The Pumpkin Maze

The October sky was patched together with bruised clouds as my daughter and I pulled into the Hinterkaifeck Farms Pumpkin Patch parking lot.

April bounced in her carseat, her nose pressed against the glass as she pointed at each pumpkin and scarecrow we passed. “Can we get that one, mommy? No, wait, that one! Wait, no, that one there!”

“You’ll have plenty to choose from in a few minutes. Trust me, sweetie,” I said.

We found an open spot and a second later, April was tugging me across the parking lot, towards the German farm’s entrance.

“I want a pumpkin as big as my head!” she squealed.

“We’ll see,” I said as I limped behind her, my leg still recovering from a recent car accident.

I rubbed my kneecap, the shock of the accident still causing my breath to get caught in my lungs. A week ago, while driving in the hills, I’d spun off the road trying to avoid a small animal that had dashed across the street. My car collided with a tree and the paramedics had said I was lucky that it was only my knee that was injured, considering how fast I’d been driving.

They did what they could to fix me up, but all I really needed was time and rest. Two things I wouldn’t be getting anytime soon as April tugged me onward, passing under the large farm’s welcome awning.

“Mommy, come on!”

“Mommy’s coming as fast as she can, sweetie. I’m still hurt, remember?”

“Oh, yeah,” April said, slowing her pace a bit.

Around us, the farm was filled with people and festive attractions and decorations. A gigantic, inflatable, pumpkin-shaped jump house bounced from side to side as the children leapt about inside its jack-o-lantern mouth, their little heads appearing and disappearing behind the pumpkin’s triangular eyes. The illusion was a little disconcerting, the children’s screams and bobbing heads making it appear as though they were being eaten.

I shook my head. The accident was getting to me again.

Elsewhere, there were friendly photo-op cutouts for kids to stick their heads through, small rides, and little snack carts selling sugary treats to kids who would soon have more energy than they knew what to do with. In the distance, spooky scarecrows perched among fields as families old and young traipsed through the rows of pumpkins, stopping to touch and knock on every other orange fruit.

“Mommy look,” April cried, her little finger stretching in front of us towards a massive wall of hay bales. “The Pumpkin Maze,” read large sign hanging above the open, darkened entrance.

“I wanna go in the Pumpkin Maze!” April said, looking up at me with her big, doe eyes.

“I don’t know, it looks a little scary,” I said.

“I like scary things. The scarecrows don’t even scare me anymore.”

Near the entrance to the maze, a woman paced back and forth, looking around and chewing on her nails.

“Everything alright?” I asked her as we approached the entrance.

She looked at me strangely. Almost hatefully. “My son, Jack,” she said, glancing down at April. “He’s been in the maze for almost two hours now. You haven’t seen him have you? He’s about your daughter’s age and size, brown hair.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I haven’t seen him.”

“I’m sure you haven’t,” she said.

I nodded my head slowly. “Right, well my daughter and I were about to head in there. We can help look for him if you want.”

“Oh, would you? Please?” she said, a smile finally emerging. “I’d be in there now, but the farmers who run this sad excuse for a farm told me the best thing to do would be to wait here. That Jack would wander out eventually. You can see how well that’s gone.”

I smiled back at her. “I’m Margaret,” I said, holding my hand out.

“Margaret, yes,” the woman said. “I’m Jackie. Thanks for doing this.”

“Not a problem,” I said. I looked down at April. “You ready, sweetie?”

“Yeah!” April squealed as she dragged me into the maze, letting Jackie get back to her nervous pacing.

The walls of the maze were easily fifteen feet high, tall enough to cast shadows on every inch of the maze, drenching the two of us in a blanket of dimness. Along the walls were small pumpkins resting atop little stands with tiny price tags attached to each. And as we walked on, signs pinned to the hay bale walls alerted us that a great treasure awaited any brave adventurer who could find their way to the center of the maze.

“Do you think that means they’ll have secret pumpkins there?”

“I bet they do,” I said as I limped along. “Secret, perfect pumpkins. Just the size you wanted.”

April let go of my hand and bounced ahead of me, peering around corners and through cracks in the wall.

“Don’t get too far in front of me, April,” I called.

“I won’t,” she said as she disappeared down another avenue a ways away.

I turned a corner and limped down a short path. “April!”

“I’m right here,” she called back through one of the hay bales.

“I don’t want you ending up like that Jack boy. If you get lost, I’m just going to leave you here.”

“Yeah right,” she yelled from a few rows away.

“April, I said stay close!”

“I am close,” came her muffled voice.

