Disclaimer: This story contains dark themes such as death, please read at your own discretion

Alyssa James reaches over and unlocks the car, opening the door and jumping out onto the dirt area where she parked the car. She chucks her old shoes -the ones that she’d just taken off and changed into sneakers- back onto the seat. She quickly puts an earbud in and clicks play on Spotify. Turning towards the small path, she begins her run. The light drizzle barely falls onto the path due to the trees overhead. It is pretty dark at seven o’clock at night, but that’s her favorite time for a run. For some reason, the almost completely nighttime sky made for a very peaceful run, and the path is far enough from any businesses, homes, or main roads for the sounds of civilization to reach. Leaving only the sounds of nature, and music. It’s so peaceful.

For some reason, her thoughts drift to her father. He’d been sent to a mental institution early on in her mother’s pregnancy with her brother. She’s never really known him but she’d seen pictures. There were a lot of pictures of him and her mother on Halloween. They’d always had the best costumes, and engaged in all kinds of Halloween traditions, but he’d been most successful with the pumpkins. The concentration on his face when he was working on those pumpkins was the most engaged she’s ever seen him with anything.

A very quiet noise began filling the air, not loud enough to work out what it is, ominous. “What the ****?” she curses. Glancing around, pausing the music, to try and hear it better. It sounds kind of like music. Then, the volume began to increase. It sounds like- piano music? The combination of keys and chords makes it sound really creepy. “Hello?!” she yells out.

“Okay. Do I go and investigate this, or do I turn around and run as fast as possible back to my car?” she thinks aloud. The fact is though, she’s curious, and so she begins walking toward the noise. As she got closer in proximity, it grew louder and there, just sitting in a tree, is a radio.

And as she looks around the area, she screams. There on the ground is a body. The corpse’s leg is bent in a way that it definitely shouldn’t be, there is blood soaked into the shirt, and there is a knife plunged into their stomach. Instead of a face, they had a pumpkin covering their head, with a basic creepy Halloween face carved into it.  “Oh my god, oh my god!” 

She covers her mouth with her hands, turning around, not able to look at it anymore. In theory, she knows that she needs to investigate more. She takes a couple deep breaths before turning back around, grimacing at seeing the body, and creeping slowly towards the body. After closer examination, she observes that there is something engraved into the knife. She looks away as she reaches out and grabs the knife to pull it out of the corpse. 

Turning it over to look at it, there is a short message that reads: ‘The Pumpkin Stalker says hi to you, Ms. James, If you don’t turn yourself in by midnight tonight at the river in the cemetery, people you know and care about will be murdered in the most brutal ways possible. Your choice. -P.S’ 

Alyssa sank back onto her knees, gasping. Some crazy person who calls themselves “P.S” is not only threatening her but everyone she knows, loves, and cares about. 

“****!” Tears fall down her face, the whole thing just becoming way too overwhelming for the amount of stuff that went on in only five minutes. 

She takes deep breaths, trying to steady her breathing, and sits there for what felt like hours, just thinking. After a while though, she stands, stabilizing herself, and she begins walking back to her car.

As she arrives at her car and sits in the driver’s seat, her phone lights up with a text message from her brother.

Kai

Mom can’t pick me up again. Can you pick me up after your run?

Sorry, I can’t you’ll have to ask Liz and Hailey, you can probably stay at their house tonight.

Why?

I just-  I can’t.

I won’t be home for a while.

Alyssa? Are you ok?

I’m fine. Trust me.

I love you, and I’m going to miss you.

Love you too? 

Are you sure you’re okay?

Yeah, bye Kai, tell Mom, Liz, and Hailey that I love them too.

Alyssa?

Lys?

Alyssa, you’re scaring me.

Don’t be scared.

Take care of yourself.

Wiping the new round of tears out of her eyes, she scrolls through her camera roll, looking at pictures of her brother and her mom, and pictures of her with her best friend, Elizabeth “Lizzy” and Lizzy’s sister Hailey. Pictures from her many years of school, of her cat, and she just continues to cry. She even looks at the old pictures of her father. She was going to miss them so much, but she knows what has to happen, one person being murdered is enough already. If someone she knew well got murdered she wouldn’t be able to deal with it. This P.S or whatever is obviously insane and not opposed to violence. 

And so she starts her car and drives towards the cemetery, which was super close to the forest. Arriving, she got out and heads towards the outskirts of the cemetery, where the river lay. The sky is completely and truly dark now, the rain has turned into a much heavier downpour, making it hard to see even five feet in front of you. 

She approaches the edge of the river, and sits down on the bank, directly in the dirt, dangling her legs into the water. She watches the river flow by, and sits completely still and silent, sitting there, waiting. 

And even as she hears someone approaching from behind her, and feels the knife hit and enter through her skin, she stays silent and watches the river. When suddenly her face is grabbed harshly by a person with a pumpkin on their head but their eyes were the thing that stuck out. She recognizes the color, and the shade- it is almost identical to her brother’s. 

Her eyes begin to droop, and faintly she hears, “Hey Mary.”

Mary? She thinks drearily, the pain in her stomach increasing. Mary is her mother’s name. She recognizes that voice too. “My name’s not Mary.” Her hand begins moving to her back pocket, and her hand finds the knife from before that she never put back. “You must be thinking of my mother.” With a swift movement, she plunges the knife into her dad’s stomach. “Agh,” he gasps out. 

“Guess we’re both dying tonight, Father,” she mumbles, there is so, so much blood

“Alyssa?” He whispers.

And lying there by the river, Alyssa passes away in the arms of her also dying and insane father.