The kickback knives through my bad shoulder and my arm goes hot and weak. The blast skids off metal—screech, sparks—and the pumpkin turns anyway, patient, like it has all day to learn how I die.
“Shit.”
I rack the gun. My hands sweat, grip slick, but my body remembers. Aim. Breathe. Don’t think about Drew. Don’t think about Fred. Don’t think about how messed up this is.
Val roars behind me.
Sandie’s body lunges. Vines burst through her arms and throat, pulsing like veins under glass. The pumpkin fused to her shoulders leaks pulp that splats onto the dirt with every step.
“Back off!” Val shouts.
She drives the pitchfork in again. The tines punch into the vine-covered chest with a wet crunch. Orange slime spills around the metal. The thing swats at her with a vine. It wraps her wrist and yanks.
Val stumbles. Plants her feet. Grins like she’s daring it.
She twists the pitchfork, rips it free, and swings low. The fork hooks behind its knee. The body buckles. Val slams the butt of the handle into the pumpkin’s face. Crack. A chunk of rind flies.
“Stay down,” she growls, and stomps its chest.
I spin back just in time to see Drew’s pumpkin head slam against the driver’s side door.
“Cole!” I yell. “Get out of there!”
Cole spills from the passenger side and hits the dirt hard. His face is chalk white, sweat pouring off him. His right arm hangs wrong, useless, and when he tries to push up a scream rips out of him. He doesn’t stop. He crawls. Staggers. Drags himself forward anyway, gasping, eyes locked on me.
Behind him, Drew drops from the tractor. The impact shakes the ground. Vines snap and curl beneath its boots, digging in, finding balance. Its first step stutters. The next doesn’t.
Faster. Cleaner.
Smarter.
It’s learning how to hunt.
“Cole! Run!” I shout, shoving a shell into the shotgun. Click. Locked.
Drew’s pumpkin snaps its head toward Cole and charges.
Vines piston under its body, tearing clods of mud loose as it surges forward. The distance closes fast. Too fast. Cole slips, cries out, claws at the ground with his good hand. The thing is almost on him. Close enough that I can see seeds wobbling inside its carved mouth.
Behind me, Val grunts.
I risk a glance.
Sandie’s body surges again, vines stretching from its arms toward Val’s throat. The pitchfork goes through the chest again, Val digs in, shoes sliding, muscles screaming as she pushes it inch by inch. Her knuckles are white around the pitchfork handle.
“Shoot it in the head!” she yells, jerking her chin toward Sandie’s pumpkin head.
My heart slams. “What about Cole?”
“Trust me!”
I see her then—wild, certain, all grit and freckles and heat. The same look she had when she straddled me on the back of the truck, when the world made sense for five reckless minutes.
I pivot, boots sliding in mud and pulp, and bring the barrel up, my shoulder screaming.
Breathe in. Don’t fucking miss.
I squeeze the trigger.