The photo was gone by morning.
I tore the room apart searching for it—ripping open drawers, shaking out bedsheets, even checking under the floorboards, but the wrinkled photo of Nathan, sleeping like prey, had simply vanished. I half-convinced myself it was a nightmare, until I saw what was waiting on our porch.
A scarecrow.
It hadn't been there the night before. And this one… wasn't a decoration.
It sat slumped against the railing, dressed in a child's overalls, its arms stuffed with something dark and soggy—not straw. The head was a hollowed-out pumpkin carved into a grotesque grin, the eyes too round and staring. Blood—fresh—seeped from the corners of the carved mouth, dripping onto the wood in fat, red drops.
Nathan screamed.
I shoved him back inside, slamming the door. "Aunt Miriam!" I yelled, my voice cracking.
She came slowly, as if she already knew. She didn't even flinch at the sight of the scarecrow.
Instead, she just sighed. "It's a warning."
My skin crawled. "From who?!"
"From the Carver."
---
She sat us down at the kitchen table, her fingers trembling as she poured tea into chipped mugs. The sun outside was too bright. Too orange. The whole town seemed to glow with autumn death. I watched a neighbor across the street paint a smiling jack-o'-lantern on their window in blood-red.
Miriam didn't touch her tea.
"I should've prepared you better," she said, eyes locked on Nathan. "The Hollow… it's not like other towns. We were founded on a pact. One that must be kept, or we all pay the price."
I stared at her, not blinking. "What kind of pact?"
She swallowed hard. "Every Halloween, the town chooses one. A child. Always a child. The chosen must be given to the Carver before midnight, or he'll take more. Anyone. Everyone."
Nathan was trembling.
I felt the blood drain from my face. "You're telling me they sacrifice a kid… every year?"
"It's how we've survived. For generations. Some towns pray. Ours… feeds."
I stood up so fast my chair screeched. "That's insane. That's murder."
Miriam didn't argue. She just said, "They've already marked him."
---
I wanted to run. Grab Nathan and get the hell out. But when I opened the front door, my stomach flipped.
The scarecrow was gone.
In its place was something worse: a row of pumpkins, lined up from our porch to the street like breadcrumb warnings. Each carved with Nathan's face—his eyes, his cheeks, his curls. I knew because one of them had the same tiny scar under his lip from when he fell off his bike last year.
Someone had been watching him for a long time.
And I knew then: this wasn't just a town tradition. It was a ritual. Organized. Precise. Protected.
"How do I stop it?" I asked Aunt Miriam that night. "How do I keep him safe?"
She only said, "You don't. You either give him… or give yourself."
---
The next morning, we went to the festival.
The entire town was there, dressed like something out of a horror movie—smiling children in animal masks, adults in black robes hidden beneath Halloween sweaters. Everywhere, there were pumpkins. On fences, on rooftops, even hanging from trees like decapitated heads.
The mayor, a plump man with silver hair and red-stained lips, took the stage and welcomed everyone.
"And now," he said, "we celebrate the Hollow's 137th safe Halloween. All because we honor the rules."
Everyone applauded. Loud. Joyful.
Nathan and I stood silently at the back, hands clutched.
Then the music started. The parade began. And the Carver appeared.
---
At first I thought it was just a costume.
He walked slowly through the crowd—towering, silent, dressed in a long butcher's apron splattered in black. His mask wasn't plastic. It looked… real. A stitched-together face, too stretched to fit properly. He held a carving knife nearly as long as my arm, jagged, rusted, gleaming in the sun.
The crowd cheered.
No one screamed. No one ran.
Because he wasn't there to kill.
Not yet.
He walked toward Nathan. Stopped. Tilted his head. The stitched mask didn't blink, but I swear I felt his eyes beneath it.
He raised one gloved hand—and pointed.
Directly at my brother.
Then he turned, and melted back into the crowd.
---
"Why isn't anyone stopping him?" I hissed to Miriam that night.
"Because they're the ones who summoned him," she said. "The Carver was once a man. A butcher who lived here in 1888. One Halloween, the town wronged him—betrayed his daughter to cover a scandal. He went mad. Slaughtered thirteen families. They hung him in the square. But he came back. Now the town gives him what he wants."
"And he wants kids?"
"He wants innocence. Because it's the one thing he never got back."
I stared out the window, where the scarecrow had returned. But this time, it wore Nathan's clothes.
---
I didn't sleep that night.
Instead, I packed. Quietly. I stuffed our bags, grabbed my phone, looked up bus routes. But my signal was gone. Even the landline was dead.
At 3:00 AM, I crept down the stairs to get water and found a note taped to the fridge.
"Leaving the Hollow is not permitted. You'll die before you cross the tree line."
Beneath it… was a photo.
Me. Sleeping.
Taken from inside my room.
---
I sat down at the table, heart pounding, fists clenched.
They weren't just watching Nathan anymore.
They were watching me too.