Halloween Story, Beta

Jason Morgan

House Crew

         It was the Halloween when Azrael bit it that I finally got put off of my season obsession for good. I didn't know that yet, though. At the time, it was just me and Mitch, sitting on the back step of the old warehouse in early November.
         My friends and I work for the Haunted House that Mitch puts on every year. The old semi-converted warehouse came into his hands years back, when I was still skulking around middle school in combat boots. We never get paid, but we're there every year among the other interchangeable latex faces. It's what we do. We do it well. Every year, a week after we close down, we'd meet up. Once the props were stowed, the fog machines returned to the rental place, we'd waste no time planning next year's grim faces. Only a few of us had that dedication these days.
         Mitch was putting the finishing touches on my cosmetic scar. The daylight retreated early, just enough lingering for me to see the catalogue's small print:

         “’Courage of the Highlands: 100% Pure Reenactment-Grade Carbon Steel Claymore!’” I picked out the good bits. “’Full forty-two inch blade, authentic weight and design, true to its ancestors!’ This thing is hellacious.”
         “Hey, shut up for a second, will ya?”
         A meaty finger smooshed into my cheek, and pulled down tightly. Mitch swabbed something near my eye that nearly made my lashes curl. I’d asked for a real nasty-looking number: A huge, festering gash, like I was hacked from my forehead to my cheekbone. The sort of battle-scar you don't get to live with for long.
         Mitch resembled the sort of guy who would scowl at children on a bus, or from the back of a diner – forties, overweight, pockmarked and greasy; but this man was a fucking Magus with monsters. Stage makeup, self-taught, but not self-applied. Latex allergy.
         “You should’ve gone with my design, kid. You’d scare the crap outta way more snotty teenagers."
         As I sat there in my red-plaid kilt, custom-fit brown leather boots swinging over the high weeds, I knew he was right. I should mention these were actually my normal digs, I'd just worked the theme of my costume into them – hell, I'd worn these boots to high school graduation. For the first year ever, though, I was going to be wearing my own costume design, ingeniously lazy as it was.
         “Guess I started this just in time. Sun almost beat me,” Mitch said. He slipped a few things back into his smaller kit. The Little Box of Horrors. I kept admiring the weapon's glossy picture.
         
         “The sword’s perfect for my costume, man.”
         Mitch peered at the catalogue. Wyvern Steel Co., Fall Issue.
         “What the hell do you need a eight-hun’red dollar sword for, Bob?”
         “I’m a Risen Celtic Warrior, seeking bloody revenge from beyond the grave! I can’t kill in the name of my clan without an authentic piece of steel.” God, how many times did I have to explain my costume to this guy?
         “Revenge against who?”
         “Uh. The English, I guess.”
         “Still seems weak. I’ll do what I can with the scar, at least.”
Mitch and I were the only ones who’d made it out this year. Our third regular was out raiding the fabric store for all the remnants it was worth.

         “Are you wearing that awful pirate shirt with it?” Mitch stood up, fishing for keys.
         “Should I go without? It'd be more realistic, I guess.”
         “You’re too scrawny to be Braveheart.”
         I frowned.
         "You book the Chainsaw Guy already?" I asked him.
         "Yep. Got us a good one for next year, too."
         "Sweet. Friend of yours?"
         Mitch just rubbed his coarse chin, with almost a smile.
         The fucked up part about the Chainsaw Guy is that nobody knows who it's going to be. That's Mitch's little secret, or his little mind game. Don't get me wrong, we trusted Mitch, mostly. It's just that, well, any blood-frenzied psychopath can muster enough sanity to pass our job's brief interview – then it's limbs everywhere.
         As far as we know, it's a different guy every year. That's what Mitch hints at, though I could swear I've seen the same build once or twice. Not that we're not observant, it's just that they all tend to dress the same: rugged flannel shirt, perhaps some torn overalls, a plastic hockey mask (often given the last-minute fake blood treatment), and a chainsaw that usually had a rental sticker on it. Oh, and ugly Canadian mountain-man boots. About all you ever see is a glimpse in the strobe lights, too.
         I guess it keeps us on our toes. The thought that, at any moment, this particular year's flannel-clad power-tool owner could go rogue… well, it keeps us sort of on the same side of the fence as the haunted house patrons. No matter who you are, it's always good incentive to feel like you could die violently where you stand.

         "Better head home, Bob. I'll finish closing her down." Mitch stood, sucking in a breath. He waddled his neck and it popped a couple times.
         I figured he was right. I watched the last bit of blue the sun had left behind, and gnats were getting in some quality clouding at the bare outdoor light. I felt carefully at my fake scar.
         Man, what a lame costume idea.


