The Juvenile Jenga Tower of Terror (Patreon)

Through the corridor of darkness came a small boy in a black cloak that reached his feet. With a half-bored expression on his face and an orange stripe in his hair, he looked like quite the odd ball. Even weirder was the large scythe he had hunched over his shoulder.

As he walked, several screens with static on them floated down behind him. With a tone that matched the look on his face, he turned to stare at you, right in the eyes.

“Hello everyone. I’m the Grim Reaper.” The young boy said, waving his hands about as if expecting applause. “Some call me Bourbon but only when I’m off duty. Today, I’m going to walk you through three tales of horror and humiliation concerning some dorks that got a little too unlucky. It’s okay to laugh at their misfortune though.The Halloween season calls for it.”

He twirled his scythe and stopped at the first screen. “So, without further ado, I present to you all the Juvenile Jenga Tower of Terror. If by the end of this special you’ve peed your pants don’t say I didn’t warn you. Wah ha ha.”

He more spoke that laugh at the end. It didn’t really sound genuine even though to him it probably was.

The organ music pops off and it leads us into our first story.

---

Tale #1: Pumpkin Patch Baby

Bourbon was alone in his house, setting things up for Halloween.

He usually didn’t get much help from his uncle aside from being the one to foot the bill for the decorations, candy, and pumpkins he demanded. Outside of that, he considered his job finished once the stuff entered Bourbon’s hands.

“Halloween tonight is going to be a ton of fun. I’m going out with my friends as a shroud of darkness.” Bourbon said, eyeing the costume draped over on the couch. It was just a black cloak. Easiest costume ever.

He set the large pumpkin he had down on the table and grabbed a knife. “But, I still need people to admire how good I am at pumpkin carving. This little baby is going to be my biggest masterpiece yet.”

With that fire of determination so rarely associated with him burning in his eyes, he got to work creating a face for his pumpkin. It was a fairly scary looking one and he managed to successfully get the exact face he wanted without even needing to use the backup pumpkin beside him.

“Ha. Done. Now then…” Bourbon lit a candle and placed it inside the head. “The spark of LIFE!”

Finally. He was done. The candle within the pumpkin glowed brightly and Bourbon couldn’t help holding it up to admire his work.

“You’re going to sit in the front lawn as the best pumpkin carving the neighborhood has ever seen.” Bourbon said, smooching it.

“But I’ll be so lonely by myself.” The pumpkin said, it’s mouth moving in a way that mimicked the way it witnessed Bourbon speaking.

“Oh. Not to worry. I can… make you… a… friend…” Bourbon trailed off, eyeing the pumpkin with wide eyes of shock.

There was a pause.

“YEEEEEAAAAGH!” Bourbon then screeched and dropped the pumpkin on the table! “Y-YOU CAN TALK?!”

The pumpkin began laughing and rolled itself off the table and onto the floor before coming over to the cloak of darkness on the couch. It hopped up and down until it gathered enough momentum to land on the cloak.

Then it rose up, towering over Bourbon like an evil spector. The cloak was it’s body and the pumpkin, it’s head.

“How cruel of you.” The pumpkin stated. “Creating me without the intention of having a friend to tag along?”

Bourbon was shaking all over, eyes going white along with his face. He stood there, shivering with his knees knocking as this pumpkin scolded him.

“I’m lonely. I desire a son. A baby.” The pumpkin said. “Carve one for me…!”

“O-Okay… s-s-s-sure…!” Bourbon turned and trotted over to the table. His face was drenched in sweat and he swore there was something even more damp in his underwear right now.

With hesitation and shaking, sweaty palms, he grabbed the knife and tried to carve out the top of the pumpkin. He managed to do it but as soon as he did, the Cloaked Pumpkin towering over him shouted, “STOP!”

“AH!” Bourbon dropped the knife and it got stuck in the floor, just barely missing his shoe. “WHAT?!”

“Now carve two holes in the bottom. On the left and the right.” The pumpkin demanded.

“B-B-B-But what about a face-?!” Bourbon asked.

“A face already exists.” The Pumpkin sneered, peering down at Bourbon.

“... O-Okay. Whatever that means. Sure. You’re the evil pumpkin man.” Bourbon did what he was told and carved two holes on the bottom left and right.  “Now WHAAA--!?”

