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I live just beyond the city limits, right where what the townies call the country starts.

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This would be Ohio.

3
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But I'm still close enough that the teens in town have been making their way to my place

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for the last several years right after Trick or Treat.

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And it seems they have one mission to destroy my pumpkins.

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Now this upsets me a lot.

7
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Me and my kids and my grandkids carve these pumpkins together every year.

8
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So I take it real personal, though I know I shouldn't.

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And yes, I do know.

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Everyone says I should bring those pumpkins inside as soon as Trick or Treat is over.

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Not that any kids come out our way for Trick or Treat.

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But my response is I shouldn't have to.

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I say the townfolk should be teaching their kids better and keeping track of them on Halloween

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night.

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Instead, they keep gifting the town over and over with a fresh crop of juvenile delinquents

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every year.

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And besides, I like the look of lit pumpkins along my drive and out on my porch steps.

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I love their glow that reaches out into the darkness.

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It's kind of spooky when I look out the window.

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And it's also a really beautiful sight for me with a lot of memories.

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So that Halloween, I decided I was going to do what their parents would not.

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I was going to teach them a lesson.

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I can't a pepper spray and some small balloons with red dye mixed in.

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That was my arsenal.

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And yes, I cleared this with the deputies I knew in town.

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If they trespassed, I could use non-lethal force on them.

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So I sat up late on Halloween with all the outside lights off, a thermos of coffee that was going

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lukewarm out on the fence post right next to me.

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And I was sitting in an old folding lawn chair that creaked under me every time I shifted

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or even breathed this year.

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I was waiting for them.

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I unplugged the motion light out along the drive so I'd keep the dark advantage.

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And I parked myself out there in the shadows right beside the porch post near the edge

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of my house with a heavy mag-light flashlight sitting right across my lap.

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I kept the dog inside because, well, he's no good at guarding anything, he's way too friendly

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and then he barks at a leaf moving.

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I didn't need that.

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As I waited and sipped my now lukewarm coffee, I noticed a shift in the night air.

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It was getting that bite to it that let me know.

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The frost warning I'd heard earlier on the news.

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Well, that was no joke.

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We were going to have a hard frost overnight.

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The later it got, the more I began to wonder if the teens were coming at all.

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Maybe they knew I was there waiting somehow.

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Eleven o'clock passed.

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Almost midnight passed.

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And the night had stayed very quiet.

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Somewhere down in the corn stubble in the field next to my house, a coyote yipped, then it

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shut up like its mom had gone to him.

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I knew the sound of tires and the sound of footsteps coming along my drive.

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I'd heard it for years.

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I was primed for this.

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I had rehearsed exactly what I was going to yell out at them when I caught them.

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And then I began to hear something.

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I didn't hear tires.

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I heard footsteps all right, but they were different.

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These were big, heavy.

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And the crunch on the gravel, it was different than the crunch you hear with a boot or shoe,

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and a soft sneaker.

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There was a different echo in the crunching.

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A shoe has a hollow crunch sound on the gravel.

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What I heard was a light muffled gravel crunch.

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Yet the gravel was popping loudly.

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At first it was a faint crunch and pop, down away on the drive, some bit from me.

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There was no hesitating in the walk.

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There were no sneaky steps that I've heard with the kids before, or so I thought.

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No, this was coming straight on, right at me, and it was not trying to be quiet.

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I squinted my eyes in the darkness, and slowly I began to see a shape.

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It was hard to see.

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I just had the indoor lights coming through the windows, and they didn't stretch too far

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outside.

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But the glow from them gave me enough to begin to see a shape in the distance.

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I'm looking at the size of that shape.

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And then I get hit by the smell, musty, and smelling like an old zoo.

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"Now this was not right," I thought.

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Not right at all.

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Suddenly the hair on my forearms pricled under the planal shirt I was wearing.

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I told myself, "Get ready."

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Now, on one hand, this didn't look at all like the shape of a teenager from town.

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But then again, I didn't know every teenager in town.

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Maybe this was a new one.

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Maybe this was their new star football player I'd heard about.

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And from the vague shape, he was sized for it.

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I could already read some of the size of it, probably six and a half feet, maybe a little

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more massively wide.

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Some of the shape, though, felt wrong to be a teen.

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Even a great big one.

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But then I thought, well, nowadays, these kids are being raised on some kind of mash-up

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between marital grow and a lot of fast food, and a lot of them turn out really huge.

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The steps left the gravel, and they came up on the grass that was between the fence and

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the gravel drive, and I heard a soft, sudden sound as it did so.

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It was then I saw the real shape and how not right it was, even for a mutant, tiny teenager.

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Shoulders too wide.

