Halloween Haunts: The Masque of the Red Horde by Gene O’Neill

Dim light spilling through a red-stained Gothic window cast a ghastly pall over a heavily shadowed long hall. At the center of the room, bathed in the bloody illumination, a naked woman lay down on a black velvet covered dais, her ritual complete except for the final oral incantation. As she finished murmuring the last of the ancient spell, a phantasm suddenly appeared from the shadows. The tall, gaunt figure, cloaked in a black shroud, features hidden by a corpse-like mask, moved effortlessly to her side, accompanied by a chilling draft. Without a word, the masked specter bent over the supine woman and covered her body including her badly scarred back with dry kisses from his

parchment-like lips, blistering her goose-fleshed nakedness with a thousand tiny red welts. After the last passionless kiss the mute phantasm disappeared back into the shadows….

I’m sitting stiffly in the last row of the stands with mixed emotions, only a spectator after being skinned last week in the quarterfinals down in Silicon

Valley—excited like the others in the arriving crowd, but also disappointed at not being a competitor here in the finals. And man, these fans are definitely fired-up and noisy, gradually beginning to fill up all four sets of bleachers. The promoters expect to get eight hundred packed in here, more than three times the number to ever see a championship match—could have probably sold twice that many tickets if they’d had a bigger outdoor place. But, then, any place outdoors like Golden Gate Park would probably be too conspicuous to the authorities, drawing a raid.

Cautiously, leaning back against the railing, I look up over my right shoulder and check out the last of the mob still slowly working their way down the narrow staircase from the exit out of this SoMa warehouse basement off the beaten track.

Then, I turn back and give the whole facility a good once-over, chuckling wryly to myself.

Place is definitely low-rent, really poorly lit—you can barely see clear to the high ceiling; and the walls are some kind of rock, looking and smelling damp and musty. The whole setting gloomy and actually sort of spooky—the atmosphere of a big cavern or a medieval dungeon from one of those old horror videos, like The Pit and the Pendulum. The four sets of temporary bleachers are erected around a fifty-five-foot circle sunk into the dirt floor a half-foot deep and filled with chunky sawdust. The surface of the pit is still roughed-up from the third-place match last night between Couerl and The Phantom Terror, a large dark stain center ring. Of course, even from up here, I know it’s blood. I couldn’t make the match, but I heard the Terror did poorly and got skinned.

A couple of gofers come out from an aisle between the stands and begin raking and smoothing out the sawdust in the pit, the noise level really picking up now that most of the fans are settling into their seats.

Checking around, I don’t recognize any other competitors—of course, like me, they wouldn’t be wearing their Venetian Masks in street clothes, but I’m sure they’re here somewhere, most everyone involved in the sport would be; and it doesn’t take a DEA agent to tell that half of them are already juiced, wired, or stoned, a few even openly using eyedroppers to ‘ball drugs—probably one of those designers like Rush or Soar. And all eight hundred are yelling at the top of their lungs now to be heard over the surrounding din.

I eavesdrop on a pair of the nearby screaming matches.

To my right:

“Whadda ya say, dude, I got a hunnerd here on the Artic Chill.”

“No way, pal, you think I’m stupid or somepin?”

“No, you’re crafty, man, Red Horde ain’t nothin. An East Bay sissy. Our guy’s gonna take his tail out in five, ten minutes tops.”

“I know, gimme a hit from that dropper.”

Pretty typical—the Chill almost a unanimous crowd favorite.

To my left:

“What’s up with this Horde guy, Babe? You read all the innernet stuff.”

“Hey, who gives a rat’s booty; let’s get it on before we pass out from the stinking heat in this smelly dump.”

“It won’t be long now, Babe. Have another cold one,” the guy says in a wimpy voice.

Serves him right for even bringing a female to the finals—can’t be more than a dozen women all-tolled in the four sets of stands. No place for a lady.

