Strange Highways

said.
     "How long did you work on this?" Frank asked.
     "About an hour."
     "And you're willing to settle for a nickel an hour?"
     "I work for the love of it. For the sheer love of it." The carver winked at Tommy again.
     "What are you, senile?" Frank asked in his usual charming manner.
     "Maybe. Maybe."
     Frank stared at the old man, perhaps sensing some of what Tommy felt, but he finally shrugged and turned away, carrying the jack-o'-lantern toward the front of the lot where their father was buying a score of uncarved pumpkins for the big party the following night.
     Tommy wanted to run after his brother, beg Frank to return the black pumpkin and get his nickel back.
     "Listen here," the carver said fiercely, leaning forward once more. The old man was so thin and angular that Tommy was convinced he'd heard ancient bones scraping together within the inadequate padding of the desiccated body.
     "Listen to me, boy ... ."
      No, Tommy thought. No, I won't listen, I'll run, I'll run.
     The old man's power was like solder, however, fusing Tommy to that piece of ground, rendering him incapable of movement.
     "In the night," the carver said, his amber eyes darkening, "your brother's jack-o'-lantern will grow into something other than what it is now. Its jaws will work. Its teeth will sharpen. When everyone is asleep, it'll creep through your house ... and give what's deserved. It'll come for you last of all. What do you think you deserve, Tommy? You see, I know your name, though your brother never used it. What do you think the black pumpkin will do to you, Tommy? Hmmm? What do you deserve?"
     "What are you?" Tommy asked.
     The carver smiled. "Dangerous."
     Suddenly Tommy's feet tore loose of the earth to which they had been stuck, and he ran.
     When he caught up with Frank, he tried to persuade his brother to return the black pumpkin, but his explanation of the danger came out as nothing more than hysterical babbling, and Frank laughed at him. Tommy tried to knock the hateful thing out of Frank's hands. Frank held on to the jack-o'-lantern and gave Tommy a hard shove that sent him sprawling backward over a pile of pumpkins. Frank laughed again, purposefully tramped hard on Tommy's right foot as the younger boy struggled to get up, and moved away.
     Through the involuntary tears wrung from him by the pain in his foot, Tommy looked toward the back of the lot and saw that the carver was watching.
     The old man waved.
     Heart beating double time, Tommy limped out to the front of the lot, searching for a way to convince Frank of the danger. But Frank was already putting his purchase on the backseat of the Cadillac. Their father was paying for the jack-o'-lantern and for a score of uncarved pumpkins. Tommy was too late.

    2

AT HOME, FRANK TOOK THE BLACK PUMPKIN INTO HIS BEDROOM AND stood it on the desk in the corner, under the poster of Michael Berryman as the demented killer in The Hills Have Eyes.
     From the open doorway, Tommy watched.
     Frank had found a fat, scented decorative candle in the kitchen pantry; now he put it inside the pumpkin. It was big enough to burn steadily for at least two days. Dreading the appearance of light in the jack-o'-lantern's eyes, Tommy watched as Frank lit the candle and put the pumpkin's stem-centered lid in place.
     The slitted pupils glowed-flickered-shimmered with a convincing imitation of demonic life and malevolent intellect. The serrated grin blazed bright, and the fluttering light was like a tongue ceaselessly licking the cold-rind lips. The most disgusting part of the illusion of life was the leprous pit of a nose, which appeared to fill with moist, yellowish mucus.
     "Incredible!" Frank said. "That old fart is a real genius at this stuff."
     The scented candle emitted the fragrance of roses.
     Although he could not remember where he had read of such a thing, Tommy recalled that the sudden, unexplained scent of roses supposedly indicated the presence of spirits of the dead. Of course, the source of this odor was no mystery.
     "What the hell?" Frank said, wrinkling his nose. He lifted the lid of the jack-o'-lantern and peered inside. The inconstant orange light played across his face, queerly distorting his features. "This is supposed to be a lemon -scented candle. Not