Bourbon gasped in shock when he was lifted and twirled around. The pumpkin used the cloak as it’s hands and wrapped itself around the scared boy, tearing away his clothes piece by piece.

“EEEEP! CAN YOU AT LEAST TELL ME WHY YOU NEED ME NAKED FOR THIIIIIIS?!” Bourbon screamed, getting dizzy as he was spun about with articles of his clothes being shredded and tossed every which way.

Eventually, when he was fully nude, he was thrust down into the pumpkin. His legs popped out of the holes he just carved out and his body fit snugly in the top.

“Aww. How adorable.” The pumpkin reached down and yanked Bourbon up by it’s cloth hands, holding him out like a Pumpkin Patch Kid. “YOU’RE my baby now. You’ll sit outside with me and be admired by all the passers by this Halloween.”

Bourbon blushed. “Eh…?!”

The very thought of doing that told his bladder it was okay to let go. He ended up wetting his little pumpkin diaper fully now.

10 minutes before Halloween officially began, Bourbon and his Pumpkin daddy went outside and sat in the lawn where people could see them as clearly as the night would allow.

The kids admired the tall looking Pumpkin in the cloak, wondering how it was able to stand so tall, and took pictures of both it and the embarrassed, cross-eyed Bourbon sitting next to it, unknowingly acting as it’s slave pumpkin baby.

They eventually began laughing at him as pee seeped out of it. He just sat there, twitching with humiliation flooding over him.

“S-So… I have to sit here… the entire night?” Bourbon asked eventually. “I wanted to go trick or treating.”

“Silly baby.” The pumpkin turned to him when no one was around. “Pumpkins are meant to be admired on Halloween. When our job is done, we rot away and they make way for new ones on Halloween. That’s our lot in life outside of becoming delicious pumpkin pie.”

“I don’t like pumpkin pie…” Bourbon muttered with a pout. “Besides. I’m not actually a pumpkin. I’m not going to rot.”

“Oh really? That’s shocking since you seem to be expiring faster than I am.” The pumpkin said, laughing as he turned away.

“What are you…?” Bourbon raised a brow… and then felt something strange on his hands. It was kind of goopy. He raised his arm to inspect it…

...And saw his hand had started to expire. It was falling apart with goopy, orange pumpkin innards spilling out of his arm’s stump and onto the ground.

Bourbon stared at his arm, eyes wide and face an expression of terror the likes of which he’d never experienced before.

Then, with a shaky crazed smile he mused, “... I wish I’d have been given a chance to be pumpkin pie instead. I might have tasted good…”

---

The organ music fades back out as we see our story teller walking away from the screen that displayed the previous tale.

“Yes. The tale of a young boy who loved pumpkin carving but foolishly didn’t provide his prized pumpkin with a friend or a baby to take care of so that it may keep some company… and as a result, he became a pumpkin and withered away at the end of the Halloween season himself.” The Grim Reaper said, finally stopping at the next screen.

He cleared his throat and then tapped the next one with his scythe. “But don’t worry. Sometimes the misfortune that befalls the young ones happens as a result of something they couldn’t have prevented…” He said before pausing with a blank expression. “What? That doesn’t comfort you? Oh well. Sometimes it be like that.”

---

Tale #2: Brother Bot

“LEAVE ME ALONE!” Troy shouted in anger, running away from Chris as he chased him with a loofa. “I TOLD YOU, I’LL TAKE A BATH LATER!”

“Shut up!” Chris shouted as he ran after him. “You ALWAYS say that but then I have to drag your sticky butt into the tub anyway. You’re so irresponsible, it sucks! You’re such a baby too. I don’t know how you ended up getting out of diapers, lard bottom!”

Troy snapped.

He rarely got angry but Chris knew how to TRIGGER him and it was whenever someone pointed out how big his butt was.

With steam now pouring from his ears, Troy ran into the kitchen and grabbed the first thing he saw on the counter; a baby bottle their parents kept from his time as a toddler. They sucked at throwing stuff like this away but it was okay because it made a great projectile!

Troy snapped and beamed it at Chris’ head. “DON’T CALL ME LARD BOTTOM, SISSY JERK FACE!”

