I should have known something was wrong when Larry didn't show up. Larry was the diner's manager, who couldn't stand it if you shouted his name out like Joe from Impractical Jokers (especially when the customers joined in). He wasn't a bad boss or anything, but he was anal and adhered to a strict schedule. He couldn't stand anything out of order, and if you were lucky, he would even finish things for you if he decided you were taking too long. I didn't really think about his absence; I didn't have his number, and I doubt I would have called him if I had.
My second clue should have been that we had no customers coming in. Not even the regulars: Don, who showed up right around five after seven for a biscuit, and Mr. Jones, who would slink in sometime before eight-thirty and try to order something different every day. He was a friendly, informal old man, but he must have just disliked his first name, Bernie. But we'd been open for two-and-a-half hours already, and no one had so much as bothered to pull into the parking lot to turn around. It struck me as odd, but not ominous. I checked the "Open" sign and tried to think if there was anything going on that day. It was a week or so from Halloween, and it's not like people do a lot of traveling for that holiday anyway.
When I first saw it through the glass door, I didn't know what I was seeing. The undeveloped grassy area across the street had definitely been empty just an instant before; I had stared dazedly at it long enough to know that, but there was now definitely something standing there near the road. Something large, orange, and bulbous on two thin legs, with purple sleeves and blue denim legs. It may have been its sudden, unexplained appearance, but something about what I knew must have been a Halloween decoration set me on edge. A feeling of anxious dread came over me as I stared into its unblinking eyes.
I may have screamed when it began to move.
It happened without warning, without any indication that movement was about to take place. Like some kind of twisted machinery, the thing had no need to ready itself before bounding toward the diner with no regard to its surroundings. It may have been comical if it weren't so perverse: instead of stepping forward, the thing's disproportionately small legs raised and lowered as it struggled to control the radical momentum of its enormous head. Its arms remained still the entire time as it directed what was essentially a controlled fall towards the front door. I should have run, I should have just gotten away, but I just couldn't comprehend the sight in front of me enough to make any decision regarding it. I stood frozen, as still as its unchanging, emotionless smirk, as the gigantic pumpkin slammed open the door, losing no speed until it stopped suddenly, impossibly easily on the gray tiled floor. The pumpkin glanced around once before it fixed its gaze back on me.
"I'm very hungry!" it declared.
I simply didn't know how to react. My brain was not programmed to handle this sort of thing, that went against everything I knew about the way reality works. What if someone were watching me, testing to see how I'd react, or something? Nothing made sense. When the pumpkin stumbled over to the counter and dropped itself onto a stool, I finally moved. I jumped backwards, hurting my hip on the stove.
"Give me the eggs."
What?
I jerked my head around, desperately searching for anything at all that could help in explaining this situation.
"Give me the eggs." It felt louder this time, though I may have imagined it. What the heck was I supposed to do? Feed this thing? The fact is, I would have done just about anything to return a sense of normalcy to the situation. For a brief moment, I actually wondered whether the pumpkin would be able to pay for his food, as if that were relevant at that time. As anxiety-inducing as turning my back on the monster was, I turned to the stove and cracked two eggs into a pan.
I put the sunny-side-up eggs on a plate and seasoned them before turning back to the pumpkin. Its expression had not changed, but I realized that its eyes had been following every single movement my hands had made. They followed my hands all the way to the counter until I set the plate down in front of the beast. I began to feel nauseous.
In one quick motion, the pumpkin's left hand snatched the eggs, plate and all, through the air and into its waiting mouth. I gaped in morbid fascination as the pumpkin loudly crunched the ceramic plate between its teeth.
"Give me the French fries."
What was this? Why was this happening to me? I likely can't explain to you exactly why I kept making food for this monster instead of leaving, but you never know how you'll react in an impossible situation until you find yourself in one. Truth be told, I was afraid. Of the pumpkin, definitely, but also afraid that I was losing my mind, that life as I knew it was ceasing to exist, that everything I had every known to be true was wrong. Going on some kind of primal preservation instinct, I kept preparing food, as it was the only thing that made any kind of sense. I dared not try to run or to hide for fear of further disrupting my existence.
