The Fire Within

By Jeff Enos

Mrs. DeVos called Sol up to the front desk as the last bell for the school day rang at East Elm Middle School. The class shuffled out, leaving them alone together.

Mrs. DeVos was the new English substitute teacher while their regular teacher was out on maternity leave. She had long, pitch-black hair and a mountain of necklaces and bracelets that jingled every time she moved.

Sol nervously gripped his backpack straps and walked up to the front desk.

“That boy has been bothering you again,” Mrs. DeVos said knowingly. “East Elm has had many bullies over the years, but Billy Hunter and his crew give new meaning to the word. Isn’t there anyone you can play with at lunch? Someone to defend you?” Mrs. DeVos asked.

Sol had heard the same thing from his own mother quite often. They meant well, but all it did was make him feel bad, like he was the problem, like he was the freak for preferring the company of a good book over the other kids, like it was his fault he’d been picked on.

“I—” Sol started, but Mrs. DeVos cut him off gently.

“It’s fine. I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Sol said.

Mrs. DeVos twirled the mound of necklaces around her neck, contemplating her next words. “Halloween is coming up. Are you dressing up?”

Sol’s eyes brightened. Halloween was his favorite time of year. “Yes, I’m going as Pennywise.”

“Pennywise?”

“The clown from It, the Stephen King story.”

Mrs. DeVos raised an eyebrow in surprise. “You’ve read that book?”

“Yes, I’ve read all of his books. It is my favorite.”

Of course it was, Mrs. DeVos’s expression seemed to say. The middle school protagonists, the small town, the bullies—there was a lot that Sol could relate to in It.

“Do you like to carve pumpkins for Halloween?” Mrs. DeVos asked.

Sol nodded enthusiastically. In fact, it was one of his favorite things about the holiday. Every year, he’d spend hours carefully carving his pumpkin, making sure every detail was just right. In years past, he’d made a Michael Myers pumpkin, a Freddy Krueger pumpkin, a Pennywise pumpkin. With Halloween just two days away, he’d decided this year on Frankenstein’s monster.

A mischievous grin crept across Mrs. DeVos’s face. She reached under her desk and pulled out a large pumpkin, placing it on the desk. “I have an extra one from my garden that needs a home. Take it for me?”

The pumpkin was perfectly round and orange, with sections of shiny ribbed skin that seemed to hypnotize Sol. It was as if the pumpkin were whispering to him, pleading with him to carve away. Sol took the pumpkin graciously, screaming with excitement inside. He couldn’t wait to get started on it.

“Use it wisely,” Mrs. DeVos said, watching Sol intently, smirking, and adding, “And don’t let those boys bother you anymore. Promise?”

Sol nodded, said goodbye, and left, making his way across the parking lot to his mom’s car. He got in and set the pumpkin on his lap. His mom was a little surprised by the gift, but grateful that she didn’t have to buy a pumpkin this year.

As they drove home, Sol wondered about Mrs. DeVos’s curious last words: use it wisely. Sol had been so excited that he had barely thought about it. But now, as he sat there, he realized it was an odd thing to say about a simple pumpkin.

---

It was 5:30 p.m. when Sol’s parents finally left for their weekly Friday night date night. The house was quiet and empty, just the way Sol liked it.

His homework done for the weekend, Sol started in on the pumpkin. He lined up his carving instruments like surgical tools on the old wooden kitchen table.

First, he carved a lid on the pumpkin and hollowed out the guts and seeds inside. He’d already decided on the Frankenstein pattern he was going to use days ago; now he taped it to the front of the pumpkin and got to work, poking small holes into the pattern with the pointy orange tool. The pattern transferred to the pumpkin perfectly, looking like a game of connect-the-dots.

Sol started in on the face, each cut slow and precise, each one more delicate than the next.

Outside the kitchen window, the sun set behind the woods, giving the trees a fiery glow that soon dissolved into darkness.

