"While it is true that Samhain is no more evil than any other holiday, it is also a fact that evil does exist, and pagans have always been aware of this. Our ancestors sought to protect themselves on this night by carving faces in vegetables to place near windows or at the perimeters of their circle. These were the forerunners of our present day jack-o-lanterns. These carved pumpkin faces are probably relics of the even earlier custom of placing candles in windows to guide the earth-walking spirits along their way. Today it is still a custom in Ireland to place candles in the windows on Samhain night and to leave plates of food for the visiting spirits."

~Witchway.net

Author: Liebe

Samantha, ever in her rush to be somewhere, was trying to hurry in her choice of pumpkins. Her guest would arrive in less than 2 hours, and she still had to wash and change before her blind date. Why she ever allowed herself to go out with someone from the Internet, she was still puzzled over. But talking with him on the phone had calmed her, and now she was looking forward to the adventure ahead.

Turning and inspecting the pumpkins, however, was frustrating her; none of them seemed appropriate. Each one seemed too flawed. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, she just knew it had to feel perfect.

“Why don’t you take this one?” a smooth voice said from behind. Shocked, Samantha almost dropped the pumpkin she was just about to discard. Turning to dismiss this intrusion, she found herself facing just the pumpkin she had been looking for.

“Oh, that is perfect! Thanks so much” she giggled as she responded. Looking up she was taken by how dark the stranger’s eyes were, inviting, sensual and intense all at the same time. This stranger was quite enticing. “How did you know what I was looking for?”

“Call it a hunch; I guess I’m good with things like that. Besides it was hurting my back watching you pillage through that bin.”

Laughing Samantha found herself quite taken with this man, and wishing that he was the one she was going through the night’s chaos for.

“Besides, it’s All Hallow’s Eve,” he continued, “and I would hate for someone such as yourself to be without protection.”

“Protection? What ever do you mean? Oh, wait you’re not one of those people who believe in that witchcraft stuff are you?” Samantha joked as she moved a lock of her honey colored hair behind her ear.

Raising an eyebrow the stranger responded, “You don’t believe that tonight is a gateway between this world and the spirit realm? It has been a tradition for hundreds of years, some would argue thousands.”

Uncomfortable under his scrutiny Samantha blushed, “No, I just never thought about it much. So I guess it just is something that I don’t know.”

“Well, you do know to carve a scary face into the pumpkin don’t you?” he asked.

“Yes” she answered.

“Good, that is supposed to scare off any evil spirits that would harm you on this night. So what do you say, after your date tonight, you make sure to carve this pumpkin. I would hate to see someone as pretty as you fall prey to evil on this night” he responded in what seemed a rather insistent tone.

Laughing once again, but this time out of her discomfort, she replied, “Ok, I will.”

Not really knowing how to respond any further, she looked at the stranger, and then excused herself, “Well, I had better get through the check line, thanks again for the pumpkin!”

Still looking very serious, the stranger said, “Not a problem Samantha; remember what I said, after dinner.” Turning, he went out the door of the store and down the street.

Looking at her watch Sam realized that she had just wasted 20 minutes talking to this stranger.

“Damn, now I’ll never be ready on time,” she thought to herself as she rushed to the bakery to pick up dessert. It wasn’t till much later that she briefly thought of the comment the stranger made.

“Right after your date.”

“Hmm, I wonder how he knew about my date,” this thought process was quickly dropped when the cashier asked her for a third time for her method of payment. “Cash, sorry,” Sam laughed as she handed the cashier her money.

The rest of the preparations for her date went well, she lit the candles in the window of her entry way and those on the dinning room table. Loving the effects of the warm glow, Samantha decided to place several candles in the window of her dinning room as well. Then, finally, she dressed.

She had chosen to wear her red corset over her black chiffon and silk chemise. Once she approved of the draping of her dress, Samantha started on her makeup. She had met her date, Nate, in a gothic chat room. They had hit it off discussing how both of them disdained the path that modern society was taking, and their wishes for the ways of old to be redone, so she found this outfit to perfect for the overall ambiance she wanted to create.

Samantha, herself, loved the romantic ideals of courtship and how women used to look like women, beautiful and frail within old-fashioned gowns. As she finished applying her makeup, she thought that she resembled a modern version of a medieval woman at the height of her beauty. She hoped that Nate would be pleased.

Smiling as she did one more glance over herself, she was startled by the doorbell. Quickly doing one last look and adjustment, Sam went to greet Nate at the door. In the brief walk to the entry, she pondered many different ideas of what he would look like. She was very nervous, as she was, in all truth, rather shallow about only dating good-looking men. Sam even wished deep down that Nate would be the mysterious man from the grocery store.

