Thirteen bells.
No one ever told us what came after midnight.
The rituals stopped at twelve.
The killings. The masks. The screaming pumpkins.
Twelve was where the legend ended.
But when that thirteenth bell rang through the empty streets of Dagger's Hollow, something inside me twisted like a knife being turned.
It didn't sound like a church bell.
It sounded like metal on bone.
---
Nathan looked up, face pale.
His orange eyes had dimmed, but there was still a glow behind them—a final ember refusing to die. The Carver was gone. His blade shattered. The scarecrows had burned or fled. The town was silent.
So why did it still feel like we were being watched?
"Did you hear that?" I asked.
He nodded once, then turned toward the woods.
"It's not over," he said quietly. "Something's still breathing."
---
We walked past the smoldering ruins of our home. The scarecrow body that once wore my face had collapsed into a pile of scorched hay. Aunt Miriam's front door was open. No sign of her inside.
She was gone.
Either fled… or taken.
Somewhere down the block, a weathervane squeaked in the wind. That wind didn't smell like smoke anymore.
It smelled like wet earth.
Like something rising.
---
We followed the scent to the edge of the Hollow.
Beyond the last row of houses sat the tree line—dense, dark, and pulsing with a low hum. It wasn't wind. It wasn't bugs. It was the heartbeat of something buried.
At our feet sat the old well.
No rope.
No bucket.
Just a ring of stone older than the town, surrounded by dozens of tiny, carved pumpkins—each with a single tooth inside.
Nathan didn't speak.
He just stepped closer.
And whispered, "This is where it began."
---
I followed.
The well's walls were slick with moss. As I peered into the darkness, I realized there was no bottom—only pitch black.
The thirteenth bell rang again, this time from below.
And then I heard them.
Children.
Dozens of voices rising from the well like steam.
> "He carved us."
"We screamed."
"We forgot our names."
Nathan's body shook.
"I saw them in my dreams," he whispered. "They're still trapped."
"Souls?"
"Stories. Lives that were buried, cut up, stitched into legend. The Carver wasn't just killing them. He was using them to build something beneath the Hollow."
He looked at me, eyes glistening.
"He built a god."
---
My mouth went dry.
"A god?"
Nathan knelt beside the well.
"They called it The Gourdfather. Born from pain. Fed by tradition. A thing that never wanted to exist—but was made by ritual, by memory, by belief."
"And now?"
He met my eyes.
"Now it wants a body."
---
The thirteenth bell echoed again—louder, like it was inside our heads now.
And the ground cracked beneath the well.
Pumpkins split open.
From the center of the well, something rose.
A hand—massive, carved from rotting vines and bone, slick with sap and blood.
Then a face.
It wasn't stitched.
It wasn't masked.
It was one face made of many—dozens of eyes, mouths, screams pressed into a single melting expression.
It opened its mouth—
> "YOU BROKE THE RITUAL."
The trees bent backward.
The wind howled.
And Nathan stepped forward.
---
"I'll stop it," he said.
"No—" I grabbed his arm. "You've already done enough. You killed the Carver. You ended the curse."
"I replaced him," he said.
And now I understood what he meant.
The Carver had been a vessel—something hollow, filled by pain. The town's sins turned into a knife and a mask.
And now the Hollow wanted a new knife.
A better one.
Stronger.
One it could shape from the ashes.
Nathan.
---
"I won't let you go," I said.
"I'm already gone," he whispered.
"No."
I looked at the thing rising from the well. The Gourdfather's massive form, stitched from centuries of fear and carved flesh.
It wanted a pact.
It wanted a price.
So I made a choice.
---
I stepped forward.
Between Nathan and the well.
I took the shattered handle of the Carver's blade and sliced it across my palm.
My blood hit the moss.
The Gourdfather stilled.
> "SACRIFICE?"
"Yes," I said. "Me."
Nathan's eyes widened. "Chloe, no—"
"You want a vessel?" I shouted. "Take me instead."
The air held still for an eternity.
Then the Gourdfather roared—
> "TOO MUCH MERCY. NOT ENOUGH CARVING."
---
It struck.
A hand like a tree trunk slammed down—
But it didn't hit me.
It hit Nathan.
The earth exploded.
I screamed.
Smoke and pumpkin seeds filled the air.
---
When it cleared, Nathan was gone.
No body.
No blood.
Just a single pumpkin—still warm—resting in the crater.
It had his face carved into it.
And it was smiling.
---
I collapsed beside it.
Shaking.
Broken.
"I tried," I whispered.
The wind answered.
> "SO DID HE."
And then the Gourdfather sank back into the well.
The moss closed.
The fog returned.
And Dagger's Hollow was quiet again.
---
I walked back to town alone.
The homes were still.
The people were gone.
Or hiding.
Maybe waiting for a new mask to rise.
---
That night, I buried the pumpkin in the backyard.
I lit a candle beside it.
I whispered a name into the soil:
Nathan.
And I made a promise:
> No more carving.
No more stories turned into knives.
No more Hollow gods.
---
But even now…
Sometimes I hear the thirteenth bell.
And I know—
The Hollow still breathes.