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A head perched too far forward.

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There was no hat, no hoodie, no strings.

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None of the shapes I see were teenagers.

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It walked right up to my front porch, right where the pumpkins were lit and still glowing.

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I saw then it was covered in something dark and heavy.

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Now it might have been a costume, that was my first thought.

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But then I looked, it didn't have the look of one.

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It paused at the bottom step where the biggest pumpkin sat fat as a hog.

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I wasn't going to wait any more.

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I thumbed the mag light on and lifted the beam, expecting to startle at least one big teenager.

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But no.

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The light caught hair.

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Dark brown hair.

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Not fur like a dog, and it wasn't shaggy like some cheap costume.

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This was real hair.

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It's a little bit more awkward, coarse looking, hanging close to the skin, laying in a tight

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pattern.

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The flashlight beam outlined a chest and shoulders bigger than any football player, even with all

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their gear on.

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Then it found the face.

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And oh my, that face.

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Let me tell you.

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The eyes reflected briefly in the light, a real deep amber color.

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Costumes and masks?

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They can't do that.

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And a human wearing a costume or a mask?

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It wouldn't reflect the eye shine like that.

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It didn't flinch when the light hit it.

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It sort of squinted and half turned from it.

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Yet it kept an eye looking my way the whole time.

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Then it leaned at the waist, and it took the biggest pumpkin off the steps.

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This pumpkin was uncarved.

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It was just a solid decoration between the carved ones.

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I grew all these pumpkins, so I always had plenty.

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And I mean, it took that big pumpkin.

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Fingers went around it the way a man would pick up a basketball.

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Then I heard a soft, wet crack.

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As it split that pumpkin, like it was some soft dinner roll.

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Seeds and strings spilled out over the steps.

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It made a low sound the way a man would hum happily as it ate its dinner.

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It scooped orange pieces of flesh out in big, bent handfuls, cramming it in its mouth.

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I heard it chewing.

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It was wet and powerful.

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Big slurps.

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I heard sticky splats of seeds as they hit the steps.

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I was stunned, I guess.

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I was watching.

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I was seeing it.

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But I wasn't believing it.

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And I don't know why I spoke.

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I guess my brain still had teenager stuck to whatever was going to happen that night.

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I can be a little slow on the uptake sometimes.

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And that night was one of those times.

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"Hey," I barked out.

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It was exactly as I'd practiced it.

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"Knock it off!"

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I really used the exact tone like I had planned to yell at some kids.

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The head on the big foot lifted slowly.

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I got another good look at the eyes.

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I saw then how wrong they really were.

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They were set wider apart than anybody I knew.

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There was no white to them either.

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Just that strange amber reflection in the light.

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A threat of pumpkin hung off its lower lip, and swung as it looked my way.

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It chewed a couple more times, slowly, thoughtfully, deliberately.

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As if it was thinking about whether or not it was going to do something to deal with me.

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It took another handful of pumpkin innards, and dropped the empty pumpkin shell.

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It seemed to only want the insides of the pumpkins, and it had no interest at all in the

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rind.

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And I don't know why, but I had a moment where I had that exact thought.

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And then I remember thinking, "How weird!

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I thought it would want the rhyme too."

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Yep, strange thoughts, and I remember having them.

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But I was already in a strange situation.

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So who's to say what's really a strange thought?

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I watched as the big foot then opened its mouth and made a sound that was almost as if it

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was hissing at me.

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I saw its teeth then.

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Flat, blocky, very yellow.

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All of this was beginning to register in my brain that maybe confronting this thing wasn't

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the best idea.

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Maybe I should have just sat there in the darkness and stayed quiet.

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I didn't raise the flashlight any higher.

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Something told me that really wasn't a good idea.

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Maybe it was the hiss.

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Might have been my late realization of what I was looking at.

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And I did have that realization, though half my brain denied, that I was looking at a big

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foot.

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Then I both held that pose for about twenty seconds, looking at each other.

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During that time a car drove down the road out in front of my house.

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It stayed frozen as the car passed.

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I mean it was as still as a statue.

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When the car sound and lights were long gone, I heard it take a big sniff in the air, a deep

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sniff, a sound that lifted the hair on my arms all over again.

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It angled its head.

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It looked for me to the other pumpkins lined up like targets along the steps.

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It looked at me for a second longer than necessary.

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It was telling me, "What are you gonna do about it?"

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Then it leaned forward and picked up the next pumpkin.

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When it looked at me again, it wasn't like it was worried I was gonna do something.

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No, it looked like the raccoon had looked last year when my wife accidentally left the

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dog food bag on the back porch.

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It was deliriously happy, greedy, blissful, and absolutely at home.

