Halloween Haunts: Why Halloween Is the Best Holiday by Tony Peak

For horror writers, Halloween is the most anticipated holiday of the year. It’s not hard to imagine why: many dress up like their favorite monsters or villains, and it’s easier to find black lipstick in a department store. The holiday is observed in the middle of autumn, when there is less daylight, the night is chillier, and the landscape has shriveled up in preparation for winter. There is a vague sense of impending excitement, as the year draws to a close. Perfect setting for a gothic novel—or a celebration of who we really are.

What places does Halloween have in the 21^st century? One would think that ghosts and ghoulies would be passé in a world steeped in the Information Age. It, like all other major holidays here in the Unites States, has been commercialized to the point of mass- saturation. Anathema to the horror genre and its writers, Halloween is mainstream. Children trick or treat, ‘haunted’ houses can be found in every city or small town, and every cheesy slasher flick makes the rounds on television. Despite all this, Halloween still holds a special place in our culture, and particularly the horror sub-culture. It, like the stock monsters associated with it, will not die.

Halloween still belongs to us. And by us, I mean everyone—not just horror writers and fans. Unlike other major holidays, Halloween has not been stolen by religion, like Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter. It’s not beholden to shallow patriotic ideals, such as the Fourth of July or Veteran’s Day. I say shallow, because you’ll never see a politician praising anything about Halloween, or using it to strengthen their public image, at the expense of the holiday’s original intent. It’s not based on propaganda, like Columbus Day, which whitewashes the death and ruin of so many natives in the Pre-Columbian Americas. No, Halloween, has survived all that. Why?

We’re allowed to have fun on Halloween. In a society that smiles on conformity, this is the one day where no one at the shopping mall will stare at you for wearing fangs and red contact lenses. Fear is sought after for it adrenaline rush, the thrill of being scared. Spooky décor, animated lawn greeters, chilling music—many of us bring all that out in October. For the children knocking at the door, and the child still inside of us. Don a mask and become someone else. Oh, we may laugh afterward, but a glimpse of who we are shines through in these guises. The choice of costume, especially for adults, isn’t arbitrary. We feed our fantasies while the trick-or-treaters feed their sweet tooth. It’s okay to seek demons in the shadows, talk to ghosts in the attic, and stroll through the forest at midnight wearing a plastic mask. Halloween is a momentary rejection of the modern world, when we can believe in vampires, spirits, and other superstitions entertained by medieval peasants. Those peasants, like children, were ignorant of what lies in the darkness. For one night, we can return to this primal state, dancing with the dead even as our hearts throb with the revelry of life.

For us horror writers, Halloween is a reflection of what we already know. The greatest abominations aren’t found under the bed, in a disturbed graveyard, or those spelled out on a Ouija board. They are human beings. The monsters on Halloween are all fake, and thus engenders a comfort zone in us. Dracula becomes a romantic, Frankenstein’s creation becomes a bumbling teddy bear, and zombies are too slow and dumb to really catch us. At the end of the holiday, their masks can be removed. Their make-up can be washed off. The real monster lies underneath the costume, and walks in the light of day. It stares back at you in the mirror on the morning afterward.

The best horror stories tell us something about ourselves: what we fear, how we deal with it, and what fear does to those who surrender to it. Literary critics write off the horror genre as pulp garbage, religious leaders label it as satanic, and conformists consider it abnormal. Just like Halloween. But society needs us. People seek truth in art, and one of the most frightening truths is that human beings are capable of the greatest imaginable evils. Beneath our façade of rationality is the beast, and it is never satisfied—nor far from awakening. Horror fiction illustrates this. It shows us who we can be, if we face those fears. It also reveals who we might become, should we indulge them.

Just like Halloween.

