A (sort of) Spooky Halloween Story

Halloween is here again, and we'll be carving pumpkins tonight.  I hope it goes better than last year.  Last year, something kind of spooky happened with the pumpkins.  We took some of the newly finished jack-o-lanterns outside then went back in for the rest.  We weren't gone for more than 5 minutes, I kid you not, and when we went outside with the rest of the pumpkins, the faces of the first batch had been, well....eaten. Where the face had been on each jack-o-lantern, there was nothing but a big, almost perfectly round hole.  They looked like this:

Well, we just stood there dumbfounded for a few seconds, staring at this whole row of pumpkins that looked like they'd been shot with a cannonball.  We couldn't imagine what could have done this in such a short time.  Literally, it had only been a few minutes, as we gathered up the other pumpkins.  Thoughts of evil spirits and demons crossed my mind, just for a few seconds, I admit it.  Then we looked closely at the violated jack-o-lanterns, and saw the tooth marks; raccoons!  They must have been up in the trees around our house just waiting for us to leave those pumpkins alone for a few moments.  They sure work fast!

     This time, we'll put the carved pumpkins in the garage until it's time to light them.  I can only hope that the burning candle will deter the demonic raccoons.