         
         A lot of smart-asses ask me what I do with myself the rest of the year. I do plenty. Before I got this gig, I got into the local college at my mom’s insistence, and immediately filled my semester’s schedule with junk-food: Medieval Literature, Celtic Myth and Folklore, Gaelic Poetry, Scottish Military History, Fencing Club, Pottery….
         By the time my parents realized my scheme, and stopped paying for my endless unleashed obsessions, I was already looking for other excuses to dress normally. I played a mean fife at the Midtown Arts Festival, in my good spring kilt. I gestured grandly about the muddy grounds of the Renaissance Faire in midsummer, and I wish now I'd had that damned claymore then. The SCA guys wouldn't have blown me off, I bet.
         I kept living at home, my kilts showing up in my mom's laundry baskets regularly. My collection grew throughout the year, but you can’t ever have enough kilts.
         It was the summer after we'd graduated high school, and my friends and I were wandering the industrial area of town sniffing out the rumors of an all-night movie theatre. Without the oppressive forces of the public school system to rage against, we wandered with a little less purpose, but just as much flamboyance. We took our boots to the pavement, trying to catch a midnight show.
         There was Becky, a girl I met in art class – she had this cute, round-ish face, insomniac eyes. She also owned more occult reading material than I could ever skim through, and filled her life with odd sculptures that emerged from the kiln in her garage. Her friend Judy was vain, plain, and quiet. That's all I remember about her, really. Becky says they went to the same Christian camp as kids. Judy – who preferred Jade, though I don't think she was interesting enough to be called this - was a self-proclaimed poet, and had the napkins in her pocket to prove it. They were both looking street-fancy in their cloaks and ankh pendants.
         When we found the place, buried among the gray faceless buildings and warehouses, it was just us and the fat guy in the box office. Moths pelted us under the buzzing lights, and we ducked into the building for a few solid hours of raging Godzilla, werewolves in letter jackets, and decomposing mall-walkers. We glanced at each other from the musty cloth seats, knowing we'd found our Mecca.
         The guy who'd sold us our tickets caught us on the way out, and the four of us leaned on dusty old posters along the hall, shooting the stale-popcorn breeze. It must've been past five in the morning, and this man, Mitchell H. Laird, regaled us with a rich history of Lon Cheney's makeup, and stop-motion skeletons.
         "How are you able to keep this place open?" Becky asked.
         "Same thing that fuels all the best horror flicks," Mitch said flatly. He leaned against the sticky-looking wall. "Dead folk."
         The girls and I didn't know how to look at him.          "Nah," Mitch waved away the awkwardness. "You get rich. You die. You load all your crap onto your waste of a brother. That's pretty much it."
         Apparently, Mitch quits his job then to sell off all but two of the properties, and live out his petty dreams freely. He'd kept his two favorite places: The theatre, and the old warehouse a couple blocks down. Neither one earned him a cent in profit, but with the money from the other places, he could spend his whole life running Earth vs. The Giant Spider without a care in the world. That popcorn's as old as my car.
         "So you could've been the new baron of this city, huh?" I said.
         "Eh, not really. But at least I've made something of a name for myself with that warehouse."
         "How so?"
         Mitch looked at us, a sudden grin stamped into his pizza-dough face.
         "Come by around October. You'll see."

         So Mitch gave us something to do with our Halloweens. Before, I never really paid much attention to the holiday. Sure, I loved it. I lived for its spirit, I palmed handfuls of candy-corn in May while doing take-home exams over Yeats; but when you live in that state of mind always, Halloween was just another orange-and-black day of the year.
         When we first saw the place set up that October, something in me clicked into place. Sure, it was pretty cheesy, especially to us jaded gore-hounds who'd seen far too many eviscerations on-screen. There were the typical noose-dangling corpses, strobe lights, and fog-filled corridors. The place hadn't been staffed yet, so the rugged whine of the requisite chainsaw was yet to be heard, and all the hiding spots were empty. Looking into all the corners, lit by the dim purple light, I wondered how scary this could possibly be to anyone over twelve. Most of these places were just full of "actors" in zombie masks, or black hoods. We didn't know whose place we'd stepped into just yet, though.
         When Mitch asked us if we wanted in on it this year, what the hell did he think we'd say? He dragged us to the warehouse office, where he showed us notebook after notebook full of the most fucked up creature designs we'd ever seen.
         "I got these done around September," he'd said. "Come by early tomorrow and I'll turn you guys…," he tapped a page of macabre concepts, "Into one-a these pretty fellas here."
         Turns out, this guy should have been working in Hollywood. That's what Judy said, anyway. Even so, she kept complaining that Mitch's designs were "Too ugly." That girl kept insisting he tone them down, "Make it cuter!" until eventually, what was once a bat-eared bloody-mawed succubus was now some sort of smirking elf.
         This would be Judy's first and last Halloween with us. She got frustrated when every group of guys that passed her would hit on her instead of fearing her mystic visage.          Becky and I, however, were the most fearsome beasts imaginable, lords of fright, cackling as precariously drunk college girls ruined their witchy mascara with tears. Mitch was impressed, maybe by the way we modeled his designs more than the way we handled the patrons. Either way, he liked us, and insisted we sign on next year too. He'd already been working on some early drawings for our next gig!

