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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/NicolasCurcio on 2023-08-11 01:36:46.
There’s this urban legend that gets told where I’m from, a tiny town in the middle of nowhere called Hollow Oaks.
Wanna hear it?
Okay, it goes like this…
The Grimley family owned a vast swath of farmland just outside the dusty old town of Hollow Oaks. The property was seemingly infinite and stretched over sixty acres. Ever since Grimley Farms opened its grounds to the public back in 1953, locals flocked to the property. At first, the family offered small attractions like tractor tours and strawberry picking, but by the mid-1970s, the spectacle had grown to a spectacular degree. At Christmastime, carolers would occupy moving tractors while singing songs from the comfort of their haystacks. Around Valentine’s Day, the grounds became a hotspot for marriage proposals.
But Halloween on the Grimley farm was something else entirely. This was when the family really shined, not to mention made more money than every other season combined.
The haunted corn maze took brave patrons through over a dozen acres of scares, while the pumpkin patch offered a more child-friendly experience. Patrons would scurry around, obsessively poking and picking at pumpkins, as if finding exactly the “right” one was a scavenger hunt of the utmost importance. And the selection was quite miraculous – big, brilliant, balls of orange that you had to see to believe.
In the Fall of 1978, Mr. Grimley was struck with inspiration. The idea had hit him suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere, almost like a form of divine intervention. His son, Peter Grimley, who was fifteen and a half at the time, was seated at the breakfast table, wearing his smudged, crooked glasses and denim jacket with the torn sleeve. Peter’s face and figure were narrow and bony, so much so that his mother had always endearingly referred to him as her “skeleton son,” though Peter never found humor in this nickname the way she did.
“I’ve got it!” Mr. Grimley shouted. He excitedly hit the table with a tight, closed fist. Peter then watched as his father jumped up out of his seat and ran outside, ranting and raving about some new idea he had for the farm’s latest Fall attraction. At the time, Peter thought nothing of it. He simply poked at his mushy oatmeal, which was now a cold, shriveled blob that resembled a human brain. He finally scooped a bite into his mouth, which he decided would be his last.
By the time Peter returned from school that day, he arrived home to find his father working outside on a large, wooden contraption. Mr. Grimley was dripping sweat while he ran around the device with a hammer, smashing it down here and there, as if he was making important, final touches. He finally looked up to find his son Peter staring at the device, a puzzled look on his face.
“So? What do you think?” Mr. Grimley asked.
“What is it?” Peter responded.
The skinny boy tilted his head as if he thought he might have been looking at it from the wrong angle. From his perspective, it almost appeared to be some medieval torture device that you might find in some Renaissance fair or museum.
“Come on over and find out,” Mr. Grimley said.
Peter cautiously stepped towards the machine, while his father grabbed a nearby pumpkin and loaded it into a rounded, circular bucket that was held into place by a thick rope.
“Oh. It’s a—" Peter didn’t even get to say the word before his father cut him off.
“That’s right,” Mr. Grimley confirmed. “Now pull this lever right here and take cover.”
Peter did as his father told him. He reached down, pulled the lever and the catapult sprang to life. Peter jolted back as the wooden arm launched the pumpkin a hundred feet across the field before the orange ball finally exploded into a million tiny pieces.
“It’s great, right?” said Mr. Grimley, smiling wider than he’d ever smiled before. “We can charge a quarter a pop. The line will go on for miles.”
Peter nodded, considering the plan. He was inexplicably terrified of the device, though he didn’t even know why. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “It’s something.”
That weekend, when Mr. Grimley’s new invention was finally released to the public, patrons gathered in droves and each patiently waited their turn. One by one, they’d come up and hand Mr. Grimley a quarter, as well as their pumpkin of choice.
“Wonderful. Now just load that sucker in right there,” Mr. Grimley said. After each spectacular launch, as well as its respective explosion, everyone in line cheered. Peter did not understand how such a simple and repetitive act garnered such a wonderous response. He also couldn’t explain why the chain reaction bothered him on such a deep, emotional level.
Perhaps it was simply the fact that he was a good boy – and he didn’t like watching pumpkins explode into fleshy, orange globs while the locals cheered on their demise.
