We drove east, past crumbling barns and empty fields, into the part of Oregon people avoid. The road stretched ahead, but the air felt wrong – too quiet, like something was off. No one talks about the black pumpkins unless you push them. They say they grow where the ground’s bad, where things happened that people don’t like to remember. We didn’t know if we believed it, but the way everyone got tight-lipped told us enough. The wind barely stirred, but we couldn’t shake the feeling we were being watched. Some say the pumpkins mark places where the dead don’t stay down, or worse, where something’s waiting to crawl up. We didn’t come out here for ghost stories, but the further we went, the harder it was to ignore the chill creeping up our spines. By sundown, it wasn’t just the road that was empty – it was us.
