Literature / Dark Harvest

"There aren't any secrets left for you. You know the story as well as I do."

"A Midwestern town. You know its name. You were born there."

Dark Harvest is a 2006 Gothic Horror novella by Norman Partridge, originally published by independent horror press Cemetery Dance Publications before being republished in 2007 by Tor Books.

On Halloween night in 1963, the people of a nameless town in the American Midwest prepare for "The Run", a timeless Halloween ritual whose origins are shrouded in mystery. The premise of the Run is simple: after being locked in their bedrooms and forbidden from eating for five days, the town's able-bodied young men (all between the ages of 16 and 18) are set loose upon the town and challenged to hunt down the mysterious entity known as "The October Boy", a living scarecrow with a carved pumpkin for a head. On every Halloween night since time immemorial, the October Boy rises to life in the cornfields just outside of town and makes his way to the old church in the town square to ring its bell. And every Halloween night, the town's young men have until the stroke of midnight to kill him, using whatever methods they desire.

The prize? Whoever kills the October Boy gets to leave the town to start a new life elsewhere, which they're otherwise forbidden from doing. Winning the Run is a boy's only chance to escape the town—and if he misses that chance, he's forced to stay forever.

Like countless young men before him, 16-year-old Pete McCormick jumps at the chance to participate in the Run as soon as he's eligible, knowing that it could be his only respite from his dead-end home life with his jobless alcoholic father, who's never been quite the same since the death of Pete's mother. But as he takes to the streets to hunt the October Boy, he soon encounters a labyrinthine web of mysteries and secrets that will force him to confront the truly disturbing truth about his hometown—ultimately leading to a gut-punch of a Plot Twist about the true nature of the Run.

Despite its initial limited release, Dark Harvest attracted the attention of many horror fans after it won the 2006 Bram Stoker Award for Best Long Fiction, and it received praise from Stephen King himself. Among horror fans, it's widely considered to be ideal for Halloween reading, devoting considerable effort to capturing the spirit of the holiday in prose form.

Norman Partridge later wrote a prequel short story, "The Jack-O'-Lantern," included in his limited edition anthology Johnny Halloween. It details the backstory of corrupt sheriff Jerry Ricks on a Halloween years prior.

A film adaptation got a limited release on October 11, 2023, followed by a digital release two days later.

For the 2004 Slasher Movie, see here.

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This novella includes examples of:

