Man, where do I start? You see, my name’s Caesar and my best bud is Gary. We’re kinda famous for our otherworldly escapades. This time, our adventure had taken us to Leonardtown, Maryland, on a punking patch of all places.

Farmer Jed and his wife, Martha, hired us to help set up for the fall festival. After a long, sweaty day of lugging heavy pumpkins and arranging hay bales, our old car decided to give out. Just our luck, right? But Jed, being the hospitable sort, offered us their guesthouse to crash for the night, promising we could check the car in the morning.

We should’ve known something was off when Martha packed us a midnight snack, smiling like a Cheshire cat. But hey, we were just two hungry teens, right?

In the dead of night, some strange noises woke us up. Sounded like a critter gnawing on wood, but also…whispering? Yeah, whispering! We crept out to investigate and found ourselves facing these tiny creatures, gnawing on the punking patch, their faces glowing brighter than our phone screens. Fairies without wings, if you can believe that. But weirder still, they were speaking English.

“Sacrifices…” one murmured.

“Sustenance…more…” another added.

Then Gary stepped on a twig. Their bulbous eyes turned on us, their smiles growing wider and scarier. That’s when things got a tad too real.

We made a run for it, but before we could wake the farmer and his wife, we found the car’s ignition cables in their living room, cut in half. The whole good-harvest-sacrifice thing was starting to make sense.

Man, we bolted for the barn, slamming the door shut just as these pumpkin-munching weirdos swarmed it. Their tiny hands pounding and scratching at the wood. Gary dialed 911 with shaking fingers, but would they even believe us?

Luckily, we didn’t have to wait long. Blue and red lights flashed through the cracks of the barn door and a voice boomed, “This is Officer Vadelay! Come out with your hands up!”

The barn door creaked open, revealing the officer, a towering figure against the backdrop of the flashing lights. He seemed more startled by the sight of the little creatures than they were by him.

The creatures scattered in the face of the law, screeching and squealing as they vanished back into the night. We breathed a sigh of relief and crawled out from our makeshift fortress. Officer Vadelay looked us over, an odd mix of disbelief and amusement on his face.

“Rough night, boys?” he asked, trying not to chuckle.

Understatement of the year, but we were just glad to be heading home, the farm and its peculiar inhabitants becoming a distant silhouette in the rearview mirror. As the adrenaline faded, Gary and I swapped incredulous looks. Just another day in our strange, strange lives, right?

As we approached La Plata, Gary muttered something about “taking up a safer hobby.” I couldn’t help but laugh. Who were we kidding? This was just another crazy tale to add to our chronicles. And let’s be real, we wouldn’t have it any other way.