Log inPumpkin Heads - Handover
The clock on the CCTV wall said 18:04 when Mo put the radio back in its cradle and pulled on his coat.
"Stay awake, kid." He tapped the glass with his knuckle. Outside, the student union steps were lined with pumpkins, paper bats, and other random trinkets - Halloween decorations.
"Don't forget it's prank week," Mo said. "Those kids tend to go nuts around this time of year."
"Yeah, I know," Danny said. "I think I can handle a couple of frat bros and their stupid pranks."
"Good." Mo nodded, satisfied with Danny's answer. He gave him the same look he gave him every night at handover. A quick check, head to toe. Old army habit. Danny was twenty-six, with soft features that made him look weird for the job. Why a guy like him was working in security was beyond Mo's pay grade, but he never asked about it. Everyone needs a job after all.
"By the way kid," Mo said, "if you're going out for a smoke tonight-"
"Uh... I'm not."
"Well, if you are," Mo said slowly, "don't let the door close on you. The back exit's not working, gotta call repairs."
"I don't smoke, Mo."
"My advice still stands. And if something happens-"
"Nothing's going to happen."
"Call for help. Don't be a hero, kid."
"Thanks, Mo..."
The door shut. The office went quiet. Just the hum of the monitors, the heater ticking, the radio crackling on the campus police channel. Danny sat down. On camera four, the football team was walking back from evening practice, breath steaming in the cold. Danny leaned forward on his chair - he enjoyed the view, even if there was no chance in hell any of them would ever interact with someone like him. Still, a man can dream, right?
The first few hours were boring, as always. The campus was mostly empty, just some students walking around or sitting in front of their dorms, the occasional car passing by, etc. Nothing ever happened on this shift. He checked the time every few minutes trying to make time pass away.
...
At 22:41, he noticed something weird on one of the cameras.
A man... or something shaped like one. Shirtless in the cold, walking between the trees way too calmly for some drunk student in a costume. And he was HUGE. Danny leaned closer to the screen. The man had a pumpkin for a head - a carved one, with eyes, nose, and mouth cut out clean - with a faint orange glow behind the holes, like it was lit up from the inside somehow.
A frat stunt. It had to be. The body was ridiculous though. Where did a college kid get a body like that? Danny almost admired the effort, though he was a bit jealous as well.
He followed him from camera to camera. Across the service road. Past the bike racks. Up the student union steps, where he stopped next to the display pumpkins. Then he picked one up with both hands and started carving it without a knife.
Yes, no knife. His fingers just seemed to sink into the pumpkin and drew. One eye. Then another. And finally a mouth. A mouth so creepy it made Danny's spine shiver. He grabbed the radio.
"Campus police, this is security. I've got a guy on the union steps in a pumpkin mask. He's carving one of the display pumpkins with his bare hands. Over."
The answer came back with a laugh.
"It's prank week, Danny. The frats do a haunted walk every year. They're just doing their thing, don't bother calling unless someone's hurt."
"Wait-wait-there's something off about this, I don't think this is part of-"
"Copy that, keep your eyes open then. Police out."
Great. No one cared about what Danny had to say since it was just lowly him. On the monitor, the pumpkin guy placed the carved pumpkin on the ground and waited perfectly still. He didn't move. Just stood there, in the cold, steam and sweat coming out of his body like he was burning from the inside. Was this really some kind of prank?
At 00:17, some random frat bro came up the path on his own, probably walking home, listening to music on his phone, so he didn't hear anything. All of a sudden, the pumpkin guy stepped up behind him, holding the carved pumpkin in one hand. It was too late. A simple lift of the arm, and the pumpkin came down over the guy's head. Just like that. Like putting a hat on someone.
The young man stumbled. His hands went straight to his head, scratching and pulling at the pumpkin, which made him slip on the wet ground. Still, the pumpkin remained on his head. The pumpkin guy watched him for a moment, then turned around and walked off into the dark.
Danny had never seen something like this before. He stared at the camera for a moment while deciding what to do. He should have stayed in his office. The radio was right there, but he couldn't just sit around doing nothing while someone else was in danger. Besides, the police had already laughed at him once... So, gathering his courage, he got up from his chair, put on his coat, and went out into the dark night with his keys and a flashlight in his hand.
...
The campus smelled like wet leaves and damp grass. Danny found the fallen student on a bench nearby, sitting up really straight, his arms hanging down by his sides. It seemed like he wasn't trying to get that thing off his head any more. His shirt was soaked with sweat, which made no sense in this weather, and was stretched tight across his chest. His sleeves had ridden up over thick, veiny forearms. Did he always look this muscular on camera? Danny wasn't so sure, but he was here to help regardless of the nice up-close view.
"Hey." Danny crouched in front of him. "Campus security. I'm gonna get that thing off you, okay?"