         That November, it was three of us sitting there on that back step. Mitch, Becky and I were still feeling the high of the dying holiday. Becky had her wood-working tools out, a powder-blue bandana keeping her hair back. She was concentrating on altering an old wooden ventriloquist dummy she'd picked up at an estate sale. I told her it looked creepy enough already, but she insisted on warping it further. Yeah, he'd turned us into monsters, alright.
         



         "A long time ago," Mitch began one night, "There used to be goths all over the place."
         "Like the noble buffalo?" Becky thought she was real funny.
         Becky and I sat in Mitch's garage. In the warm air that summer, you could really smell the stale ashtrays and plywood. The place was actually kept tidy: swept, hardly a thing in it. Some boxes and paint cans were pushed into the corner, and there was this couch we sat on. Most of Mitch's tools were in the warehouse. A stereo was out here, and the low-cranked buzzsaw of some obscure L.A. horror-punk band dribbled out.
         
         Mitch told us about the early days of his tradition, back when his brother was around and just as into the campy idea as he was. They staffed their very first haunted house entirely with volunteers from the local Gothic night-clubs. The scene was thick with eerie types with bad taste in makeup, apparently. Meaning, of course, that Mitch had a ton of practice at what he did best, using pancake-faced poets who wouldn't know any better if he messed up. He never messed up.
         "Man, I'd love to see these designs of yours get a test run in one of those places," I'd said. How could a bunch of kids in heels and spikes refute this brand of art?
         Becky had her mind made up – Mitch had tailored a wicked harpy design – one of those bird-women, the kind who are never very nice to tasty human beings. This concept was like an acid nightmare take on the mythical creature.
         "The scene's dead, kiddo. Sorry to break it to ya," Mitch said a little sadly.
         "I see stuff like that all the time," Becky contested.
         "Where?" I asked her.
         "There's posters all over the place over where I used to buy my Tarot cards."
         
         And so, it was a challenge. Two days later, she comes trotting smugly up to me outside the art supply store. I nearly dropped a gallon of acrylic red onto the parking lot as she shoved a beaten, badly-copied flier into my face.
         "What do you see?" She grinned.
         "Gravestones. Lots of gravestones and a severed raven's head."
         "I know! Isn't it just perfect?"
         Becky insisted on dragging us to that disgusting event. The place was done up like a badly-conceived castle (though the fake stone look of the paint wasn't bad), but the impressive bit was a huge, Volkswagen-sized serpent's head that billowed forth synthetic fog. I watched this a while as a weepy DJ mangled Depeche Mode like it was an effigy of his dad. Bleak looking teenagers staggered in their apprehensive dance. It was like watching Romero's zombies trying to get the knack of ballroom moves. We found ourselves drowning amidst the last scraps of a clove-smoking, Poe-quoting species.
         This is the god-awful place where we met the late Azrael Fluffy.
         
