Stories Not Quite Scary Enough To Tell In The Dark, But Still Nearly Chilling

The Subversive Sideshow of Silas Plumb

True horror bides it time, waiting with god like patience to carve at the very cockles of the heart.

Silas plumb was the bane of Pumpkin Hollow. Depending on who you asked of course, but to the purveyors and pure lovers of the annual Pumpkin Hollow Gorgeous Gourds festival, Silas was certainly a thorny vine in their revel: and for good reason. It was the Pumpkin Committees life's work to produce a pristine progeny to pass in perpetuity to their posterity. The Pumpkin Hollow gourds were first class: something to be proud of.Each year farmers from far and wide would parade their perfect pumpkins past clamoring crowds, then place them promptly before the committee to be measured weighed, poked and prodded. Some precious,most ponderous, but only one prize-worthy enough to be pronounced that years pumpkin king.

Maybe he was addled. Maybe he had no sense to begin with, but Silas Plumb and his ghastly gourds –for they weren't worthy to be called pumpkins— somehow managed to press all of the limits of impropriety. The first year had been almost palatable with the bulbous mass of pumpkinish flesh Silas had submitted for the prize. The preposterous piece had fortunately just brushed the scales before sufficient offense had been mustered to have it disqualified and expelled from the tent. Rather than take his shame like a man, rather than retreat back to his garden, Silas had parked his monstrosity outside the tent to let the children climb allover it's mountainous masses.

The next year, Silas was stopped outside the tent and smugly told to "Wait" lest his warped warty wonder of a squash contaminate the other contestants. It was so blemished and so blighted that many wondered if there were any good fruit hiding under its hideous hull. Of course, the young crowds were enamored with that one too. Children are...so impressionable.

Bitten twice, determined to put a stop to Silas' growing yearly spectacle, the committee drafted new rules forbidding any gourds with warts bulbs or blemishes over one inch in length, or several in number. The following season, Silas responded with a perfectly round, perfectly smooth, perfectly purple non-pumpkin. The children had scarcely gathered round his usual space of infamy before Silas was again told to "Wait."

With vengeful silence, Silas responded by removing a long serrated blade from his belt, held it high above the crowd, then plunged it over and over again into the soft supple flesh of his victim's face: his outlawed squash. When he was a finished, a warped wide smile and two wide eyes bled with stringy red entrails from swollen sockets. Symbolic, no question, of the demons possessing Plumbs' soul.

New regulations were drafted forbidding knives. Silas brought his squash pre-carved. Then with flint and tinder he set fire to its carcass making it glow with the fires of hell. Fire, live flame not more than three feet from the helpless crowd! More rules and again more the next when Mr Plumb brought hundreds of itty-bitty pumpkins all formed as one, then passed out his petite chocking hazards to every hand present. And again the next when, for lack of a knife, Silas smashed his blue offense of a fruit on the fairground to show the children how to plant its grossly enormous seeds.

There was one good thing about Plumb's sideshow: it kept the children entertained. It would have been better if it had also kept them quiet, but, one can only hope for so much.

Finally it was decreed that for the safety of the festival and its participants, no pumpkin, gourd, or any such squash would be allowed on the grounds without prior approval from the Pumpkin Committee. All of the judges commended themselves: commended themselves for their ingenuity and wit. All waited with anticipation, and to be honest, slight trepidation for what was sure to be the most perfect pumpkin promenade Pumpkin Hollow had yet to see.

But there was no need to worry about Silas Plumb. There was no sideshow left to be had. No more need for Silas to wait. Uninvited and outmaneuvered, to the relief of the committee, Silas didn't show. Truly for the first time since anyone could remember, pumpkins were presented with the reverent pomp they deserved and without any distraction from a peanut gallery populated side show. Indeed, there was no provocation of preposterous pumpkins to pandering prepubescent adults whatsoever. Just pristine prize pumpkins and pleasant applause!

It could only have been more perfect had Silas not been mentioned by any participants even in passing. But it didn't take long for the people to notice Mr. Plumb's absence to the event. Or for the townsfolk to notice his absence entirely.Before the year was out, a group of concerned citizens made up almost entirely by the Pumpkin Committee made a trip outside the city limits to the little cabin by the garden plot where Silas Plumb practiced.There, sure enough, like the laboratory of some mad scientist sprawled an acre where gourds of every color shape and size had been devised. Gourds that were anything but gorgeous: dimpled, pimpled,ridged, ringed, stretched, striped and skewed.

On the door of the cabin, hung a familiar greeting.

Inside, they found empty bottles with labels like: AcornZini #13 and WinterNutCumber #5. But otherwise the cabin was sterile.

Keenly aware of the unsanctioned and ethically questionable plant experimentation that had persisted for over a decade, the committee held court and decided unanimously that the cabin, the garden and all vegetation within 300 feet be consumed by fire, and any beehives within of the property be drowned lest any trace of Silas Plumb's pollen somehow propagate. So it was decided and so it was done before the sun went down securing the perpetuity of the proud and perfect Pumpkin Hollow pumpkins for generations to come.

So feverish was their determination to extinguish Silas' work, that not one took note of the lack of fruit and flower in the garden or on the property; for there was not but vine to be found midst the equally unnoticed footprints of small shoes in the soil. Certainly no one gave another thought as they watched it burn, to the sign with its smug greeting hanging from the door, as if Silas' final greeting to the committee itself. It read simply: "Wait."