Two hours later, and with aching wrists, hands, and fingers, Sol made the last cut. He dropped his knife, got a tea candle from the hall cupboard, placed it inside the pumpkin, and lit it. With a satisfied smile, he secured the lid in place and admired his work, watching as Frankenstein’s monster flickered in the candlelight.

It was one of his best creations. But there was something off about it, something Sol couldn’t quite put his finger on. The pumpkin had a commanding presence to it, an aura that made Sol uneasy.

Mrs. DeVos’s comment kept swirling through his head: use it wisely.

And then something extraordinary happened—the pumpkin seemed to take on a life of its own. The small flame inside expanded, engulfing the pumpkin in a sinister blaze. The orange skin began to sweat, and the Frankenstein’s monster pattern melted away, slowly morphing into a classic jack-o’-lantern pattern, a sinister grin with pointed angry eyebrows and more teeth in its mouth than seemed possible.

Then the table vibrated violently underneath the pumpkin, and the wood that was once an ordinary table slowly transformed into an eight-foot-tall body with bark-like skin, each wooden fiber crackling into place under the jack-o’-lantern head. Small cracks in the bark revealed something underneath, tiny flickers of dark movement, like hundreds of colonies of bugs lived inside the creature’s skin.

Sol felt numb, unable to conjure up a single word or thought.

The creature spoke, a voice deeper than the Grand Canyon, and the words seemed to vibrate off the kitchen walls. The fire flickered inside its head as it spoke. “What is the name of your tormentor?” it asked.

“M-my tormentor?” Sol whispered, wiping the sweat from his brow, looking up at the giant creature. He could feel his heartbeat in every vein and artery in his body.

“Yes,” the creature said. “The one who fills your days with grief. The one who taunts you.”

The answer to the question was simple, but Sol couldn’t speak. It was as if his brain had shut off, all energy diverted to his body, his bones, his muscles. Sol tensed his jaw, readying himself to run past the creature to the front door, to the neighbor’s house for help, to anywhere but here.

But something stopped him. It was a voice deep inside him, a voice that calmed him. It was Mrs. DeVos’s voice, three whispered words that diminished Sol’s fear: “Use it wisely.”

Sol felt his body relax. “Billy Hunter,” he said.

The creature nodded and disappeared in a burst of flames. In the same instant, Sol fainted and fell to the floor.

---

When Sol opened his eyes, he was surprised to find himself standing in a small closet. It was dark except for an orange glow that shined against the white closet doors. Sol looked behind him, the glow following his field of vision.

Sol realized he wasn’t in his own closet when he saw the grungy clothes on the hangers and a box of baseball trophies on the top shelf. Sol caught his reflection in one of the trophies and nearly screamed. Staring back at him was the jack-o’-lantern creature.

Sol looked down and saw the wooden body, realizing that it was him—he was the creature now, somehow.

A muffled voice from outside the closet spoke in one or two-word sentences. Through the cracks in the closet door blinds, Sol saw a boy’s bedroom. In the corner of the room, a boy sat at a desk with his back to Sol, hunched over his work, mumbling to himself as he scribbled.

“Stupid!” the boy said to himself.

Sol’s stomach turned as he realized who it was. It was Billy. No one else Sol knew could sound that enraged, that hateful.

Sol could feel the flames on his face flickering to the rhythm of his increasing heartbeat. All Sol wanted to do was go home. He didn’t want to be reminded of how Billy had made his school life torture, of how every day for the past few months he’d dreaded going to school, of how fear had seemed to take over his life.

Again, Mrs. DeVos’s words crept into Sol’s mind: use it wisely. And standing there, in the body of a terrifying jack-o’-lantern creature, Sol finally understood.

With a firm and confident hand, Sol opened the closet door and crept into the bedroom, stopping inches from Billy’s chair.

Billy was drawing Pennywise the clown, the Tim Curry version from the TV mini-series. Sol stopped, admiring the detail. It was good, like it could be on the cover of a comic book.

On the desk’s top shelf was a row of books, all by Stephen King: The Shining, It, The Dead Zone, Salem’s Lot.