         This ragged, pale creature leaned in the corner of the club's bar, congealed like the black residue of a thousand bad fashion choices. His posture was that of a wilted sapling, and his hair was long, tangled, and wild all past his bony shoulders. I think I saw twigs in there. I couldn't help but notice him when he spent a good ten minutes peering at us, giving me of all people the creeps. His sneer looked expertly practiced.
         While Becky the Enterprising Harpy Creature chatted lanky groupings of wine-sippers, I decided to try and break away, maybe meet Mitch outside and steal one of his smokes. That's when the guy got up. He stalked towards us.
         The creep finally gets to us and we, reluctantly at first, get to talking to him. This guy was a sight that made my brain hurt. I could see all the unnecessary piercings the guy had in his ears, right down to the silvery inverted-cross earring that looked robbed straight from Judas Priest's roadies. The guy was deathly skinny – I could've hung laundry off his hip-bones. I may be skinny, but this guy obviously wanted to keep a tight count on his bone total.
         "So, what's with the fright-faces, lovelies?" said Azrael. His voice was low and leisurely, purring past his black-painted lips.
         "We come for your men!" Becky declared, giving her feathered cape a toss. She giggled out a demented little sound.
         "We'll take you too. What's your name, rags-n-bones?"
         The skinny creep bowed smoothly, a few greasy knotted locks dangling. I only then noticed the hot-pink plastic skeleton dangling from the tangled nest – caught, held fast like a spider's prey.
         "I am Azrael Fluffy," he said
         He stuck out his hand in a more normal gesture for me.
         "Is that your porno name?" I expected the blank stare, I guess.
         "Oh, Braveheart. I am simply the shadow projected by a thousand dreary lives."
         It'd be rude to kick him now. Those jeans looked like torment enough on the balls. What's worse, the guy had stripper glitter all over him, I'd get it all over my four-hundred dollar boots. He smelled like cigarettes and strong absinthe.
         And he kept following us! I heard the clink-clink-clink of the cheap metal chains at his hips, always behind us. When we told him what he did, and why, specifically, we'd come here, he was hooked. This dismal guy in Egyptian-styled eyeliner, who looked like Iggy Pop fucked Ziggy Stardust, became giddy as any first-time trick-or-treater. I gotta say, I preferred his dead-eyed sneering to his unsettling, grotesque glee. Those cosmetics did not compliment a smile.
         Whenever we'd let him talk, he'd tell us about his "tragic tale." He's always been Azrael, he'd have us believe. Like any parent would do that. Apparently, he was a regular at this place, when one morning he was found out back of it, curled up asleep in the alley.
         "Azrael Fluffy – Fluffy, like a cat's name," he explained, his black-painted nails fluttering to illustrate his points. "They said that's all they could think of when they saw me there, some starved and mangy alley-cat."
         Azrael Fluffy spread the story that he was a vagrant gothic spirit, but the other regulars at the club were quick to point out that he was just another rich boy running up his dad's bills at the bar.
         I guess it's no wonder that Becky went babbling off to Mitch about the guy, and we hired him on for the upcoming Halloween.


         In our last days of sweltering, Azrael was a regular sight around the warehouse and theatre. He came to watch the old Ed Wood flicks with us, and he helped install new props for the ever-nearing autumn. The riff-raff was filling in quick as the season drew closer, and it looked like it might not be such a bust of a year after all. The ladies in black loved Azrael – the prettiest little ragdoll they'd ever seen, they'd say. They hung onto every terrible, depressing couplet that escaped his lips, or got scrawled on a napkin. Becky told me that he's got a "homeless Johnny Depp" appeal, so all the girls with daddy issues can't help themselves.
         Me? I hated him –  he was my Mecha-Godzilla, the Robot to my Aztec Mummy. He took every bit of my year-long obsession and stretched it out to a perverse degree. He minced about in thunderstorms, plastic spider-shaped rings on his fingers (Azrael was the Prince of Gumball-Machine Jewelry), wearing his Tim Burton t-shirts to the Denny's every time Mitch would forget his keys to the warehouse (idea-swaps are better with coffee, anyway).
         It got to the point where his presence grated on me so much, that I stopped coming to the brainstorming sessions altogether. His overkill enthusiasm for the Halloween lifestyle was slowly draining mine away, that harlequin-painted freak. Here I was, no real costume to speak of, my sword still in the mail, and all my plans amounted to jumping out at people and shouting "Achh!" Maybe I'd skip this one.
         What really galled me is how he'd be sucking up to everyone – worshiping Mitch's old notebooks like pages from the Dead Sea, offering his scrawny back for help in any light remodeling. He even said he could get us that giant snake-head from the club! He made the arrangements with Mitch to go pick it up just before we opened.
         I couldn't vent to Mitch or Becky, though. He was the best damned Victim we'd ever had, and they knew it.
         
