The temperature was dropping as the evening prolonged, the atmosphere falling colder as the last porch lights were turned off and the final jack-o-lanterns were blown out. The laughter of children had faded as rounds of trick-or-treaters made their ways back home with buckets full of candy. Halloween had neared its end, but there was one child not yet ready to say farewell to the holiday.

“Joyce!!” a mother called out, a mittened hand cupped around her mouth to amplify her voice. She yelled down an open country road, where one side heralded the usual Americana, while opposite of it stretched the long fields of farmland. Its slopes were stroked with thickets, and faraway barns and silos were just silhouettes against the backdrop of night. It was a boundary Jennifer had never crossed, but that particular Halloween, she felt a beckoning towards it -- the yearning for her missing daughter. “Oh, Joyce…! Joyce, come out now!”

Jennifer had hoped it would not come to this, but the open fields were the most likely to be hiding little Joyce. The daughter loved Halloween and was especially fascinated by pumpkin patches, absorbed into their autumn aesthetic. Come the night itself, and Joyce pressed her mother and father to explore the patches late at night. She was told it was too far of a drive, that the pumpkin patches were farther up the fields than she liked to think. Now, Jennifer pondered if Joyce was that rambunctious, to split off from her friends to play with the pumpkins.

She couldn’t wait for authorities, and her husband was handling the search through the neighborhood. Just as bold as her daughter, Jennifer had gone off on her own in pursuit of Joyce, buckled under a jacket that hid most of her fall-themed sweatshirt. She dashed forward with a flood light carried at her side, casting its powerful beam over the plowed lands that she forcefully marched through. Well-aware of how energetic Joyce could get, Jennifer had to imagine that the eight year-old really could have ran away as far as she did -- and possibly still on the move.

After minutes of walking and calling out Joyce’s name, however, Jennifer’s worry worsened. There was no reply, and out of hectic desperation, she had taken herself into a barren nowhere in the middle of the fields. Her flood light did little to guide her, as every row of withered roots looked the same; if it weren’t for the distant hills, she would be completely lost, but not a thought in her head told her to stop, not until Joyce was safe and sound.

Jennifer trekked onward, her breath visible in the rapidly cooling air. A sting of exhaustion was getting to her, but ahead of her path appeared a beacon. When her light flashed forward, she saw a wall in the distance -- not a house, but a barn, its red color nearly drained off the old, weary wood. Holes and gaps riddled the side she was looking at, but the structure had otherwise held up well over years of no maintenance. Indeed, the location seemed quite abandoned as far as Jennifer could observe; some bricks, lumber, and soil were in their piles, and a pick-up truck lay rusted next to a half-deconstructed tractor. There was no home to claim the barn, and certainly not a soul to speak for it.

“J-Joyce…?” Jennifer called out, her voice weak with timidness. She feared what her voice might startle, but she feared more grimly the fate of her child. She crept forward, slowed only by the cold as she called out again, “Joyce, come out! Now!”

As she approached the barn, Jennifer put her light on everything she passed. Any nook could potentially be the hiding place for her child, and thus every location earned a level of suspicion as she examined them. She glanced inside and around these details, but the property deserved a whole lookover, and the barn itself was particularly likely to be housing a curious child. Skeptic of what might lurk in the shadows, however, Jennier continued around the corner with gentle steps snapping the loose hay and grass beneath her.

“Hello…?” Jennifer spoke out for anyone to respond, hopeful to find help in locating Joyce. Just as the silence compelled her to call out again, a flash of something unusual appeared in the circle of her light. An orange color, whose liveliness far outshone the faded paint of the barn, existed in the shape of a rotund mass, perched behind the building like a barrier at its perimeter. Jennifer kept the light shining on the object, studying it as she neared closer.

Finally, only meters away from it, she came to an unconfident conclusion. “A… pumpkin…?” Jennifer doubted herself, figuring no gourd could grow as huge as the one before her -- it was nearly three times her height, nothing like the jack-o-lantern she had at home. It made for a captivating sight, enough that she nearly forgot what brought her out into the biting cold. To that effect, Jennifer whipped her light to the sides of the produce, jolting back into the search, but unable to find even a clue.