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No one there was nothing I was gonna do about it.

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As for me, it was like looking at some terrible accident out on the road.

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I knew I shouldn't, but I couldn't stop myself.

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I watched in silence as it worked through three of those pumpkins.

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Despite how messy the pumpkins are, it worked through them quick and neat, leaving

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the pumpkin halves rounded and scraped clean from the inside.

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When it looked its palm, I could hear the rasp of the tongue on its skin.

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The smell of fresh pumpkin mixed with that bad odor that it gave off, turned my stomach

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in a way I can't explain, and I still smell it to this day whenever I carve a pumpkin.

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At the time my body didn't know if we were at a harvest festival or at a terrible zoo

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where none of the enclosures had ever been cleaned.

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When it reached for the fourth pumpkin, the one I had carved with a crooked grin, it paused.

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The grin on the pumpkin made a black gap where the candle had burned out earlier.

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The big foot shoved two fingers in that pumpkin mouth and pushed inward, caving the whole thing

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in with a dull pop.

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I don't really remember doing it, but I guess I did.

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I shifted in my chair. I did something, but the chair gave out a tiny squeak, and that

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was enough.

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I'm still not sure why the noise was more upsetting than the light, but judging by its

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reaction it was.

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Maybe it understood if it heard the chair, it thought I was getting up, but I wasn't.

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Suddenly the head snapped up and the whole torso twisted right toward me, the light

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hitting right in one of its eyes before it moved its head just enough to avoid direct light

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contact.

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The growl at gave wasn't loud, but I heard it.

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The grow was low, and it came from too deep in the chest to belong to anything that I've

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ever known walking on two legs.

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It put one foot up on the step.

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I saw toes, long and splayed, mud and pumpkin pop webbed between them.

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I didn't run because there wasn't anywhere for me to go.

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I knew the only other entrance into my house was the back door, and I knew it was locked

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and chained from the inside.

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My wife always does that before she goes to bed, and that's where she was.

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She said I could wait up if I wanted, but she was going to bed.

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I had come out the front door, and I expected I was going to go back in through the front

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door.

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But I couldn't do that with the big foot standing on my steps.

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There was nowhere for me to go that I could quickly get to or get inside.

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So I did the only smart thing I've probably done without really thinking about it in my

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life.

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I lowered the light, turned my face away, just enough I didn't have direct eye contact,

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but I could still see it from the sides of my vision.

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I set the mag light down in my lap.

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It was still on, but that took the light off of its face, and it lit up more of its shoulders

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down.

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I put both hands out, palms up, so it could see I had nothing in my hands, assuming it

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could see beyond the mag light.

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The pepper spray was at my feet, as was the bag of balloons filled with red dye.

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I could have used the pepper spray, I guess, but it wasn't a strong one.

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I had deliberately bought a milder spray, because I didn't want to hurt the kids.

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I just wanted to make them think twice about coming out here.

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So I didn't think it would be much use against a big foot.

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I was praying the things that I'd heard all these years were true, that not all of them

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were bad, not all of them are killers.

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This one was brown-haired, and I had always heard the black-haired ones were the bad ones.

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It stood there for a count of five, maybe, letting out that same low growl.

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Then it blew hard through its nose.

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Scoop the carp pumpkin up in one hand, and back down off the steps without looking away.

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It kept its body turned toward me, quartering sideways away from me into the darkness of the

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yard.

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After a few seconds I heard the muffled crunch of gravel popping again.

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I hadn't realized I'd been holding my breath, but when I heard the gravel pop I thought

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it was gone, and I suddenly started breathing again.

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Well, I was wrong.

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It wasn't gone.

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But I had gotten up, folded up my chair, grabbed the bag in the spray, and I was beginning

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to walk to the front steps.

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When I suddenly saw a dark shape come right at me from the darkness.

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It was back, and moving quicker this time.

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It got to the steps just ahead of me.

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It reached down, and it grabbed the last two pumpkins on the steps in a sweeping motion,

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pulling one under each arm.

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Then it rose up towards full height, and it looked right at me.

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Again, slow and deliberate.

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My mag light was still on, but I didn't point it at its face.

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Not that it mattered.

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I could still see its face, and I still see it sometimes when I'm sleeping.

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And I don't mean in a good way.

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For a heartbeat it stood there, and blocked my porch steps.

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Again, another act of defiance or dominance.

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I was maybe 15 feet from it.

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It had those pumpkins, and it gave me that greedy, happily delirious look like the raccoon

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did.

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Then it made a short, chesty, oomthing sound.

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Then it was gone, right down the lane, and melted into the darkness somewhere out there.

