Listen. Don’t look at the screen yet. Just listen.
Last night, someone carved a jack-o’-lantern on my porch. I didn’t do it. No one came to the door. But when I woke up, it was there—grinning, lid half-lifted, candle still burning inside. The face wasn’t angry. It was… hungry. And the candle wasn’t wax. It was a finger.
That’s when I knew: this is the last story I’ll tell you this October. Because whatever’s inside that pumpkin… it’s already inside the house.
Welcome to Eerie Tales with Cosette. Episode Twelve. Tonight, we end Halloween month with the one that ends everything else.
Turn off the lights. Lock the door. And whatever you do… don’t answer if something knocks from inside the walls.
This is “The Hollow Beneath the Pumpkin".
The town of Marrow’s Hollow shuts down at dusk on Halloween. Not for trick-or-treaters—those stopped coming twenty years ago—but because the adults know the rules. Windows boarded. Porches dark. Pumpkins are never carved. They say the soil here is wrong. Too rich. Too black. Like it’s been fed.
My name is Lila Crowder. I was twelve the year I broke the rules.
Grandma kept a patch behind the toolshed: six vines, fat orange moons swelling under frost. She’d stroke them like pets. “These aren’t for eating,” she’d mutter. “They’re for remembering.” I thought she was senile.
Halloween night, 2005. Parents have gone to the city. Grandma asleep with the TV flickering. I snuck out with a kitchen knife and a flashlight, giggling at how easy rebellion felt. The biggest pumpkin sat apart from the others, split down the middle like a cracked skull. Inside: not seeds, but a hollow so deep the light drowned.
I carved a face. Simple triangles for eyes, a zigzag grin. The rind was soft—almost warm. When I pulled the knife free, the pumpkin sighed. A puff of air that smelt like birthday candles and wet earth. I lit a tea light, set it inside, and ran.
At 11:57 p.m., the power died. Not just our house—the whole grid. I remember because Grandma’s clock stopped ticking. She woke screaming my name. “Lila! The face—you gave it a face!”
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She dragged me to the kitchen window. The pumpkin sat on the porch step. The candle is still burning. But the grin I’d carved… it had teeth. Real ones. Yellowed, human, pushing through the flesh like splinters.
Grandma shoved a crucifix into my hands. “Don’t blink. They move when you blink.” I blinked. The pumpkin was gone. But the porch boards were wet. A trail of pulp and seeds led straight to the front door. The knob turned on its own.
We barricaded it with the china cabinet. Grandma whispered prayers in a language that hurt to hear. Then the knocking started—not from the door, but from under the floor. Slow. Patient. Like something testing the wood for weak spots.
Grandma’s eyes rolled white. “It’s wearing your face now, child. That’s how it gets in.” I laughed—couldn’t help it. Hysteria. “It’s a pumpkin, Grandma.” She slapped me so hard my ears rang. “Pumpkins don’t bleed.” She pointed to the trail. It wasn’t pulp anymore. It was blood. Thick, dark, steaming in the cold. And in it: footprints. Bare, small. Mine.
The knocking stopped. Silence is worse. Then the voice. My voice. From the basement. “Lila… I’m cold. Let me in.”
Grandma lit matches one after another, throwing them at the floorboards. The flames hissed out before they touched wood. She grabbed a hatchet. “Stay here.” She never came back up.
I waited until dawn, crucifix clenched so tight it left scars. When the sun rose, the basement door was open. The steps were smeared with orange. At the bottom: Grandma’s nightgown, soaked and heavy, wrapped around the pumpkin. The candle still burnt. The face had my eyes now—carved, yes, but wet. Blinking. I ran.
The town was empty. Every porch held a jack-o’-lantern. Every single one wore a different face—neighbours, mailmen, the librarian who’d gone missing in ’98. Their candles were fingers, toes, and ears. I hid in the church. Father McAllister was nailing boards over the stained-glass windows. He didn’t look surprised to see me.
“You carved it,” he said. Not a question. “I didn’t know—”
“Nobody ever does.” He handed me a Polaroid. The photo showed the pumpkin patch from above. In the dirt between vines: a shape. A body, curled foetal, skin orange and smooth. My face, screaming.
“That’s you,” he said. “The first one. The Hollow needs a new shell every year. Carve the face, light the soul. It grows into what it eats.” I tore the photo in half. The pieces bled.
That night, the church bells rang backward. The pumpkins came. Not rolling—*walking*. On root-legs, dragging their guts like bridal trains. They filled the streets, candles flickering Morse code.
I locked myself in the confessional. Through the lattice, I watched them press against the doors. One had Grandma’s face. It smiled with my teeth.
The priest tried to burn the church. Gasoline, hymns, the works. But fire needs oxygen, and the pumpkins stole the air. He suffocated mid-prayer, his face turning the colour of rind.
I escaped through the crypt. The tunnels under Marrow’s Hollow are older than the town. Walls wet with sap. Roots like veins. I followed them until I found the heart: a cavern where the first pumpkin grew. Massive. Split open. Inside: every missing person, fused into one screaming fruit. Their mouths were the seeds.
It spoke with all their voices. “Join us, Lila. You started this.”
I had the hatchet. I swung until my arms gave out. The pumpkin burst—not with juice, but with light. White, blinding. When it faded, the cavern was empty. Just seeds. Thousands of them. Each one pulsing like a heartbeat. I burnt them all. Or I thought I did.
Twenty years later, I live in the city. No plants. No soil. I check my porch every night. Last night, the candle finger was back. The grin had teeth again. And carved beneath it, in my own handwriting:
"WELCOME HOME, LILA." "WE KEPT YOUR FACE WARM."
If you carved a pumpkin this year… check the trash. If it’s not there… Don’t go home. This has been the final tale of Halloween month. Thank you for keeping the dark at bay with me.
If you hear scratching under your floor tonight… Don't answer. Just light a match. And pray the face in the flame isn’t yours.
Happy Halloween. Sleep with the lights on.