• The Alcoholic: Pete's father developed a serious drinking problem after losing his wife, leading to him losing his job at the local grain elevator. Pete makes it clear that he has zero respect for his father as a result.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Kelly is regarded as an outsider by the other residents of the town, apparently being the only resident who wasn't born there: she was born after her parents left the town, and was forced to move there to live with her aunt and uncle after her parents' death. Pete also has difficulty fitting in, but appears to be more of a loner by nature.
• The Alleged Car: Mitch Crenshaw's beat-up Chrysler, which he chooses to drive during the Run. Although considering the socioeconomic status of most of the town's residents, just having a car marks him as relatively privileged.
• Ambiguous Ending: Jim Shepard survives the night and kills Jerry Ricks, apparently putting the Run to an end for good, while Pete finally leaves the town with Kelly and his younger sister Kimmy by his side. But the final pages see Jim (apparently fully reinvigorated) stalking through the night, still in the form of the October Boy—leaving it uncertain what the future holds for him. And with most of the town on fire, it's left uncertain what will become of it now that the residents (apparently) aren't forced to stay.
• Ate His Gun: Jim's father Dan Shepard commits suicide with Jerry Ricks' riot shotgun near the end of the story. After being posted in the church by Ricks and tasked with killing Jim if he makes it there, he realizes that he can't bear to kill his own son—so he chooses to kill himself instead.
• Batter Up!: Baseball bats are said to be a popular weapon during the Run.
• Biblical Motifs: The story uses a rather unique mix of pagan and Christian symbolism in its depiction of the Run, which has elements of both a pagan harvest ritual (complete with Human Sacrifice) and Jesus' crucifixion. Jim Shepard's portrayal takes strong influence from Jesus, and he (appropriately) frees the people of the town through his sacrifice by the end.
• Big Damn Heroes: Jim Shepard takes multiple gunshots from Jerry Ricks' service revolver at the climax of the story, and ends up so badly injured that he can barely move. Thankfully, Pete and Kelly show up just in the nick of time to carry him into the church just as midnight strikes.
• Birds of a Feather: Pete and Kelly bond with each other due to their similar backgrounds as orphaned outcasts who've never quite fit in.
• Boom, Headshot!: Riley Blake and Jerry Ricks both die this way at the climax.
• Car Chase Shoot-Out: The climax features one: Jerry Ricks and Riley Blake in a Dodge police cruiser vs. Jim Shepard in a stolen Chrysler, with Jerry taking aim at the latter with a loaded service revolver.
• Car Fu: Mitch Crenshaw decides to use his Chrysler as his weapon of choice during the Run, planning to kill the October Boy by running him over. It doesn't work: the October Boy manages to hijack his car instead, using it to move freely through town.
• Chain Pain: Jim Shepard is said to have brought down the October Boy with chains the previous year.
• Chekhov's Gun: A literal example. Pete breaks into Jerry Ricks' house to steal his .45 pistol near the beginning of the story, using it as his weapon of choice during the Run. At the end of the story, Jim Shepard uses it to kill Ricks, definitively ending the Run for good.
• Closed Circle: Residents of the town are forbidden from straying beyond "The Line" that marks the boundaries of the town unless they're given explicit permission, and the only way to get permission is to win the Run by killing the October Boy (or so they're told...). There are severe consequences for those that "Jump the Line". Kelly found this out the hard way: her parents were murdered for leaving town.
• The Coroner Doth Protest Too Much: Kelly's parents officially died in a car accident, but it's revealed that they were actually murdered by the Harvester's Guild for leaving town.
• Counting Bullets: Jerry Ricks at the climax, after giving Riley Blake his revolver. After Riley fails to hit Pete and Kelly as they're carrying an injured Jim Shepard into the church, he deduces that he still has one bullet left, having only spent four before they managed to shut the door. He uses it to punish Riley for his failure by shooting him through the head.
• Damsel in Distress: Kelly is first introduced being threatened and beaten by a group of local jocks for being outside during the Run. After Pete rescues her, they spend the rest of the night together.
• Deadly Game: The Run. It's ended in death for the October Boy every previous year since it began, and plenty of teenage participants die themselves (at the hands of their rival participants or the October Boy himself) every year. And even if they win, their reward is death.
• Deal with the Devil: As part of the prize for winning the Run, the Harvester's Guild buys a new house and a new car for the family of the winning boy, and pays all of their bills for a year. Considering the truth about the Run, however, it's strongly implied that this is their payment for allowing their son to be murdered and sacrificed, as well as bribery money to ensure their silence.
• Decoy Protagonist: Pete serves as our primary viewpoint character through the first part of the story, but it soon becomes clear that he isn't really the protagonist. That would be Jim Shepard—last year's winner of the Run, and this year's October Boy.
• Denied Food as Punishment: Boys participating in the Run are locked in their bedrooms and forbidden from eating for five days prior to the Run, ensuring that they're as desperate and merciless as possible. The October Boy's head is filled with Halloween candy, providing extra incentive for catching him.
• Dirty Cop: Jerry Ricks, the town's brutal and corrupt police officer. He's revealed to be a prominent member of the Harvester's Guild, the group responsible for concealing the truth about the Run.
• Distressed Damsel: Pete first meets Kelly as she's being savagely beaten by Riley Blake and Marty Weston for being outside during the Run, which is forbidden for women and girls. She turns out to be pretty self-sufficient once she has a weapon in her hand, however.
• Driven to Suicide: Dan Shepard, with a shotgun in the town church. The guilt of being complicit in his son's murder proves to be too great for him to live with.
• Drives Like Crazy: Mitch Crenshaw has a reputation for this.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Jim Shepard (aka "The October Boy") survives until midnight and kills Jerry Ricks, ensuring that there will never be another Run again—and the people of the town can finally leave. Pete subsequently takes to the open road with Kelly and his younger sister Kimmy to start a new life.
