Pumpin Spice

On Halloween, Ken has a devil of a time.

This story is my entry for the 2023 Halloween Contest. It's a romantic tale but also has a touch of humor and a bit of erotic horror for the season. I hope you'll enjoy it and, since it is in the contest, that you'll rate it and consider leaving feedback. Many thanks!

© SouthernCrossfire - 2023. All rights reserved.

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Halloween night, 20 years ago...

The storm raged outside, with rain coming down in droves on the roof of our old farmhouse. A loose shutter clattered against the window frame from time to time, making me afraid the window would break. Brilliant flashes of lightning and mighty booms of thunder also made me wonder if our house, nearing one hundred years old, would survive the night or if it would come crashing in on us.

My mom was away visiting my Aunt Deborah and Uncle Harry so my dad was listening intently to the local weather over our battery-operated radio as he tried to finish cleaning up after dinner. The power in our house had been out for nearly an hour and the little flashlight I gripped in my hands seemed dimmer than it had been just minutes earlier.

Another lightning strike led to an immediate, deafening crash of thunder that caused me to jump and drop my book. I didn't care; I hadn't yet gotten past the first page anyway.

Dad picked it up and handed it back to me as he walked to the back door and looked out. "I think that one got the old oak tree near the barn. Let's go down in the storm cellar until this passes."

I nodded, wanting to get away from the onslaught outside that had ruined my Trick-or-Treating and seemed to be threatening to batter its way inside.

He grabbed our storm kit, his flashlight, and the little radio and we went down the stairs off the side of the kitchen.

Our storm shelter was part of the old root cellar that had been reworked by my grandparents when my dad was a boy. The shelter room was small but had a heavy timber ceiling overhead and a big bed that took up most of the floor space. There was also a small table, a few folding chairs, a storage cabinet, and a bucket with a lid in the corner that I hoped I wouldn't have to use.

"We're going to camp out down here, Kenny, until this is over. Here's a couple of new batteries for your light. Looks like the ones in there now are getting pretty weak."

He listened to the radio for a while as I tried to read, but he finally turned it off. "Kenny, do you want to go to sleep now? You're yawning."

I fought off another one. "No, it's too early, Daddy. Can you tell me a story?"

"Yeah, I think I can do that. What do you want to hear? Paul Bunyan and Babe? The Lone Ranger? Superman—"

"Tell me a new story, Daddy. Please? It's Halloween so make it a scary one, okay?"

He shined the light through his fingers onto his face, creating scary shadows. "Bah ha ha ha! A scary story? Are you sure?"

"Yes, please?"

"Okay, I will, but don't tell your mom."

"I won't! I promise!"

"Hmmm. All right, here goes. Once upon a time, Old Scratch was feeling really bad after making a remarkably unsuccessful trip down to Georgia. He decided he needed a serious change of scenery."

"What happened in Georgia?" I asked.

"Well, that's what I was about to tell you. First, there'd been a power outage that took out old Sparky and put an abrupt stop to most of the fun Scratch was expecting to witness. Then to make matters worse, the guy who was then hanged instead of being electrocuted turned out to have been innocent after all so Scratch stood by with smoke coming out his ears as an angel escorted that soul away. However, he did make a mental note to check in on the judge and a couple of others involved in the case when their times were up, but those would be years away and would do nothing to help his current soul deficit.

"Finally, trying to fix that issue and make up for his unexpected loss, he found a likely candidate, a cocky young man, so the Devil, because that's what Scratch is often called, wagered his favorite musical instrument against the young man's soul only to end up losing that too. That was bad enough but the final straw was the young fellow's taunting invitation to come back and try again."

"Daddy, wait a minute! That's a song!"

He laughed. "A lot of stories are turned into songs. That doesn't mean they're not true. Do you want me to keep going or not?"

"Yes, please."

"Yeah, Old Scratch had had quite enough of the south, its oppressive heat, and its horrible sweet tea served in every diner he visited. Therefore, he decided to go up north for more potential gleanings. He'd go to Milwaukee, he concluded, where he could at least enjoy some cooler weather and get some cold beer before having to head home to the inferno he called home. He was expecting a batch of new arrivals the next day and there were other pressing matters in Hell that had to be attended to. One thing in particular was on his mind as he hopped on his chopper and headed north.