         Here's how the casting goes for these gigs: You got Victims, and you got Villains. The victims are the guys strapped to a table, writhing about with their eyes half dug-out and their intestines strewn like party streamers. The villains are the axe-murdering mutants who got the victims in such states.
         Azrael, now he was a born victim. He could unleash a scream to rival Fay Wray in Kong's grasp. It's not everyone's thing to be the victim – everyone wants to be the maniacally-laughing mad scientist, or the skull-faced executioner. Hell, some people think they can just out and out be a Chainsaw Guy. Point is, Azrael was one from the start. He knew what he was good at, and that was acting out long, bloody death scenes the likes of which Shakespeare would puke at.
         I guess my costume was a sort of compromise: A slain warrior, a victim… but risen from the dead to seek revenge – a villain! I'd be sure to mention this to Mitch if he asked.
         Azrael must have acted out a dozen or more melodramatic death scenarios between September and opening night, but he and Becky finally worked out their master plan. Becky told me about it a few days back as she was taking Azrael's measurements.
         "It's a play on the old 'mummy' bit, right?" she began. "Y'know, instead of an actual wrapped-up mummy – not really scary at all, I know, right? – we  have Azrael, the Great Pharaoh here, getting his organs removed," she snorted a little snicker.
         "I'll approve of that," I said.
         "Nasally, even!" Becky swiped her tape-measure near Azrael, as if it were her ancient surgery tool. "Brains through the nose!"
         "Mm, I foresee much squirming upon the slab. A little like fucking a vampire," Azrael mused.
         Well, funny that he should say that.



         I remember staring into that mirror for a good five minutes, and I wanted to punch it, or scream at it, or something. There I was, ridiculous ruffled shirt unbuttoned at the chest, my favorite kilt fresh from the closet. I'd gotten my boots into the best possible shape for tonight, though I still wasn't impressed with any of it – I looked like I was going out for milk.
         "Oh honey," my Mom had said, "It's not like people coming there will know you dress like this. A murdered Scotsman, that's… spooky! To someone who doesn't know you, I mean."
         It's sad when your own mother isn't the least bit put off by your costume. I really did drop the ball this year. At the very least, she could have acted repulsed at the huge crescent of gore across my face. Mitch's final application was his best. Earlier that day, he'd done it up in his truck cab. I'd decided already that I wasn't participating this year.
         "Whatever," I said to the war-battered skinny kid reflected at me. "Let's show up at least."

         I could hear my mom on the phone in the next room:
         "Oh yes, the cutest thing. He's Mel Gibson this year!"

         The line outside the warehouse was long. I could smell the fog machines from my car. The overhead doors were up, and the thumping of Rob Zombie over the speakers meant that things were really getting serious. Over the sea of heads, I saw the smoking nostrils of the wooden serpent's head. That bastard. He actually got it.
         I ran to the trunk of my car and opened it. Before God and a thousand masked thrillseekers, I drew it out of the long cardboard package it was still packed in: The Courage of the Highlands!
         I held the weighty sword, gripping with both hands, the blade towering over my head. I smiled, and for a second, forgot all about the lameness of my costume, or the death of my holiday spirit. I let out a war-cry, charged off toward the warehouse. A few people cheered me on:
         "Woo-hoo! Go Braveheart!"
         I didn't meet their eyes. My claymore said "Make way" all on its own.
         
