The Halloween Legend of JACK McCARVER

by Wilkinson Riling

“Greater churl was never known,

On this earth than Stingy John;

From his door the poor were turned,

Unrelieved, cursed and spurned…

…Then since Jack is unfit for Heaven,

And hell won’t give him room,

His ghost is forced to walk the earth,

Until the day of doom:

A lantern in his hand he bears,

The way by night to show;

And, from its flame, he got the name

Of Jack O’Lantern now...”

…From the poem

The Romance of Jack O’Lantern

by Hercules Ellis

For the past twelve years the Crow County Pumpkin Carving Contest has been won by one man, a peculiar man for sure, but with an artistry of sculpting the seasonal squash said to be unmatched by mortal men. That’s not to say Jack McCarver was not of this world, but he certainly appeared to be treated as supernatural by neighbors and townsfolk alike, a spookish conjecture speculated about for years to come.

Aside from his carvings, Jack Ichabob McCarver was a strange looking fellow in his own right. A circular head with the features of a ferret cramped into the center of his face, a set of gray eyes impossible of ever acknowledging each other due to the drift of his left one. A detectable odor of fermented pumpkin permeated his skin, made no wonder of why he was a bachelor. He lived alone. He didn’t speak much. His dress was not untypical for the region, jean overalls over a long john T- shirt. He balanced a wide brimmed farmer’s hat over straight black hair and work boots laced to the ankles. He stood a lanky six foot tall with long arms and large thin hands that one would expect to be more calloused, him being a farmer and such, but they were smooth as a surgeon’s hands and by the quality of his pumpkin carving, just as precise.

His farm lay on the outskirts of Crow, Idaho. There, he slaughtered his own pigs and chickens, drew milk from a lone dairy cow, but his specialty was that he grew his own pumpkins. His pumpkin patch was dedicated to growing the county’s best, not necessarily the largest pumpkins around. Each Halloween he seemed to prove that point when his crop sold out.

It was late October when I saw him as the perfect subject matter for a story for The Crow Caller, our town’s local newspaper. I had just started working for them only three months out of high school. I received one hundred dollars for a story I wrote in my school paper about the influx of migrant workers at the meat packing plant and how the industry was exploiting them by illegally hiring minors. Pretty heavy stuff for a high schooler, I know, but when my friend Eduardo Lopez suddenly stopped coming to class and I had learned why, I wrote the expose. The Crow Caller picked it up and reprinted it then offered me a job.

With Christmas coming up I needed another 100 bucks to get my girlfriend Sarah something nice. Halloween was right around the corner, and I thought why not find something not just seasonal but a bit scary to write about. There were many local legends about Jack McCarver the Pumpkin Carver.

As I noted earlier, Jack lived alone on his three-acre farm and was rare to venture far from it. Except every Halloween Eve his 1950’s Black Ford pickup truck would pull into the county fairgrounds for our annual Oktoberfest and deliver the last of his crop of pumpkins along with his haunting masterpiece of a Jack O’Lantern. The contest offered a $500 dollar prize, which Jack has claimed for the past dozen and one years.

His farm was at the end of a half mile of dirt road off the main highway. It consisted of a two story, asymmetrical, clapboard house with the gable at the front and a porch. The wood, grayed and weather beaten was built in the early part of the last century. The barn nearby just as gray but seemed to stand purely out of stubbornness rather than solid construction. Mailmen and Amazon delivery men practically threw the packages out of their trucks without stopping. People said he murdered his own parents and dines along with their corpses in the evenings like some kind of Norman Bates/Norman Rockwell supper.

Others say that they’re buried in his pumpkin patch and their spirit haunts each pumpkin grown. He sells his “haunted” pumpkins on a stand he constructed at the end of his driveway and it’s on the honor system. Leave the money, take a pumpkin. Nobody has had the guts to break the rule. Add to that the rumors he once cannibalized a census taker. Or when they went to cut his cable service, he hatcheted a cable man into pieces, or the tale of the missing girl scout troop fed to his hogs, cookies and all and you can see there were a lot of folktales behind the legend of Jack McCarver pumpkin carver.

