The vines parted as the pumpkin king moved steadily towards Graham and Laura. Graham handed Laura an extra box of shells without taking his eyes off the approaching figure. “You can reload without needing to take them out of your inventory. Make sure you’re topped up.” He pumped his shotgun and took aim.

  Laura briefly considered running. But she wasn’t sure what the actual outer bounds where the creature’s reach ended were, and the last thing she wanted was to turn her back on the advancing figure. She glanced over at the shed, and considered barricading herself inside. But a claustrophobic fear clawed up her throat. Instead she clutched the shotgun tighter, made sure its magazine was topped up, and set the shotgun against her shoulder taking aim alongside Graham.

  The thickest vines surrounded the approaching figure like an entourage. The Level 9 designation haunted her. But his constitution was relatively low, so maybe they had a chance.

  Laura jumped at the bang of gunfire as Graham shot directly at the jack-o-lantern head. But the thick vines were too quick, darting in front to wreath his head and absorb the shot before it could reach the more delicate pumpkin flesh. And there was their issue. They’d have to reach him first.

  The pumpkin king considered the two of them. Then he pointed a finger at Laura. Vines darted forward and wrapped around her. Her arms were still free but they encircled her waist, not squeezing yet, just firmly holding her in place. The vines lifted her slightly so her feet barely brushed the ground.

  Then they started to squeeze. Laura flashed back to the blood pressure cuff in the OBs office from less than two weeks ago, the way it felt like it wouldn’t ever stop tightening. The pressure was small at first, but it continued to build. And build.

  You must ask yourself how long. The voice was sonorous and echoed directly in her head, the jack-o-lantern’s flaming mouth unchanged. How long before we cause permanent damage?

  Did he know she was pregnant? Or was he simply going after her because she was weaker than Graham? She was in fact weaker than Graham now, thanks to the way she’d split up the distribution of her stat points.

  A new box popped up in her vision. Vitals: Heart Rate. It showed that her heart rate was currently in the 120s. Not too surprising considering the strain she was under. Then a second box popped up showing a second heartbeat in the 140s. Laura froze. She flashed back again to the OB and the pulsing wub wub sound she’d heard from the monitor during the ultrasound.

  I’m not supposed to be here.

  Laura started pushing down mindlessly against the thick fibrous vines. An earthy smell choked her nose. The vines tightened and dug into her side where she’d been burned, sending a sense-memory of the pain through her. Don’t panic. She tried to take a deep, steadying breath, but the vines were already starting to restrict her chest.

  She produced her sickle and brought it down with a decisive sweep, but it stuck hard in the vine and didn’t move. She grabbed the handle with both hands and pulled up, but it stayed stuck in place. Without her feet fully on the ground she wasn’t able to leverage her full force to yank it free. The vine with the sickle still buried in it hadn’t loosened in the slightest. Laura aimed her shotgun now at the smiling jack-o-lantern face and pulled the trigger, but the shot went wide as another vine twisted and wrenched the shotgun out of her hands.

  Graham kept his distance and continued to pepper shots at the vines. Laura craned her neck around to look across the field for any other help.

  Caroline had 1 minute left on the tarot card that required her to stay stuck in place. Who knew how much worse their situation would be once it ran out. Nate periodically picked off any of the smaller vines that crept in Caroline’s direction.

  Oliver, on the other hand, was cutting a quick path in their direction, his scythe making quick work of any of the vines in his way. Agnes was skirting along the outside edge, taking a more cautious approach but still also making a clear attempt to reach Laura.

  As Laura’s health bar started to tick down, she delved into her menus to pull up any stat points she might have available to distribute.

  She had leveled up from the unintentional kitchen torch bomb that had taken out the Level 5 pumpkin. She also had received a new skill: Mother of Invention: When you use a weapon in an unexpected way, receive a damage boost of 20%. Continuing with the theme, I see. She hadn’t even done it on purpose, but she’d gladly take the skill. As for her 1 stat point…

  The second heartbeat had started to beat inconsistently, shooting up to 170 bpm then dropping to below 100.

  She put her stat point into constitution. Warning: Constitution is not a necessary stat for your fighting class… She waved away the warning message and overrode it to increase her constitution to 4.

  Oliver charged in, scythe swinging. He managed to cut through a few of the vines that led to Laura, giving her a little breathing room. Caroline’s timer vanished with a small pop, and she immediately took off running towards Laura and Graham as well. Nate was close behind. Graham continued retreating so he could still take pot shots at the vines and pumpkins without getting caught up in them.

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  Nate skidded into place next to Laura and immediately began tugging at one of the vines to give her a bit of room. “Get your arms up,” he told her. “Put your arms up in front of your chest like you’re boxing, it’ll buy you a little breathing room.”

  Laura wriggled her elbows down into the nest of vines into the pocket Nate created by pulling the vines back with all his strength. She kept her forearms up, fists near her face.

  A Level 4 pumpkin reared up and Nate let go of the vines so he could punch it, putting his hand straight through the pulpy flesh. The vines constricted around Laura’s arms again, but she had a bit more give for her chest to expand and get more air now.

  Nate pulled his hand back out of the shattered pumpkin, clutching a fistful of pumpkin seeds.

  “Hey big guy,” he yelled at the pumpkin king. The jack-o-lantern head turned to look in his direction. Nate held up a dripping handful of seeds and pumpkin guts. “We’re coming for ya!”

  The jack-o-lantern face turned back to stare at Laura, seemingly unaffected by Nate’s threat.

  How are you doing? Laura’s heart rate spiked higher on the monitor floating in her vision. And the other one?

  The vines tightened a little more.

  “Hey asshole!” Caroline yelled. “If you kill her I swear to god I will lose it! I did not get dragged in here by her just for her to turn around and die.”