He looked through the carved eyes. A real face was looking back at him. Young. Eyes wide open, but empty, like nobody was home. He didn't even blink. His mouth was moving.
"Mmh... mmpkn... mmst... grrh..." The words were muffled, wet and slurred, stuck inside the pumpkin. Danny couldn't understand any of it. It sounded like he was saying the same thing over and over.
"What? I can't hear you, buddy." Danny leaned closer. "Hold still."
Danny got his fingers under the edge of the pumpkin and pulled. It didn't move at all. It was like it had grown there. Not that Danny was ever the strong type anyway... The guy's skin was so hot that Danny almost let go. He pulled again, harder this time. Nothing. Then he noticed the guy's pants. They were straining at the thighs... and at the crotch too. No way to miss that. Was this some kind of joke?
"...must grow..." he said again, softer this time. That part Danny understood at least. Was this kid on steroids or something?
Danny looked down at the heavy flashlight in his hand. If he couldn't pull that thing off... maybe he could break it.
Okay. Time for Plan B.
Danny stood up, lifted the flashlight, and smashed it down on top of the pumpkin.
CRACK
The shell split and orange flesh showed through. The kid jerked. For a second his eyes came back, and he looked at Danny, terrified, like he'd just woken up from a nightmare. Danny hit it again. The crack got bigger. One more hit and it would break-
Hands grabbed his wrists from behind.
His flashlight hit the ground. Then, he got spun around like he weighed nothing, and there they were. The pumpkin guy from before, and another one next to him, just as big and shirtless, with a different face carved in his pumpkin and that same glow behind the eyes. One held Danny's arms. The other one was holding a fresh pumpkin, still wet from the carving.
Behind them, Danny saw the young man he was trying to save jump off the bench and run, crashing off between the buildings with his cracked pumpkin.
Then a pumpkin came down over Danny's face.
Everything went dark. The shell settled onto his shoulders and stuck there. He grabbed at it, but his fingers kept slipping on the wet exterior. It wouldn't budge.
Then something started pulling. From deep inside him, from the middle of his chest, like something was being drained out of him slowly. His knees hit the ground. All he could see was the world through two little carved holes. And then, inside his head, he heard it:
The Pumpkin Heads must grow.
All men must be seeded.
We must grow. We must seed.
The pumpkin assholes left. He heard their footsteps going back towards the student union building, slowly. Danny stayed on his knees under a street lamp, pulling and pulling at the pumpkin, but it didn't move at all. He had to get up. He had to get help.
Danny tried to stand, but his legs gave out right away and he fell back on his hands. He felt so weak. Like he had just given blood ten times in a row. Whatever that pulling feeling was, it hadn't stopped. It was still there, slow and steady, somewhere deep in his chest.
"Okay... okay, think," he mumbled to himself. His voice sounded weird inside the pumpkin, too close and too loud. What the hell just happened? Was there something in the pumpkin? Some kind of drug? Spores? That would explain the voice at least. He was hallucinating. That was it. He just needed to get somewhere safe and wait for it to wear off.
The office. The radio was there, together with his phone. He could maybe get some help there...
He got up on the second try, one hand on the bench. The office was only a few minutes away, but it felt like miles. Every step, the voice in his head got a little louder.
All men must be seeded.
He tried not to think about the pumpkin bros. Their huge arms. The heat coming off their bodies. How he would give anything to look like that one day... Halfway there, a group of students came around the corner, laughing, clearly drunk. One of them pointed at him.
"Yo! Sick costume, dude!"
"Help-" Danny started, but it came out as a muffled groan. "Pl- please, I need-"
They laughed even harder. One of them gave him a thumbs up, and they kept walking. Of course, what was he expecting? It was prank week. To everyone else, he was just another idiot in a pumpkin mask.
When he finally got to the office, it took him three tries to get the key in the lock. His hands were shaking. They felt hot - swollen, almost...
He got in.
He locked the door behind him and went straight for the radio. He picked it up and pressed the button, then took a deep breath. Slow. Clear. He just had to speak slowly and clearly, and they would understand him.
"Hello? It's Danny, from security. I need help. Someone put a pumpkin on my head and it won't come off, and they're- they're... seed..."
We must seed.
He let go of the button. What the hell did he just say?
He dropped the radio. Somebody on the other end asked him to repeat because they didn't understand a word of what he said. He was about to try again when a sudden heat hit him.
It started under the pumpkin, at his scalp, and poured down his whole body. Within a minute his shirt was stuck to his back - he was sweating all over. More heat. His pants were sticking to him too. He was sweating so much he could feel the moisture dripping down his legs.
He looked up at the monitor for the office camera. On the screen, a guy in a security uniform was pulling at his collar. It took Danny a second to realise it was him.
