The festivities had died down for the night. He could hear the kids leaving the various parties, drifting off to their homes with withering conversations filling the air. Suddenly he hear one or two scream in the distance. His dog rose instantly to his feet, springing to the door, hunched low and growling, fur rising up on the back of his neck. The boy left his easy chair and went to the door. The screams were getting louder, rising in pitch and terror. Something gave a low, gurgling chucked outside. Street lamps went dark, and his dog, continuing to growl backed away from the door. There came a pounding all at once. Someone or something had slammed into his front door.
“JUST PLEASE OPEN THE DOOR!” a familiar voice cried in panic. The door swung open and in tumbled his best friend. They both lunged at the door, slamming it shut and securing the locks. He thought he saw something against the pale moon light. Something like a thin tentacle and an orange orb.
“Linus…what is going on!”
Linus looked back at him, his eyes wide with terror. “Oh God…” he slumped to the floor, his face buried in his hands. “Lucy…Schroder…Patti…what did I do? So much blood…so much blood…”
“What is going on, Linus?” he demanded.
Linus looked up, tears streaming down his face “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. He’s real!”
Charlie and Linus stared at each other for a long moment, the screams becoming a distant echo. "What did you just say?" Charlie whispered. His head spun, he must be dreaming, he thought. This kind of thing didn't happen in their sleepy little town. This kind of thing didn't happen at all. "It’s...it’s the Great Pumpkin..." Linus whispered.
"That can't be." Charlie said, glancing at the window. "The Great Pumpkin isn't...real." With a soft pop the lights cut out.
"We can't stay here." Linus muttered. "We have to go."
Charlie went for the only weapon in the house, an old air rifle his dad kept in the attic for combating the occasional farm it that made its way into their back yard. Returning he found Linus curled up in the corner. His dog came to his side and nuzzled his hand. "Where's Sally?" Charlie asked. Linus stared at him blankly as if hearing the name for the first time. "Where is my baby sister, Linus?" he asked again, emphasizing each word. Linus blinked a few times. "Marcie's. She went to hang out with Marcie."
"Get up. We're going to go find her."
"Why am I going?"
"You just said we can't stay here. My sister is out there somewhere. If we are going anywhere we're going to find her."
"But the Great Pumpkin...!"
Something slithered up to the front door with a heavy thud. Charlie motioned for Linus to be quiet and in turn Linus planted both of his hands on his mouth. Carefully Charlie stepped across his living room floor until he reached the window. He tipped the rifle's barrel into the thick blue curtain and edged it back to see if he could spot anything. A long, thick, greenish black vine slithered slowly along the side of the house.
The window exploded into a shower of glass as an orange object bounced into the house with a gurgling roar. Linus screamed, springing to his feet. In rapid succession Charlie fired round after round into the object. Without realizing it, a tentacle like vine whipped into the room but then dog leaped at it, chomping furiously until it was torn off. Linus emerged from the hallway and beat the orange object mercilessly until it broke apart, revealing itself to be a large pumpkin.
Even after it stopped moving, Linus continued to pummel it, sobbing, until Charlie grabbed him.
"Is that it?" he asked. "Is that the..."
"No...its part of it, some kind of spawn. They get thrown by the vines, and they latch onto people's heads. They eat the head and drive the person's body. That's...that's what happened to Lucy."
"Then we need to find Sally now."
The town was quiet, with a thick hazy mist hanging in the air. Charlie led Linus, tucking close to buildings, peeking around corners down deserted streets and alleys before darting across intersections. Buckets and bags of candy lay scattered about the streets. Torn costumes and masks hung loosely on shrubbery. “Where is everyone?” Charlie whispered. He didn’t know if he was talking to Linus or Snoopy or God, but the question hung there, unanswered. Crossing the third intersection, they again tucked into the side of one of the houses where they heard a faint sobbing. It came from the back yard of the house, surrounded by a six foot high privacy fence. “This is it…this is Marcie’s house.” Linus whispered.
Charlie thought it looked different in the night. He edged his way around the fence until he found the gate, swinging open from a broken hinge. He saw her sitting next to her swing set, curled up in the fetal position, shuddering with sobs. He could faintly hear her saying “I’m sorry sir…I’m so sorry…”
“Marcie!” he said in a loud whisper. She turned and saw him. She looked around before darting towards him in a low run. “Marcie…what happened?”