And the temperature is indeed rising fast, poor circulation down here with no fans, windows, or air conditioning. My underarms and crotch already feel gritty, the sweat stinging my raw back; and the crowd is squeezed together shoulder-to-shoulder, smelling worse than one of those junkie hookers over on Capp Street—you know, the gaudy make-up and cheap cologne not quite covering a sweaty locker-room smell of a hundred unwashed jocks. But just noticeable in the clinging, humid, stinky air is a freshening whiff of ozone, the atmosphere electric with the undercurrent of crowd tension, creating a tingling sensation on your bare skin, kind of like before a mid-west thunderstorm. Man, you can’t help being excited.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome…”

The mob quiets down almost instantly, all eyes drawn now to the center of the pit, the ebony-clad and -masked Tat-Master spotlighted, a commanding presence.

“And now sport fans…” the Tat-Master says, hesitating another brief moment, then letting his voice rise for effect, “…the match you have all been waiting for, this year’s Bay Area Holographic-Tattoo Rasslin Championship!”

The crowd is going nuts, now, on their feet, screaming, rattling the bleachers all around the pit, only partially settling down after the Tat-Master raises his arm, flashing his laser-scalpel on and off for attention.

It’s still impossible to hear clearly his introduction of the defending champion, “…reigning…May I present…”

And before the Tat-Master can complete the intro, Artic Chill charges out, wearing his signature all-white Venetian mask, the skins on his white trophy cape fluttering out behind him like papery, colored scarves.

I check, trying to spot my tat, but I don’t see it, except in my mind’s eye….

Unfortunately, I had drawn the Chill in last week’s South Bay quarter-finals, rasslin the last match in an old earthquake-damaged, boarded-up hockey rink in downtown San Jose’. It hadn’t lasted long; my fifteen minutes of fame cut short a couple of minutes—thirteen to be exact. I’d barely got my trophy cape off, just beginning to focus, activate my implants, when he swooped down and struck, freezing me in place, actually knocking me silly.

When I came to my senses, a few minutes later, the crowd was already on its feet, signaling thumbs up, awarding my tat to the Chill for his trophy cape. But before the

Tat-Master could even get close to me with his laser-scalpel, I squeezed my eyes shut and passed out.

I woke up the next morning at Kaiser Hospital in Sunnyvale.

My flying-tiger holo-tat sure doesn’t look like much now, fluttering on that trophy cape, just one among all those other two-dimensional skins—

“Hey, man?” my neighbor interrupts my self-pitying revery, aggressively bumping my shoulder, sending a grabbing sensation crawling across my NuSkin-patched back.

“What do you want?” I snap, grimacing from the pain.

“Bet?” he repeats, smiling idiotically, pushing a green bill in my face. “I got fifty here on the Chill.”

“No way,” I reply, shaking my head.

He nods, his red face beaded with sweat, his blue eyes glazed from booze or drugs, and slurs, “Horde ain’t nothin but a weak-kneed, Oakland sissy.”

“And now, holo-tat rasslin fans…”

The crowd quiets down, but with a heightened sense of anticipation, squirming nervously in their seats, as if the Tat-Master has a finger poked into their collective heads, punching their hush-up buttons, and at the same time strumming their already taut nerves like guitar strings.

“From across the Bay, hailing from the grand city of Oakland, first time in the Bay Area Finals here in San Francisco, I give you the Red Horde.” The Tat-Master directs the spotlight into the shadows to his far left, one of the four corner aisles between the sets of bleachers.

Red Horde appears from the darkness like an apparition, trailing a scarlet satin trophy cape, but flying no skinned tats, wearing a leather-colored, corpse-like mask. For a rassler the Horde appears small, even slight in stature. But size doesn’t really mean much, even at this level of competition.

In fact, the lack of size just adds to the legendary status of the mysterious Horde, who during the last month has left a wake of devastation, cutting through all East Bay competition, a dozen overnight challenge matches with only a handful of local spectators, apparently easily defeating the long-time Oakland grand champion, Ty Rex. But never claiming even one trophy tat. Hardly anyone has seen the Horde rassle yet—no one on this side of the Bay anyhow. During the last week a lot of crazy stuff has been written by fans on the Internet rasslin sites—like the Horde having magical, supernatural, powers. You know, weird stuff like that.

So, everyone’s been eagerly waiting to finally see Red Horde in this match. I figure the more experienced Chill is going to kick the Horde’s supernatural ass.

My pulse is racing faster than if I were down there in the Horde’s shoes.