Frustrated and bitter from the chilling winds, Jennifer took a momentary break, backing up against the giant gourd and looking back at the barn. It would have to be examined next; “Please, Joyce, be in there…” she nervously cooed to herself. After hugging some warmth from her coat, she turned back to the pumpkin and gazed over its orange shell. She brushed a hand against the surface, remembering the pumpkins she and Joyce had hacked up into misshapen lanterns, and with an open palm, she smacked the side with a firm slap -- a simple pleasure to boost her morale while going into the barn.

She made it a few steps towards the weathered structure when suddenly, Jennifer was pushed from behind -- she was being rolled over. Unaware of what was immediately happening, Jennifer collapsed in a gasp onto her knees, knocked down by the incoming wall of orange. She shuddered away, barking at it with mad calls to stop while propping a kick against it. Her efforts were useless, but the object did halt, and then rise. Flattened swathes of mud and grass drizzled loose from the pumpkin’s bottom as it hovered into the air above Jennifer, demanding that her light be angled onto its miraculously moving form.

Jennifer was stunned by what she witnessed, but the surprises were only unfolding. The giant pumpkin remained lifted in the air, risen by a growth underneath it. When Jennifer tried to understand how such huge roots could have suddenly grown from underneath it, she was perplexed by a new odd addition; a hand whose fingers sprawled over the orange shell, having appeared from outside the flood light’s circle. It pressed into one half of the gourd, but not just in any location -- it was where Jennifer had playfully smacked the pumpkin, a gesture that she was unaware would be received so offendedly, nor received at all.

Left babbling at the impressive display, Jennifer frantically aimed her light in order to trace what was above her. The image she made out in flickers was unbelievable, and undeniable. The pumpkin she had approached so casually was only one piece of a greater creature, a beast whose bottom half was that of a plant, but whose top half was unmistakably that of a woman. The flood light glared up a back that was almost entirely bare, Jennifer’s eyes climbing its curvy slope until she was at the peak of this fantastical person; a bob-cut of blonde hair, slightly frazzled in such a way that a lock was flipped atop her head like a stem’s leaf, that was gradually turning in her direction. The wavering flood light lingered on the face that was revealed, a sour expression from a scorned woman that stared down at the fallen Jennifer.

“... Excuse me…?” the giant growled, her voice a rumbling hum that cast shivers onto Jennifer. “What was-- ah? A mortal?”

Jennifer meant to scream, but everything was frozen in her throat. Her silence only ran deeper through her veins when the creature turned its entire body, that stern gaze never unlocking from its angle on her. It was fully exposed that this woman was nothing normal of this world; beyond her incredible size was that she was part-plant, the pumpkin itself being only the abdomen and waist of who she completely was. The rotundness made for a dress-like shape at her hips, an uncanny width that the giant’s arms could rest upon. Above this pumpkin form was a plump human body, sporting a chest that wanted to rival her body’s largeness elsewhere; appropriately, a shard of pumpkin shell was worn like a skimpy top, held in place by root-like vines that tangled around her arms and neck. Such an intimidating stance was made more terrifying when the huge woman grew taller, lifted off the ground by tendril-like vines that pushed up from the farmland in place of human legs.

Without a reply, the pumpkin woman steepened her glare. She scoffed, “Another pesky intruder… Here to smash my lovelies, have you?”

Jennifer shook her head, suddenly remembering that she had to breathe. “N-No!” she countered quickly. “I-I-- I’m not here for that! I g-got lost, I-I’m looking for--”

“Silence, human! You cower before a truly great monster…” The giant’s scowl shifted into a sinister smile, edged with pride. “Surely you must recognize me, on tonight of all nights… The one and only Queen of Halloween, Jaquelyn of the autumn dryads…!

“And for intruding this far, with the intent to vandalize my lovely gourds… you must be punished.” Jaquelyn crept closer, quickly cutting the distance between her and Jennifer as the vines dragged her forward. Jennifer crawled backwards in a hurry, slamming hard into the barn’s side with nowhere left to crawl. A vine lifted out from the others and whipped viciously in the air as Jaquelyn taunted, “I will do to you what you sought to do to my own…! Vandals such as yourself earn no mercy from me…!”