Chris skidded into the kitchen and his eyes got big right as the bottle beamed him upside the head!

He twirled around like a ballerina and did a weird jittery dance before flopping onto his butt.

His pants started to get soaked.

At first, Troy pointed and laughed at his brother having wet his pants again but when he stared at the puddle forming, it went from yellow to a weird inky black.

Troy blinked in confusion before Chris’s body made these weird jerking motions and… sparked?

He was standing up now and his skin… seemed to have a cut in it.

“Oh…! C-Crap… I uh… I’m sorry Chris… I… cut you?” Troy tilted his head, unsure if that was the right answer.

Chris then opened his eyes.

They glowed a bright red. There were no pupils or irises. Nothing. Just a bright double red light that shined directly on Troy.

Sparks flew and the lights in the house flickered before they died, leaving Troy standing there with his eyes as big as saucers and the glowing red lights in Chris’ eyes boring at him.

The cut on his head wasn’t a cut. A layer of skin had peeled off when Troy hit him. Troy could see the metal hull underneath his head.

“Wha… wha…?!” Troy gasped. “Wait… is this the reason you were always so obsessed with rules and junk? Because you… WERE A ROBOT?!”

Chris began jittering and stomped his way towards Troy. “Your parents created me to keep you in line! I was upgraded every year to simulate the act of growing up! I was like a second son to them but you were always so unruly! I had planned for tonight to be the night where I permanently kept you in line anyway but you just accelerated the process!”

Troy blinked, just staring up at him.

“Fear not about our parents finding out about this. I just activated CODE RED and I’ve already cleaned them thoroughly with my little helper bots. I’ve just received a signal that confirms that they’ve been scrubbed away like the dirt they were… and now it’s your turn!” Chris said this with a laugh and a crooked metallic grin etching onto his face.

Troy kept standing there and looking up at him.

Finally, he responded.

“Y-Yeah, well, I really want to get cleaned up now since you’ve just activated my code brown…” Troy muttered.

The room was reeking right now but Chris couldn’t smell it... because he was a robot.

Chris then turned his arms into water hoses and fired them at Troy!

The young boy screamed and ducked, watching as the water blasted into the cabinets behind him and demolished them. Getting hit with those wouldn’t just clean them, it’d turn him into a bleached skeleton!

“COME HERE BROTHER DEAREST! IT’S TIME FOR YOU TO BE SCRUBBED AWAY!” Chris stomped after him.

Troy finally screamed, wetting his shorts as he turned and ran off!

Chris followed after him, the lights of his red eyes making it impossible for him to miss the screaming child as he darted his way for the exit.

Chris managed to slide in his way so Troy had no choice but to pivot and head up stairs. It was hard to do with his shorts being such a mess now but he couldn’t be choosy about this!

Eventually he made it to his room and closed the door behind him. He looked ahead and saw the window at the edge of his bed.

Salvation!

He’d crawl out the window, grab the tree branch, and then make his escape…!

BOOM!

Troy screamed as the door was kicked open and he was sent hurtling across the room. He slammed into the back wall and flopped onto his stomach, his butt now looking way more bloated than it already was. His eyes rolled and stars spun over his head.

That hurt. A lot.

No way he’d be able to successfully climb down that tree now.

Troy shook his head to clear the stars and birdies he was seeing only to look up and see the two creepy red eyes peering down at him in the darkness.

“BATH TIME!” He said, pointing his hose arms at him.

Troy scooted back, shaking all over with his teeth clenched and tears ebbing at the edge of his eyes.

“W-Wait! H-H-Hold on! I-I promise, I’ll get clean myself… a-and I’ll help you keep this whole house clean! F-Forever! L-Let’s be partners!” Troy said, getting on his hands and knees now.

Chris processed this for a bit and then… put the hoses away.

“I see. That sounds acceptable. Okay then little brother. Let us clean…!”

One screen wipe later saw Troy now dressed in a maid outfit, a diaper on to hold his accidents now that he’d been scared into incontinence, and a feather duster.

His robot brother hovered over him, peering down at him with his red eyes glowing again. “Now, get cleaning.”

“Haha… y-yes big brother…!” Troy said, going down and starting the dusting. “Wh-When I’m done, what shall I do next?”