         Stomping through the crunchy weeds, I planted my sword in the dirt and climbed the back step. Mitch and Becky were there, as was Azrael, who peered into a folding pocket mirror with sleazy admiration.
         "Bob! You came!" Becky had some latex hanging off her earlobe.
         "Stay still," Mitch muttered to her. He glanced over to me. "Nice sword. You change your mind, Bob?"
         "No," was all I managed. "No, just came to say hi. Wanted to see you guys on the big night, I guess."
         Mitch's chin waddled as he shook his head.
         "Whatever, kid – take a walk through the place, check out some of the scenery. Maybe you'll get your scare-legs back."
         I doubted it. Seeing all the customers in their elaborate costumes just shamed me. Not just because mine was such a cop-out, but because they were here in the highest of spirits. I felt like a ghost, in the least seasonal way. Maybe I'd haunt this place one more time.
         "Oh, hey Bob," Mitch motioned a stubby hand to my claymore. "Might wanna leave that thing out here. Halls get a bit narrow in there, and I just know one-a those dumbass recruits in there's gonna try to lunge himself toward you for kicks."
         Agreeing, though intrigued by the possibility, I leaned the pristine blade against the wall. I caught Azrael's questioning glance. The guy was done up in shiny gold fabric, something Becky must have found in the scrap piles. He looked like Cleopatra. I opened the back door a bit, and slipped into the bass-rumbling void of blacklights and fog.
         "'Sup, Braveheart," one of the new hires in a Scream mask greeted as I passed.
         "For Scotland!" His friend was clinging to the rafters above. I wasn't surprised. I'd worked up there before.
         I gave a half-hearted scowl and pushed on. I'd just made it around the corner of one twisting hallway, into a room set up like a Satanic altar, when I heard excited footsteps behind me. Becky's hand caught my shoulder, and it was feathery and tipped with press-on talons.
         "Hey, Bob – whatcha think? I painted this one."
         "It's good. I like how you did the runes."
         "How come you didn't tell me you were quitting on us, huh?" The eyes around the false beak looked a bit hurt.
         "I just, well. Certain things have just been ruining it for me. I don't know. I feel burned out."
         Azrael, a glimmer of gold flashing outside my vision, swung around to join us in the room. He had a slutty vampire on his arm.
         "What's the secret you whisper in these hallowed halls, hmm?" he said. The vampire girl tittered.
         "Fuck off, Az." I snorted.
         "Sheesh, you pirates are all so touchy."
         "He's not a pirate, Fluff, he's Braveheart," Becky explained. She looked to me. "Didn't he strip naked in battle to freak out his opponents?"
         "Hm, Braveheart was an exhibitionist?" said Az.
         That was it.
         "God dammit, I am not Brave-fucking-Heart!"
         Becky and Azrael stared at me, blank. The girl dressed like a vampire just chewed on Az's ear with expensive-looking fangs.
         "Think about it, dipshits: Look at this scar!" I indicated. "I obviously perished in a bloody, senseless battle and have come to reap my vengeance from the innards of my oppressors!"
         "Calm down, Bob, it's just a costume." Becky couldn't stop me now, though.
         "William Wallace was taken prisoner, then drawn and quartered! Horses ripped his goddamned limbs out! You wanna see a fucking William Wallace costume, I'll throw a pile of fake limbs down from the rafters and scatter 'em a bit. Boom! There's your fucking Braveheart costume, you uncultured twats."
         I didn't care if they were about to say something. I didn't care that Azrael had left with his vampire skank half-way through my rant, or that Becky was left standing there with literal ruffled feathers. As I stomped back through the path I'd come in, all I wanted was to hit the wall of cool air that awaited me out back on the concrete step.
         I must have gotten turned around in my rage. I'd somehow gone the complete opposite direction I'd meant to go. I'd worked there for years, but they really must have switched things up this Halloween – my fault for not showing up to the planning sessions. It didn't help that I was choking on the musty air, or that the first wave of customers had been let in just a moment ago while actors scrambled to their spots. By now, Becky and Az must be in place. The fog machines hissed, and filled my head with an ache, that synthetic, melting-plastic smell, the flickering strobe lights, the dim, half-lit props – god, I just wanted to find that fucking exit! I need real air, I need to hear trees being rustled – several groups of teenagers elbowed by me, and I pushed flat against the wall, growling at them. I scrambled around for probably ten minutes, a regular cursing and muttering Mr. Hyde. That's when I heard him squeal.
         "Eeek! Not so hard, babe."
         I looked up. There was Azrael, up on the little platform where Becky's ventriloquist dummy used to hang from. That vampire skank was attached to his neck like a leech. Az had his hands all over her, though they'd tense noticeably when she'd use her teeth the way she did.
         "Ooh, I vant to suck you dry!" The skank giggled, kissing Azrael with an open, sloppy mouth.
         I cringed, and scuttled away from the scene.
         "Remember, Bob!" he called after me. "They can never take our freedom! Ooh, a little lower, yeah."
         I nearly punched a hole in the drywall. I certainly dented it. I finally got back to the exit, and slammed my shoulder against the metal door. The burst of outside air overwhelmed me, and I was already hearing the sobs squeak out of me before I made it to the edge of the step. Shuddering, sobbing, tears cold with the breeze across my cheeks, and collapsed, my legs over the edge. I couldn't stop it, even if the whole damn line out front were watching. Forever, I sat there, sniffling and tasting the phlegm catch at the back of my throat. By the time the night was winding down, and all the customers and staff began to filter home, I was still there, shivering. I barely noticed the gloved hand that came down over my back.
         "Hey, now. This isn't Christmas, there's no crying here."
         I looked up, expecting to see a comforting expression – maybe a soft set of eyes, or a wise-looking beard. I saw a man in a dollar-store Hockey mask, flecked with fake blood.
         "Go on," he said gently. "What's bothering you?"
         Hesitantly, I looked the guy over. Flannel.
         "You're the… Chainsaw Guy?"
         The Chainsaw Guy nodded.
         "I tend to be, 'round this time of year, yes. You're Bob, aren't you?"
         I must have looked surprised.
         "Y-… yeah."
         "Mhm, I've heard of you. That's a mean-lookin' scar, there, Bob."
         "Thanks," I said, trailing a few fingers over it. "Mitch did it for me."
         "It looks like Mitch's work," the Chainsaw Guy said, nodding. "You'd never think a guy like that had such a talent. Question is, why have you been back here all night instead of showing that thing off inside?"
         So I explained it to the guy. The whole fading of my spirit, the loss of interest in the one day I considered spiritual to me. I also took the time to bitch about Azrael, and his Vampire Skank – hell, all Vampire Skanks. It was a common species that infested the streets every year. These girls bought their costumes at porno shops, apparently confusing "vampire" with "S&M hooker." They had fangs ranging from cheap plastic sets, to expensive movie-quality chompers, but they could never hold their liquor. Ninety percent of the vomit we'd clean up came from Vampire Skanks.
         "And you're upset because people like this… Fluffy – they enjoy themselves more?" The Chainsaw Guy asked it as if my answer didn't matter.
         "He's defiling it all! I mean, I decorate my room with skull-shaped lamps, but this guy, he's… he's too much. He has no damned respect for it!"
         The Chainsaw Guy shook his head.
         "A lot of folks don't respect this time of year, lately. It's not just him. Take a look over there," he pointed with the thick leather finger of his work glove.
         Looking over the neglected field, I could see part of the main road through a gauntlet of lightless, gray buildings. Across the street, the Salazar family was standing outside of their convenience store, bent over some boxes. The jack-o-lanterns that lined their roof flickered yellow from their candles as Mr. Salazar fished out a string of Christmas lights.
         They couldn't even wait until the next day. They'd even plugged them in already – the multi-colored beads glinting from their tangled mass.
         "You think I enjoy watching my beloved holiday mangled more and more each year, like so much brush in a chipper?" The Chainsaw Guy patted the power tool at his side. "There's nothing more depressing to me than when, every year, I have to take this baby out of the shed not more'n a couple months after Halloween. Granted, I bought 'er in order to start my seasonal business. Once the first storms of the winter hit, and all the trees are bending under the weight of all that ice and snow, I'm off to cut 'em down before they can do any property damage. Still, though, I get more kicks out of waving this thing around in a dark, stuffy warehouse one day of the year than I do when I'm actually getting to cut things."
         I looked at the chainsaw, its casing scuffed up. It looked like it'd seen years of autumnal scares and winter treetops.
         "Thing is, when time comes around again to dust 'er off and take 'er to the trees, nobody looks at me with fear in their eyes. I don't mind. Sad as it is, I'll remember that these same people, come next fall, will cower in fear. They'll question my sanity, try to see if I've got a chain on this thing, scream and hide behind each other. Hell, it does me good to see their smug faces and to hear their 'Lovely day, huh? as I'm wedged in the crotch of  a frozen tree."
         "What's your point?" I looked at him with red, moisture-smeared eyes. My scar hadn't suffered any.
         The Chainsaw Guy rested his rugged glove on my shoulder once more.
         "You really must've burned out. Take a year off, is my point. This holiday is supposed to be a release, and you spend your whole year building it up to your own expectations. You stopped having fun a while back, didn't you?"
         I couldn't worm around that.
         "So, I should just go home?"
         "Take the year off, like I said. But not tonight," The Chainsaw Guy rose, picking his tool back up. "Tonight's Halloween."
         As the Chainsaw Guy left me sitting out there, I finally picked myself up and pushed my hair from my eyes. I mulled over the things I'd just been lectured on by the broad-shouldered man in flannel. I thought I'd seen that build before, when I was in the hardware store with Mitch, buying glow-paint. Some guy who'd stopped us to chat Mitch up on the subject of aluminum siding.
         I thought about why I enjoyed working at this place year after year – the rush of invoking outright terror, even if it was just a mild startling, was delicious. And what was I doing this year? Crying in a kilt. Who the hell was I trying to intimidate as this Vengeful Zombie Scotsman? If I'd been on those battlefields against the English army, they'd have laughed me off.
         Still, I wanted to go in there, I wanted to scare the shit out of whoever still roamed the corridors of the warehouse! Maybe some of those first-timers we had working in there. But I wasn't scaring anyone looking like this. What would William Wallace do?
         Then I remembered something Becky had said. A smile snuck across my face. That's when I heard the scream. I ignored it. It was perfectly-pitched and well-practiced: the scream of a real Horror Diva.
         I straightened, and tore at the buttons of my shirt. Let Az scream. I'll show them all something really scary.