Each time I placed a dish in front of the pumpkin, it would inhale the entire thing, contentedly grinding glass, paper, and metal between its large teeth before demanding another meal.
"Give me the salt," it said in its monotonous Canadian accent. Salt. It wanted salt. It wanted a salt shaker to toss into its maw and crunch around like some kind of trash compactor. It was just too ridiculous to handle. I tried once again to rationalize the day's events. This had to have been some kind of prank. The empty diner? The missing manager? This thing, now eagerly awaiting downing a container of iodized seasoning? It must have been some kind of setup. But I knew Larry well enough that he wouldn't sacrifice a work day just to get a reaction out of one of his employees, and more importantly, how exactly could someone fake the arrival of this sentient gourd? It couldn't hold a person if it were a costume, and it was definitely no robot. As lifeless as its too-human eyes were, its nostrils flared when it spoke, its body heaved as it breathed, and drool flecked with glass now oozed from the corner of its mouth. I was getting the full effect of the uncanny valley. I placed the salt in front of the pumpkin and watched it orally destroy the shaker. It was at that time that I was finally observing the monster closely enough to notice something even more horrifying: the pumpkin was growing.
As if it there wasn't enough about the beast to shatter a person's sanity, I realized that each item I'd fed it has caused it to expand roughly an inch in diameter. It was at least a foot wider now than when it had arrived, though its face and limbs had remained the same. I wondered what would happen if I kept feeding it, aside from its stool breaking. If I fed it enough, would it explode? The thought that I could be rid of the pumpkin provided only a split second of comfort. The thought of poisoning it crossed my mind, but if the things it had swallowed couldn't kill it, probably nothing could.
"Give me the water," it said. I suddenly remembered that the water dispenser on our drink machine was broken. What should I do? I could have gone to the bathroom in the back and filled a glass with water from the sink, but at that point, I couldn't let myself take a chance on something happening if I were to leave the pumpkin's presence.
"Give me the water." I had to do something. Maybe I could fool the monster. What had I learned about it so far? Could it even taste the things it consumed? For all I knew, it might have eaten anything I'd given it. I walked slowly to the soda dispensers and made sure to stand where I was blocking the pumpkin's unwavering gaze from the drink options. I placed a glass under the Sprite nozzle and filled it. I used no ice in case it would cause the pop to fizz loudly and waited until the drink settled. I decided it looked enough like water to pass for it.
I slowly approached the pumpkin and gingerly placed the glass in front of it. For what seemed like an eternity, the pumpkin's eyes focused on the drink, and then its expression began to change for the first time. Its eyebrows narrowed, its nostrils flared wide, and its giant maw twisted into what, on a human, would have been a mocking, sarcastic grimace. The beast tilted its bulbous body up and glowered at me. I withered under its palpable anger.
"No," it declared, "I don't want that." Midway through its sentence, the pumpkin deftly swept the glass off the counter, sending it rocketing through the air to smash into the far wall. Sprite covered the counter, the wall, and much of the floor. The pumpkin had not broken eye contact with me. This is it, I thought, I'm going to die now. I couldn't help but imagine those large teeth closing around my head and neck. "Give me the YOU!"
But just as quickly as it had gone, the soulless joviality returned to the pumpkin's face.
"Give me the hot dawg," the pumpkin said. I did as I was told. The pumpkin scarfed down the food, and I watched as, miraculously, the monster stood up from the stool. It wobbled on its even less proportionate legs and said, "Y'know? That wasn't too bad." And with that, the hungry pumpkin hobbled its way across the diner and out the door. When it finally left my field of vision, I let out a shuddered breath and collapsed onto the floor, my back against the oven. I wondered what I should do then. My back ached from tension, and I felt as if I'd aged ten years, that I'd lost a part of my life that I could never recover. The only thing I knew for sure was that my life could never return to normal after my encounter with the Hungry Pumkin.