Halloween and horror fiction both celebrates and refutes the beast within us. Above religion and state, both are all-inclusive to anyone unafraid to look in the mirror. They are a subconscious confession that we know what we are—and that we know how to control ourselves. For one fleeting night, we can wear masks depicting monsters. Monsters of our own imagination. Their limits are our limits. We make jest of the demons of old, impersonating them so that the demons inside of us will sleep one more year.

TONY PEAK writes science fiction, fantasy, and horror, with work appearing in eighteen different speculative fiction publications and anthologies. He is an Associate member of the Horror Writers Association. Currently he is focused on getting a novel published. In addition to writing, Tony possesses a keen interest in progressive thinking, wine, history, Transhumanism, and planetary exploration. Happily married, he resides in rural southwest Virginia, with a wonderful view of New River. Find out more at www.tonypeak.net

Read an excerpt from “Page of Skulls,” published in Electric Spec, November 2013, and reprinted in the People Eating People anthology, August 2014.

Vija reshuffled her tin-sheet Tarot deck and tried not to gag. The Gutter Knight before her booth stunk of mildew and singed flesh. His copper and steel-toothed smile gleamed beneath the steamlamp’s light as he shifted his bone and scrap metal armor. Just another survivor from Meridian’s streets, another fool seeking answers. Jaw tight, Vija stopped shuffling the cards.

Her Tarot only revealed questions.

“Shall I reveal what portents are aligned for you?” she asked with a forced smile, pouring the cards from one hand to the other. Fighting the ache in her gut, she took deep breaths so her breasts stretched her mesh shirt. One had to distract the eye as well as the ear for good business.

The Gutter Knight laughed with coarse clanking noises. “You shows me when I be finding good pickings, Sky Gypsy.” He rattled the bones stitched along his cuirass and grinned at her cleavage.

Vija pretended to concentrate. Though not a true cartomancer, her prophecies remained vague enough to earn her keep. Telling fortunes in Vagrant’s Row had already netted her a few copper shards, but her stomach still growled. Everyone stayed hungry in Meridian. Kelp grown in the undercity remained too sparse to feed everyone. Vija hated eating the slimy mess.

Scents of cooked meat filtered from a Bone Guild kiosk on the street corner. Saliva swamped her mouth.

“Well, what you see?” the Gutter Knight asked, his dirty fingers smudging her counter.

Flicking the top card off with her fingernail, Vija waited with feigned tension. The Gutter Knight leaned closer, his breath stinking of rotten flesh.

“Your fortune, sir.” She pursed her lips, then turned the card over.

It displayed a naked Clown kneeling beside the Styx, holding a bronze goblet. Black water sloshed from the vessel. A vague form floated inside it.

“Clown of Cups. I feel you will receive a message soon. One that will lead you to your… pickings. That will be one copper shard,” Vija said.

The Gutter Knight pulled a shard from inside his armor and tossed it onto the booth counter. As he walked away, Vija snatched and placed it into her belt pouch. Business had never seemed this slow…but what had she done, before coming to Meridian? Vija recalled little of her life before waking in a grime-caked alley, rescued and taken in by Sky Gypsies. Their warmth and belief in the Tarot had never quelled the hunger deep inside her. More than simple physical satiation, Vija yearned for heartier sustenance. They had never understood. No one did.

Could she? Concentrating, all that came to mind were vague memories of the city’s filthy alleys, of always starving…

She shoved herself back from the counter and stood. A familiar, chill dread rose in her chest. Why couldn’t she remember?

Down the street, only two people waited in line outside the kiosk. She licked her lips. The roasting meat scent teased her nose, enveloping her in guilt.

Vija put away her Tarot deck and walked down the street. All around her, sagging buildings covered in chipped plaster rose up into Meridian’s eternal darkness. A few steamlamps lit the streets and trash-clogged alleys. Two Mechos, jetting steam exhaust from vents in their bronze bodies, walked past. On her left, litter-strewn docks contrasted with the solid blackness of the Styx. Never-ending, depthless. Just like her desires.