When she opened the door, Sam forced herself into a huge grin. Nate was not attractive at all. In fact he was short, over-weight and had horrible acne. Holding in an internal sigh Sam extended her hand in greeting, “Hello, Nate” she asked deeply praying that this stranger was at the wrong door.

“Samantha, WOW your pictures, well they don’t lie, but I just… WOW! You look wonderful”.

“Thank you so much, Nate, will you come in?” Sam maintained her outward friendliness, although inside she wanted nothing more than to slam the door in Nate’s face.

“Oh, you have a very nice home,” he exclaimed as she led him to the dinning room. She now wished that she had not taken so much time in preparing the ambience of the room, as this was totally the wrong impression to give poor Nate. Sam wasn’t cruel, but she knew that she would never date this poor boy. He just didn’t have what she was looking for. “Look, you even have a pumpkin we can carve after dinner. Oh Sam, this will be just awesome. I can’t wait to see what else you have planned. Everything is just like we talked about. Thank you so much!”

Sam sighed at this, as she really didn’t want to burst this poor boy’s bubble. She replied instead, “Oh it was nothing; besides it’s more fun to have a friend over instead of being on the Internet on a night such as tonight.” She was praying that he would pick up on her emphasis of the word friend.

Sadly he continued on, “Wow, maybe we can go at midnight to the park, and take that stroll we discussed last week.” He looked at her, ever hopeful.

“Maybe, but let’s have dinner first.”

She quickly went to the kitchen, silently cursing herself. “WHY did I not demand a photo? Ok, lesson learned, never again. How am I going to get out of this?” Sam quickly devised a way as she finished the last of the meal preparations.

When she returned to the dinning room she found Nate at her cd collection, “You have XTC, nice I love them. Mind if I put them on?” he asked.

“No, go right ahead,” she groaned again internally at the totally wrong music for the mood she had spent so long preparing.

The dinner went along in a rather bland way. Nate was not very interesting once you were with him in person. Sam found herself daydreaming during the meal about the stranger from the store. At one point she, noticed that she was blushing, as she wondered what his kiss would feel like.

Coughing suddenly, Samantha excused herself from the table. She ran into the bathroom, where she proceeded to pretend to be sick. Emerging several long minutes later, Sam explained to Nate that she needed her rest, and that she would chat with him online tomorrow.

“Oh, ok,” Nate responded rather disappointed. “Are you sure there isn’t anything that I can do to help?”

“No, really,” Sam answered as she wiped her smudged mascara, “I think I just need to call it an early evening. I’ll see you online tomorrow though.” Sam smiled through her tears at him. A rather nice touch she thought, this allowed for a graceful way out.

Right after she saw Nate out, Sam extinguished all the candles in her entryway and in the windows. The candles on the table however, she moved into the living room where she planned to sit and watch some TV before bed.

Samantha had just done this when her phone rang. Groaning, she got up from her couch and picked up the phone, “Hello?”

“Hi, I’m calling for a Samantha,” came a melodic baritone.

“This is.”

“I hate to call you so late Samantha, but you left your credit card and driver’s license at our store this evening, and we wanted you to know before we closed. In the chance that you had plans for tonight.”

“Oh, my,” Sam was not pleased with this as she couldn’t remember using her card that day, “how long do I have before you close?”

“Only about 30 minutes, do you think you can make it here before then?”

“Yes, I will leave right now,” hanging up Samantha was troubled over this. She did not remember taking out these items at the store, and now was put out by the inconvenience of how horribly her evening had turned out.

As she drove, Sam found herself wondering about that handsome stranger, who he was what he did for a living. She imagined him to be some sort of successful businessman, leading a jet set life style. She spent a good amount of time thinking about how he looked in his black turtleneck and jeans. Very European, and with his dark eyes and hair, she assumed he was Mediterranean in descent.

Parking her sedan, and running into the store, Samantha stopped as she ran into someone. Mumbling an apology as she attempted to go around this person, Sam looked up into the eyes of the stranger.

“I hope I’m not in your way, Samantha.”

“No… I uh, just… I didn’t see you there,” pleased, as well as puzzled to this unsuspected occurrence, Sam suddenly felt as if she was standing in an electrical current. She felt like she had no bearings.

“How did your date go, or are you still on it?” he smirked.

“Oh, yes,” she was giddy again, “that. No, I’m not on it any more, never was really.”

“Ah, so it didn’t go well?”

“No, it didn’t. In all truth, it was horribly disappointing,” she sighed.

Now she knew what was bothering her, “How do you know my name?” she asked.

He laughed at her, a deep musical laugh, “Simple, I asked the store clerk before I brought you the pumpkin.”

“Oh, yes, I’ve been shopping here for years.”