His shirt was way too tight now. One button popped. Then another. Under the fabric his chest was swelling, getting bigger and harder by the second. With a loud RIP, both his sleeves split open at the seams.
Danny stared down at himself. Then back up at the screen. The guy on the monitor did the same. He didn't recognise himself any more. Well, sure his skin looked the same but all the muscle and size? He wasn't one of those frat bros he always got caught up looking at on the cameras, much less any sort of bodybuilder.
His soft belly was almost gone. One by one, a set of abs popped out and stayed rigid, like they were carved into his skin. His legs were getting thicker and longer too. A bit uncomfortable, but between all this growing and sweating, he was starting to get hard. Danny had spent these last few months watching other guys on these screens, always dreaming of looking like them. And now that he was the one on the screen, he couldn't stop watching.
He liked it. However, the second he thought that, his whole body throbbed, and his shoulders pushed out wider.
We must grow.
"No," he said. Even he could hear how slurred it was. "No, no, no..."
He had to hold on. Mo started at six, and Mo always came early. If he could just last until then, Mo would know what to do. He looked at the clock on the CCTV wall.
00:58.
Five hours. He could do five hours.
He sat down and stared at the clock.
It worked... for a while. Then his eyes slipped. Just for a second, he looked at his arms. They were so big now. Bigger than he had ever imagined. And the moment he thought that, he felt it - a hot wave running through his whole body, his thighs pushing against his pants, the ceiling getting a little closer than before.
No. He had to stop thinking about his smoking hot body. He focused on the clock. The growing stopped.
Then came the pain. His new muscles cramped up all at once, like they were pissed at him for not giving them enough attention. He gritted his teeth and tried to relax. The pain faded away after a few seconds, but he knew it wasn't over. The more he gave in, the faster it went. The more he fought, the more it hurt.
The Pumpkin Heads must grow.
Then the voice in his head tried something else. One by one, images of all the hot bros he had ever seen on camera flashed through his mind. Danny had watched them so many times... and now he could look just like them. Even better.
Wasn't that what he always wanted?
01:30.
02:15.
03:17.
Outside, the campus looked... normal. Too normal.
Danny checked every screen. Nothing was happening. If it wasn't for the pumpkin stuck on his head, he would've thought he made the whole thing up.
But there were little things. On camera eleven, a carved pumpkin was sitting on the doorstep of one of the dorms, its little face glowing in the dark. Danny was sure it hadn't been there an hour ago.
He kept an eye on that pumpkin for a while, but nothing happened. Maybe he was just being paranoid? He started switching between the cameras again, and that's when he noticed it. Something big was moving behind the library. By the time he zoomed in, it was gone.
A few minutes later, he saw it again. This time it was crossing the parking lot. Then near the gym. Whatever it was, it was getting closer... and Danny knew exactly where that path led.
To his office.
At 04:40, one of the creatures stepped out of the dark, right outside his office. Then a second one. Then a third. They didn't try to get in. They just stood there, staring at the glass door with their glowing eyes... waiting.
Danny couldn't stop staring back at them. The voices in his head were getting louder and louder, like they were calling him. It was too much. He felt dizzy...
...
When Danny came back to himself, he was standing at the office door.
He didn't remember walking over there. His hand was on the lock. He had already turned it halfway. On the other side of the glass, the three of them were right there, waiting.
He was horrified. But under that, before he could stop it, he kinda felt... excited?
He looked at them through the glass. They were so close now. Huge, shirtless, sweat running down their chests even in the cold. Just like him. The voices in his head got louder, and so did the throbbing between his legs. When did he get this hard?
His pants were soaked at the crotch. Without thinking, his free hand went down and pressed on it. Just one rub.
His body answered right away. His spine cracked. What was left of his shirt ripped right up the back. He was huge now, he could feel how much space he was taking up in the room.
He glanced at the office camera. He looked like a stranger. A pumpkin head looking down. A huge bare chest, arms thicker than his old legs. And one hand still on the lock, ready to let them in.
04:52.
He caught his reflection in the glass. His own pumpkin head, right next to theirs. Was he already one of them?
No. NO. What the hell was he doing!?
He turned the lock back and stumbled away from the door. The cramps hit him so hard he fell to his knees. It hurt like hell... but the door was locked.
05:11.
05:28.
He stayed on the floor, as far from the door as he could get. He didn't trust himself to stand up.
The trance kept coming and going. One minute he was Danny, scared out of his mind. The next, all he could think about was their words...
All men must be seeded.
Seeded... What did that even mean? He didn't know, but his body did. Every time the word popped into his head, something deep inside him ached, empty. He wanted it. He wanted it so bad. To be seeded. To be done. To stop fighting...
He grabbed the leg of his desk and held on.
05:40.
05:45.
Just a few more minutes...
At 05:50, headlights pulled into the parking lot. Mo's car.
