The Great Pumpkin Battle
The click of empty chambers echoed down the line, a wave of synchronized dominoes.
Private Stanley stared at his rifle magazine, then down at the dust where the last of his brass had just rolled. To his left, Sergeant Dodge did the same, lowering his assault rifle with a slow, disappointed sigh. Across the open field, past the red line painted down the exact middle of the field, the opposing army went dead quiet. The frantic chatter of automatic gunfire vanished in an instant, replaced only by the whistling wind and the nervous rustle of dry weeds.
A heavy, awkward silence hung over the battlefield for three long seconds.
Then, a sergeant on the enemy side cleared his throat, cupped his hands, and shouted across the red line, “Well, I suppose that’s that, then!”
Stanley blinked. He looked back at his platoon commander, Major Mark, who was already pulling a laminated rulebook from his pocket, squinting through his bifocals at the small lettering.
”Check Section 4, Paragraph B,” Major Mark muttered, flipping the pages with grim determination. “Loss of conventional ballistics due to logistical supply exhaustion.” He ran a finger down the column. “Ah, ‘In the event of total kinetic depletion, combatants shall transition to auxiliary heavy ordnance. Specifically, vegetables.'”
Major Mark snapped the book shut. “Runner!” and declared, “Get the trebuchet!”
Within ten minutes, the entire war had completely restructured itself. The wide, open field was suddenly buzzing with an eerie, terrifying professionalism, with the bright red line dividing the two armies like a sacred border. Gone was the chaotic pop of gunfire, and in its place was the steady, rhythmic thump of trebuchets being pushed into place.
On their side of the red line, the Retrieval and Stacking Division, six men wearing high-visibility orange vests over their tactical gear, were frantically wheeling in wheelbarrows piled high with hefty, thick-skinned Sugar Pies and giant Atlantic Giants. They stacked the gourds into neat, symmetrical pyramids of twenty, treating each orange sphere with the reverence of nuclear warheads.
On Stanley’s side of the grass, he stood in the loading bay of a massive, Jerry-rigged counterweight trebuchet made of scaffold poles and sandbags. His hands were stained with pulp and pumpkin seeds.
”Windage looks good, Stanley!” yelled Jenkins, the team spotter, wiping sweat from his brow and adjusting a pair of binoculars. “Pressure is dropping, barometric drag is minimal. Make sure you cup the stem, or it’ll corkscrew!”
”I know how to throw a gourd, Jenkins!” Stanley hissed back, his face locked in a mask of grim, absolute stoicism. “Just watch the drop zone!”
A brass bugle sounded from the other side of the red line, a sharp, mournful call that signaled the end of their prep time. Across the dividing mark, a forty-foot catapult creaked under immense tension. Three men in full tactical riot gear stood beside the trigger lever, faces dead serious, staring across the boundary with the unblinking intensity of snipers.
Directly astride the red line in the center of the field, an umpire wearing a pristine referee shirt and holding a clipboard checked his stopwatch. He raised his hand.
Both armies held their breath.
With a sharp chop of his arm, the umpire shouted, “FIRST VOLLEY, EXECUTE!”
The enemy catapult snapped forward with a sound like a thunderclap. A three-hundred-pound heirloom pumpkin detached from the leather sling, sailing high over the red line and tumbling gracefully through the pale morning sky, a majestic orange streak of certain doom.
Stanley, Sergeant Dodge, and the rest of the crew didn’t flinch. They stood out in the open grass and watched the arc with deadpan, professional scrutiny, calculating the descent vector as the massive squash hurtled toward their side of the line at eighty miles per hour.
CRUNCH!
The heirloom pumpkin slammed into the turf thirty feet out, exploding in a concussive burst of orange debris, seeds, and wet pulp.
When the cloud of vegetable shrapnel settled, Private Miller and two squadmates were standing frozen, covered head-to-toe in stringy, bright orange goo.
The umpire stepped forward, holding his whistle to his lips. He gave a sharp, clinical glance at the dripping squad, pointed a finger down the field, and blew a loud, authoritative whistle. “Out! Splatter radius hit! Clear the field!”
”Oh, come on!” Miller shouted, throwing his hands up in frustration, sending a glob of pulp flying.
”Rule 7, Subsection C,” the umpire said coldly, making a quick tally mark on his clipboard. “Direct hit or collateral coat above the knees. Off the field.”
Cursing under their breath, the three slimy soldiers trudged off the grass and walked up to a little hill behind the front line. They sat down on the dry grass, wiping pumpkin seeds off their tactical vests, settling in with disgruntled scowls to watch the rest of the war unfold.
Back on the line, Sergeant Dodge’s jaw set into a grim line. “All right, Stanley,” Dodge barked, his eyes burning with vengeance. “Target their front-left catapult. Let’s show these boys what real artillery looks like.”
”Counterweight locked!” Stanley called back, hauling on the tension cable. “Five-hundred-pound Connecticut Field loaded!”
Jenkins adjusted his binoculars, calling out coordinates with frantic hand signals. “Elevation looks tight! Release on three… two… one… FIRE!”
Stanley slapped the lever. The heavy arm swung upward with a terrifying WHOOSH, launching their prize pumpkin across the red line in a high, elegant arc.
For four glorious seconds, the projectile sailed through the air, tracking dead-center toward the enemy catapult. But as it began its steep descent, a sudden gust of wind caught the stem. The massive squash veered slightly off course—dropping fast, dropping hard, heading directly for the center of the field.
THUD-SPLOSH.
A mushroom cloud of orange slush erupted right on the fifty-yard line.
The battlefield fell into complete, utter silence.
When the dust cleared, the umpire’s high-visibility referee shirt was nowhere to be seen—just a pair of black whistle lanyards hanging limply from a single wooden post, surrounded by a twenty-foot crater of puree.
Stanley slowly lowered his binoculars. “Uh… Jenkins?”
”That…” Jenkins swallowed hard, staring through his lenses. “…that was a direct hit on the official.”
Across the red line, the enemy army looked on in stunned disbelief. Major Mark rushed to the edge of the line, pulling out his laminated card with a hand that trembled slightly. He squinted through his bifocals at the tiny lettering.
”Ceasefire! All units, stand down!” Major Mark bellowed, waving an arm. “Rule 12, Section A! Loss of field adjudication due to direct ordnance payload! No further volleys may be executed until League Headquarters dispatches a certified alternate!”
A collective groan echoed across both sides of the field. The soldiers slouched, leaning against their trebuchets and wheelbarrows, sighing heavily.
Over on the hill, Miller wiped a piece of rind off his helmet and chuckled. “Well,” he said, kicking back in the grass. “I guess we’re on a lunch break.”
- The Great Pumpkin Battle
- 40 Years, a Cliffside Hot Tub, and a Very Foggy Sunset: Our Shelter Cove Getaway
- Death Warmed Over 2
- Death Warmed Over
- The Silent Herd of The Forest