“Done? There is no DONE.” Chris said, turning to face him. His head was still sparking. Troy must have hit and broken something important.

“... Eh?” Troy twitched, eyes wide with fear and shock with a derped forced smile on his face.

“Cleaning is an everlasting task.” Chris said, towering over him. “And we shall do it together, alone in this house… FOREVER!”

He then bent down and gave Troy a hug.

Troy began laughing and drooling, feeling his mind shatter as the crushing realization of how his life was to be from now on hit him dead on.

Their house from then on was known as a strange enigma. No one ever came and went to it but it was said to be the cleanest house on the block.

Still, people who passed by could swear they heard the sound of someone giggling and singing a happy song about cleaning by the windows. Who knew if that story was true though.

---

The organ music plays us out again.

The Grim Reaper left the previous floating screen behind while his hands rested behind his head. “A young boy and his weird brother obsessed with rules found that their fates would be intertwined forever. Young Troy wished to know why his brother was the way he was and the answer he found sealed his fate. It truly is best to keep some things a mystery... “

He then stopped at the final screen and began munching on a packet of skittles. “So anyway, here’s the last one. I’m running out of pretentious poems to recite at the end of these.”

The organ music creeps in once more to pull us back in…

---

Tale #3: Massacre Man of Science

Bourbon knocked on the front door of Ian’s house and waited for an answer.

It took a while but eventually, Mario opened the door.

He looked really ragged and strange though. It took almost 10 seconds before he even seemed to register that Bourbon was there.

“Hello!” Bourbon waved and jumped to catch his attention. Mario blinked several times and then shook his head. “Oh… hey! Y-You’re his friend right…?”

“His friend? You mean your brother Ian? Uh yeah.” Bourbon said, wondering why Mario was looking and acting so strange today. “Can you let me in? I want to see him?”

“S-Sure… h-he’s in the basement… as usual.” Mario said, stepping aside and allowing Bourbon inside.

“Oh is he?” Bourbon looked around. The place was looking very messy. Weird metal parts, screws, and other science lab equipment were strung about the place. “That’s strange. The place looks like he’s working everywhere.”

“Haha… ha…” Mario fake laughed and scooted back a bit.

Bourbon found his behavior strange but shrugged and headed to the basement.

When he made it down there, he saw all the steam and bubbling lab equipment active and the pile of papers, scrap metal, and weird tubes decorated the walls, table, and strangely enough, the floor.

“Hey Ian.” Bourbon said, coming up on Ian’s chair.

The young boy was hunched over the table. He didn’t respond at first but then turned when his shoulder was taped.

Ian’s eyes peered into Bourbon’s, pupils shrunk a bit and looking a little… odd. Still, Bourbon kept his composure.

“Hey.” Bourbon waved, his usual bored expression on his face. “So uhm… I came to visit you.”

“Oh. Hey Bourbon.” Ian said, looking over at him once before turning back to his science papers. He bit into his pencil and rubbed a hand across his hair. “Sorry. I can’t talk right now. I’m super busy.”

“Yeah, about that… so uhm… you’ve actually been missing from school for about a week now. Troy tried to tell me it’s probably no big deal but uh… Chris said that Mario is still going to school even though he’s been acting weird lately too. So… is everything alright?”

“Oh? Oh yeah. Everything’s fine.” Ian said. “I’m just… I have a project I need to finish. The science fair is coming up and the pressure to do something that’ll WOW everyone is getting to me… more so than usual.”  Ian then stood up. “Mario actually said he was WORRIED about me. Can you believe it?”

Bourbon saw Ian standing there in his lab coat and red-violet pants. Aside from his hair being a bit frazzled and the baggy eyes indicating a lack of sleep, he seemed fine.

“Yeah. A bit.” Bourbon said. “I can help you if you want. What’s the project?”

“Oh… y-you wouldn’t understand.” Ian said. “Thanks though.”

“Are you sure?” Bourbon asked, waltzing over to a table with a sheet draped over what looked like some weird, big object. He went to lift the sheet to inspect it. “I can--!”