“It was Pattie…Charles. She…went crazy. She came at me with a pumpkin mask on, like she was trying to eat me. I…didn’t know what to do.”
“Oh…” Linus said. Charlie looked to where he was pointing and saw Pattie’s green shirt wrapped around a mangled body, a crushed pumpkin for a head, and a bloody baseball bat on the ground.
“Where is Sally?” Charlie said with caution.
“She and some of the other kids ran. They headed towards the library. I don’t know if they made it.”
Pine Cove’s Library was a single story building, much like the rest of the town, and was spread out over about an acre of land. They approached with extreme caution, coming at it from the side where low trees hugged the edge of the property. “We can’t just walk in the front.” Charlie pointed out. “We have to check the perimeter.”
“Right.” Linus agreed. Marcie stayed quiet.
They checked all around the building but found no trace of the Great Pumpkin or it’s minions, so approached the front doors. The glass had been shattered and long tables propped up against the doors to block entrance. “Sally.” Charlie said, trying to peer through the tables. “Big Brother?” a small voice whispered from behind the barricade.
“Sally!” he said, almost crying. Pig Pen and Franklin struggled with the tables, allowing Charlie and Linus passage. Once through, they saw the survivors. A group of scared children huddled among the long, narrow shelves. Someone screamed “Its in here!” Charlie turned towards the door but saw only Marcie. “Charles!” someone called from the crowd “That’s NOT MARCIE!” He turned to see who was shouting at him. It was Marcie, leaning on a makeshift crutch. Charlie turned and leveled the rifle at the fake Marcie, who laughed with a low gurgle. Her eyes began to glow as a weird grin crossed her face. From under her clothes, tentacle like vines snaked out and lifted her into the air. The Great Pumpkin-Marcie swiped at Charlie and Linus, knocking them over the librarian’s counter. Vines shot out after the children who ran in all directions. One caught the real Marcie by the leg and lifted her up as she screamed. Charlie rose to his hands and knees and something caught the corner of his eye. A flash light. He looked back at the monster. “It hates light. That’s why it killed the street lamps and the power, it only comes out at night.” He looked at Linus who still had his baseball bat. Charlie jumped onto the counter “HEY! UGLY!” he shouted. The pumpkin monster turned and growled. The beam from the flash light cut the darkness, shining directly into the monster’s face. It dropped Marcie with a roar. She was caught by Franklin who moved her away from the fight. It’s body reeled backwards, but it found itself tangled in the mass of tables. It started to lower itself to the floor. That’s when Linus pounced, bat held high and bringing it down with a fury. Again and again he bashed the creature in the head as Charlie held it with the flash light beam.
October 31st dawned bright and new. Charlie wandered about his day. He saw Lucy and Patty and Schroder. Everyone was fine, physically, but also seemed to be reeling from some shared trauma, some kind of nightmare that had washed over the town. The adults didn’t know what was going on, or why all the kids in town were acting weird. For them, it was just another Halloween.
Dusk came, and Charlie had pushed out of his mind any normal festivities. Maybe later, he thought. But now, he felt he had a job to do. He carried in one hand a baseball bat, in the other a flash light. He found Linus already perched on the fence to the pumpkin patch. He hopped up on to the fence with him. Across Linus’ lap was his own baseball bat.
One by one the children arrived. Patty, Marcie, Franklin, Lucy, Sally, even Schroder. Those who didn’t have baseball bats brought their flash lights. Charlie understood.
Call it God, or Vishnu, or Allah, or some other kind of divine intervention, something had given them a glimpse into the future. A future that all the children of their sleepy little town were determined not to let come to pass.
As the sun set over the horizon, Charlie’s dog jumped to his feet, set his head low and growled. Something in the patch stirred.
Credits and Post Script
Lets get the legal out of the way. I do not own the rights to Charlie Brown or any of the Peanuts gang, and I am not making a dime off of this. This is strictly a little story I cooked up over the last few days. I want to thank Turtle Power over at Geekfandom for not only inadvertently inspiring this, but offering the creative freedom to actually post it some place other than BlogSpot or Fan Fiction.
That's really what this is, complete fan fiction. I love the work of Charles Schultz and my family make it a point to watch the Charlie Brown holiday specials every year. So this is kind of a love letter to all those specials, plus pretty much all survival horror movies, but especially "Night of the Living Dead".
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