'"If those guys don't have the AC in my office fixed by the time I get home, I'll have their feet held to the fire for a thousand years,' he groused to himself. Thinking of the little droid in the last Star Wars movie squealing when its feet got burned and how that really cool Darth guy turned out to be such a wimp later in the movie, he breathed a perfect ring of smoke and decided he might just do it anyway.

"Sometime later that day, he'd passed through the hills of Tennessee and Kentucky and over the Ohio River into the land of the north, speeding along the backroads the entire way. He kept the flames shooting out his pipes to a minimum as he passed through some really boring areas where the cornfields seemed to be unending, giving him a chance to really dwell on his thoughts in his perpetual gloom rather than on the countryside around him.

"He was so immersed in his depression and he was going so fast that he missed the abrupt change in his surroundings and almost missed the farmer hunched over the gate looking out over his field. He noticed just in time and slammed on the brakes, slowing to make a U-turn a few miles down the road. Cutting the flames back even further, he rode back to the farmer at something not too far over the only speed limit since even the Devil doesn't want to deal with local sheriffs writing speeding tickets.

"'Hello, mister,' he said when he walked up to the farmer. 'I can't help but notice you look as if something's wrong.'

"'Yeah,' replied the farmer, 'though wrong may be an understatement.'"

"Daddy, you said this was going to be scary. It's not scary so far," I said.

"Don't worry, son. It gets scary, really scary. Just hold on. See, to the farmer's surprise, he opened up to the stranger, holding nothing back, and it was only minutes later when the mysterious biker said, 'Well, mister, do I have a deal for you!'"

Unfortunately, I never heard the scary part of the story because that's when the lights came back on and Daddy made me go to bed since I had school the next day. He never told that story again.

***

Early September, present day...

I was pushing sixty-five on the two-lane road on the way back home from the farm equipment supply in Bledsoe when the familiar ring sounded on my cell phone.

Tapping my headset, I said, "Hi, Mom, what's up?"

"Ken, do you have time to stop at Max's and pick up a few things on your way home? I'm in the middle of fixing supper or I'd run up there myself."

I suppressed the heavy sigh I felt like giving, knowing that having her around to help rather than letting her head down to Eastern Kentucky to live with Aunt Deb as she frequently threatened was well worth her fairly regular requests. Still, as usual, she seemed to time her request at the worst possible moment. "Ah, what'cha need, Mom?"

"Do I have time to send you a text?"

"Yeah, Mom, as long as it's not too long. I'm about twenty minutes out."

"Thank you. I'll send the list in a few minutes."

My mother had never had a cell phone until I purchased one for her after Dad died, so she still insisted on using complete sentences and proper spelling and punctuation in her messages, no matter how much I tried to explain that it wasn't required. Having grown up dirt poor in the foothills of Appalachia, she saw her intelligence and drive to get ahead as her finest points and willingness to do anything less was a non-starter. Unfortunately, she'd learned to text after age fifty, so her texting was slower than Christmas. Aunt Deb and I both teased her about it.

The phone finally dinged just as I hit our little town of Deerfield. I slowed moments later to turn across the road into the parking lot of Max's Marketplace. It was associated with one of the regional grocery chains but the chain name took second billing on the sign because Max Laudermilk, Senior, wanted his name and his alliterative store name to be what people noticed most.

I'd spent kindergarten and all twelve years that followed going to Deerfield's elementary, middle, and high schools with Max, Junior, who flaunted his family's relative wealth at every turn. We'd competed at those same turns, for everything from class president to starting positions on the football team, and from grades to girls.

It wasn't intentional but I'd run into his little sister sometime after coming home following college and we'd, quite unexpectedly, hit it off. She was three years behind us and I'd never paid her much attention as a result, but she'd blossomed during my years away and we quickly fell in love. I think we'd have married before too long if it hadn't been for her brother and our mutual animosity so we kept our relationship secret for nearly a year.

