation as he stared out at the wilted leaves
falling in the wood lot. Autumn made him feel crumpled and dead like the
rest of the city. It was a season he hated and a time when he needed regular
fixes to feel alive again.
Halloween always came around the
corner as his biggest fix. The bewitched day was really the only
good thing about fall. It was also the reason he'd been nicknamed Pumpkin.
On all other days he existed as the watcher and the voyeur, yet on Halloween
he became the doer. Rubber worms in the candy apples, puke pills in the
orange kisses, firecrackers in the doorways, obscene messages sprayed on
the courthouse windows, LSD in the prom punch, paint bombs and spikes on
the highway, burning hay on the tracks, firing blanks at the suckers at
the mall while dressed as the Reaper. Pumpkin had pulled just about every
mean prank going.
This year he would settle for nothing
less than the spectacular. Something grand that would get him remembered
as more than an aging smart-ass wearing orange clothes all of the time.
He did have a plan in motion, and
he grinned at the thought. Getting up he went over to his computer. "Time
to check my e-mail, and see if Marvin bought the bait," he muttered.
Knocking the mouse he watched the
screen light up and he grinned when he saw the tiny e-mail jack-o-lantern
waving a Jolly Roger.
--------
To: pumpkin@interlog.com
From: coolmarvin@screwview.com
Yo Pumpkin! Hear at ScrewView web
we pays close attention to the grooovy ideas of our top suscribers. Youre
idea to web broadcast a Halloween orgy is a great one. Consider it on -
beginnin at 9 p.m. on the berwitched evening. Start page for this live
webcam video exteravaganza is screwview.com/filthyfilm.htm And we got more
then 3000 viewers lined up for a show with ten camera angles.
We'd arppreciate any donations for
costumes and setup as this is on shert notice. Contact me imediately if
you can help.
* Life is just a bowl of cherries,
waiting to get popped. (Cool Marvin)
-------------
To: coolmarvin@screwview.com
From: pumpkin@interlog.com
Cool! Cool! Cool! Marvin.
I can help with costumes and stuff. Not money wise. I mean I have the real
stuff. A friend of mine has a costume store and I can twist his arm for
a lot of costumes and black webbing and rubber bats and stuff. Believe
it or not I also have a pumpkin patch at my house so I can bring some pumpkins.
As you should recall I also live in Toronto. So get back to me as to when
I can drop a vanload of the stuff out to you people at the ScrewView penthouse.
* Just keep living on the pussy's
cutting edge. ( Pumpkin)
--------
An
orange explosion marked the end of sunset in the west.
Standing by the chain link fence Pumpkin watched as twilight blue filtered
into the mist trails down in the valley. A line of cops in navy uniforms
poked through the tall weeds by the watercourse there. They'd been combing
through the area for about a week, looking for clues on a bedroom rapist
who used those tunnels and gullies as an escape route. Personally Pumpkin
hoped they would corner the guy and blast his head off. The jerk just had
no right to commit crimes like that without filming them for everyone else
to see.
As the cops faded into the mist,
he perceived them as little toy men locked inside a small bubble of right
and wrong. Another bubble of petty desire contained the rampaging rapist.
And perhaps the darkening sky was the biggest bubble - sealing everyone
in Toronto in a prison.
If gods lived they were voyeurs,
Pumpkin was sure of that. Because you never saw them but they were always
there like evil jack-o-lanterns looking through the glass at people and
their follies. They could shake the whole world like a bauble, and play
the biggest prank of all by snowing down shit on everyone.
They'd rained shit on Pumpkin's life
since he was a kid. Some of it was sexual abuse crap he wanted to forget
but often couldn't. And now that he was remembering it, the gods were making
him mad.
Sudden fury filled him and he turned
away from the fence. Powering up his Greenwood chainsaw he eased the spinning
blade forward and leaned into the trunk of a dying pine.
Vibrations shook his arms as the
blade bit in deep and spat sawdust. The resistance jarred his bones and
pulsed in his blood and brain. And it soothed him, causing his anger to
fade and the disturbed feeling to vanish. It was the black magic of the
chainsaw; it cut down trees and bad moods, leaving a neat pile of brush
and logs.