  Caroline produced a jar that Laura recognized as being from the puppet master’s hidden office, and threw it at the pumpkin king. A glowing ball inside the jar expanded and shattered the glass as it approached its target, bursting into flames the moment it touched the air. The ball of flames hit the pumpkin king square in the chest, but rather than dealing much damage he instead absorbed it until it vanished with a last lick of fire over his arms with only minimal damage.

  His head swiveled to contemplate Caroline. Fire isn’t really my weakness, he intoned.

  Oliver used the distraction to dart forward and sever the rest of the vines leading to Laura. Laura scrambled back towards Graham before more vines could take their place, breathing deep painful breaths, while Oliver and Caroline started boxing in the pumpkin king.

  Agnes pressed a refresher soda into Laura’s hands. “Your ribs are either very bruised or broken,” she said. She’d grabbed a new weapon out of the shed and started working with the others to take out the last of the mobs surrounding the pumpkin king.

  They were finally down to two Level 6 pumpkins that flanked the pumpkin king on either side with their vines trailing around him. One was blocking Oliver, and the other was keeping Caroline from getting any closer to the pumpkin king.

  Laura trained her shotgun on the pumpkin closest to Oliver. She hesitated as Oliver intermittently blocked her from getting a clear view of her target. “Take the shot!” Oliver yelled, as its vines intercepted him yet again from reaching the pumpkin king. Oliver ducked down and Laura aimed, took a breath, and squeezed the trigger. She’d had a good window, but her shot just barely hit and took less than 20% off the health bar of the pumpkin. It didn’t even slow it down. Graham stepped up and took two follow-up shots in quick succession. They obliterated half the pumpkin, sending the remaining half spinning off to shatter against the side of the shed.

  Oliver leapt through the gap and charged at the jack-o-lantern figure. Oliver pulled back his scythe to swing. The pumpkin king reached out, intercepting the swing, and grabbed a hold of the handle of Oliver’s scythe. The handle began to smoulder where the pumpkin king’s hand touched it, like there was fire throughout his whole being. Oliver pushed back, straining against the pumpkin king’s iron grip. Smoke curled from the handle of the scythe before it burst into flames. Oliver held on for a moment longer before dropping the weapon and letting it burn on the ground.

  The pumpkin king reached for Oliver himself now, and Oliver produced his paddle, swinging back to crack him in the head before he could react. The pumpkin king’s health bar dropped by a quarter, but the paddle shattered on impact.

  Oliver stamped out the smouldering handle of the scythe and picked up what was left, ignoring the burns it gave his hands. But as he pulled back to carve the scythe through the jack-o-lantern head, Caroline dodged the remaining pumpkin and pushed Oliver to the side and out of the way of the remaining vines that had been creeping up to ensnare him. The pumpkin king seized her instead.

  Graham took another shot and hit the pumpkin king, dropping his health bar by another portion. Laura held back from firing. She wasn’t confident enough at this point that she wouldn’t hit Caroline instead.

  Caroline’s constitution had taken a beating between the tarot card and whatever had been required to activate the jar she’d thrown. Her health dropped down rapidly as the pumpkin king’s grip began to smoulder on her skin. Caroline grit her teeth, and looked over at Oliver with his remnants of his scythe. “Take out the last mob,” she said.

  Oliver advanced on the pumpkin king instead, slashing at him with the scythe. The pumpkin king’s health bar was at 50%.

  “Get back!” Caroline yelled at Oliver. Her health bar was continuing to plummet.

  Nate, Graham, and Agnes took down the second pumpkin that was flanking the pumpkin king.

  His eyes flared and he grabbed at Oliver who jumped back out of the way. The fire in him built up to a new pitch, radiating out from every inch, heading towards some kind of climax.

  “Hey!” Caroline yelled at the pumpkin king, who still had a hand wrapped around her arm in an iron grip. The skin under his hand was blistering and oozing. “What goes around, comes around,” she said, holding up a new tarot card. Justice. All attacks are reflected back on the attacker.

  Her health had dropped below 25%, which let her activate her “death defying magic” skill to boost her constitution. She activated the card.

  The pumpkin king went to release her, but it was too late. The fiery attack he’d been building up to unleash on Oliver and Caroline rebounded on him, knocking his health bar to zero. The empty jack-o-lantern head dropped to the ground.

  “Ow, motherfucker,” Caroline said, doubling over clutching her burned arm. “This really freaking hurts!”

  Oliver turned to Laura. “Respectfully, what the fuck was that? I thought you were a level 7 like Graham?” Laura couldn’t answer.

  “And where were you?” He yelled over to Brett, who had remained well away from any of the fighting.

  “Hey, I did my part! Sneak into the shed and get the weapons!” Brett yelled back.

  Oliver threw up his hands and swore.

  Once they dragged themselves back into town to the Rest a While, everyone mechanically ate before heading upstairs. Even Brett didn’t complain about the repetitiveness of the food, and Oliver didn’t get annoyed at the other’s need for some rest.

  Caroline sat on her bed, touching the skin on her arm. She’d gone up two more levels to a Level 8. Yet again the healing items had done their work and her skin was almost as good as new. But it didn’t erase the memory of the pain.

  Laura crossed her legs under her, and cleared her throat. “Did you—did you deliberately take that hit? So you’d be able to use the card?”

  Caroline didn’t answer right away. She pulled up her knees to her chest.

  “You need to figure your shit out,” Caroline said. She looked younger than she’d looked since this thing started. “Oliver can’t see your stats, but I can. They’re a mess.” It was true that Laura and Graham were the same level, but while their dexterity was the same Laura now had half his intelligence. It meant they might be able to wield similar weapons but she was only able to deal about half the amount of damage he could.

  “You need to figure some stuff out,” Caroline repeated.