The Gods of Lava Cove Read online

Welcome to Doom Farms.

  2

  I was the first to speak as we gawked up at the unfortunate billboard. “Well, you weren’t kidding when you said it would catch people’s attention,” I said.

  Dad scowled. “We’ve only been in town for five minutes, and already we have to deal with vandalism?”

  As I peered closer, I realized the sign had originally spelled Dunn correctly, but someone had spray painted over the last three letters.

  “Doom Farm Jams,” I pronounced in my best television commercial voice. “They’re so delicious you’ll just die.”

  Mom tried to glare at me in the rearview mirror, but soon all three of us were laughing. “Oh well,” she said. “A little prank by some local kids isn’t going to ruin this great day.”

  “That’s the spirit!” Dad cried. He shifted the station wagon back into drive and continued past the sign. “Although I bet the culprit was my childhood nemesis, Ezekiel Slade. He still owns a farm down the street. I bet this was his ‘welcome to the neighborhood’ gift. We’ll see who gets the last laugh when our pumpkins win best in show at the Jack-o’-Lantern Festival.”

  “Yes, dear,” my mom replied sarcastically. “You’ll sure show him.” She winked at me and reached back for a high-five between the seats.

  The car approached our new house, a rustic red farm with white shutters. Half the paint had peeled and fallen away. The house was so old that I worried a strong breeze might make the whole building cave in.

  A rickety wooden barn loomed off to the side, along with a metal silo, which I had read was a structure that farmers use to store grain. It looked like a towering aluminum can that a giant had discarded in the field.

  Before Dad had even fully parked in the driveway, I jumped out of the moving station wagon and hit the ground running, grateful to be free after the endless ride. Most kids would have bee-lined straight inside to check out their new room, but I had a different destination:

  The pumpkin patch.

  Halloween is my favorite holiday. There is nothing I love more than carving jack-o’-lanterns—I actually won awards for it at my old school the past few years. Mom and Dad promised me that if we moved to the farm, they would let me take charge of the pumpkin patch. Ordinarily, I wasn’t crazy about doing chores, but this job actually sounded like fun.

  So when I rounded the corner of the house and stepped into the backyard, I was immediately horrified by what I saw.

  The patch lay at the edge of the cornfield, and it was a complete disaster!

  The pumpkin vines had all withered and died. Their leaves had turned an ugly shade of brown. Only a few scrawny pumpkins remained.

  I had to chase away a crow to stop it from tearing one of the pumpkins apart with its beak. Through the hole it had pecked, I could see a cluster of wriggling maggots eating away at the rotten insides.

  It was the grossest thing I had ever seen.

  I sighed and sat down on a nearby stump, already feeling defeated. Ahead of me, I noticed that a scarecrow with a pumpkin for a head perched at the edge of the cornfield. Hay poked out of its flannel shirt and jeans.

  “Thanks for nothing,” I muttered at it, kicking the pumpkin the bird had ripped apart. “Some scarecrow you are.”

  That’s when the scarecrow turned its head to stare at me.