Odors of fresh cut wood filled the
cool autumn air. Pumpkin inhaled deeply, feeling a sort of relaxed euphoria
as he crunched through the leaves and sawdust to the pumpkin patch. Pausing
there he studied his prize melons. He patted a 200 pounder then his eyes
went to the smaller ones that would soon be wearing Halloween faces. "Wonderful,
wonderful things they'll see," he thought. Then he turned and went up the
steps to the porch. It was time to drive over to Marvin's penthouse and
lay the final plans.
--------
Leaves
blew on the back alley wind and scratched Pumpkin
like some dead fingers of the darkness and the season. He watched grimly
as Marvin's lackeys unloaded the van of its Halloween fare.
For a moment he stared up at the
bright lights of the penthouse. Then he felt Marvin tap him on the shoulder.
"It's heaven up there," Marvin said,
his eyes like glowing like a cat's. "And whenever the action begins we
seal the stairwells. Only one elevator for access. There's no way the police
can raid us if we shut it down, and we got enough of them paid off, so
a raid's not likely anyway."
Pumpkin pulled a tiny orange orb
from his pocket. It had the face of a jack-o-lantern. He handed it silently
to Marvin.
"What's this?" Marvin said.
"It's a web cam that looks like a
pumpkin. I packed a few of them in with the decorations. Figure you can
use them in place of the plain ones for better atmosphere."
"Man, you thought of everything.
And don't worry, you'll get your reward when my big black dick goes into
action. Just e-mail me the rap sheet. What you want to see and I'll pass
it to the girls."
--------
Pumpkin
waited as the autumn days passed. They
were slow and dark like the smoke of bonfires and they seemed endless.
When Halloween did finally come he could feel the flames, burning in a
jack-o-lantern in his brain.
In the early evening costumed children,
their parents and all of the cute stuff fluttered by like bats as he impatiently
walked the streets. And it was only as the clock neared 9 p.m. that he
came alive.
Marvin also came to life at nine
sharp and a web view appeared of a cavernlike penthouse and a lot of painted
women, dressed mostly in leather and black netting. Marvin did his introduction
wearing only a lion cloth and jewelry. His black skin gleamed with oil
and if he wore a shit eater's grin it was probably because he would eat
shit if a subscriber paid him to do it.
The camera also revealed two naked
blonde women necking on the rug behind him. Other camera angles revealed
more opening action. Screwview.com liked to give the impression of 24-hr
sex at the penthouse.
"Tonight the forces of evil
have possessed us and we're having a party," Marvin said. He spread his
arms dramatically and was about to continue when a loud rattle and bang
caused him to jump.
Paneling suddenly slid open behind
him revealing an elevator and a man in an orange Halloween costume. Marvin
glanced back and saw the man's skull mask and shopping bag and since it
was only Pumpkin and not the cops, he turned back to the cameras. "Welcome
to our big Halloween Screw at Screwview.com," he said, then he signaled
for the action to begin.
And as he did, Pumpkin pulled his
chainsaw from his shopping bag, powered it up as he stepped forward, and
planted the whirring chains between Marvin's shoulder blades.
It cut through before Marvin
could scream; though his expression became one of surprise as blood spurted
out of his mouth. A moment later the blade and flying gore emerged
from Marvin's chest. Then Pumpkin yanked it back out and shouldered the
collapsing body aside.
Screaming began as the corpse thumped
to the rug. Pumpkin pulled off his mask and spoke above it and into the
mike. "Everybody's screwed, just like Marvin said," Pumpkin announced.
"Plus the title's been changed to Pumpkin's Chainsaw Halloween Party.
With the stairwells sealed and the
elevator out of order, there wasn't anyone who could escape the magic of
the chainsaw. Pumpkin's face was white and calm amid the storm of flying
blood. He felt the vibrations lifting him, relaxing him with euphoria,
just like when he cut a pine.
The End.
