October. Grace’s favorite time of year. The pumpkins, Halloween, leaves, spooky stories, costume parties, and her birthday. Each year she tries to make the most out of the month by doing her usual festivities including the fair, pumpkin picking, haunted houses, and going to parties.
Grace wakes up on October fourteenth and the weather outside is perfect for her. There's a crisp cool breeze and leaves are falling down. She decides today is the ideal day for her to go to the fair. She calls her best friend, Sammy, to see if she’s down to go with her.
“Sammy, let’s go to the fair today,” said Grace excitedly into the phone.
“Umm, have you not heard the news Grace?” Sammy said concerningly.
“What are you talking about?”
“Last night at the fair, there was a man walking around killing people with a pumpkin
head!”
“OMG! They definitely arrested him. Let’s just go and enjoy ourselves, YOLO!” “Okay, fine. But if anything happens, it is all your fault,” Sammy said laughing.
Grace put on her go-to far outfit, a flannel with jeans. She did her hair and makeup, made sure her phone was charged, and headed out the door to pick up Sammy.
When she picked up Sammy, she could tell something was wrong.
“Sammy, what’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. I just feel like going to the fair after last night is really risky. Don’t you think
so?”
“Seriously Sammy, if it was, they would’ve shut it down. Look at snap maps, Gissell is
there right now,” said Grace trying to calm Sammy down.
Sammy just smiled as they headed towards the fair. On the way they played all their favorite halloween songs. Cop cars with sirens passed them twice while they were going.
When they got to the fair, it was a little bit emptier than usual, considering it was the first Saturday. They headed towards the entrance with their tickets. When they got to the admissions office, the workers gave them a form to sign. Neither of them read through it, instead just signed it, and went on with their business.
“Grace! We need to go on the swings and get cute pictures for Instagram!” said Sammy excitedly.
“Okay! Let’s get on those first, before our hair gets messed up from other rides.”
As they headed towards the swings, they couldn’t help but notice the strange feeling that someone was watching them. Neither of them said something to one another, but they both felt it. When they got to the swings, there was no line and they got to go on immediately.
As they were in the air, they could see most of the fair. They weren’t paying attention to what was going on down there because they were taking their Instagram pictures.
When they finished their pictures and got off the ride, they got fried oreos. They ate the doughy, powdery cookies right up.
“I’m going to go to the bathroom to wash my hands,” said Sammy. “Okay, I’ll wait outside”

As Grace waited, she edited her pictures to post on Instagram. She looked up from her phone, after seeing something out of the corner of her eye. Through the crowds of people she saw a tall figure standing in the distance, facing her direction. She didn’t think much of it when she blinked and the figure disappeared. Sammy got out of the bathroom and Grace didn’t tell her because Sammy was too excited for the next ride.
When they got to hit 2000s, Sammy’s favorite ride, they stood in line for twenty minutes. As they stood in line, they heard the people in front of them talking about the pumpkin head.
“Apparently he escaped from jail and is back on the loose,” said the guy in front of them.
“That has to be fake news that people are spreading to get in the Halloween spirit,” said the other guy in front of them.
Sammy and Grace silently listened in because they are nosey and are interested in the conversation. They looked at each other, trying to believe that this was just a hoax. They were going to ask the guys for more information, but the gate opened and it was time to get on the ride.
When Grace got off the ride, she waited for Sammy, but she couldn’t find her. She called and her phone went straight to voicemail.
“Hm, this isn’t like Sammy,” Grace thought.
She decided to leave the ride and walk around to try to find her. As she was looking, she saw Gissell.
“Hey Gissell!” Grace screamed.
“Hey! Are you here alone? You really shouldn’t be. Have you heard about what happened here last night?” Gissell asked concerningly.
“Yes, I’m actually not here alone. I’m looking for Sammy. We went on that ride over there and when I got off she wasn’t there. She isn’t picking up her phone either. I don’t know how I am going to find her in this crowd of people.” Grace said, waving her hand around everyone.
“Hm. That’s strange. Don’t worry, I’ll help you look. Let’s stick together though.”
They searched for Sammy for an hour. They asked multiple people if they had seen her and showed pictures of her. Nobody claimed to see her. They were almost at a loss, when they saw a fun house. They knew Sammy always loved to go into fun houses. When they went in, they looked for Sammy. They went through the entire house and didn’t see her so they went down the slide at the end and instead of landing back outside at the entrance, they went down a black hole. They both were screaming, confused if this was a new feature to the ride. When they got to the end of the hole, there was Sammy and the Pumpkin head. Sammy was tied up to a chair, shaking, trying to ask for help, but her mouth was taped. The pumpkin head told the girls they had five minutes to bring him back fried oreos, or Sammy would die. The girls ran for their lives running around looking for a food place with a small enough line to fit in five minutes. When they found one, they were rushing, but got the oreos. They made it back to the fun house and went down the slide again to get into the black hole.
“You’re back. Now where are my oreos?” screamed the pumpkin head. “Right here sir. Please give us Sammy!” the girls said in fear.

The pumpkin man took a bite of the oreos, “these are pretty good, here have your annoying friend back. I couldn’t stand her any longer. Don’t tell anyone what you have seen, or I will take you back down here and kill you. Remember I have eyes and ears everywhere!”
The girls ran away as fast as they could and left the fair immediately. Sammy was terrified and never wanted to go back to the fair again. Grace was sad that she never got to go on the Zipper, her favorite ride.
As they drove back home, they didn’t talk about what happened, instead they sat in silence from how terrified they were.
As Grace pulled into Sammy’s driveway to drop her off she said, “same time next week?”