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I got inside the house as quick as I could, and then I realized I'd left my thermos of

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coffee out there on the post.

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Well, too bad.

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I wasn't going back out for it.

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I turned the porch light, and all the other outside lights on.

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All I had left of my pumpkins were the ones I had brought in earlier.

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They had all already gone out.

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Normally, I would go through the house and relight them, because I'd like to stay up late

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watching movies, binging on popcorn and candy.

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Yeah, I'll admit it.

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I'm still a kid at heart.

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Sue me.

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But that night I did not relight the pumpkins in the windows.

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In the morning I went out and swept the strings and seeds off the porch and down into the grass.

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They were prints there.

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Right there in the bare places where the frost really hadn't taken hold.

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Long, wide.

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Each one deep enough to catch this land to the sun and be visible.

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I saw the pulp cling to one of the prints.

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I stared at the prints for quite a while, letting their size sink in, making it match up

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to what I had seen the night before.

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I did not measure the prints, and I really don't know why I didn't.

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It just might have made it all too real.

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Now here I'd been accusing kids from town for three years over my pumpkins.

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But had it been the kids?

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Was I wrong?

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Or was it only that night I was wrong?

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I thought back over the past few years and all the pumpkin halves that I've picked up.

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I looked at them in a different way suddenly.

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All this time I'd just assumed those pumpkins had been thrown or slammed down to end up

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the way they did.

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But now I'm rethinking it.

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I'm imagining slamming a pumpkin or throwing it and how what results would look different

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than just two halves.

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00:20:19,400 --> 00:20:26,840
I'm thinking about how many of those pumpkins went missing each year, even before Halloween.

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But most of them were destroyed or missing on Halloween night.

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00:20:30,280 --> 00:20:35,200
Now I've thought about that too and I've had to think about why.

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Next I can figure is I don't put the carved ones out until late in the afternoon on Halloween

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right before the sun goes down, right before I can light them and enjoy them.

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00:20:45,320 --> 00:20:50,400
So I wonder if the smell of the fresh-carb pumpkins draw it in.

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So where does it live around me?

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00:20:52,240 --> 00:20:54,600
I don't have an answer on that one either.

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00:20:54,600 --> 00:20:58,640
Here where I live in Ohio I'm mostly surrounded by farms and fields.

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00:20:58,640 --> 00:21:03,920
Now there are a few islands of trees that separate them, but no real forests where I'm

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at.

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So this baffles me.

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00:21:07,160 --> 00:21:08,880
Where does it live?

329
00:21:08,880 --> 00:21:13,840
Where is close enough to me that it could smell those fresh-carb pumpkins?

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I can't give you any answers.

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00:21:15,960 --> 00:21:21,800
But since that Halloween I've set several big fat pumpkins on the bottom step every Halloween

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night.

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00:21:22,800 --> 00:21:25,480
I pull in my carved ones with the faces.

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00:21:25,480 --> 00:21:28,680
But the big pumpkins, well they're a sacrifice.

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00:21:28,680 --> 00:21:32,560
I do carve them, but I don't worry about shaping a pretty face.

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00:21:32,560 --> 00:21:36,440
I carve it so it's a fresh cut that smells.

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00:21:36,440 --> 00:21:38,800
I don't like those pumpkins either.

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00:21:38,800 --> 00:21:40,480
I just set them there.

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00:21:40,480 --> 00:21:44,480
And some years I've put some out all along the drive.

340
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Also fresh-carved.

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I set them out, turn the lights out, then go in and watch my movies in the family room at

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the back of the house.

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No matter what I hear, I don't look out front.

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I don't want to see.

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00:21:58,440 --> 00:22:03,840
Now in the morning when I wake up to feed the dog and let him out, there's a pulp on the

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grass and there's a faint, stinky zoo smell on the cold air around the porch.

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00:22:09,680 --> 00:22:15,040
I no longer complain loudly when I'm in town about the juvenile delinquents that everyone

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is apparently raising.

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I say nothing.

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00:22:19,560 --> 00:22:24,440
Sometime before Halloween I go into town and I take a lot of my homegrown pumpkins to

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a church and for a day or two, I'll sell quite a few of them on a corner.

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00:22:29,760 --> 00:22:35,120
But I keep the biggest pumpkins for my Halloween bigfoot, truthfully, on a couple of the bumper

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crop years.

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00:22:36,120 --> 00:22:42,600
I've set out fresh-carved pumpkins weekly well into November and they are always broken

355
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and scooped clean.

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So make it that what you will.

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00:22:46,720 --> 00:22:48,800
Teens or bigfoot?

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00:22:48,800 --> 00:22:49,960
I think it's bigfoot.