Another corner, and then another. “April, where are you?” I called, a tiny bit of panic beginning to unsettle my stomach.

There was an answer, but it was too muffled to hear. Too faint to understand among the sound-dampening hay bales.

“Stop right now!” I yelled as I turned another corner.

This time there was no response.

I stopped, my breath catching in my throat, trying to hear her reply. When there was none, I groaned. “Goddamn it!” I swore, limping on. “You are in so much trouble when I find you.”

Then my daughter screamed.

“April?!” I yelled. “April! April, where are you?”

She screamed again and was quickly silenced.

“No,” I whispered to myself as I limped furiously on, the pain in my leg blossoming further and further up my hip. “No, no, no, no!”

I rounded a corner and tumbled to the ground, my leg giving way beneath me. As soon as I hit the ground, I was back up, limping as quickly as I could.

The nightmare every parent had was happening. It was happening to me. The nightmare was coming to life, choking my throat, gripping my lungs, making it harder and harder to breathe as the pain in my leg grew worse and worse. My vision constricted, blurring with tears and sweat and labored breath as the first droplets of rain began to fall around me.

“April!” I screamed out with what little breath I had. “April!”

There was no response. No shout. No cry. No scream. Nothing but silence.

The maze grew darker with each turn, the sun quickly disappearing behind a legion of rainclouds and casting the maze into deeper and deeper shadow.

“April, please!” I cried, rounding another corner before coming to a complete stop.

A small pumpkin patch filled the space in front of me, each pumpkin perfectly shaped and ripe for the picking. Around the open space were already-carved pumpkins, each one smiling dumbly, happy to finally have come company. In the center of the patch stood a sign that read, “Congratulations! You found the center! Pick a pumpkin and take a sticker for 50% off at the checkout!”

Leaning against the sign, head in her hands, was Jackie.

“Jackie?” I gasped for breath. “What are you doing here? Have you seen April?”

“I have, yeah,” Jackie said, glancing over at me. “I found Jack, too.”

“I’m glad for you, but where’s April?,” I said rushing to Jackie’s side. “I need to find her. She was screaming for some reason.”

“You sure you don’t remember Jack?” she said.

“I’m sure. Now where’s April?”

“He was about your daughter’s age. Same size, too. Brown hair. Oh, and he had a leg brace. Wore glasses.”

Suddenly a pit opened up in my stomach and I froze. “No…” I whispered.

“I told Jack every day. I told him, ‘Don’t play too far from the house. Don’t go outside the gate. Don’t play in the hills.’”

“Jackie, please. Please,” I begged.

“And that boy never listened to me. He never did. When he didn’t come home, I assumed the worst. Much like you’re doing right now.” She turned to me. “Turns out I was right.”

She dropped a small, bloody axe to the ground.

“Much like you are right now,” she whispered.

I sank to my knees beside the bloodied axe, my mind reeling. “No. No, no, no, no, no. Jackie, please, no.”

“It took me a little while. But I know the hills better than most people. And all I really needed to do was follow the smell.”

“Where is my daughter?” I whispered.

“There’s a reason graves are dug so deep, Margaret. Animals. Decomposition. The smell. It’s all very messy if bodies are left too close to the surface.”

“Where is my daughter?”

“You spent what? Maybe five or ten minutes digging Jack’s hole?”

“Where the fuck is April?”

“You took my son from me, Margaret. And all you suffered from was a hurt leg?” Jackie shook her head. “I didn’t think that was very fair, if you catch my drift. Now, though, I’d be willing to call us even.”

“Where the fuck is my daughter, you bitch?” I screamed.

Jackie only sneered at me, at my broken form kneeling on the ground. “I took her through the Pumpkin Maze. Found her one that fit her perfectly.”

I looked up at her through my tear-muddied eyes and followed her gaze. Behind me, resting atop a small bale of hay, was a carved pumpkin about the size of April’s head.

“No,” I whimpered.

Through the carved holes, I could make out my daughter’s large, doe eyes. And behind the pumpkin’s open grin, I saw my daughter’s mouth open wide, trapped mid-scream.

I reached behind me, my fingers curling around the handle of the small axe Jackie had dropped, and stood.

It was a few days before they found Jackie. A couple of maze winners apparently complained of terrible smells coming from all of the carved pumpkins and from the fake blood that was splashed everywhere.

The news said they also found the body of an unidentified, headless girl. I can only imagine what the parents of that young girl are going through, I thought as sat on my couch at home, slowly brushing my daughter’s soft hair.