         From what I'm told, Becky was the first to make it into Azrael's part of the warehouse. She'd followed his scream to the platform where I'd spotted him earlier sucking face with that vampire skank. There was blood – tons of it, dripping down onto the floor and forming a bright red puddle. Luckily, it was just stage blood. Someone had knocked over the gallon-sized jug of it from its spot up in the rafters. There goes $32.99.
         That platform, it's more or less just high section sticking out from one corner of the warehouse. You can get up there easily enough, and once you did, there was a little space up there, dark and about the size of my attic back home. This is the place we'd stash retired props in, and the occasional spare blood supply.
         A couple years back, Becky had that god-awful ventriloquist dummy sitting here, and even though it was a hit on Halloween, it creeped the everliving hell out of Mitch. Not a lot of things did that. To be honest, it freaked me out too, just the way she'd altered the eyes alone. It followed you. I'd finally stuffed it away in that dark spot where it couldn't watch us anymore, be it during Halloween or Labor Day.
         She said she got curious, and climbed up to the platform to see if her beloved creepy prop was still gathering dust up there. When I heard her scream – broken, stammering, and completely unrehearsed, I got a little worried. I glanced at my claymore, leaning heroically against the bricks, and thought for a moment.
         "Fluffy! Oh, god, it's Fluffy!"
         Still all she can remember after that is a couple of the new guys running in, a stupid panic on their faces. They kept saying they'd seen her, that skanky girl with the fangs, running around the place with fake blood all over her, crying and screaming.
         That scream of Becky's must have flushed her out of hiding; there was still some of the crew inside, and a couple of them lowered the overhead doors out front. After a panicked run, she wound up in the back of the warehouse. There, the metal door to freedom faced her – it would lead her out to the back step, over the field of scratchy weeds, across to the Salazars' store…
         But instead, as she tore open the door, there was just a scrawny kid with a claymore, stage blood streaked like war-paint down his face – and completely nude.
         "Stop where ya are, lass!"
         The girl choked out her panic as her breath came in gasps.
         "Oh god, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do it, he said he liked it and – oh god I just meant to do it a little bit, I'm sorry!" She shrunk back into the doorframe. "Please just let me go, I don't even know who you are, please!"
         I leveled my sword at her, my pale naked form looming over her.
         "I'm William goddamned Wallace!"

