Halloween: The Jackie-Lantern

Managed to squeeze some time in during the weekend to make this for you all. Felt guilty about not having a Monday post for you! Also, Monday is Halloween so, you know, I felt like it was too perfect to NOT have something up!

Happy Halloween!

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Jackie loved Halloween, it was her favorite holiday! She absolutely LOVED seeing all the effort everyone else put into it! And the warm colors that contrasted against the cool, mid-autumn weather, the remaining leaves clinging to the trees...and of course, the pumpkins! That was Jackie's one thing she directly contributed to the holiday; pumpkin carving! It was something that appealed to her interest in the holiday. She usually made a few bucks on the side as well as a growing number of people from the suburbs of Whitewood were paying her to carve designs into their porch pumpkins! But tonight was Halloween! And while she was too old to collect candy, Jackie wasn't missing being out and about during her favorite holiday! She was out walking with her boyfriend, Johnny, and taking in all the incredible decorations the neighbors had put up! And of course, Jackie was getting to see her work in action! Her pumpkins were everywhere! But one house, an old, three story craftsman that had seen better days and, to Jackie's knowledge was abandoned, had only a single pumpkin out front. One that she hadn't carved..and suddenly felt the uncontrollable urge to go pick up!

"Babe, where are you going? That's private property!" Johnny had called after her as she shimmied over the small fence.

"I...I just really need to look at this pumpkin, babe!" Jackie had called back over her shoulder. She couldn't explain it, but it was almost as if she was being pulled towards the carved out gourd. And then she was there, staring into the jagged, cavernous maw of the pumpkin, entranced by the brillaintly perfect orange glow coming out of it. She reached down towards it, feeling like she was falling. Jackie felt a chill overtake her body as she picked the pumpkin up and walked over to Johnny, who was just standing there with a confused look on his handsome face. Then suddenly her body raised the jack-o-lantern up to obscure her face entirely...And Jackie suddenly felt herself BECOME the carved pumpkin!

"W-what!?" she tried to say, but her mouth wasn't working. Instead she just watched as her body picked her up and strutted back over to Johnny. It was a weird sensation, being held, feeling the candle within her slow cooking her dripping rine...and of course, not being able to move or speak! All she could do was stare forwards and scream in silence as her old body held her up in front of her old face!

"Take my picture, Johnny" Her former voice commanded in a sinister tone.

"O-okay..." Her boyfriend said, and Jackie could only watch as her boyfriend robotically pulled out his phone and snapped a picture.

"Good slave. Come, we have more pumpkins to liberate tonight before my magic fades for the year." The...thing inhabiting her body said as it put Jackie down on the cold, dey grass and began walking away, Johnny robotically following whatever it was that had stolen her body and left her as nothing more than a piece of ruined fruit on the ground! Her body moved to the nearest house, waved her old hands, and the pumpkin on the porch sprang to life by growing monstrous viney arms and legs! The new pumpkin bowed to her old body, and then snatched up a nearby Trick or Treater, gobbling the child and their parent in one gulp, and then growing two new pumpkins with the unlucky family's faces! The creature pulled the new pumpkins off it's body and dropped them unceremoniously on the grass as the trio moved to the next house.

The new pumpkin sat there, mouth agape, as the thing in her body began to sow chaos across the neighborhood by bringing her pumpkins to life...And what would happen to her once Halloween was over! Would she just rot on the ground...Or would she end up as Thanksgiving pumpkin pie?