Swiftly, a vine surged forward at Jennifer. She shielded herself in a shriek, but the vine latched to her wrist -- it wrestled her, and the flood light that she held. The bright beam of light was flung randomly and recklessly in the struggle, glancing Jacquelyn in the eyes and making her flinch back. It was during this brief window that Jennifer successfully broke the vine and twisted away, sacrificing her source of light in order to do. The flood light fell into the mud and turned towards the barn, which was where Jennifer had dashed into seeking refuge.

Jacquelyn spat from frustration, catching a glimpse of Jennifer quickly ducking inside the building. Her grin returned, pleased to have her prey trapped. “It’s no use running away,” she chimed, leaning her hands onto the barn’s roof. The structure creaked horribly underneath her weight, stressed to its limit by just this casual lean. “Hiding is all you humans are capable of… but it never serves you for very long. Gaha, such pathetic little people~”

Jennifer stumbled over abandoned tools and cables, bumbling in the darkness without a plan. She bumped into a rack of gardening supplies, which gifted her with a dull rake with which to defend herself with. It was needed shortly after when a vine had crawled into the barn chasing after her. It wormed through the supplies like a snake, and likewise lunged at Jennifer when it had the opening. Jennifer yelled and slammed the rake over the vine, beating it down while she paced back into a corner. It soon retreated, but just behind Jennifer was another vine coiling around her shoulder, having seeped in from a hole in the wall.

“Ahhh!! Let go!!” Jennifer screamed, pulling hard against the tentacle. Her horror was met with Jacquelyn’s amusement, a giggle raining in from the roof’s thatches. Just after slipping from the vine’s grasp, Jennifer was attacked from above; splinters and dust fell in hard cobbles as the dryad pushed her weight onto the structure, causing chunks of it to fall apart. Jacquelyn was breaking in, as though she were unboxing a prize from a rickety crate.

Jennifer helmeted herself with both arms as she scrambled elsewhere -- into the center of the barn, where the vines breaking in from the walls had not yet reached. With only the flood light from outside to help her, she searched frantically for an exit. The tall open doors into the barn were clogged with a grasping hand, and a broken window was filled with a curious pupil. Jennifer trudged towards a wide break in one of the walls, but before reaching it, it was blocked by a smile, then another peering eye. Jacquelyn was playing with her, but these games were closing in towards an end.

Decidedly done playing chase, the dryad rose back into a seat-like posture, her hands firmly placed on either end of the roof’s corners. “You’ve chosen a poor place to hide,” Jacquelyn giggled. “This feeble building is so delicate to me. Did you want to see me crush it? Gahaha, very well~”

“Don’t! P-Please, stop!” Jennifer begged, but her voice went unheard. She cowered into her arms again when the roof began shattering away, crushed from both ends into its middle. A hail of debris stormed the inside of the barn as its wood was cracked and broken in the monster’s grip. The bulk that remained was like two handfuls of trash, discarded as much by Jacquelyn when it was all tossed aside, giving her a clear view of the woman trapped inside.

Jennifer gagged on the old dust, persistently waving so that her pleas might be listened to, but the gesture only made her a more noticeable target. A giant hand plunged into the barn and scooped her out from under her feet, recklessly taking with it some of the debris. Jennifer panicked in the hand, brashly attempting to escape and leap down to the earth, but she was prevented. Growing from out of the dryad’s wrist were prehensile vines that tangled around Jennifer’s limbs, restricting her back into the palm regardless of how she fought.

Jacquelyn’s face was suddenly very close, breathing down on Jennifer’s shivering form. Her smile flashed more wickedly with how entertained she was by the woman’s struggling. The giant turned away from the barn, her roots dropping her into a seated posture; an entire wall of the barn was flattened beneath her wide ass, a shockwave of snapping sounds that shook Jennifer even for as high up as she was.

