Month: September 2026

The Pumpkin Field

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Halloween Prompt #1 

Family choosing pumpkins together at an autumn pumpkin patch

AI Image by WordPress

” Are you awake Gladys? ” Mrs. Bowman my roommate  whispered to me from the darkness.

It was gloomy and a little chilly  in our little house that we have been sharing for  about a month now, my  family were young and had moved on without me .  It sounds awful, but if you want to know the truth it was a relief.

I didn’t like the music my family listened to and Fiona Bowman’s husband and son are in prison for murder. She told me when we first met that she couldn’t get a wink of sleep  knowing those two were out creeping around the neighborhood at night.

” What were they doing?” I whispered as if her son and husband could hear me from cells in the Supermax  prison four states over in Colorado where in all probability they will die.

” They killed people. ” Fiona said so softly I could barely hear her. ” They killed them very slowly and then they’d bury them – what was left of them, in our field.”

” We grew pumpkins out there in that very same field and in the fall we opened up the field and we set up tables with cookies and hot apple cider and people would drive from miles around to pick their own Halloween Pumpkins. But if you want to know the truth, knowing what was buried in our field, well. I guess it drove me here in the end.”

I nodded in the darkness.

” I couldn’t tell anyone what they were doing, I knew of course. But I didn’t want to end up as scarecrow in our Pumpkin patch and I didn’t want parts of me feeding our pumpkins.”

She waited for me to say I understood, and of course I said I  did.

You see, I know that Fiona she was eating one of her homemade Pumpkin Field Pies on the night she had her heart attack. She went heavy on the cloves she said and she used to love to savor each and every bite, so it would take her a half hour just to eat one small piece.

The thing about little old ladies who like to bake and speak softly and wear fuzzy slippers around their houses is that we look so harmless, blameless. Sweet even.

All the same, now just before I fall asleep I reach up and make sure the lid on my Coffin is locked and as I drift off I hope I don’t dream about pumpkins.

You Can Quote Me On That:

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WP Prompt asks: If your pet could talk, what would be the first thing it says?

If my dog could talk,

the first thing he would say to me is something here hears every single day when he

wakes me up in the morning, when he sits next to me for a cuddle or brings me a toy

when I’m sad.

Hamish on the Halloween Trail.
October 12 2025
A.M. Moscoso

He would say:

” Hamish Macbeth is a very good boy! “

Hamish Macbeth
2023
A.M. Moscoso

Far Away From Home

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Halloween story prompt 2.   Write a story about a character who is haunted by something or someone.

#FOWC- Brother

Photo by Valeria Boltneva on Pexels.com

Sometimes I  stand under my tree  and I look up into the branches and remember the days when I climbed trees as a girl and  I recall the time my kitten got stuck on a branch and  I climbed up and got as close to my kitten as I could without the branch giving way . I pushed my kitten off of the branch with a broom and my brothers below caught it on a pillow.

My brothers, who never learned to climb trees as well as me,  used to build tree forts and when there were windstorms  we would climb up into our tree  pretend we were on a pirate ship battleing a sea monster.

I like to remember those trees, they were close to our home and each leaf held one of our memories. I know this because whenI stood under the trees the wind blowing through the branches made the leaves sound like they singing.

I grew up and moved  far away and here under my  new tree, if Iook up and  I forget to think about kittens, I see a  frayed weather worn rope, somtimes it twists in the breeze  and when it does, the branch it’s hanging on moans and creaks and sounds  like an somebody with aged and worn bones crying out softly, in pain.

There are dark and foggy  days when I stand under my tree and I look down at the ground, I can see something hidden under leaves and weeds. I don’t need to move the leaves away to see what is creating the smooth outline of somebody sleeping on their side.

I know what is there and it makes me sad.

So I look up into the branches and I think about kittens and I don’t see the noose turning and spinning above my head.

But it is always there, as am I under a tree far away from home.

Aokigahara, the Haunted Forest in Japan Credits: Simon Desmarais

The Baily Estes Home

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RDP Tuesday: MYSTERY

Photographer Uknown

The Baily Estes funeral home,  has been owned and operated by the Estes family for over 100 years.

Around the back of the home is a small private family cemetery and in the corner of the little cemetery is an apple tree with a wasps next as big as your head hanging from one of it’s lower branches.

The Estes family lives upstairson the top floor and every morning Mr. Estes gets dressed, he hashis breakfast with his wife and two daughters, Patience and Victoria and then he walks down stairs to the Funeral Parlor, he unlocks the door that separated the his family’s living quarters he closes it quietly behind himself and this is how his workday begins.

Cars  pull up throughout the day, sometimes a hearse is parked out front. The windows glow with soft warm light on during the Winter and Autumn when the sun set early and during the summer the front door is always open and on either side of the doorway are potted plants in marble urns.

On Funeral days people would mill around on the front lawn, the friends and family dressed are dressed in  black. They speak softly with each other and when Mr. Estes appears on the top step, people  know that it was time to go in and that first person walks up the steps slowly and when they were face to face with Mr. Estes they  always look  at him with just a touch of uncertainty and then would nodd gently  and he reaches out and touches their forarm, briefly and then they  walk into the cool darkness of Baily Estes Funeral home down the hall to where the Funeral Parlor is.

There was something odd about the Estes Home though, in all the years it has stood, nobody has ever seen the lights on in the windows upstairs where the family lives. The curtains never twitch, no face ever  peers out any of the windows to check on the weather, or with curiosity when there is a loud noise. Nobody knows exactly how old Victoria and Patience his children are because nobody has ever seen them.

In fact, nobody has really ever seen any of the wives or children that have lived in the Estes Home and were married to the Funeral Directors.

The Estes neighbors just know they are up there and that is all they have ever known for a fact.

They know this in the same way that they know that every October 31st, there will be a funeral that starts at 6:00pm sharp.

The same family and their friends will appear on the front lawn of Baily Estes, some will drive up in dark cars with tinted windows.

The women will have their faces covered with veils hanging from sensible black hats and the men will be dressed in  black suits with shiny silver buttons and buttonaires with  traces of red running along the edges of  white petals and broken stems pinned to their lapels.

Unlike other families, nobody waits for Mr Estes to appear on the top step before they go into the Funeral Home, they drift up the stairs side by side and disapear into the hallway that leads to the Funeral Parlor.

The door closes softly behind them and if in that moment you looked up to the top floor where the Estes family lives, you might- and I mean maybe you would see one of the curtains in the window twitch.

And nobody, if you were to ask can say they have ever seen these mourners leave.