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He stepped out into the cold, dark night. The air smelled fresh after the storm. He gasped as the cold air sliced through his throat, his breath dissipating in a cloud of steam. He wrapped himself more tightly into his black cape, and ventured forward into the night. The sounds of his feet crushing the pebbles underneath, the ravens spilling out their haunting call, his own breath quivering in the icy atmosphere - these noises chilled him even further. Shook his spine and froze his heart.
He stopped suddenly. As if he could take no more, as if the world's conspiracy against him on this dark night had taken its final toll on his vulnerable soul. A distant sheet of lightning cracked through the sky, briefly lighting a tortured, hallowed face floating directly in front of him, mirroring his own. He leapt back in fright and nearly lost his balance, but his cold, slowed brain caught him on the edge of the abyss.
He knelt down, perhaps for balance, perhaps for warmth, and faced that awful visage that had accosted him. His mouth twisted into a smile as, by the very faint light of the stars, he recognised the face of his pumpkin, lovingly carved by his own hand earlier that day. He reached that same hand, now numbed, into his pocket, and groped around for the small candle and the box of matches he had brought.
Eventually, his breath almost freezing in the crisp air, he emptied the contents of his pocket onto the floor. He reached up for the pumpkin, which was lying atop a small stone column, like an altar, hidden by a holly bush, and grabbed at it with his enfeebled hands.
The sky was riven by another vicious bolt of lightning, accompanied by its deafening thunder. The scene that was momentarily lit in front of him was terrifying: that malicious pumpkin rolled forward and vomited a gruesome lumpy subtance into his exposed lap. He fell back and clawed at the ground when the cold liquid slapped onto his dark wrap. He was too scared to scream... until his brain rationalised and his heart settled. Now, shaking with fright and cold, he apprehensively looked back up at the evil orb.
And breathed a stinging sigh of relief. Rainwater had spilled out of the mouth of the pumpkin; water from the storm, perhaps mixed with some fallen leaves or pumpkin seeds. He groped around, trying to find the candle and matches, hoping that they had not got wet. Soon he sensed an irregularity in the ground, though his hands were too numb to feel the texture. It was the candle. And there were the matches.
Thankfully, they had avoided the splash. With some difficulty, he lit the candle and put the matches back in his pocket. The candle fit easily in the pumpkin's anguished mouth, and immediately gave the gruesome visage an eerie, flickering backlight.
His eyes widened and his breath sharply inhaled once more when he noticed that the orange face was warped with holes and warts. He shrunk away in fear, his stomach palpitating with disgust. He retched, the cold air hurting his lungs and bringing tears to his eyes. One of the warts from that horrible, rotting face fell off and rolled to his feet. Tense with terror, he tried to hide under his cloak - until he realised that the wart was just a snail.
He staggered back up onto his aching, shaking limbs and saw that the warts were all snails that had climbed up the bush and onto the pumpkin, and had eaten away parts of its surface. Still crying involuntarily, he gathered his black cape, feeling its sumptuous red inner lining envelop him, and rushed back up the path towards his home, leaving the vengeful fruit behind to scare another hapless soul.
He grumbled something about sharpening his teeth as he pushed open the Transylvanian castle door to enter his coffin chamber.
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