“You seem absolutely petrified!” Jacquelyn chuckled. “And you should be -- the things you mortals do to innocent gourds makes me sick. I’ll take great pleasure in turning your body into a mess of pulp~”

Jennifer wailed, her mind totally lost in a maze of confusion. It made no sense how such a creature like the dryad could exist, nor was there an explanation as to how something could be so big. Her fate had been decided through a misunderstanding, all tipped off by a single touch that she dreadfully regretted. But worst of all was her worry for her daughter, never to be seen by her again; the horror of such a thing centered Jennifer, just as the fingers around her began coiling inward.

“My daughter!! That’s all I want!!” Jennifer screamed, sprung with new efforts to unbind herself. “She went missing! I just want to see her again…!”

The dryad’s smile began to dull, but her fingers continued to curl towards Jennifer. Jacquelyn had heard her plight, but where she would have ignored this cry for mercy, she sensed the genuineness of a mother. This was not a lie to put herself free, Jacquelyn concluded, but a sincere concern that her daughter was hurt, or worse.

“... Bah,” Jacqulyn whined, her grip giving in -- Jennifer was released from the roots, leaving her to freely shudder in the bowl-shaped palm, and the log-sized fingers flattened. “So, that was what this was about… You come here looking for your daughter.”

Jennifer was yet paralyzed, unconvinced that this was not a part of some game. However, there was no denying the relief she felt to have been spared and listened to. She weakly nodded, the most of a reply she could scrounge from her fear.

“Ah, how boring… I was hoping I caught a real troublemaker,” Jacquelyn sighed. She held Jennifer rather dismissively, like an object in hand that she cared little for. In this imbalanced way of being carried, Jennifer fended for herself, clawing at the skin to ensure her own grip. Jacquelyn, meanwhile, reclined slightly further into the broken-up barn. “At least a confused farmer… but a mother? Looking for a lost child? Hah, I can’t crush that so easily…”

Jennifer sat up, but she was still spellbound with shivers. As pleasant as this change of course was, it made matters no less confusing. “P-Please… I need to find her…” she stammered, clasping her hands together. “W-We’ll leave immediately, we’ll never come back! I p-promise, please, j-just help me find her…!”

Jacquelyn was tickled back into a grin. “Perhaps I can,” she answered -- Jennifer lit up like a candle, a reaction that made Jacquelyn smile wider. “Come with me. I may know where your daughter is.”

“Y-You do?!” Jennifer was flung into excitement, but it was subdued when Jacquelyn began moving. Despite the suggestion for Jennifer to follow, Jacquelyn persisted on carrying her along as a passenger in her palm. The movement was uneven and slow, the result of the dryad’s plant-half crawling along the farmlands. “H-How? How do you know where Joyce is…?”

“I can sense what my dear, lovely pumpkins sense,” Jacquelyn replied. “It’s why I despise those that destroy them so… savagely. In any case, I had sensed something small and lively rummaging through a patch. It could be her, or a weasel.”

“... A weasel? I-I’m looking for a human child, nothing like a--”

“Pumpkins can’t see!” Jacquelyn interjected forcefully. “I can only make out vague impressions! Do you want to find your daughter yourself? Without pumpkin senses?”

Such a weird answer was exactly weird enough to end Jennifer’s shivering. She shook her head with an unusual calm having settled over her, “No… Please, just... take me to her.”

“Then no more criticisms of pumpkins,” Jacquelyn pressed, continuing farther into the open acres. Her disposition had changed dramatically from Jennifer’s perspective; only moments ago she was a raging monster, but now she acted as a helpful spirit, her nastiness contained to simply a sharp attitude regarding the respect of her pumpkins.

Regardless of how she portrayed herself, Jacquelyn’s monstrous capabilities proved effective in whatever instance they were used. As able as she was to tear down a barn in under a minute, she was able to pinpoint a stray child’s location -- a feat proven successful as they neared a patch of gourds with a spritely kid dancing among them. Still dressed in a black rode and comically-sized witch hat, she had arranged most of the gourds in a circle around her to play in, and she was caught in the midst of stacking several atop each other to form a figure.

“Joyce!” Jennifer yelled. She dashed up to the ends of Jacquelyn’s fingers, pointing urgently at the little girl. “Th-There she is! It’s her!”