Sol felt a deep pang in his stomach (if he even had one in this form), like he might be sick. He felt betrayed. In another life, he and Billy could have been friends. Instead, Billy had been a bully. Instead, Billy had done everything in his power to make Sol’s life a living hell. Why?

“You like Stephen King?” Sol asked. The words came out defeated, confused, but all Billy heard was the voice of a monster behind him.

Billy jumped out of his chair and turned around to face Sol, terror in his eyes. A fresh stream of urine slid down Billy’s pants and trickled onto the floor.

Sol’s feelings of hurt and betrayal soon turned into anger, disgust. Sol gave in to the jack-o’-lantern creature, the line that separated them dissolving. The flames on his head pulsed brighter, erupting into a small explosion that singed Billy’s hair and sent him flying across the room.

Billy screamed. Sol drank from the sound, the vibrations feeding him, strengthening him.

Billy ran for the door, but Sol got there first, blocking his way. Sol touched the door, and with his touch, a wild garden of vines grew up and out of every corner of the door frame. The vines grew and grew until they covered the whole door, and then, like watching a movie on fast forward, they began to rot and decay, turning black. The decay morphed into pools of shimmering black liquid, which quickly condensed and hardened into black stone, sealing the door shut.

Billy ran again, this time hiding under his bed. But there was no hiding from Sol, not anymore. Sol bent and reached under the bed with one wooden hand, his hand growing extra branches until it reached Billy and encircled him in its grip.

Sol dragged Billy out from under the bed and held him up high by his shirt. The fear in Billy’s eyes fed Sol, nourishing his wooden body, the insects underneath his skin, the flames inside his face.

Billy’s shirt ripped, and he fell to the ground. Snap!—the sound of a broken arm. Billy screamed and got up, holding his arm and limping to the door. He tried to push the door open, but as soon as he touched the black stone, it froze him in place.

“‘Your hair is winter fire,’” Sol said, reciting the poem from his favorite Stephen King novel, It. Another explosion burst from Sol’s jack-o’-lantern head; this time, a ball of fire shot out directly at Billy, erupting Billy’s hair in flames.

“Say the next part,” Sol demanded.

“‘January embers,’” Billy whispered, tears and soot strolling down his face.

Sol squeezed his fists so tight that his barked skin cracked open in small fissures all over his body. Hundreds of colonies of cockroaches and spiders escaped through the cracks and crawled their way down Sol’s body, onto the floor, and onto Billy.

Happiness wasn’t an emotion that Sol felt very often. He was a melancholy, anxious kid most of the time. But as the bugs covered Billy’s body in a layer so thick that only small patches of skin were visible, happiness was the only thing Sol could feel. Happiness morphed into pure hypnotic bliss as the bugs charged their way down Billy’s throat and choked him to death.

Billy deserved to be punished, that much was certain. But how much was too much? How much was Sol willing to watch before he tried to overpower the jack-o’-lantern creature and take full control? Until there was nothing left but blood and bone? How much of a role had he played in this? Was he simply an onlooker, or an active participant? Even Sol wasn’t completely sure.

But there was a power within him, that much was certain. A power that made him feel like he could take on the world. Sol figured that this was how Billy must have felt all those times he’d tortured him at school, otherwise why would he do it? As Sol watched Billy choke to death, all he could think about was the torture Billy had put him through at school. And in his rage, Sol did something unforgivable. He blew a violent stream of flames onto Billy, and this time, Billy’s whole body caught fire and burned.

Sol felt Billy die, felt Billy take his last breath, felt Billy’s body as it slowly went limp.

Sol watched hypnotically as the flames finally died and all that remained was a darkened, charred corpse, still frozen in place by the black door. The bugs crawled off of Billy and back onto Sol, returning to their home under the fissures in Sol’s skin, carrying Billy’s soul with them.

“‘My heart burns there, too,’” Sol said.

Sol’s tormentor was gone, and he felt more at peace than he’d ever felt in his life.