Artic Chill disrobes, handing his trophy cape to his chief second, to a collective oohing and aahing from the excited crowd, when they first see his heavily muscled nude body and the brilliant holographic-tattoo covering his entire broad back. The sight even makes my breath catch in my throat, because I understand first hand the ferocious nature of the beast now resting benignly on the man’s body.

It’s a pure-white dragon, its huge head—with fierce red eyes glittering—at shoulder level on the man’s back, its body curving down past the Chill’s ass, its tail winding around one leg. And the snow dragon isn’t any delicate, effete Hong Kong job—no way; done right here at Dr. Kats’ Tats in Japantown, and it’s much more other-worldly in appearance than a typical Asian dragon—like something out of a nightmare.

At that moment, the holo-tat begins to move, shimmering and writhing sinuously, as Artic Chill obviously frowns and concentrates behind his expressionless mask,

firing-up all his implants.

During this display of controlled ferocity, the mysterious Red Horde has remained motionless, still cloaked, body concealed by the trophy cape, face hidden behind the leathery mask.

“Hey, take your cape off,” someone shouts down at the Horde, the crowd eager to see his body and tat.

“Seconds out,” the ebony-clad Tat-Master orders from the center of the

sawdust-covered pit, gesturing for the spotlight to be cut and the indigo holo-lights switched on.

It takes a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the semi-darkness.

“Are both contestants ready?”

He glances first at the Chill who salutes back, and then left to the still fully clad Horde who nods.

“All ready then…” The Tat-Master announces, slowly lifting his right hand to his shoulder.

Then, he drops his hand like an axe, simultaneously shouting: “Action!”

The hologram of the snow dragon, shimmering for just a second or two—slightly out of focus—lifts ever slowly into the air; then, as if gaining strength from its increasing clarity, it soars up into the darkness and circles high above the crowd, much more defined now even at a distance, its eyes glaring down like two burning orbs at its still-standing opponent.

Only now does Red Horde actually disrobe, slipping from the scarlet trophy cape, turning, folding it up neatly, and setting it just outside the edge of the ring; then, straightening, turning back, and facing the Tat-Master, who is just stepping clear of the pit.

Everyone is straining forward to see—

Wow! Almost complete silence for a stunned moment, followed by a collective gasp from the shocked spectators.

“It’s a freakin chick!” my stoned neighbor shouts, bumping my arm again and sending a wave of pain rippling across my back, his words slurred and heavily weighted with disbelief.

I just stare in silence, ignoring my back, as surprised as everyone else.

But it’s indeed true.

Red Horde is definitely a woman, full breasts and hips contouring an athletic body.

It isn’t only the gender of the Horde surprising the mostly male crowd. There has been at least one other female rassler, Black Widow, gaining some notoriety in minor league East Bay smokers, until she disappeared a year or so ago from competition, rumored to have been hurt badly after losing and getting skinned, maybe even dying. But, of course, no female’s ever rassled over here in the Big Show.

No, some of the crowd shock is due to the nature of her tat…actually tats, for there isn’t just one holo-beast tattooed on her body like normal for male rasslers.

Oh, no.

Her entire body—even her breasts—is covered with hundreds, maybe even a thousand tiny blood-red tats—almost too small to see clearly at this distance in the dim indigo lighting—squirming, making a high-pitched buzzing sound, like maybe bees make.

No, not a hum really, more like a high-pitched whining, a mechanical sound; and over the subdued human noise it grates on my nerves. I squint, peering down at the tats. Not bees. Or any other conventional flying insect either, more like mutant wasps, with ugly huge heads and fangs like snakes. An alien creature from another time or place. Man, those are some scary, freakin tats, and they haven’t even gone 3-D yet.

The crowd remains partially dumbstruck, just able to murmur angrily their distaste, no rassler’s holographic-tattoo ever resembling anything quite like this strange stuff.

And high overhead, the snow dragon appears stunned also by the appearance of its female holo-opponent, just circling lazily, instead of swooping down in its patented quick strike…But after several minutes the white beast bellows angrily.