• Everytown, America: The town (whose name is never revealed) is a composite of tropes associated with small-town America, and Midwestern farming towns in particular.
• Evil Only Has to Win Once: One of the boys who participate in Run must win every year or October Boy will destroy the town. This revealed to be a subversion as it puts an end to the ritual and allows the citizens to finally leave the town.
• Failure Is the Only Option: Lampshaded by the narrator in regards to the Run, who notes that "winning is just another name for losing" in the town. Considering the "winner" of the Run is murdered and resurrected as the following year's October Boy, it's not too far off base. Jerry Ricks also invokes the trope by openly scoffing at Jim Shepard for thinking he has a chance at surviving the Run, and he even posts his father in the church with a shotgun to ensure that he has no chance of ringing the bell if he makes it to the church. In the latter case, however, he turns out to be dead wrong.
• Fat Bastard: Riley Blake and Marty Weston, both described as "Beer-gut linemen."
• Fiery Redhead: Kelly. While it's left ambiguous whether she and Pete become a couple, she's one of the few people in town whom he has any kind of a close relationship with.
• Halfway Plot Switch: As soon as Pete discovers the truth about the Run midway through the novella, the entire story changes. In the first half of the story, he wants to kill the October Boy; in the second half, he wants to save him.
• Hero Stole My Bike: The October Boy steals Mitch Crenshaw's beloved Chrysler after he tries to run him down in the cornfield. Subverted, in that he doesn't just steal it for convenient fast transportation: he does it to keep himself hidden, since nobody would ever expect to find the October Boy driving a car. For a while, at least, it works: everyone who sees the car instinctively assumes that it's Mitch behind the wheel.
• Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday: The October Boy always rises on Halloween night, and only on Halloween night. Justified, since he's brought to life in a mystic ritual, which can apparently only be performed then (it's implied to be a harvest ritual).
• The Hunter Becomes the Hunted: A regular occurrence during the Run: the October Boy is ostensibly the quarry in the hunt—but he's no pushover, and will regularly hunt down and kill whatever boys he can. Mitch Crenshaw and his buddies experience this firsthand. Lampshaded by the plot summary, which describes him as "[b]oth the hunter and the hunted".
• Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: The Run, as it turns out. Contrary to what the town's young men are told, the October Boy isn't a monster: he's just one of the town's teenage boys, who was murdered the previous year after "winning" the Run.
• I Have Many Names: The October Boy is known by a multitude of epithets, including "Sawtooth Jack" and "Old Hacksaw Face".
• Iconic Item: The October Boy's butcher knife, according to tradition. The Run always begins with a member of the Harvester's Guild cutting eyes and a mouth into his "face" with a butcher knife, and subsequently giving him the knife to defend himself from the town's boys.
• It Can Think: Mitch Crenshaw and his friends soon discover (too late) that the October Boy isn't the mindless monster that they think he is, but is quite intelligent and capable of making detailed plans: he successfully hijacks Mitch's beloved Chrysler and uses it to pose as Mitch, briefly allowing him to move through town undetected. This serves as foreshadowing for The Reveal that he's not a monster at all—he's the boy who won the Run the previous year.
• Kill and Replace: An unwitting example: whoever kills the October Boy becomes the October Boy, and is condemned to be hunted to death himself. The boys of the town are kept in the dark about this fact.
• Kleptomaniac Hero: A non-video game example: Pete's first act during the Run is breaking into Jerry Ricks' house to scavenge for food and weapons; he fails to find any edible food, but manages to steal his .45 pistol. This is evidently a regular occurrence during the Run, as boys are expected to make do with whatever weapons and supplies they can find; the town's shopkeepers even guard the grocery stores and restaurants with shotguns to prevent the boys (who haven't eaten in five days) from looting their shops for food.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Exactly a year prior to the events of the story, Jerry Ricks executed Jim Shepard via a bullet to the head on Halloween night. This year on Halloween, Ricks meets his death via a bullet to the head from Jim.
• Legacy Character: The October Boy, as it turns out. The title is passed down each Halloween to the "winner" of the Run.
• Lost in the Maize: Early on, Mitch Crenshaw develops a plan to corner the October Boy in the cornfield and run him down in his Chrysler before he can make it to the town proper. It doesn't work out: he and his buddies get lost in the corn, and the October Boy manages to hide himself in the cornstalks well enough to sneak up on them and take them by surprise.
• Machete Mayhem: Pete inherits his father's old machete, which was previously his weapon of choice when he took part in the Run as a teenager. He casts it aside early on due to his resentment of his father, preferring to steal Jerry Ricks' .45 pistol from his house.
• Meaningful Name: Jim Shepard's surname evokes Jesus, the Good Shepherd. As the October Boy, he begins the story hung from a post in a cornfield, in a manner that alludes to Jesus' crucifixion. The story also sees him resurrected from the dead after being wrongfully executed, and helping the rest of the town achieve salvation by finally ending the Run.
• Missing Mom: Pete's mother died of cancer the year prior to the events of the story, which led to his father's drinking problem.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Ever since Halloween the previous year, Dan Shepard has had to live with the guilt of handing his son Jim over to be murdered by Jerry Ricks, even though Ricks made it clear that he would kill his younger son if he didn't cooperate. The guilt ultimately becomes so great that he commits suicide rather than kill his son again.
• Nephewism: Kelly lives with her aunt and uncle due to the death of her parents, who were murdered by the Harvester's Guild. The fact that her uncle owns the local movie theater is a minor plot point: she and Pete take refuge there during the Run, and a near-starved Pete gets some much-needed food from the snack bar.