My car was in the shop. It was a used Mini Cooper I purchased in Junior High and let’s just say it’s cost me a mini fortune in repairs. I had to borrow my sister’s bike, a yellow Schwinn Wayfarer step-thru with a back rack. The eight-mile trip to the McCarver place took about thirty-five minutes and I had left at four. In the back of my mind, I was hoping I didn’t catch him and his “Weekend at Bernie’s” parents just sitting down for dinner. Or him baking actual girl scouts into cookies. Or a half dozen other scenarios gleaned from ever Saw movie I ever watched. My goal was to interview him about his art, his pumpkin sculpting. Learn his process, tools he used and how he became so interested in the art form. Look, in Crow Idaho, how far you can spit is considered an art, this made pumpkin carving high art.

I arrived in time to see his black Ford pickup come barreling down his driveway and pull out in front of me and drive towards town. I didn’t even have time to call out “Mr. McCarver!” or “Slow down, you idiot, you almost hit me!” I watched as he disappeared into the distance. I looked at the lonely farmhouse, I know it’s weird, but the house gave off the same vibe you get seeing a puppy dog watch it’s master leave it behind chained to a tree in the middle of nowhere. The phenomenon's called pareidolia, seeing faces in everyday objects. This house looked sad. There was still light left to the day. I figured I could wait on the porch for his return.

As I sat on the weathered steps an autumnal wind blew steady across the porch, and I was startled by the creak of the front door. Either the wind had pushed it open, or someone was inside inviting me into the dark. The reporter in me took over and I did the thing they tell you never to do in horror movies; ask who’s there? Followed by the next mistake; go and find out who it might be. I stepped in and jumped at hearing a tea pot from the kitchen screaming it was ready. Remaining true to the trope, I went to investigate.

I stepped through the kitchen door relieved not to see his parents having tea and biscuits with rats crawling from their mouths. I turned off the gas under the teapot and watched the steam dissipate like a genie returning to its bottle. I thought I heard a sound. A knocking sound. It was coming from the basement. I open the door and flicked on the light switch. Nothing happened. Still, it was dark and spooky. I’m not going down there. Then as I closed the door, I noticed behind it on a shelf a lantern and a pack of matches. The house was getting darker by the second, against my better judgement, I lit the damn thing and reopened the damn door. I was thinking I would make an ace reporter someday or perhaps qualify to replace Freddy on Scooby Doo.

I crept down the basement stairs, only because the sound of every bending creak and crack demanded I creep. Surely, these were the original stairs from pioneer days when this farm must have been constructed and would give way at any moment. There was a smell of mildew and wet clay coming off the walls of stones placed in lazy patterns upon each other until forming what could loosely be considered a room.

Along the ceiling heavy wood beam rafters strained to keep the rest of the house from collapsing in. Wooden shelves of dust and cobwebs held and assortment of pottery, glassware, mason jars of varying sizes, paint cans, oil cans and miscellaneous items from decades ago. A small window was covered with dirt and dust so little light filtered through, especially this far into fall when the sun set around five. The outside wind was pushing against it causing the source of the original banging noise.

Past the shelving, in the center of the long basement, I made out what I thought was the shadow of a man hunched down. Stepping forward, my lantern illuminated a leg shape and then revealed the rest of what turned out to be a wooden table, or a work bench. On it, a perfectly shaped pumpkin still with vine attached, it looked to have been freshly picked from the patch. On the table on a leather bib spread out neatly by order of size, were what I guessed to be the tools Jack must use for his carving. There were metal sculpting loops, steel loops the size of a thumbnail attached to a wooden handle. An Exacto knife, a putty knife, a drywall saw with what looked like prehistoric teeth, a large spoon with serrated edges, kind of like a spork. Set apart and just above on the leather bib, a filet knife with a wood handle and intricate runes carved into it. It looked sharp enough to cut you by just looking at it.

I held up my lantern to a shock I will never forget. The bleak light from my lamp fell upon wooden shelves of about a dozen mason jars lined up in two rows. Each jar contained a liquid I guessed was formaldehyde. Floating in the liquid of each one was a severed head. Each head: eyes opened, mouth agape, features contorted. I stumbled back and almost fell into a cistern I hadn't noticed. I caught myself on the edge and turned to look down into the black abyss. Holding up my lantern, it revealed it to be about six feet deep. Any water once in there was gone, now replaced by bones, glowing yellow white by my light. Rib cages, and hip bones and femurs and fibulas piled a foot high in a heap. Some in various states of decomposition.