On the monitor, the three pumpkin bros stepped back from the door, all at the same time, and disappeared into the dark.
Mo, don't come in...
Danny tried to shout, to warn him, anything, but all that came out was a muffled groan. A minute later, the door opened and Mo walked in, ten minutes early, coffee in his hand.
"Danny?"
Not kid. Danny, his real name. He called him by his name. That was enough to make Danny's mind snap back into focus for a moment.
"P-please... break i-it..." Danny said, his voice still slurred but more coherent than before.
Mo looked around. The fire axe in the glass cabinet by the door caught his eye. Without a second thought he smashed the glass with his elbow, pulling the axe out, and got ready to swing.
Then he looked at Danny's eyes, his real eyes, crying for help inside.
He froze. One wrong move and he'd hurt him. He had to be careful.
That was all it took... Behind Mo, the door was still open.
The three of them came in, one after the other, filling the whole office with bare skin and the smell of their musk. Mo turned around. For a second he just stared at them, axe still raised, like his brain couldn't catch up with what he was seeing.
"What the fuck..."
He backed up until he hit the desk. One of them reached for him, and Mo swung in panic. The axe hit it in the chest and got stuck. It didn't even flinch. Then there were hands everywhere grabbing his arms, and the axe fell on the floor.
Danny didn't think. He pushed himself up off the floor and threw himself at them with everything he had. With his new size, it was like hitting a wall, but it was enough. One of them stumbled, and Mo's arm came free. For the first time all night, Danny was glad to be this big.
He grabbed Mo by the shoulder and shoved him towards the back exit. Mo slammed into the bar. The door didn't move. Then the hands were back. They grabbed Mo the same way they had grabbed him before, calm, quick, not angry at all, and turned him around so he had to watch. Two more grabbed Danny and pulled him down.
They put Danny down on the floor in front of the CCTV wall.
The first one, the one from the union steps, knelt over him. Up close, the face carved on his pumpkin was kind of beautiful. Every line done with the same care Danny had watched on camera that night. And his cock was enormous. Thick, heavy, already slick. Just seeing it made the last of Danny's resistance fall apart, exactly like the voices had promised all night. His legs opened by themselves. He moaned, while the voices filled his head.
The Pumpkin Heads must grow.
All men must be seeded.
The first push split him open. It was too big. He couldn't take it... until he could. His body changed to make room, rebuilding itself just so it could be fucked by this. He came almost straight away, all over his own belly, but it didn't matter. It didn't end anything. The cock kept pounding into him, harder and harder.
Danny couldn't think any more. Every thrust pushed the air out of his lungs and something else into his head. The voices were moving with it now. Every thrust, the same three lines, over and over, until Danny couldn't tell where the voices stopped and his own thoughts began.
"F-fuck... fuck..." It came out muffled and wet inside the pumpkin. He didn't care who heard. He grabbed at the thick arms on either side of him, but not to push them away. To pull it closer. Deeper.
On the monitors he could see everything. The huge pumpkin head pounding into him on the office floor. His own legs wrapped around its waist. Mo, held down by the door, staring at him like he didn't know who he was any more. Danny didn't either. And he didn't care.
His hole was gripping it now, greedy, like his body had been made for this. He was leaking all over his stomach, so hard it hurt, his balls aching for something they couldn't give yet. It wasn't enough. He needed more. He needed it inside him.
"P-please..." he moaned. "S-seed me... please..."
This time, the words were his. The one inside him pushed in deep and went still. Danny felt it. Heat, flooding into him, so much of it, filling him up from the inside.
He was seeded.
Muscle on top of muscle. His back arched off the floor. His own cock grew longer against his stomach, thicker, the head dark and dripping. His balls pulled up tight, then got heavier, fuller, ready for what he was about to become. He could see all of it on the monitors. He could see Mo, held down, staring, his coffee spilled on the floor.
We must grow. We must seed.
The glow behind his eyes got brighter and brighter until the holes in the pumpkin were shining like lamps. His head - his real head, inside - went soft. He couldn't feel it any more.
He was grateful. He was SO grateful. Grateful for being seeded. Grateful for his new purpose. Grateful for being part of something bigger than himself.
We stood up.
The office felt small around us. Mo was on his knees, breathing hard. On the desk sat a display pumpkin that had been there since the start of October, uncarved.
A joke.
We picked it up. Our fingers sank into it. We carved a face into it, slowly and carefully. The same way we had watched it done from this room earlier that night.
We put the pumpkin on Mo's head.
It settled. He started groaning. Through these new holes, he would be granted a new life, just like us.
On the CCTV wall, every camera on campus looked back at us. And on the wall next to it, the master switch. One switch for every door on campus.
We listened to Mo start, muffled, trying to find the words.
The Pumpkin Heads must grow.
All men must be seeded.
We must grow. We must seed.
To be continued?