• No Name Given: The name of the town is never revealed.
• Offing the Offspring: Narrowly averted. Jim's father Dan Shepard chooses to commit suicide with a shotgun blast to the face rather than killing his own son.
• The Omniscient Council of Vagueness: The Harvester's Guild, the organization responsible for orchestrating the Run and keeping its true nature a secret, as well as punishing people who try to leave town without permission. Their members include the town's mayor and chief of police, and it's made clear that they effectively run the town.
• Parental Abuse: The Run carries a definite undercurrent of this. It becomes clear that many of the town's adults are fully aware of the truth about the Run, but encourage their sons to participate anyway—knowing full well that they'll be sending their sons to their deaths if they win. Even for those that survive, participating in the Run still entails getting locked inside and starved for five days straight. This proves to be the final nail in the coffin of Pete's relationship with his father.
• Passing the Torch: Defied. Pete's father gives him the machete that he used when he took part in the Run as a teenager—but due to his low opinion of his father, Pete scornfully rejects the gift. As he points out: he has little reason to want to follow in the steps of his father, considering he lost the Run.
• Posthumous Narration: Subverted. The story uses Second-Person Narration, but it's told from the perspective of a previous "winner" of the Run who was subsequently resurrected as the October Boy and murdered by the town's boys, implying that the action is being viewed by their ghost.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: "You remember this part, don't you?" Jim Shepard's final words to Jerry Ricks before shooting him through the head, recalling the day exactly a year prior when Ricks did the same to him.
• Police Brutality: Jerry Ricks has zero qualms with using violence to keep the town's teenagers in line. Shortly before the events of the story, he picked Pete up for an unspecified petty crime and beat him so severely that he pissed blood.
• Pumpkin Person: The October Boy, a humanoid plant creature with a carved pumpkin for a head and a body of green vines. Every year at Halloween, he's brought to life with a mysterious magic ritual, which includes cutting eyes and a mouth into his "face".
• The Reveal: The winner of the Run doesn't really get to leave the town: he's actually killed and resurrected as next year's October Boy. The boys have been hunting the previous winner of the Run all along.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: With the Run apparently over for good, Pete seizes his first chance to jump in a hijacked car and leave his hometown forever. Many of the other residents appear to be following suit, with the Harvester's Guild now unable to stop them. Prior to the events of the story, Kelly's parents also left the town at the first chance they got; it didn't end well for them.
• Second-Person Narration: The novella uses it: the narration is addressed to the ghost of a previous "winner" of the Run, who's addressed as "You".
• Shrouded in Myth: The Run has been going on for so long that its origins are shrouded in mystery, and numerous stories about the October Boy abound. Jim Shepard ruminates long and hard about this fact at the midpoint of the story after realizing that the town's boys have elevated him into a larger-than-life hero thanks to his winning the Run, even attributing false quotes to him.
• The Smurfette Principle: Kelly Haines is the only female character in the story apart from Pete's younger sister Kimmy, who only appears briefly at the end. Justified, since women and girls are forbidden from leaving their homes during the Run (only boys are allowed to participate).
• Teens Are Monsters: Many of the town's residents express this sentiment about the town's teenagers, noting that they seem to become more violent and ruthless with each passing year. But considering they're raised in a town where hunting a sentient humanoid creature to death is a beloved annual tradition, it's understandable.
• Town with a Dark Secret: The premise in a nutshell. The story takes place in a quaint Midwestern farming town where residents are forbidden from leaving (on pain of death) by a murderous cult, and boys are forced to take part in an annual ritualistic contest on Halloween where the "winner" is murdered, resurrected, and condemned to be hunted to death the following year.
• Troubled Teen: Pete. He acted out by turning to petty crime after his mother's death, assuming that his father would straighten him out—but he was too busy drinking himself to death to notice. Jerry Ricks was all too happy to keep him in line by force, which is why Pete resents him so much.
• The Unreveal: A few things about the Run are left deliberately ambiguous by the end of the story. Most notably: we never learn exactly why nobody can leave the town, nor do we learn exactly why the Harvester's Guild is so intent on keeping the Run going. It's vaguely implied that the town is under some sort of curse, and that the Run is some sort of ritual intended to ensure a prosperous harvest and/or keep dark forces at bay—but nothing definitive is revealed.
• Was Once a Man: The October Boy, as it turns out: he's actually Jim Shepard, the boy who won the Run last year. The boy who wins the Run each year is murdered and buried in the cornfield just outside of town, where he eventually sprouts from the ground as a human-plant hybrid.
• We Need a Distraction: At the climax of the story, the October Boy sets multiple buildings on fire to lure the hunters away from the church. It's implied that the entire town burns down as a result, giving the residents all the more reason to leave.
• Women Are Wiser: Kelly, the story's sole major female character, is also apparently the only person in town who's ever successfully deduced the truth about the Run without being told. When she teams up with Pete, she's clearly the brains of the duo.
• Would Hit a Girl: Riley Blake and Marty Weston beat Kelly with clubs without a second's thought when they catch her outside during the Run, which is forbidden for women and girls.
• You Have Failed Me: Riley Blake meets his death courtesy of Jerry Ricks at the climax of the story for failing to stop Pete and Kelly from carrying Jim Shepard into the church.
• You Killed My Father: Kelly has a personal stake in the conflict with the Harvester's Guild: they murdered her parents in front of her for leaving town, only sparing Kelly herself.

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