I looked back at the macabre pantry of beheaded people and realized at that moment what Jack McCarver’s secret of success was. Those winning entries he submitted each year in the Jack O’Lantern carving contest were not pumpkin carvings as you and I have come to know them, these were the death masks of his victims, carved with the same blade Jack used to carve up his victims. A filet knife of exquisite sharpness in the precise hands of a madman and his tools, a drywall saw used to behead and dismember, spoons to remove brains, sculpting loops to flay skin, the uses were infinite.

That’s when I heard the pickup truck outside. At least that was my guess. It certainly wasn’t an Uber driver come to pick me up. I put the wick out on the lantern and placed it on the shelf trying to hide it behind one of the grisly mason jars staring back at me. The room was now virtually pitch black and I needed to hide. I felt my way around the table over to the cistern. I climbed over the edge and lowered myself into the pile of death, decay and bone. Then I remembered my sister’s bike and realized I was screwed.

I heard the click of the light switch. The stairs creaked at a much quicker rate than when I took them, so someone had more confidence in them than I had. I tried not to breathe. Maybe he’ll check the rest of the house and I could make a break for it while he was upstairs. No such luck. The room lit bright, the new light even reaching into the pit. I pressed against the side of the cistern still in darkness. I peeked to see a lightbulb swinging from a ceiling wire socket. Did he just leave the farm to buy a lightbulb? No. That’s crazy.

Jack McCarver spoke to me. “You can come out now, young man.” The voice was frog throated and sounded as if it was dragged across sandpaper. I was ready to piss myself. I did not answer.

“Or I can drag you out.” His response to my silence.

I stuttered. “I… I’m coming out.” No sense in getting physical at this stage of our meeting. I stood crunching the bone and marrow beneath my feet. I was able to jump and pull myself up, claw over the rim of the cistern and with a thrusting scramble from my feet, roll onto the floor landing behind him. I stood, shaking, aware I was cold and sweating at the same time. I heard the sound I’ll never forget. Stainless steel piercing pumpkin. Chik! In this environment it was truly an unnerving sound.

McCarver continued, his back to me. “Do you hear that sound? Cold steel stabbing into this pumpkin? Listen as I slice its flesh to remove the top so I can spoon out the insides, gutting it into a hollow shell that will become my canvas.” He stop speaking so I could hear. There was a sucking sound as he pulled off the top. He spoke again. “Did you know stabbing a human has a very similar sound and feel to it”

I watched as McCarver removed the pumpkin’s insides with a spoon, scraping and shoveling a pile of pumpkin guts onto his work bench. “It’s that moment when I stab them when my models realize I intend to gut their very souls from them. That’s when I capture the expression needed to bring my sculptures to life.”

He turned to me holding up an unlit candle. The most important factor is the light.” McCarver lit the candle. You control the light by the depth of your carving, remove less here and more there and you create dimension, shading and shape to the art.”

McCarver set the candle down. “But the real secret? He began to pick seeds one by one out of the innards piled outside the pumpkins. These are the seeds I use for my next crop, the bloodline, so to speak, continues.” He opened his palm and showed me his “blood” seeds. He closed a fist and turned away.

He turned back to me. McCarver had picked up a knife. “Let me show you.”

I went to run, and he blocked the path to exit.

McCarver thrust his hand out, grabbing me by the neck and pinned me to the wall. I weighed half as much and a good six inches shorter. He banged my head against the wall with enough force to stun me close to unconsciousness. He spun me around locking my arms behind my back. I felt the tightening of a zip tie then spun back around to face him again.

His smile revealed teeth as crooked as a broken fence. He held up a blade. “This is a filet knife. It is used by the top chef’s in the world. You won’t feel a thing, at first.” Jack McCarver’s gray eyes were otherworldly, the pupils dilated to the size of a button with a black pigment found only in the coal mines of hell. His ferret sneer almost drooled as he pulled my shirt up and slowly began to push the knife into my gut.