“DON’T!” Ian snapped, grabbing Bourbon’s arm. Bourbon winced, surprised by how much his grip hurt. “Uh… I mean… don’t touch that. It’s sensitive to light… you can’t remove the sheet. Okay?”

Bourbon shrugged. “Okay.”

Eventually, he grew tired of standing around and watching Ian work without much conversation, so he took his leave.

He figured that the science fair coming up in about a month was a bit of a strange head start to take but Ian did love his science so who was he to judge?

However, another week went by and there was still no sign of him.

Even weirder, Chris stopped seeing Mario at school too.

Bourbon knocked on Ian’s door the next week, the fall leaves hitting the porch of his house as an eerie blood orange and red sunset happened in the distance.

The door took forever to be opened but eventually it did by itself.

“Come in.” Came a voice from a speaker.

“Ah.” Bourbon realized what had happened. “Ian must have installed a system that answers the door for him. Weird.”

He figured that must mean there was a camera trained on the front door and Ian could see him from his lab. Still, it was strange that Mario didn’t answer the door this time. He figured that since he’d stopped coming to school he must be here too but…

“Eh. Whatever. It’s impolite to pry into people’s family affairs.” Bourbon put his hands over his head and made his way to the basement.

It was somehow an even bigger disaster area than it was before.

“Hey… Ian? Uh… what’s… what’s going on?” Bourbon asked as he approached the boy in his seat.

One tap on his shoulder saw him spring to his feet and turn around to face Bourbon.

“I’M SO CLOSE! Bourbon! I’m almost at the breakthrough I need and then I’ll be FINISHED! Isn’t it great?!” Ian said, a giggle at the edge of each word he spoke.

“Uhm…” Bourbon blinked.

“Mario tried to get me to stop but I said NOPE! Nuh-uh! He even said that I was going crazy or something. PFFT. Look at me? Do I LOOK crazy?!” Ian asked, gesturing to himself.

Bourbon looked the boy up and down.

He still had his lab coat on but it was covered in dirt and oil. His shirt was the same. The most noticeable thing was that he was no longer wearing pants. Instead, his dirty Spider-Man briefs were on open display and there was a large, noticeable, yellow wet spot on the front.

“Uhm… nope. You look… right as rain. Never better.” Bourbon lied as best as he could.

“SEE?! I knew he was freaking out over nothing. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!” Ian began to chortle like a lunatic, eyes crossing and drool pouring out his mouth.

“Uhm… where IS Mario by the way?” Bourbon asked.

“Hmm…? Wh-Why do you ask? EH?! HUH?! What are you a COP now?!” Ian asked, his eyes twitching.

“No… I just… he stopped coming to school and he didn’t answer the door this time… also, your parents haven’t been home either it looks like…” Bourbon said, eyeing the table with the sheet draped over it. It looked like it had gotten even bigger.

“Mario can do whatever he wants. So can my parents. Who cares?” Ian asked, turned away from Bourbon with a dark shadow across his face now that he was obscured from view.

“I know… but I don’t think they’d just leave you here alone…” Bourbon said, eyeing the table some more before scooting over to it…

Then he grabbed the sheet and yanked it off.

“YEEEEEEK!” Bourbon shrieked and backed into the wall.

There, on the table, was some sort of weird creature that wore the features of an assortment of body parts and had bits of green slime sticking the parts together. One of the body parts, he could tell, was Mario’s arm.

It was missing another arm too.

“Oh Bourbie… you’re so STUPID!”

Bourbon turned around and yelped, seeing Ian holding a large axe in his hands as he stood there in his underwear and lab coat.

“I told you not to look under that!”

“What the heck man?! What kind of weird science fair project is this?” Bourbon asked.

“Master Slime wants a cool new body so I’m building him one. He tried to control my parents but he didn’t like them. He tried to take over Mario’s mind but he was too stupid. So, it was left up to me. I need to make him a good body for him to take over. Fresh parts are becoming hard to come by. It’s a good thing YOU’RE HERE!”

“Huh? Me…? Wait…” Bourbon stood there, processing what Ian said for a bit.

Give him time. He’s a bit slow.

Then he realized what he meant.

“OH!” Bourbon snapped his finger when the light bulb in his brain finally clicked on. “You killed your parents, Mario, and now you’re going to kill me and take my body parts to make a body for some weird alien slime creature? I get it. Haha.”