The center of attention now, the snow dragon belches a huge gasp of ice-blue fire that roars from its snout upward, the frosty mist reflecting off the center of the high ceiling, careening and breaking up, and finally disappearing harmlessly into the shadows. Then, the great beast angrily snorts plumes of icy smoke from its nostrils and flares its fiery eyes, as it gathers itself in a stall for several seconds, before it plunges down at its opponent on the far side of the pit—a ferocious white blur.

Ten feet above the pit, the snow dragon brakes out of the power dive, emits another blast of icy fire, pulls up at the last second, roars inches over the top row of ducking spectators, banks hard to the left, and narrowly avoids crashing into the building, its wingtip actually brushing the stone wall. The creature has to circle twice over the crowd, before it gains enough power to climb back up toward the high ceiling.

The rolling ball of Artic air misses the Red Horde, who dodges with inhuman quickness; and the icy mist dissipates up the darkened aisle, just missing the fans sitting along the railing, who all lean over into the laps of their neighbors, scared shitless. Of course the ice-fire can only physically damage the Red Horde or her holo-tats. Still, it’s a nerve-wracking moment, and several red-faced, embarrassed men along the aisle react, jumping to their feet and shaking their fists at the Chill, who’s circling innocently overhead.

“Hey, jerk, you’re rasslin her,” one guy shouts, pointing down at the pit.

The high-pitched, almost ear-splitting, intensity of the mechanical whine draws the attention of the crowd away from the small group of frightened fans to the Horde, holo-tats flying off her body, the air above the ring quickly becoming thick with them now, hundreds and hundreds of tiny fanged monsters swirling about, finally collecting themselves into a red swarm.

The tightly clustered throng shoots upward, a bloody ball—

At that precise moment the snow dragon elects to attack again, swooping down at blinding speed, but unable to get out another full gasp of Artic fire, before the horde slices through the icy mist like a bolt of lightning.

The first wave of the horde takes the brunt of the chilling half-blast near the snow dragon’s opened mouth, a hundred or so dropping harmlessly, splattering the pit like lumps of red hail, but effectly breaking up the blast. And wave after wave crashes into the face of the partially-stalled out dragon before it can get out another breath of icy smoke, blinding it, biting, a cluster crawling down its throat, choking the beast, and quickly defusing the fearsome creature’s ice-fire bladder.

The dragon, its white hide covered with swirling blood-red dots, shakes its mighty head back and forth, trying to dislodge the mass of tiny monsters from its throat, emitting two thin gasps of icy smoke from its plugged nostrils, then shuddering violently, before stalling-out completely, still high overhead.

A brief moment later, after issuing a reverberating death rattle, the white beast drops into the pit like a giant snowball rolling off a cliff in an avalanche. The

heavily muscled Artic Chill now lying unconscious and prone in the sawdust.

The eagerly anticipated championship contest is over, lasting no more than ten or twenty seconds at most.

The remainder of the horde gathers itself into a tight swarm, circles the quieted audience, and finally comes back to rest on the woman, her body now a mass of squirming red holo-tats.

The Tat-Master jumps back into the still dimly lit pit, and holds up the arm of the woman, announcing, “Our new Bay Area Holographic-Tattoo Rasslin champion, Red Horde!”

Here and there in the silenced crowd there are a few boos that quickly spread and grow in volume.

“Boo.”

“Boooo.”

“BOOOO.”

Then a few derisive shouts from the crowd:

“Chill, you stink, man!”

“What a wimp.”

“Too quick, it wasn’t even a good match,” someone hollers from a row down from me.

“Yeah,” someone else closer to my left agrees sarcastically, “what kinda champ is he, anyhow? More like a chump ya ask me.”

And I’m having a hard time believing it too—a woman defeating Artic Chill, so freakin easy? I shake my head, really kind of dumbfounded by it all.

“Stupid match was fixed!”

“Yeah, Chill musta went inna tank.”

Louder booing and shouting spreading through all four bleachers. The entire crowd is on its feet now, stamping the stands, pissed-off at their once favorite son and turning real ugly. But the mike-enhanced voice of the Tat-Master thunders over the disgruntled fans.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, sport fans, your attention, please.”

He is still holding up the arm of Red Horde, who remains naked, her tats in an angry swirl, as if stirred by the mob’s nasty response to the match’s quick outcome.