Upon being called, Joyce jumped in surprise and turned towards her mother, a pumpkin still hugged in her arms. Her eyes went wide the moment she comprehended the scale of such a thing approaching her, too shocked to move her feet from where they were planted. She watched in awe as the massive dryad crawled ever closer, only later noticing her mom when Jennifer was lowered to the ground. Jennifer immediately ran up to Joyce and dropped to her knees into a hug, but Joyce could look nowhere else but the gigantic woman looming above them.

“Joyce, my baby!” Jennifer panted, her embrace only getting tighter on her child. “Never run off again! Never, ever!”

“M-Mommy…?” Joyce raised an arm as high as the hug would allow her to. She pointed at Jacquelyn, who sat idly by with her arms crossed. “What is that…?”

Jennifer was still unsure what that answer would be, but Jacquelyn was quick to take over. “I am a dryad, little one! The Queen of Halloween, Jacquelyn!” she announced, sporting a devilish smile and a hand over her heart. “I am a monster from another realm, here to protect my precious pumpkins. You haven’t hurt any, have you?”

“Oh god,” Jennifer scoffed, “J-Joyce, don’t--”

“No! I love pumpkins!” Joyce cheered, loosening herself out of her mom’s handle and out in front of Jacquelyn. “I love Halloween! I didn’t know there was a queen!”

Jacquelyn blinked, not realizing a blush was warming her cheeks. “Indeed! They should teach this to you in school, really…” She perched her arms onto her gourd-shaped hips, her head risen a little higher. “Tonight is no night for children to be getting lost, you know. You shouldn’t separate from your mother. Something could happen to you. Or to her…”

Jennifer reached meekly for Joyce, but the child was absorbed by everything the dryad had to say. “Thank you, Queen Jacquelyn! You’re amazing~!”

“Hah, well… the night is nearly over,” Jacquelyn continued, scratching nervously at her cheek. “I suppose I can’t abandon you two out here now. Come, let’s go.”

The travel back was quiet on Jennifer’s part, but Joyce and Jacquelyn celebrated the little time together they had. While her mother gradually regained composure after having spilled it all back at the barn, Joyce asked dozens of questions all while climbing around the giant. Jacquelyn always humored the remarks and answered as honestly as she could, allowing Joyce to be entertained with tendril vines and fresh pumpkins sprouted from her flesh. Jennifer barely moved, only wincing when they passed the old barn and its ruined walls; that area of land felt like a boundary between worlds, the divide that separated a cruel monster from a kind one.

“Off now,” Jacquelyn said, having neared the ends of the farmlands. It was as far as she would go, still a fair distance from the suburbs. She lowered Jennifer to the ground first, then Joyce shortly after; the daughter had been swinging from vines made by the dryad’s hand, wistfully kicking back and forth while being taken home.

“This was the best Halloween ever!” Joyce laughed, running ahead away from both her mom and the monster. Jennifer staggered after her, but Joyce still had more to say, swirling back towards the dryad. “Queen Jacquelyn! Thank you!”

“Gahah, it was nothing~” Jacquelyn giggled.

Jennifer stepped forward, keeping an arm close to her daughter’s shoulders. She swallowed her worries before speaking, “S-Seriously. Thank you. Wh-Whatever you are, um… i-is there any way to repay you?”

Jacquelyn smirked, stroking her chin in thought. “I could ask for almost anything from mortals such as yourselves,” she began, twirling the idea of exploiting the family. However, her comment only intended to draw out one last nervous shiver from Jennifer -- a successful ploy. “All I ask… is that you might remember me. Think of me, fondly or not, but do so on the coolest nights, when the cold bites at you as you sleep. Hehe… That is all.”

“R-Really?” Jennifer said, but Joyce was especially jolly, happily agreeing to the terms. Jennifer watched her daughter dance and skip; the whole situation was so surreal, but at least no one was hurt.

But when Jennifer turned to wish Jacquelyn farewell, what she saw was nothing. She stumbled backwards, tripping onto her rear from fright. The giant dryad, so peculiar in how she looked, had vanished into thin air. Even Joyce was stopped by the realization that Jacquelyn had disappeared, possibly forever. Car lights then flashed at them from the road; it was the police, hurrying towards the mother and daughter so that they could finally return home.