         It was just me, the vampire skank, and forty-two inches of reenactment-grade carbon steel.
         
         When they came to take Azrael's body away, they'd found him stuffed into the little attic-space, all kinked up and wide-eyed, paler than ever managed to be in life, despite his efforts. Across his tangled nest of hair, the head of Becky's creepy dummy lay. For the policeman who'd never seen the likes of Azrael, it was a tough call which was the more disturbing face to have staring back at you.
         They hauled that vampire skank away, too. She really didn't have a case. It seems she tried to give Azrael a little "love bite," after joking with him that she wore these fangs all year, and that they were sturdy enough to "get the job done." Her aim was true, alas, and she ruptured the poor boy's artery.
         Mitch was here now, being filled in on it all. He'd been talking with the Chainsaw Guy up until the incident, just shooting the breeze about Halloweens past. Now he just shrugged. All he could say was:
         "I been to give blood once, and the damn nurse, who's been doin' it her whole career, takes five tries to find a vein. Leave it to this bitch to get it right the first time when she ain't even trying."
         Someone, a fireman or a policeman or a concerned priest, whatever, saw me and threw a blanket over me without a second's pause. Becky sat down next to me not long after.
         "You quit just in time," she said.
         "I learned something very important from a guy in a hockey mask," I said, serious.
         "What's that?"
         "That I was building myself to a burnout, like Az did. He overdosed on it all."
         "He bled to death when some skank bit him too hard."
         "Details. Karma sucks."
         I didn't show up at that step on November. I wasn't coming back next October, either. For once, I looked forward to cold weather, and ice-burdened limbs. The spring didn't sound too bad, either.


         It was a mild day, and the breeze fluttered my kilt against my legs pleasantly. I stood atop the highest hill at the Midtown Renaissance Faire, the Courage of the Highlands raised high above my head. The smell of gigantic turkey legs saturated the warm air, and somewhere, I heard a flute. As I stared out over the valley, the smell of turkey legs and mutton rising over the white canopies and tents, I felt peaceful. I hadn't thought of a jack-o-lantern in months.
         "Hey Bob, next fight starts in a bit, drag that thing over here and get ready."
         My reenactment partners were demanding, but lots of fun. This guy was a beast with a morning star. After just two weeks of training, though, my claymore felt lighter.
         "Go get 'em, McCloud," Becky beamed from a nearby picnic table. She watched Mitch painting kids' faces at the other end of the table, and snickered as the wee ones gathered around such a troll.
         "Can you paint me a horsie, mister?" One of them asked.
         "Horsies are for wimps, little girl. Do you know what a manticore is?"
         Mitch wasn't exactly used to "cute" jobs.
         I flashed them a smile, then headed off to combat – to conquer my enemies and to spill their stage blood in the name of Scotland!