"Kay," he grabbed his radio and spoke, "Carl, Doc says we're goin' 
in. Get around to the back, okay?" 


«There's something freaky out here, Al, it's—» 


Carracos held up his hand to instruct the doctors to stop. "I did not 
copy that." 


«It's dartin' through the patch like a goddamn gremlin. Don't know 
what the hell it— oh shit, run!» 


Sinclair had never heard the same gun fire from two sources at 
once, and she doubted Partridge had either. They heard Ashe's 
assault rifle discharge in the direction of the pumpkin patch, as well 
as from the radio. 


«GET OUT! FUCKING GET OUT! WE HAVE CODE S—» There 
was a loud, crackling crunch sound from the radio. 


Sinclair looked up in time to see Ashe's life line go out. "Oh my god." 


Hastings came running around the house, screaming, covered in 
blood. None of it seemed to be his own. "HOLY FUCKING SHIT! 
WE NEED TO GET OUT!" 


The four remaining skippers ran towards the transport, the three 
researchers piling into the back and sealing the door behind them. 


Carracos fumbled for his keys, only to drop them in the dirt. "Shit!" 


Hastings reached into his pocket and handed him a set through the 
window in the back of the cab. "Take mine!" Chris was immensely 
thankful that even in the bureaucratic machine that was the 
Foundation, they had contingencies. On a field mission, every 
member of personnel on that mission was given the key to the 
transport, as too many missions had been wiped out due to the 
person with the keys dying. 


The van roared to life. In the mirror, Carracos could see the farming 
patches being torn apart, dirt being kicked up by something he 
couldn't see. The agent swerved the van around, only to come face- 
to-face with the thing that had torn through the crops; a human form, 
on its hands and feet, pale, lanky, its arms and fingers too long to be 
human, its tongue looking like it belonged on Gene Simmons as 
viewed through a hellish LSD trip. 


Carracos floored it. He should have made that thing into skid marks 
and burned rubber all the way back to the site. Instead, he watched 
it shoulder-barge into a grill, followed by the engine block imploding. 


Carracos's head banged against the steering wheel, and the world 
went black. 


"Sinclair?" 
"Yeah?" 


"Who invented the seatbelt?" Hastings gasped, trying to undo his. "I 
want to marry them." 


"Someone at Volvo invented the three-point," She grunted, clicking 
the latch and standing. "Citizens United says corporations count as 
people, so you might be able to marry the corporation." 


"Fuck," Partridge whimpered. He couldn't unlatch his. "I think | 
cracked a rib." 


"Carracos, call for some backup!" Hastings banged, looking through 
the divider. "Carraco— oh shit. He's out cold." 


"Dammit," Sinclair started for Partridge. "Get out and try to rouse 
him. Failing that, get his radio." 


"O-okay," he swallowed, drawing his knife. It was meant for cutting 
samples of plant life, but in a pinch, he supposed it could rupture a 
jugular. 


Then again, he doubted it would help against the thing crawling up 
to the driver's side window. The pale creature opened its mouth, 
revealing long, needle-like fangs. It climbed into the cab, onto 
Carracos— before it hissed and dropped out onto the ground. It held 
its smouldering hand before retreating back towards the property. 


Hastings made his way over to Carracos, and checked his pulse. He 
groaned with relief. He was alive, at least, but the cut on his head 
was deep. He saw that his sleeve had been burned, and turned it 
up, revealing a highly stylized tattoo of a Crucifix beneath. "Son of a 
bitch. Sinclair!" 


"I'm here," she panted, exiting the transport with Dr. Partridge. "He's 
fine, it's just bruised. What is it?" 


"Some weird pale thing just tried to get Carracos. | think it got... 
burned by his cross tattoo." 


"That's why | couldn't see it by detecting life," Sinclair groaned. 
"Homo sapiens hemophagis. Vampire. Son of a bitch." 


"Wait—" Hastings stared. "Do you think that's Hubble?" 


"If that's Hubble, | don't want to think about what happened to his 
dog.” Sinclair forced some bile down. "All in favor that we kill it with 
fire?" 


Partridge groaned an ‘aye’, and asked, "Hastings, you manage to 
collect the sample?" 


"Yeah." He held up a baggie of clippings of pumpkin vine, only to 
discover that the bag contained a bloody pulp. "Wait, what the 
fuck?" 


"Where did you get that from?" Partridge frowned. 


"l-I just cut into a pumpkin vine near the house. I... shit, | don't have 
proper bio-hazard containment on me." 


"Put it on the ground and back away." Sinclair looked at the van. 
"Goddammit. It's totaled, and we're alone with a vampire. We need 
an exit strategy." 


They all turned to look at the truck that was in the driveway, and saw 
the vampire leaping out of it and into the open doorway of the 
house. 


"What do you want to bet it took the key?" Hastings looked between 
the two of them. 


"| c'n hotwire it," Carracos groaned awake. "Basic urban combat 
training." 


"We've got a vampire,” Sinclair explained. 


"Natural or mutant?" Carracos reached under his seat and took out 
a first-aid kit, beginning to bandage his head in the mirror. 