---

A sudden flash of light blanketed Sol’s vision, and with it, a change of location. He was back in his kitchen, and back in his own body, and standing in front of him was the jack-o’-lantern creature.

“Does this satisfy you?” the creature asked, looking down at Sol.

It was a question Sol knew the answer to, but didn’t want to admit, let alone say it out loud. Yes, he was satisfied. His tormentor had been brutally punished and would never bother him again.

Sol nodded his head slowly, shamefully.

“Good,” the creature said, grinning. “Do you have another tormentor?”

Another? Sol thought about it. Was there anyone else who deserved such a fate? One of the other guys from Billy’s crew? Sol didn’t even know their names.

The idea was tempting. If he wanted to, he could get rid of everyone who’d ever picked on him. He could reshape the whole school cohort into whatever he wanted, make the school a paradise for the weirdos, the freaks, the unlucky kids.

But what would Mrs. DeVos think? She had entrusted him with the pumpkin, had instructed him to use it wisely. What would she think if he abused it?

“No,” Sol said.

“Very well,” the creature said, and quickly morphed back into the table that it once was, with the pumpkin sitting on top of it, now fully intact, as if Sol had never even carved it.

It was as if nothing had happened, as if it had all been in Sol’s head. But he knew it hadn’t been. He knew what he’d seen, what he’d felt… what he’d done. It was all too much for him to process, and he ran into the bathroom and barfed into the toilet for the next twenty minutes straight.

The following Monday at school, everyone was talking about the mystery surrounding Billy’s death. Was it some kind of freak accident? A serial killer? Were the parents involved?

Sol ate his lunch that day in peace.

Later, when the last bell rang in Mrs. DeVos’s class, Sol waited behind for the other students to depart before approaching her.

Sol walked to Mrs. DeVos’s desk and unzipped his backpack, removing the pumpkin. “I think you should take this,” Sol said, handing it to Mrs. DeVos. 

“Are you sure?” Mrs. DeVos asked. She wore a thin smile, slightly curled. “There may be other Billy’s down the road, you know. And there’s still high school to think about.” 

Sol nodded. “I’m sure. Give it to the next kid who needs it.”

Mrs. DeVos glided her palm across the pumpkin’s flesh. “That’s very generous of you.” 

Sol turned to go, but stopped himself in the middle of the doorway for one last question. “Mrs. DeVos?” he asked. 

“Yes?” 

Sol tapped the doorframe nervously. “Where did it come from?”

 “Are you sure you want to know?”

Sol thought about it for a second. Did he? Could he handle the truth? He reconsidered, shaking his head no.

“Very well, then. I’ll see you in class tomorrow,” Mrs. DeVos said, smiling.

Sol left. 

Mrs. DeVos’s smile quickly morphed into a devious grin as she looked at the pumpkin. She took a large butcher knife out of her desk drawer and stabbed the pumpkin. A young boy’s screams could be faintly heard from within.

The pumpkin collapsed like a deflated basketball, sagging into a mound of thick orange skin. Blood as red as sunset spilled out of the puncture wound, along with chunks of swollen blood-filled pumpkin seeds. 

Before the gore could spill out onto the desk, Mrs. DeVos plugged the wound with her mouth, sucking it until there was nothing left. She chewed the bloody orange flesh into tiny bits until it was all gone. 

Her lips smacked as she took the last bite. “Billy, you are a naughty boy,” she said, cackling.

That night, Mrs. DeVos went to bed well-fed. It would be three more months before she needed another one, but she already had her eyes set on a real thick number in the next district over, a ten-year-old nightmare of a kid who bullied the students as well as the teachers. She’d need a big pumpkin for this one. 

The next morning, as she watered her garden, Mrs. DeVos came upon the perfect pumpkin. It was hidden behind the vines, but there was no mistaking its beauty, its size. It would be ready in three months’ time, just as she would be gearing up to befriend the next Sol, the next kid who needed her help to find the fire within.

The End.