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The children run up to the Haunted House. They have planned this for some time. It’s Halloween night and they plan on going into the backyard of the Haunted House of Haywood Village to trade their candy. The haunted house sits at the east-most corner of town, right before Haywood Village turns into the heavily wooded area known as Shiver Forest. Haywood Village is a small town with many dark secrets, some are known while others… Well, you’ll see.
The kids make their way to the backyard while cackling like witches and moaning like the undead in order to spook each other. They sit by a big oak tree in the backyard and kick at the lifeless leaves. They start to tell made up tales of ghosts and ghouls when suddenly a voice whispers into their ears.
“Pumcoon”, the voice said. The children look around searching for a person to match the eerie voice with. They found no one. “I’ll tell the tale of Pumcoon if you care to lend an ear.” the voice echoed. The children looked at each other with shocked eyes. Suddenly the voice began the tale:
“It was the night before Halloween long ago in a different when. The wind carried the smell of evil in the air. The moon was casting an eerie glow upon the Haunted House of Haywood Village. At that time the house wasn’t haunted and had a crazy doctor by the name of Dr. Cyanide residing in it. He was particularly annoyed because his cat died in the name of science but he had nothing to show for it. His goal was to make an evil being capable of scaring and kidnapping children, and to put an end to the children flooding the streets at night. He hated Halloween and hated children even more. So he decided to travel to his backyard where he had a little pumpkin patch. He has conducted experiments on them before, but they mostly failed. But he has had a breakthrough in his studies and plans on using a pumpkin in order to do it accomplish his goal.
It was at this moment that Roland Raccoon, wandered into the pumpkin patch. He was hungry and wanted a quick snack. Roland liked Halloween a lot because of the smell of pumpkin pie, but it also meant the official countdown to his favorite holiday of all; Christmas!
Roland soon bumped into a pumpkin and crawled on top of it. He sunk his teeth into the top and the moist aroma made his mouth water. Then he heard a noise. He looked up and saw the evil Dr. Cyanide approaching. He had lost furry friends to the doctors experiments and wasn’t about to let it happen to him. But before he could jump, he fell inside the pumpkin.
Dr. Cyanide made his way into the pumpkin patch growing with excitement. He finally started to see his plan in motion. He spotted a pumpkin that he wanted. It had a hole in it, but that didn’t matter much. It will add character to his creation. The doctor picked up the pumpkin and carried it into his kitchen, put it on the table, then and headed into the basement to make some last minute adjustments.
Our friend Roland Raccoon was dizzy, but managed to poke his head out of the hole. The kitchen was dusty and had spiders everywhere. But most shocking of all was what was sitting in the chair across from him; A headless corpse with coagulated blood oozing from the neck.After seeing this, Roland tried to escape the pumpkin but could not fit through the hole. And he started to hear the doctor coming back up the basement stairs.
Dr. Cyanide was so happy that he found the corpse in the morgue earlier that day. The nurses love to escort the patients down to the festival, but Dr. Cyanide hates the festival. He hates the Christmas festival even more. All that jolly good spirit puts warmth on his icy heart and he can’t stand it. He then looks over to his newer find, the pumpkin. He takes the pumpkin and decides to start calling it scratches since that was the name of his cat. The doctor walks down his basement steps and into his laboratory. There is a chair with all sorts of wires and gadgets hooked up to it with a table next to it along with a monitor that is blank. He puts the pumpkin on the table and runs back up the steps.
Roland tries one last time to get out of the pumpkin but just can’t fit through. He looks around and sees a drawing of a carved out pumpkin atop of a body and shivers. The doctor is now coming back with the corpse.
Dr. Cyanide plops the corpse into the chair and starts to hook up wires to his arms, feet, and chest. He then takes a knife and starts to carve the pumpkin. Roland narrowly avoids being punctured every time. The doctor then puts the pumpkin in place where the head would be and places two metal stakes through the pumpkin and into the shoulders. He flips the switch and everything is silent. Then there is a bright flash of light.
The doctor screamed with fright. The pumpkin had a wicked smile, and attached to the pumpkin was the body. It started to walk towards the doctor with its bushy raccoon tail wagging. “S..S..Scratches,” Dr. Cyanide stuttered. “You’re alive!” The monster grabbed the doctor and said clearly, “My name is Pumpcoon!” And with that, Pumpcoon pushed Dr. Cyanide into his chair and flipped the switch. What followed is quite strange.
There was a pumpkin seed in the seat along with Dr. Cyanide and he turned into a seed himself that Pumpcoon planted in the backyard and eventually turned into a tree. Pumpcoon decided to live in the woods and come out during Halloween and Christmas to help spread good cheer. Thus ends the tale of Pumpcoon.
The kids looked at each other in awe until one finally spoke up. “Who are you? How do you know these things?” The voice laughed as a tree branch landed on the boys shoulder. “Because I am Dr.Cyanide.” The kids jumped to their feet and turned around to see a face in the tree laughing. They could still hear the laughing as they ran home.