The Bone Guild kiosk bore a flashing red neon sign. One moment it showed a skull; the next, a cleaver. An emaciated male vendor stood inside. A female Clown, nude save for her white and red body paint, purchased a tray of kelp and meat cubes.

Vija wrung her hands and swallowed as the Clown slurped the meal down. Maybe she would just eat the kelp this time. Eat enough to avoid starving, but nothing more. She could do it.

Her nipples hardened at the munching sounds.

“One tray,” Vija blurted as she stepped up to the kiosk. A copper shard passed from her hand to the vendor’s. She accepted a warm, steaming tray. A tremor shook her stomach, and her breath quickened.

Once more wouldn’t hurt. One more taste of salvation.

She ate with her hands. Rain fell, clinging her mesh top and skirt to her voluptuous body. Vija suckled the hot meat, chewed the salty kelp. Shivering, she licked juice from her fingertips and savored the flesh while it slid down to her eager stomach. Hunger subsided as she moaned into her greasy hand.

A wail made her blink.

In a nearby alley, a Gutter Knight slammed a frail man against the wall, then shoved a knife into the man’s gut. Blood mixed with rain drizzle in a puddle. A different Bone Guild vendor waited with a dark-stained sack. Grinning, the Gutter Knight severed the dead man’s fingers and dumped them into the sack.

“Shit,” Vija murmured, stepping back.

On the curb, the female Clown laughed and sucked her meat cubes. Rain ran channels in the woman’s body paint down to her crotch. She winked at Vija, ran her tongue over a pink cube, then laughed again.

“You want another?” the vendor asked Vija in a monotone.

Vija threw the tray aside and forced herself not to vomit. All in Meridian knew the Bone Guild used human meat. The vendors used to hide their meat source, but Vija had never seen her next meal killed in front of her. By Charon, right in front of her!

Red runoff from the Clown’s paint mixed at Vija’s feet with blood from the alley.

Stilling her nerves, she closed her eyes. Where could she go? No one could leave the city, since the Clowns had destroyed all boats and airships long ago. Only fools dared to swim in the Styx anyway, and none ever returned.

Throat tight, she clutched her stomach. Even with a ship, even without hunger, the Styx was impenetrable. Vija’s cards never revealed anything over its horizon, or her own.

“You are still hungry,” a soft voice said behind her.

Vija coughed and turned. A tall, pale man in a black overcoat smiled at her. The rain beaded on his hairless head, flowing through wrinkled furrows along his flesh. Pinkish-gray eyes studied her.

“Isn’t everyone?” Vija tried to wipe the grease from her fingers. Behind the kiosk, the Gutter Knight received a few copper shards from the vendor. Crimson dripped from the bulging, dark-stained sack.

“I thought Sky Gypsies avoided the consumption of others.” His voice purred between the rain drops.

Wet sawing noises behind the kiosk made her stomach turn to ice. “Just fuck off.” Vija hurried back to her booth. Past Vagrant’s Row in the Mecho District, the Steamclock tolled twice. With no sun or stars, the device’s time-keeping only reminded her of periods between meals. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen the sun, the last time she’d slept.

Maybe this was all some nightmare, then.

As she pulled a ragged blue curtain over the booth’s counter, the tall man peered in. “I too used to partake of the Bone Guild’s offerings. I was even a vendor once. Now, I have seen other possibilities. There is another way than this.”

Vija glowered at him. “Unless you want your fortune told, leave me the hell alone.” Her silver earrings and bracelets jangled as she tugged the curtain again.

Two golden shards clattered onto the counter. “Then show me what you think I should see,” the man said.

The pair of shiny objects seemed to stare at her like the eyes of a golden Mecho. Vija could feed herself for a long while with such a payment. Maybe even buy her way back into Gypsy Way, where she’d been cast out for her cannibalism…but their rationed kelp could never satisfy her.

“Who are you?” She fingered the Tarot deck inside her pouch.