"Mutant, definitely. Natural ones aren't affected by Holy Anathema 
like crosses." 


"...something infected him, then," He groaned, coming out of the 
transport. "Take back the hotwirin' thing. Can't bounce back from 
gettin’ knocked out. | ain't Arnie." 


"You'll be bahk," Hastings joked, trying to comfort him. He looked at 
Sinclair, "Will he be okay by himself? Just in the transport?" 


"He's probably the safest of us all. Short of that arm getting ripped 
off—" The two other researchers coughed. "Sorry. He's got a Holy 
Anathema on his skin. And even if it did get ripped off, it might get 
even stronger." 


"So, just don't lose m'arm?" Carracos laughed. "| can do that—" he 
opened the door and nearly fell out of the cab. "Shit!" 


Hastings caught him and nearly fell himself. "Come on," he hefted 
the agent to the back of the transport. "Can you two get the truck 
started? | know a bit of first aid. | can probably keep him stable." 


"What the hell," Partridge said, taking Carracos's assault rifle. "1 
have firearm training.” 


"Since when?" Sinclair asked, making her way down to the house. 


Partridge followed, and began, "Well, when | was in Guatemala back 
in the 1990s..." 


"And that's how we almost drove triffids extinct," Partridge finished 
as they entered the farmhouse. The keys were, indeed, missing 
from the truck. "My time in South America was... eventful." 


"Why the hell do you never tell us about this shit?" Sinclair 
wondered, looking at the carpet. There was a very large blood stain 
soaked into the rug, most likely what was left of the family dog. 
"Bailey's been looking for inspirations for his next D&D campaign at 
game night. | think you could write a whole sourcebook." 


"Keep in mind the last time | interacted with anyone outside of 
botany for an extended period," He sniffed, "| became a pear tree." 


"Can't argue with that," Katherine agreed. She looked into the living 
room, and upon seeing a lack of dead dog, entered. The farm life 
had been modernized, and a flat-screen TV hung above a fireplace, 
to each side of which were pictures of tractors and produce. 


"Wow," Partridge whistled. "That's unnatural." 


"Hmm?" Katherine looked over to where Partridge was; he was 
standing before an old color photograph of a giant pumpkin, big 
enough to crush the truck it was on. Even in stills, she could imagine 
the bright red Chevy collapsing under its weight. "Holy shit. That's 
Gourdon, | take it?" 


"Yup," Partridge indicated the placard beneath. "Largest Pumpkin in 
Wisconsin, 1969." 


"Y'know, I've never really gotten the appeal of farm life," Katherine 
circled around a chair, "But this is kinda cozy. Pity that there's a 
vampire living here and we'll probably gonna have to burn this place 
down." 


"| wanted to be a farmer," Partridge nodded, walking along the wall 
"Got a degree in agronomy, decided to go to grad school for botany, 
eventually ended up getting a doctorate— hello," he frowned, 
inspecting a black and white photograph. It depicted Jeffery Hubble 
and alongside another person, who Partridge couldn't quite place. 
He opened the frame and looked on the back. "Jeff, we're gonna do 
great things. Clive C." 


"Clive C?" Sinclair went over to him. "Let me see that." She looked 
at the front, and scowled. "Clive Carter." 


"You know him?" 


"By reputation. He's a former mayor of Sloth's Pit. His family nearly 
ran the town into the ground financially. Three mayoral terms under 
him, one under his kid. Hell, probably half the reason the town has 

an economy is because of us coming in in '76." 


"What happened to Carter himself?" 


"Vanished some time in... the late 60's." Sinclair frowned. "Huh. 
Either that's a hell of a coincidence, or a lead." 


They started out of the living room, before Partridge spotted another 
picture on the wall. He tilted his head, and beckoned her over. "Isn't 
that Director Weiss?" 


Sinclair came back over, and raised an eyebrow. The photograph 
depicted Hubble, now a fair bit older, with the red-haired Director 
Weiss, a fair bit younger, holding a pumpkin and laughing. "It is, 
yeah. Not surprised, a lot of S & C Plastics went here for the pies. 
West volunteered at the corn maze a couple of times." She looked 
at the date on the photograph, printed in orange on the lower right- 
hand corner. "1981. She seems chummy with him." 


"Weiss doesn't strike me as the type to get to know townies," 
Partridge scratched his head, before he headed out of the living 
room. "So, vampires... they have the standard suite of 
weaknesses?" 


Sinclair followed. "There are a few different kinds, but generally this 
kind — retroviral mutant, in case you're wondering — have the 
standard Stoker set. Garlic, stake through the heart, rice around the 
grave." 


"Rice around what?" Partridge asked. 


"It's mainly a Chinese vampire thing, but they work elsewhere. 
Basically, if a vampire sees a large collection of small objects, they'll 
be compelled to count them. Coins, rice, marbles... there was once 
a vampire at a nerd convention that got distracted by counting Magic 
cards." 