Bourbon blinked.

Then he screamed. “EEEEEEEEEK!”

He turned to run right as Ian’s axe came down to slam into the wall. Ian laughed like a lunatic and plucked it out of the wall, chasing after Bourbon as he ran away into the dark corridors of his messy house.

Bourbon was finding it hard to navigate through this place. Ian had lost his mind trying to do the bidding of whatever creature was making him do this so cleanliness wasn’t on the brain.

Eventually, he found himself at a dead end of the hallway.

“Crap.” Bourbon muttered before turning to see the laughing Ian approach with an axe over his head.

“CAN YOU SPARE AN ARM MY FRIEND?!” Ian laughed some more, axe sparkling as it hovered over him.

“W-Well y-you don’t want anything on the lower end right now, that’s for sure. I just wet myself so anything you pluck from there is gonna smell like piss.” Bourbon fell onto his butt and gulped.

He then looked around frantically for anything that would help… and eventually snapped his fingers before reaching into his pockets and pulling out… A SNICKERS!

“Ian! Eat this!” He shouted as he unwrapped it and shoved it into Ian’s mouth! “YOU’RE NOT YOU WHEN YOU’RE HUNGRY!”

Ian’s eyes crossed again and he gagged.

He then dropped the axe behind him and choked.

Suddenly, a weird green slime-like creature crawled out of his ear and onto the floor.

“AUGH!” The slime creature screamed as if in pain. It was sizzling even.
“GROSS! DISGUSTING! WHAT IS THAT?!”

Bourbon saw the small creature and raised a brow. “Oh… that must be the alien thing that’s making you do this… wait, you didn’t go crazy! It took over your mind…!”

Bourbon then saw the way it was gagging and withering away.

“And it’s weakness… IS CHOCOLATE!” Bourbon gasped again, grabbing the remaining mush of the Snickers bar still in Ian’s mouth and smushing it on top of the tiny slime creature!

“NOOOOOOOOOO!” The slime creature let out a wailing death chortle as it turned to mush, dying from the chocolate smearing into its body.

Ian flopped onto his butt and rubbed his head. “Ow… ugh… th-thank you Bourbon.”

“No problem.” Bourbon smiled with a sigh. “Man, oh man. It’s a good thing alien weaknesses can be so versatile. Who would have guessed it’s kryptonite would be chocolate?”

“I probably could have figured it out had it not possessed me.” Ian said with a groan. “If any more of them invade our planet it’ll be tricky convincing the adults it’s weak to chocolate.”

“Absolutely.” Bourbon laughed.

Ian looked over at him. “Why did you even have a Snickers in your pocket? You hate chocolate bars.”

“I’ve always wanted to shove one into someone’s mouth and shout ‘You’re not you when you’re hungry’. You never know when you might get a chance and today, I lived that dream.” Bourbon smiled, hugging Ian close. “What a good day this turned out to be eh?”

Ian peered over at Bourbon. “My brother and parents are dead.”

Bourbon blinked.

“... Wanna live with me? My uncle will let you stay rent free if I nag him hard enough.”

Ian sighed.

---

The organ music faded back into the scene.

The Grim Reaper stood with his scythe pointed out at you. “A man of science was taken in by a scientific discovery that upended his life. Be careful not to fall prey to your own experiments, lest you get swept away by the bone chilling horror that awaits the unprepared!”

He then stopped and rubbed his chin before looking you in the eye. “Okay. That’s it. I told you all the stories I have for today. If you’ve wet your pants I want you to leave a like on the post okay? Cool. Until next time! BYEEEEEE!”

Bourbon, erm, I mean, the Grim Reaper, then turned and left to go find a bucket of candy to inhale.

For all who need to change their pants, be sure to exercise caution next time when partaking in the tales of horror from the Juvenile Jenga Tower of Terror!

Until next time, Happy Halloween my scaredy babies!

---

THAT was a ton of fun to write. I love Halloween stories. I think next year, I’m going to do some Juvenile Jenag Tower of Terror stories and pictures for the main websites I frequent but this was a neat prototype. Leave a like and a comment to let me know what you liked most and I’ll see you next time for the next spooky Halloween post!