He was right. Whether it was adrenaline or outright terror I didn’t feel it as inch by inch it sunk into my belly with the same sickening sound I heard earlier. My hands were locked together but I still had a free foot. I kicked at the shelving unit containing the heads and the lantern. A domino effect took place as mason jar bumped mason jar knocking the lantern down onto the candle. An explosion of flame distracted McCarver who pulled out the knife to attend to the fire. I dropped to a knee.

The Black and Decker drywall saw tumbled from the table to the floor laying teeth up. I dropped backwards onto it feeling the blades bite into my back. I gaged where a sawtooth was, using it to slice my plastic bonds.

McCarver almost had the fire out when I stood, and this time I pulled the shelves of the disembodied heads down. The jars burst open, and the formaldehyde exploded. I pushed through the growing fire knocking McCarver into the cistern, I made for the stairs holding my wounded torso tight. I heard him screaming but didn’t look back. The whole basement and its ancient artifacts were exploding and bursting into flame. The fire was racing across the rafters. I ran so fast I don’t remember touching the stairs so there was no fear of collapse.

I got safely to the kitchen. Before exiting I stopped at the stove and turned on the gas while putting the flame and pilot out with water from the nearby kettle. I let the gas run. I stumbled to the door, but not before the flames ripped out of the basement and now began to burn with purpose.

I crashed from the house holding my wound tumbling down the wooden porch stairs. My face connecting with hardened earth and dust. I could hear the flames crackle and snap behind me and feel the heat from the increasing blaze on my back. I crawled forward in pain and nausea. I tried to get as far away as possible. I tried to stand but continued to stumble.

Exhausted and losing blood I leaned on an elbow and turned to look back at the conflagration. Pareidolia. Same phenomenon, different image. The burning house took on the same orange glow of a jack o’lantern, the collapsing porch railings resembling McCarver’s own teeth. The hollowed darkness of the front door and empty second story windows formed the eyes and the nose. It looked like a demented Jack O'Lantern. As the house disintegrated, McCarver’s screaming stopped. Then came the explosion. The wooden house that had survived drought, floods, and neglect for over a century splintered into a thousand pieces and scattered in as many directions.

It only took about thirteen minutes for the emergency vehicles to show. I was lucky, the blade had missed perforating anything of life-threatening importance. I only lost a pint and a half of blood. I would be out of the hospital in a day. Plenty of time to write my article for the Halloween edition.

I was a town hero, reluctant, of course. I had been paid for my story and received even more notoriety when contacted by talk shows and podcasts across the country to retell the Halloween Legend of Jack McCarver. I was a celebrity and Sarah seemed pleased with that, insisting we attend Oktoberfest to know what it feels like to be treated like royalty. I prefer a quieter, humbler existence, but Sarah’s never even been out of Crow County, so I wanted her to feel special if that’s what she desired.

Besides, with the ghost of Jack McCarver’s evil doings behind us, the quiet hamlet of Crow, Idaho could return to the normalcy of beer drinking, pie eating contests and wearing lederhosen in October. I stopped to get Sarah a candy apple. I reached in my pocket for cash. I felt something strange. What I pulled out nearly stopped my heart. I had to get over to the pumpkin carving contest. I ran through the crowd pulling Sarah after me. We arrived at the display. I froze in place.

The center pumpkin on the top tier already had the first-place ribbon attached. The image carved so intricately, backlit with the amber glow of hot embers, detailed to perfection on the orb shape, with translucent highlights, was a face I can never get out of my mind. It was MY face. The face I must have had as Jack McCarver penetrated my abdomen with his filet knife and held it there waiting for me to realize I was about to die. A face twisting in fear, contorting in question and bewilderment. Despite the fact I fought back and survived, I knew he got from me what he wanted and now was taking first prize for a fourteenth year.

The entry was submitted by a Jim Smith who never claimed the prize. Only I figured out that "Jim" could be an acronym for Jack Ichabob McCarver. The Halloween legend lives on because of three things I knew to be true; Jack McCarver’s body was never found, the blade that did the bulk of his artistry is still missing and despite finding them only moments ago, I have no idea how thirteen pumpkin seeds ended up in my pocket.