The Last One on Halloween

The Last One on Halloween

“Hello, Mr. Pumpkin. My name is Daniel!” the young blond man introduced himself with a wide, slightly crazed grin. He was sitting at a table where a carved Halloween pumpkin rested indifferently, a candle burning inside it. The flickering flame gave a semblance of life to its crooked face.

“Tonight is the night of all the world’s nightmares and death, and I’m all alone. So there’s no one left to die except me. My family and loved ones disappeared into a portal. Back when television still worked, they said scientists were trying to study the portals. They sent drones, robots, and volunteers inside. But no one ever came back. Some bloggers went in too, hoping to film everything. But no one ever learned anything, so at first they used the portals to get rid of criminals, and later to dispose of bodies. Then they started throwing garbage into them. Plastic and stuff. And after that, people started running away. No one knows where new portals will appear, but most often they open in places where they’ve appeared before. So our town, for example, is cursed too. Nobody wants to live here, and I don’t need new neighbors anyway. What if they turn out to be maniacs, cultists, or just plain crazy? You understand, Pumpkin, I’m scared and lonely by myself, but I’m even more afraid of strangers.”

Daniel tilted his head back and stared at the cold stars in the blue-black sky. He could never understand why people had been so desperate to reach the heavens. There was nothing and no one up there. Empty planets, like unused blanks waiting for life that had never come.

Lowering his head, he looked at the pumpkin on the wooden table. Beside it stood a bottle of homemade red wine and a glass.

Daniel intended to drink the wine and slowly eat the pumpkin, talking to it as he did.

A conversation partner that would gradually disappear. Just like everyone else—except they hadn’t been devoured by Daniel, but by the countless portals that had appeared on Earth one day. They dragged people inside with misty tentacles, like some cosmic Cthulhu.

People tried to flee the dangerous areas. Others refused to abandon their homeland, despite the risk of vanishing without a trace.

His friends, relatives, family, neighbors, and their pets had all disappeared into one of the portals because they hadn’t wanted to leave. They had loved their houses, their gardens, and the little hydroelectric power station.

Over the years, they had managed to adapt to the emptied world. They grew enough food to survive, even if it was simple, drew water from a clean spring, and found whatever essentials they needed. They altered old clothes and sometimes looted abandoned supermarkets.

Now there was no one left but him.

He remembered how, as a little boy, he had started running the moment he heard the alarm. He had seen misty fingers prowling between the houses. He ran through familiar streets until he reached the river.

There he stopped. The water was icy with the chill of autumn, and he couldn’t bring himself to plunge into its dark depths.

The moon that night had seemed enormous and orange, like a grinning Halloween pumpkin that had arrived from outer space to conquer the world.

But he knew it was a portal.

He learned to live alone after surviving that night. He took care of the animals that had survived and tended the garden. The cellars of abandoned houses still held plenty of supplies.

Daniel poured himself some wine with trembling hands and drank, continuing his conversation with the pumpkin. He talked to animals, old photographs, even furniture—anything to keep himself from forgetting human speech.

Still, he wasn’t completely alone.

Sometimes he saw people when he ventured near the wide international highway. Cars occasionally passed by, running on whatever gasoline remained.

He never tried to hitch a ride. He had no desire to make himself a target or a victim. He always carried a weapon. Once, he had even been forced to use it when looters came after his farm.

Their bodies had fertilized the soil afterward.

Daniel didn’t trust strangers. His family, neighbors, and friends had once told him too many horrifying stories about what happened to trusting and defenseless people in a world ruled by anarchy.

He had never understood why people hadn’t united when the portals appeared, but had instead continued destroying one another.

Finishing each other off.

Sometimes he thought humanity was a dangerous virus infecting the planet, and the portals were simply trying to cure a sick world.

Daniel finished the new season’s wine and nibbled on a little raw pumpkin. Then he lazily got to his feet and prepared to go to bed.

And then the world changed again.

A portal opened.

A glowing pumpkin seemed to hang in the sky, opening a passage into the world of the dead.

A hazy mist spread through the deserted streets, as though plunging the world into a dream. Reality seemed to become a labyrinth, lost within itself, leaving every compass hopelessly confused.

Swaying slightly, Daniel walked not away from the portal, but toward it.

He was tired of the loneliness.

Tired of the emptiness all around him.

It was as though he had spent ten years stranded on a deserted island—and had suddenly spotted a ship on the horizon.

Daniel walked for a long time through the thick fog, where there was nothing at all.

Then, suddenly, he stumbled and nearly fell.

When he got back to his feet, he froze, unable to believe the miracle before him.

He had come home.

To his own street, decorated with pumpkins and figures of ghosts, glowing with orange lights. He heard voices and music from the radio station that still existed then—the station that would later fall silent forever.

When he reached the long table where everyone still alive used to gather for celebrations, he saw familiar faces.

And he saw himself as a little boy.

For a long moment, everyone simply stared at him.

Then they invited him to join them.

Daniel told them who he was, and strangely enough, they believed him. His younger self moved closer, staring at him wide-eyed and hanging on every word.

Daniel was happier than he had ever been.

He knew he still had ten years of peace and happiness ahead of him.

For ten more years, he would not be alone.