Hollowbrook was always quiet, but it had a particular energy on Halloween night. The crisp autumn air filled the streets, carrying the scent of decaying leaves and the sweet smell of caramel apples from Mrs. Galloway’s stand by the town square. However, despite the usual festive excitement, there was an undercurrent of unease in the air, one that only the most observant could feel.

It had been generations since the old tales were told—tales of the Pumpkin King who haunted the outskirts of the town, of the cursed pumpkin patch where nothing grew except the twisted vines that writhed like snakes. The townspeople had long since dismissed the stories as nothing more than superstitions meant to keep the kids out of the graveyard. But those who still remembered knew the truth. The Pumpkin King wasn’t just a tale. He was real.

Maggie, a curious teen who had just moved to Hollowbrook, had heard the whispers. New to the town and unaware of the old legends, she had shrugged them off as ghost stories designed to scare her. Until tonight.

She stood in the center of the town square, watching as families and children dressed in costumes gathered, laughing and talking. But there was something wrong—something about the way the streetlamps flickered, the shadows that seemed to stretch too far across the pavement, the wind that carried a hint of something...decayed. Maggie turned her eyes to the old cemetery on the hill, half-hidden in the distance, where a crooked tree stood looming in front of a rickety iron gate.

"That’s where it all began," someone had told her earlier that day. The words echoed in her mind. The Pumpkin King. The curse.

As the clock struck midnight, a chill ran through her, cutting through her jacket like an invisible knife. Maggie’s breath caught in her throat.