“Do we have a trophy award?” the Tat-Master asks over the restless crowd, unholstering his laser-scalpel.

“Yeah!”

“You betcha!”

“Hell, yes!”

“Darned straight, Tat-Master, skin ‘im!”

“Skin the bum!”

They stomp in fury, the temporary bleachers in danger of collapsing, no one really concerned; and everyone holding a thumbs-up, signaling a trophy award to the winner. Obviously not a reward for the Horde but a punishment for the Chill, who is still lying prone in the pit. Apparently out cold.

Red Horde continues to stand at center ring, hands on hips now in a defiant pose, the whining of her holo-tats increasing in pitch and volume again. Slowly she shakes her head, as if in disgust, returning the fans thumbs-up signal with a hand gesture of her own, an extended middle finger.

Whoa. The unexpected obscene gesture from the winner really incites the drunken, stoned mob, who appear poised and ready to storm the pit and tear apart Red Horde, Artic Chill, maybe even the Tat-Master.

“You stinkin’ ungrateful—”

“Ungrateful?” Red Horde shouts back at the heckler, her voice thickening with revulsion. “This is for all you sexist sporting fans, a thumbs-up from me…”

Which makes absolutely no sense at all, until she finally adds: “You knew me once as Black Widow!”

And then before anyone can actually leave the bleachers, the mechanical whining amplifies even more, again reaching a deafening level, freezing the crowd in place, as the little monsters gather again into a bloody swarm, that circles overhead for just a moment, before splitting apart into squadrons and diving into the shoulder-to-shoulder mob.

What’s she doing?

After a moment it hits me harder than the Chill last week.

The attack is real, physical, wasps biting, people screaming in agony, frantically trying to swat away the lethal monsters. But it’s really no use, there are too many of them, the crowd unable to maneuver. Here and there below me, people are collapsing, the stench of fear quickly thickening the already muggy, smelly air.

Panic.

Terrified individuals try to climb over dying neighbors, escape the claustrophobic grasp of the packed bleachers. And fifteen or twenty men, from the rows nearest the floor, actually do break loose from the trapped crowd, but quickly jam the stairwell, pressing the first escapees against the exit door that only opens one way, inward—

Alert elements of the red swarm break away from the stands and dive-bomb those trapped on the stairwell, covering their bodies with bloody lethal welts, leaving the stairs littered with fallen corpses.

Miraculously, a few of us hunkering down in the top row haven’t been attacked yet.

But everywhere else I look, I see people dying, their faces and arms covered with red welts, looking as if they are bleeding profusely through the pores of their skin.

I manage to struggle stiffly to my feet, painfully ducking a single wasp…a scout for the nearby rampaging throng working its way up the stands in my direction.

And I resign myself to fate; I can’t escape. No way.

In the remaining moments left, I look down at the far edge of the ring, where the woman stands calmly beyond the dim holo-light, watching the vindictive carnage she’s loosed on the trapped crowd. And beside her in the shadows, a tall masked figure dressed in ebony, a familiar arm around her waist. They both slip off their leathery masks and kiss triumphantly.

Then, they turn and step into the clearer holo-light, the female rassler and the

Tat-Master—

My breath catches in my throat.

For beneath their masks are death’s-heads, each wearing an evil rictus.

GENE O’NEILL, a multi-award nominated writer of science fiction, fantasy, and horror fiction, has seen 150 of his short stories, novelettes, and novellas published in professional venues. In addition, four short story collections and six novels have appeared. He has been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award eight times, winning twice for best collection, Taste Of Tenderloin, in 2010, and best long fiction, The Blue Heron, in 2013. He is currently at work on another novel, The White Plague. O’Neill’s professional writing career began after completing the Clarion Writers Workshop in 1979. His short stories have appeared in places like Cemetery Dance Magazine, Twilight Zone Magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and many anthologies. His many occupations besides writing include postal worker, contract specialist for AAFES, college basketball player, amateur boxer, United States Marine, right-of-way agent, and vice president of a small manufacturing plant. He also holds two degrees from California State University, Sacramento and University of Minnesota. He currently writes full-time and lives in the Napa Valley with his wife, Kay.