Snow had fallen early that November. A blanket of plush white was steadily growing across those open farmlands and the final rounds of crops produced for the season. Winter had arrived in a dense fog of snowfall, and such weather proved difficult to wade through for the farmers finishing their harvest.

Tractors designed for the task raked the fields for their supply. Several pumpkins at a time would be gathered by the machine, cut from their stems and delivered into a large wagon that tailed the vehicle. Several of these tractors were at work at once, their collection process moving along smoothly, up until one pair of farmers had noticed a peculiar bulge in the soil. They had thought little of it at first, but when they drove over it, there was an undeniable bump from underneath them -- like something was trying to rise from the dirt.

The commotion had pulled in the other farmers as well, circling around the mound with confused expressions shared between them. One was bold enough to stand atop the bulge and attempt to stamp it down, a humorous scene that had everyone chuckling, but consequences were brewing. Right after a few stomps did a quake rumble under their boots, the bulge shivering and even fissuring with movement. That one farmer trembled backwards, but it was too late to avoid what was rising up from underground.

It propelled suddenly into the air like a geyser, a round head of orange hair bursting forth from the earth. Dirt and snow alike drizzled down as the rest of the figure became revealed, gradually growing free from where she had appeared. Her entrance was dramatic, causing the circle of farmers to scatter into the plowed fields or back into their vehicles. The tractors were no refuge, as the creature’s shapeliness toppled them over with ease -- the closest was carried away, caught in the cleavage of the titanic beast that now towered over them.

Jacquelyn completed her introduction with a long, well-deserved stretch of her arms. The fog veiled her fullness, but in whips of winds could the farmers see glimpses of the dryad; her swarming vines, her pumpkin waist, and her first attack, which was to claim several farmers into her binding roots. She lifted them into the air for her to observe, casting her wicked smile over them as they writhed.

“Gaahaa… Just in time, it seems! So confident you could simply harvest my darlings, hm?” Jacquelyn mocked the farmers, playfully turning them side to side while they screamed for help. Those that ran from her were swiftly tripped up by vines breaking out from under them, slowly claiming a collection of victims that were being dragged back to her. “And what would you do with my lovelies…? If you all are farmers, that must mean you intended to eat them, right? Hmhmm~”

Everything and everyone was in her grasp, except for one terrified farmer. He had stomped on the mound so cockily, ignorant to what truth had awaited him, and so he had been picked up by Jacquelyn’s head, clinging to her hair until he could no longer. He slid through her hair, failing to catch threads to stop his descent; down he continued, saved from a bad fall only because he had landed on her rear. So expansive was the dryad’s ass that it made something of a platform to catch him, but he was hardly saved. Before he could comprehend his lowly place, he was plucked away by two fingers snatching him like an insect.

He was brought in front of Jacqueln, intimidated by everything he witnessed; her cutting smile, her outrageous chest, and her most monstrous features. He was dazed in this situation, barely twitching as he was brought closer to Jacquelyn -- closer to her pumpkin waist.

“I think this is only fair,” the dryad mused. “You tried to make a meal of myself… so I will make a meal of you.” Her glare then spread to the others, tangled up in her vines. “All of you!”

Unexpectedly, the central pumpkin of the dryad’s body split apart -- it unlatched, revealing itself to be a massive maw. The crack was as jagged as a toothy grin, and a hellish flicker of flame glowed from inside with a gloomy blue color. The screams of her victims matched her laughing as she plunged the first farmer to his doom, dropping him into the newly-formed mouth. She was pleased with the sensation that followed, instantly addicted; one after the other, she had the rest devoured, her appetite interrupted by her giggling.

Halloween had lived on well past its singular night, so it appeared. It was always the matter of belief that separated the mortal realm from the monster realm, and so it was when that belief was strong that these worlds could cross. When snow had fallen that day, it undoubtedly spurred memories of whimsy to that mother and daughter, who fondly recalled their unbelievable encounter with the Queen of Halloween.