Partridge stopped. "Are you saying that the Count from Sesame 
Street—" 


"Is probably one of the more accurate vampires in children's media. 
I'm as surprised as you are." She looked down the hall, and saw the 
kitchen ahead, pots and pans hanging over the stove. "You think 


they have rice in there?" 
"Can't hurt to look." Partridge took point, aiming his rifle forward. 


On the kitchen counter, were a series of pumpkins that were in the 
process of being scraped and canned. They had started to rot since 
the evacuation, and sitting on the counter by them was an equally- 
rotting pie. The pie had an odd, red color to it, and a slice was cut 
from it. Uneaten crust laid on a plate by it on the counter. 


"Who eats pumpkin pie but doesn't like the crust?" Partridge asked. 
"That's the best part." 


Sinclair inspected the pumpkins, finding a series of twin puncture 
marks on them. "Teeth marks. It tried sucking pumpkin meat before 
blood. Probably didn't want to give into the hunger." 


Partridge looked into the pantry. "Got some rice in here!" He called, 
bringing out a bag of white rice. "So, | just throw this, and... 


"It goes all Sesame Street on us, yeah." Sinclair looked at the pie. 
"The hell is with that color?" 


"You do know that Galvin is going to kill us if we don't bring this in 
alive?" Partridge sifted his hand through the bag of rice. "She's 
wanted to study a vampire for years." 


"I'd rather Galvin kill us than a vampire, and we can deliver the 
corpse to Bering." She saw something move out of the corner of her 
eye. She turned, and found her self face-to-face with a large, red, 
pulsating pumpkin. "Holy shit. Keith?" 


"What?" He asked, before he spotted the pumpkin. "Oh wow." 


She took out a knife and made her way over to the the pumpkin, 
preparing to make an incision. "Are there any varieties of pumpkin 
that grow red?" 


"Yes, there's the Rouge D'Etant, but..." he stepped closer. "That 
looks more like the fruit of some carnivorous plants I've seen." He 
stepped up next to Sinclair, peering in at its skin. "My god. It looks 
borderline Sarkic." 


Sinclair produced a sample vial from her bag, and placed the lip 
over the skin of the pumpkin, before stabbing it into the gourd. A 
torrent of red liquid filled the vial. Sinclair pulled away, capping the 
sample and holding it before the perpetual twilight out the window. 
"I'm no M.D., but that looks like blood to me." 


"Blood from a plant?" He turned to look over the kitchen, spotting 
another fruit in the sink. "It's not unheard of, but again, it's usually 
only from carnivorous specimens, not pumpkins." He looked over 
the sink. "Same variety, here. Looks like it's been cleaned out." 


Sinclair turned towards him. "I think we know how Hubble became a 
vampire." 


"A pumpkin gave him vampyrism?" He frowned. "Nobody eats 
pumpkins whole—" His attention turned to the pie on the counter, 
sans slice, and the crust next to it. Sinclair's gaze followed him, and 
Hubble pulled out a sample baggie, sweeping the pie crust into it. 
"Glad he didn't eat the crust now, heh." 


"...Pike did say that the Hubbles made really good pies," Sinclair 
swallowed. 


"Looks like he snuck a slice when he came home for the dog." 
Partridge groaned. "Oh god dammit." 


"What?" Sinclair asked. 
"A vampire from a pie. A vamp-pie-er." 


Sinclair's eyebrows met her hairline, and she groaned. "God, yeah, | 
see why you got an agronomy degree. That was a fucking corny pun 
—" Sinclair stopped talking suddenly, her eyes wide. "What did 
Linus used to wait for?'." 


"Pardon?" Partridge asked. 


"Something the Goatman said the other day. | just got it: it's the 
Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown." She tapped her lips. "Big pumpkin 
motif coming up lately." 


Partridge nodded, looking at the fruit that Sinclair had punctured. It 


seemed to be deflating. "I... would stay back from that." 


Katherine stepped back, and turned, looking over Partridge's 
shoulder. "Out the window, behind you." 


Partridge whipped himself around. Out the window, a good hundred 
meters away in the pumpkin patch, the vampire stared into the 
house. Partridge aimed his rifle, finger on the trigger, and it seemed 
to take an impossibly long step towards the window and leaped 
through. Partridge emptied half a clip into it, as it scrambled through. 
The bullets barely fazed the vampire. 


Sinclair and Partridge both ducked, and watched, in horror, as the 
vampire began to suck the blood from the pumpkin. The fruit 
shriveled and rotted. Sinclair shivered. "That is fascinating, but also 
disgusting." 


"Yeah, Galvin's really going to let us have it now; observing feeding 
behavior and not documenting it. Anthropology won't be sending us 
Christmas cards, that's for sure." He spotted a glint of silver in its 
hand. "It has the keys." 


"Of course it does," Sinclair sighed, going to the opposite side of the 
counter, crouching to avoid splashback. 


Partridge followed her, Steadying the assault rifle on the countertop, 
Partridge unloaded the other half of the clip into the thing. It did a 
grim, twitching dance as it was filled with lead, before falling to the 
floor. "Is it dead?" 


"No." Sinclair took up a kitchen knife, and made her way around the 
counter, intent on plunging the dagger in its back and going straight 
through the heart. She brought the knife down—