The Pumpkin Thief (8 ) : Every now and then, a few pumpkins will disappear from a local pumpkin patch. It’s probably just some teenagers playing pranks, or some wild animals, or–oh, this is Destiny City. Of course there are rumors that it might actually be some furry, moss covered behemoth from the forest. And, there’s credence to that rumor, because maybe you’ve seen it, too. It’s a strange creature that keeps its distance. It almost looks like it might be a skinny, malformed bear but there’s something just off about it. Sometimes, it just steals pumpkins and you find their carcasses strewn about not far off. Sometimes, it throws the pumpkins–at people, at places. Sometimes, it carves out a hideous face and wears the pumpkin like a mask. It cannot be caught, and it will always run off into the wood if engaged. Sometimes, you can hear a strange, ghoulish bellow as it disappears into the forest.
Deme had been listening around the halls of his college and with it being Halloween time everything was off. People were wearing unique things to classes and as of late, the stories well they just had gotten weirder. Some of them he knew were complete fiction but others well the details matched up to much from all the stories. This story involved pumpkins and an unidentified person. He had heard the story many times even just today and it all went about the same way. Apparently, there was someone or something going around to pumpkin patches stealing pumpkins. All of the accounts were different in a normal way though as far as the place they happened at. Like one said their pumpkins got stolen from the porch just when the sun was setting, another one at a store said theirs were eaten by watched looked like an animal walking on two legs in broad daylight, and the last crazy one was they saw something dressed in pants at a carnival stealing pumpkins. All of this was really weird but what seemed even weirder was no one had a real account of the crazy person or thing's face. This was something he couldn't stop thinking about all through his law class. It was as if something was tugging at his brain. Something was telling him it was time to power up and stop whatever this thing was disturbing everyone's Halloween fun.
As soon as class let out he quickly raced home bolting out of that class door as quickly as he could and heading home. The path wasn't too bad, it just ran through the college courtyard, passed the library, and then straight down this path of trees. After all of that, he was finally home and as he reached the door he turned around to noise on the steps behind him. As he turned around he noticed there was something stealing the pumpkins on their porch! upon closer inspection, it looked to be some sort of skinny malformed ... bear?! What on earth was a bear doing this far away from any real wooden area, it didn't make sense at all. Nothing was adding up in his head. So he quickly unlocked his door, put his stuff away, quietly transformed when he knew no one was home, and ran back out his front door. Of course, locking it behind himself, cause who knew what could happen while he was gone?
As he looked around from his stone steps everything almost looked normal but then he noticed some tiny pieces of pumpkin droppings almost hard to catch. They were tiny but not too tiny since there were pieces here and there. These pieces looked like something or someone was almost trying to eat the pumpkins as they ran away very quickly. So he decided it was time to follow and look for each little piece of pumpkin he could see. Since maybe that could lead Osiris to this weird creature and help save everyone's Halloween. Or at least the pumpkins of Halloween that is.
As he ran he noticed he was starting to get close to a wooded area, one of the woods nearby a park he had visited once or twice when he was forced to work on group projects. Not the fondest memories, since he didn't understand the purpose of group projects when he could just do all the work himself half the time. The point was that he knew this area and that was one advantage he was happy to have. Since just being a Senshi wasn't the only advantage you needed sometimes, sometimes you needed facts about your whole surrounding. Like what was the terrain, the objects you could use here, and most of all how many people normally populated this area.
Thankfully for him at this time of day, there weren't many civilians since most were still working or doing other things. So it was actually the perfect time of day to be chasing this monster. He quickly began to sneak up into the park and looked around for more crumbs or something that could lead him to the monster. That was when he heard what sounded like pumpkins being smashed to pieces on maybe the grass. He quickly ran over to a heavily wooded area, where the sound was coming from, and that was when he saw it again. The creature was right in front of his eyes devouring pumpkins as quickly as he possibly could with his bear-like head. If he hadn't seen it himself he really wouldn't have believed it but that wasn't important right now. Right now he was a Senshi and he needed to protect the Halloween pumpkins. With that in mind, he started to think, think of some sort of plan.
He tried to think for a moment and noticed there were some bushes that could lend him some cover as he snuck up on the beast. as soon as it popped into his head he raised off from one bush to the next making sure he couldn't be heard or seen. Once he got to the last bush he decided it was now or never. "Hey, you! Those don't belong to you!" he said as he quickly went and kicked the creature as hard as he could hoping to just kinda faze him for a moment.
Instead, it had the opposite effect and the beast just cried for a moment and looked at him like a lost puppy. For some reason, He suddenly felt bad and quickly responded, "Hey I'm really sorry buddy I thought you were dangerous but you can't steal wants not yours. That's not right if you need something just ask and I could get it for you," he reached out to pat his head as an apology. He really hoped he didn't bite but as soon as he patted his head. The creature looked like he smiled and nodded before rushing off into the woods.
Osiris wasn't sure if he had actually done good, but he felt like it was finally over. That was after he cleaned up all the mess he left behind after all. So he quickly got to cleaning up the mess the creature left, but while he was doing so he left the inside of the pumpkins right next to a tree in the woods just in case his new friend needed some snacks.
(word count 1,066)
