The Jacks

Short Story Contest submission

 

  The competition limited the participants to specific genres, objects, and places. My group was given the following: Genre: Fantasy; Object(s): A Pumpkin; and Location: A Tree House.

 

  Submissions could be no longer than 1,500 words, hence the bevity. 

 

  Not a perfect story by any means, but I feel the originality is it's main strength. The contest judges agreed. - CM

 

 

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  Harlan and Elliot Hacksmith beat their path around the twenty mile wide base of the Great Tree. Elliot's twelve year old stride could barely keep up with his father's immense gait, made all the more difficult by heavy sledge-ax slung on his back.

It was a cold autumn night and Elliot clutched the furs around his neck tighter to prevent the chill from creeping even farther down his spine. He looked longingly up at the lights twinkling from homes and dwellings carved into the trunk and branches of the mountainous Great Tree.

 

  “Catch up, boy!”, his Father called from a distance. “Last thing we want is for you to get eaten by a Jack on your first patrol and stay clear of that patch!”. Elliot sprinted to his Father, who turned and began to walk as his son caught up.

 

  “Tell me the stories again, Father”, he asked. Harlan smirked and looked at his son. “Do you never get tired of hearing them?” Elliot shook his head.

 

“Well, which one do you wish to hear?”, Harlan asked.

 

“Start at the beginning”, Elliot said.

 

  Harlan stroked his immense beard then flipped his mane of red-blond hair from his furred shoulders. “A few hundred years ago, we humans lived across the entire face of the planet in cities spanning hundreds and hundreds of miles. The only mind we ever paid the great trees was to marvel at them. We lived on the ground and never thought that one day we would come to rely on them for safety and security.”

  “There were no Jacks back then. Pumpkins were food. We ate them. Stewed them into soups and baked them into pies. It used to be tradition to carve faces into them and light them from within by candles.” Elliot shuddered a little. “We grew them for food and for fun.”

  “One day, we woke up and they were everywhere, the Jacks. Horrible and bloody times. They can appear anywhere there's soil. Too many people died before we found that we were safe off the ground, in the Great Trees. Now, every inch of this planet is covered with their spawn.”

 

  Elliot swallowed loudly.

 

  “How do you kill a Jack?”, Harlan asked when he noticed Elliot's fear.

 

  “You must sever the vine stem on it's head.”, Elliot said. “Then, you must separate it from the body, smash the head and burn the seeds or else they will germinate and spawn more Jacks.”

 

  Harlan nodded approvingly.  A distant snapping sound stopped him dead in his tracks, his eyes locked onto a spot in some fifty yards into the closest patch, which itself was nearly an acre wide. Elliot made to speak, but his Father's upheld hand silenced him before he could speak.

 

  "Sledge-ax. Now.”, Harlan whispered.

 

  Terror gripped Elliot as he swung his weapon off of his shoulder and held it with some difficulty . Harlan shrugged off his furs, his bare chest steaming in the cold air. “Do Jacks make any sounds?”, Harlan asked, his eyes still trained at the spot in the patch.

 

  Elliot thought for a moment. “They shriek. Like banshees.”

 

  As if on his cue, a loud squealing howl emanated from the patch.

 

  “Furs off, boy. Don't want them to get in your way.”

 

  Elliot did as he was told and shrugged off the furs. He was quite warm from the adrenaline now coursing through his body. He looked much like his father, except only in miniature and this made Elliot happy. He loved his Father and wanted to be everything his Father was. This thought warmed him further, melting the fear from his heart and mind. His arms were stronger than they were a moment before. They stood there in silence.

 

  Another shriek rent the air. And then another. And another. The earth shook slightly and Elliot saw it happen all at once. Not one, but several pumpkins seemed to levitate into the air, vines twisting and slashing through the air, dirt and mud rolling across the ground and building on top of one another. The vines formed rough living skeletons and the earth formed the muscles, sinewy and black. One by one, the pumpkins split open, forming gaping mouths with impossibly white fangs jutting out in all directions. Then, their eyes opened. At first nothing more but holes atop a nightmarish mouth, the eyes slowly lit up from within, red and glowing and malevolent.

 

  Twenty. Maybe more, Harlan thought. An ambush.

 

  “Elliot, boy?” Harlan said.

 

  “Yes, Father”, Elliot said.

 

  “Head back to the Tree. Ring the warning bell continuously until someone arrives. Keep ringing and warn the Tree.”

 

  “I won't leave you, Father”, Elliot said

 

  “Do as I say, boy!”, Harlan commanded. “Know that I love you. Grow to be a better man than I was.”

 

  A loud shriek, louder than all the others, echoed from the patch and the Jacks charged towards Harlan. “Run, Elliot. Now!”, Harlan shouted as he raised his sledge-ax over his head and brought it down on the closest Jack's head.

 

  Elliot turned to run, but crashed face first into what seemed to be a wall of dirt and rock. He fell, dropping his heavy sledge-ax. He looked up and his blood ran cold.

 

  A Great Jack, Elliot thought.

 

  Somewhere behind him, he could hear his father's pained and terrified voice carry over the shrieks of the attacking Jacks. “Elliot! Run! Run, bo--”. His Father's voice was cut off and replaced with a loud slopping noise and the dull thud of something hitting the ground.

 

  Bigger than a bull elephant and with the strength of twenty, The Great Jack seized Elliot by the legs with a massive vine-tentacled hand and dangled him in front of it's massive orange face. The Great Jack smiled. a horrific laugh hammered from deep within its throat and, with a thunderous roar, it placed Elliot into it's mouth and tore him in half.

 

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