Farming in a video game usually involves a lot of clicking and waiting. Farming in the apocalypse involved shoving glowing seeds into the cooling corpses of goblins while trying not to vomit.
"This is disgusting," Silas complained. He was knee-deep in the dead pile at the bottom of the nail pit, acting as my unwilling gardener.
"It is necessary," I called down from the hallway. "The description said they grow best in organic matter. We have plenty of that."
I checked the timer. [04:15:00].
We had planted ten Blast-Pumpkins. Five in the lobby. Three in the stairwell. Two right in front of our apartment door. It was a minefield of gourds.
Mrs Higgins had promised they would mature in an hour. That meant we had sixty minutes of vulnerability before our defences went live.
"They're glowing," Silas said, scrambling up the rope ladder. "They're pulsating."
"Good. That means they are hungry."
I pulled the ladder up. We retreated to the top of the stairs, standing behind our jury-rigged staple gun turret. It looked flimsy. It looked like a stiff breeze would knock it over. But it was the only thing standing between us and the red sky.