After things started getting serious between us and Max found out about our clandestine affair, he gritted his teeth through every second that Maxine and I were together. Maxine, or Maxie as I called her then, was a very sweet, very pretty girl, and we got along quite well when we were by ourselves, but she was still a Laudermilk and there were many strings tying her to them. After our relationship was exposed, I started attending the family gatherings without complaint and even put up with Max Junior.

For over thirty months we were together, but there was always something missing in our relationship, so it never reached the point of me asking her to marry me. As much as I'd like to blame Max Junior, it was actually Maxie's dependence on the Laudermilk financial teat and her unwillingness to leave that behind that finally became too much for me. I loved her but I reluctantly broke off our relationship when I realized she was never going to change. It hurt at the time and I still wondered, at times, if I'd done the right thing.

Needless to say, I knew far more about the Laudermilk family than I wished and would have preferred to avoid them, but Max's Marketplace was the only option in Deerfield when it came to buying real groceries, so I made the turn into the parking lot and strolled inside, wondering whether I could avoid Maxine and how much I'd contribute to the Laudermilk family's coffers on this trip.

It had been three years since I'd broken up with Maxine, but she still gave me those bedroom eyes as I pushed my cart into the store and passed her at the customer service desk.

"Hi, Kenny," she called. Word around town was that she hadn't been on a single date since we broke up, though she'd turned down any number of offers. After all, she'd been Homecoming Queen and her being a Laudermilk had nothing to do with that. Standing 5'-3 with beautiful blonde hair, blue eyes, and a killer rack, she was a knockout. "Got a minute?"

"Uh, hi, Maxine," I called as I continued walking. "I'm in a hurry today. Talk to you soon, okay?"

Well, it was the truth, I was in a hurry, though if I could figure out a way to avoid her the next time, I probably would. Holding out hope, or whatever it was, for three years made me suspect that she had a problem better dealt with by a therapist rather than by me. Of course, after a brief period of wanton lust and decidedly promiscuous behavior as I put her behind me, I hadn't been on very many dates since then either, so maybe she was just as busy as I was.

Checking my messages, it looked like Mom's list of "a few things" had grown to nearly twenty so I spent the next few minutes speeding through the aisles, trying to find everything so I could get home quickly and still get the silage chopper fixed before bedtime. I needed to make an early start in the morning to make up for the lost time today.

The last thing on Mom's list was coffee creamer, so I made my way to the dairy case to get it. Growing up so poor, she'd always had her coffee black, when they had coffee at all, but when she received an academic and merit-based scholarship to attend college, she'd been exposed to so many new things. One of my late father's favorite stories was how they met in line in the cafeteria and he offered to buy her a cup of coffee when he noticed her looking at the cup on his tray.

"Here, take mine," he said, "and I'll get another."

"It doesn't look right," my future mom replied. "It's brown, not black."

"Try it," he urged, "and I'll get another."

She'd never had coffee with real cream so she looked like she was in heaven when my dad returned. That was how they described their relationship over the years that followed, though I knew it hadn't always been as easy as they said.

I opened the door to the dairy case and got a bottle of Mom's favorite creamer, the last one on the shelf. The other two regular brands of creamer were also out, but the rest of the creamer shelf looked like a pumpkin spice invasion. I gave a little humph, wondering what people saw in that stuff outside of pies, where it actually should be.

I was about to close the door when a woman closed the door just down from me and came my way, giving me a little nod when I held the door open for her.

She smiled and said, "Thank you. Everyone here is so nice," appreciative of my attempt at small town chivalry. However, her look into my eyes changed before she looked into the cooler. She bit her lower lip as she searched my face and her memory bank before saying, "Excuse me but you look so familiar. Do I know you?"

I didn't know if she knew me but I knew I'd never met her, at least in recent times, for I'd have definitely remembered her. She was about 5'-7 inches tall with black hair cut to frame her face in front but hang about eight or so inches below her shoulders in back. She wore small, black-rimmed glasses that drew attention to her pretty green eyes and a smile with pretty white teeth that would have made an orthodontist beam in appreciation.

"Ah, no, ma'am. Not that I know of anyway. I'm—"

She held up her hand, stopping me. "Wait! Don't tell me. It's on the tip of my tongue. You're...you're Kenny Seiver."