***
Each day, Peter walked to and from Hollow Oaks High by himself. From the Grimley farm, it was exactly a forty-two-minute walk each way. Peter knew this because he routinely timed out the expedition on his stopwatch. It never failed to amaze him how steady his walking pace was, almost down to the second.
So often in Peter’s life, he felt as if his brain didn’t work properly. For instance, he could never find the right words to express his thoughts to his peers or his parents or his teachers, and was always frightened or disturbed by things he knew he shouldn’t be – like his father’s latest invention. That’s why each day, it satisfied him to find that his walk was once again, forty-two minutes each way.
At least my legs work, he thought.
Peter Grimley roamed the halls of the school alone and largely kept to himself. He knew that he was different from his classmates. No one had ever really tried to make friends with him and he was fine with that. Yet still, this notion rather confused him, mostly due to the fact that everyone in town seemed to love his family, as well as the Grimley farm. Peter would even see his own classmates visiting the grounds on the weekends, but it was a rare occurrence that they would say anything to him, let alone acknowledge his existence.
Each day at lunch, Peter sat alone in the cafeteria and removed a foil-wrapped sandwich from a crumpled paper bag. During the Fall season, Mrs. Grimley tended to pack Peter a pumpkin and honey sandwich, since she had such a plethora of fruit on the farm. Sometimes, she’d even send along pumpkin pie or pumpkin cookies as dessert. When Peter was a small child, he loved pumpkin season, but over the years, he now dreaded every mushy bite that he had to force down his throat. Peter stared at his sandwich with disgust, just a group of his classmates were passing by, on their way to another table.
“What’s on the menu today, Peter?” Todd Bennett would ask, a football player with mean green eyes and muscles that looked too big for his body. He was standing there with his best friend, Mark Shansky, and their respective girlfriends, Lucille Paterson and Rhonda Lynch, who trailed behind.
“Pumpkin and honey,” Peter told Todd. “The same as yesterday.”
Peter knew that in reality, Todd didn’t really care about what type of sandwich he was eating. He simply loved to use the opportunity to chant his favorite nickname to poor old Peter.
“Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater!” Todd laughed.
“It’s not that funny,” Rhonda groaned.
“I think it is,” Mark added.
“Then maybe you two should be dating,” Lucille said.
The cruel teenagers continued past Pater’s table, but Rhonda lingered for a moment and shared a passing stare with the skeleton boy. Though he had never really spoken to her, he had always thought Rhonda was very pretty – she at least seemed to be the nicest one in the group.
“Sorry about them,” Rhonda said to Peter before she finally walked off and sat down at Todd’s table.
“It’s okay,” Peter replied, but he was talking to no one – she was already gone.
A few days later, as Peter was walking home from school (he was making perfect pace to hit his goal), he passed by the bus stop to find Todd and Rhonda making out on a bench. Peter kept his head down and scurried past the lovebirds, but he eventually heard Todd’s grating voice shout: “Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater! Come over here!”
Peter considered the fact that stopping would disrupt his perfectly timed walk, but then, he thought of Rhonda. He wouldn’t mind seeing her face. So, he turned around.
“For God’s sake. Just leave him alone,” Rhonda told Todd.
“One sec, babe,” Todd said back, before locking in on Peter with his green eyes. “Come over here, bud.” Peter reluctantly shuffled back over and stood before Todd and Rhonda. “Just answer this question, Pete: on a scale from one to ten, how much do you love eating pumpkins?”
Peter considered the question, then simply shrugged. “I dunno. Six?”
Todd laughed. “Yeah? What about Rhonda’s pumpkin? Would you eat that?”
“Todd, oh my God!” Rhonda said, laughing. Todd then whispered something in her ear, which made her giggle even more. They kissed again and soon enough had forgotten all about poor old Peter, standing there, just like he was told to. He pulled his backpack up, turned back and around, and continued walking back home. The interaction made him precisely one minute and twenty seconds late.
His day was ruined.
***
On October 31, 1978, Peter gathered a dozen or so pumpkins from outside the Grimley’s farmhouse and brought them into his bedroom. That night, while most of his peers were out in the world, drinking beers and b…
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