“I know; I’ve watched you many times.”

“Really, how… I mean I never saw you, and I usually remember faces very well.”

“I can blend in when I don’t yet want to be seen. You can say it’s a hidden talent.”

Their laughter was interrupted as an overhead speaker announced, “Our store will be closing in 5 minutes, please bring all purchases to the counter at this time.”

“Oh!” Sam exclaimed, “Do you have a minute? I have to get what I came here for.” She looked imploringly at this stranger hoping he could wait.

His smirk turned into a grin, “I can wait for you Samantha.”

Samantha quickly went to the store office and within a few minutes returned with a smile on her face. “You know, I still don’t remember using my card, and then leaving it.” She said more to herself, and then as she approached the stranger, “I could have sworn I paid for my groceries with cash. So, anyways.”

“Yes anyway,” he smiled in return, “I hope you won’t find me too forward, but I was thinking that perhaps I might be able to cheer you up since your date did not go over well,” with this last statement he held up a bottle of wine.

She answered him with her own grin, “Yes, I would like that very much.”

As the last of the store patrons left and the cashiers preformed their nightly shutdown, Sam and the stranger arranged to meet at her place. He followed her in his car; looking back every so often Samantha would smile to herself as she saw the lights of his Jetta clearly in her rear view mirror. Anticipation seemed to be coursing through her, like someone was increasing her energy with electrical current. She swam through her thoughts of how she would approach this stranger; she wanted him so badly she imagined that she could taste him.

Once they arrived at her town home, Sam called out, “It’s this way, follow me and come on in,” she winked in what she hoped seemed a cute fashion.

“I’m right behind you,” she heard him respond.

Shivers ran up her spine as she felt the presence of him, indeed right behind her. Dismayed by the realization that she had blown out all but the living room candles, Sam quickly lead her enigma from the doorway to the living room.

“I’m sorry it’s so dark, I blew out the candles, here I’ll light them…” Samantha couldn’t finish her sentence as this intriguing stranger had cut her off with a kiss.

At first it was chaste, but then as he pulled her close, his kiss became more demanding. Dizzy in the pleasure, Sam didn’t even mind when he bit her lip. As quickly as she noticed the stabbing pain, it was replaced by the softness of his lips, warm and suckling. Sam was overcome with desire for this stranger. Slowly the kiss stopped, and Sam looked into his eyes. For the briefest moment she saw a sharp bird like quality to his eyes, then they softened into a smile, as he ran his fingers under her lip.

“It looks like I’ve smudged your lipstick.” When he finished wiping her lip, he gently licked his fingers, in a seductive manner like he was eating frosting.

Sam smiled, “Well I don’t think I’ll need it anymore, do you?”

“No, I suppose you won’t. Ah, the pumpkin… I see you didn’t carve it after your date. Perhaps we can carve it in a little bit?” He turned to look at her fiercely, almost sinister.

Sam’s mind felt like it was going to explode, she wanted this stranger to ravage her desperately. Never had she experienced such pounding desire. In the back of her mind she was questioning her sanity, but her physical nature was winning out.

“Of course,” she purred, “why not?”

“Well if you had followed my instructions Samantha, we wouldn’t have had this chance, especially on a night such as this.”

“What on earth can a carving a pumpkin do?”

“It lets us play with knives,” he jovially responded with a wink.

“Does it now?” Samantha smiled at the thought of what bedroom games she would play with him; she was very fond of the same things it seemed.

“Oh yes, I almost couldn’t come, but when you blew out your candles in the window, I took that as a sign that you might have forgotten my warning.” He slowly took her hands and pulled her closer to him, a soft smile crossing his lips.

“Hmmm,” Samantha was enthralled, “and whatever does that mean? You weren’t here when I blew them out.”

Chuckling ever so lightly he lead her to the couch he sat down pulling her with him.

He held her in his lap, “It means I can do this,” he murmured as he kissed her neck, “and this;” his kisses turned into sucking.

“And why ever would I want you to stop,” Sam implored.

“Because when I’m done, your soul will no longer be yours; instead, I will use it to enhance my existence.” His response was barely audible, as he did not stop his play.

“Sure you will,” Sam sputtered breathlessly, “please, just don’t stop.”

 Savagely he bit her. She sighed, first in shock and then, in deep contentment.

Three days later, Nate finally convinced the police to check on Samantha. When they walked into her house, they found no signs of forced entry, and her lifeless body on her bed, makeup seemingly untouched from her date with Nate. The coroner would later deem her death a mystery as she was in perfect health, except for mild anaemia.

Not one person, except someone the landlord hired to clean out the unit, noticed the pumpkin had been carved with a grotesque face of a woman screaming.