My smile turned to surprise, but she shook her head as she laughed and said, "I'm Connie Milburn, the new English teacher at the high school. Since I'm the new kid on the block, one of my other duties is running the yearbook staff. You're the guy in the picture that covers the wall in the yearbook office. I see that picture in the office and look at it every day."

I laughed. "Call me Ken, please. That thing's still up there? That picture was taken eleven years ago this fall. The sports editor of our yearbook took the photo and got the sponsor to allow him to blow it up and put it up as wallpaper in the yearbook office. I knew the school budget was tight but not repainting for that long?"

She laughed. "Well, it's a great picture, I understand we won that game so it will probably still be up there for years to come if the results from the first game last Friday are any indication. Besides, the school budget is so tight it will probably still be up there for another ten or eleven years even if we win every game somehow."

"Don't worry, Miss Milburn. Our Bucks usually start slow but the guys will get better as the season goes along and we'll probably win some later in the season. Maybe. Hopefully."

"Hopefully," she echoed with a smile. "It's very nice to meet you. And call me Connie, please." We shook hands very briefly before she looked into the dairy case and shook her head. "They start putting this pumpkin spice creamer out earlier every fall, but they don't order as much of the usual kinds so, of course, they're out now."

"And your kind's out?"

"Unfortunately. My college roommate, Nita, loved the stuff but I hate pumpkin spice. I may be strange but I don't really care much for pumpkin pie either."

"Uh, you like this type?" I asked, holding it up. "I just remembered that we have another bottle at home so I was about to put it back in there."

"Really? Oh, thank you, thank you! You're a lifesaver. Well, at least you saved my coffee, anyway."

We laughed together and said farewell, with me glad we had a seemingly nice and definitely beautiful new woman in town. I suspected that the boys at Deerfield High would be feeling the same way.

Minutes later, I was happy to have made it through the checkout line and out of the store without running into Maxine again but a touch sad that I hadn't run into Connie Milburn again either.

***

Mom wasn't too happy with me about Max's being out of her coffee creamer, but she seemed happy when I gave her the bottle of the pumpkin spice substitute. "Oh, I've been thinking of trying that! You know how much I've always loved pumpkin pie."

The dinner she made was good, as always, and the chopper was fixed by nine so I was able to get to bed at a reasonable time after calling Freddie to confirm that we'd be working starting at 7 in the morning.

"My wife doesn't like me missing church on Sunday," complained Freddie. He was a good but rather simple fellow and I often suspected that his wife probably wore the pants in their family. Of course, with seven kids in the six years they'd been married, she must not have worn them that much of the time.

"I know, Freddie, I'm sorry. My mom doesn't like me missing it either, but my ox is in the ditch and it's got to be done," I said.

It was a mistake saying that, for it took several minutes to convince Freddie that it was a Biblical expression and that I really didn't have an actual, living, breathing ox that needed rescuing. He eventually got so confused that he agreed to meet me at the barn at 7 a.m. the next morning and I told him goodnight before he could throw any more Biblical oxen or proverbial monkey wrenches into my plans.

***

Silage, chopped up corn with the stalk and all, is at its best for harvesting for a relatively short period so I keep careful track of when each field is planted and when the corn in each field tassels. A few days of drying past the optimum can reduce its nutritional content significantly, so I ran the chopper all day on Sunday, with Freddie constantly hauling wagons to one of the silos. There, he emptied the wagon into the blower bin which blew it up into the silo where it would ferment over time and serve as food for my cattle during the winter.

Mom drove the truck down to the field to see me sometime after church, bringing lunch for Freddie and me, and giving me my marching orders. "Ken, we're going to have dinner at six tonight. Knock off in time so you can get home and get cleaned up. You need to have a good meal and relax for a little while before you have to start another busy week like this past one."

"Mom, there's a chance of rain tomorrow. Let's make it sev—"

"Six o'clock, son." She kissed my cheek and was gone.

Freddie's wife had made him promise to stop at 4 so he'd be home in time to spend time with their kids and, I suspected, practice making another one with her. Therefore, the last hour and a half was spent with me filling the last wagon and then hauling and emptying wagons by myself.