Halloween Haunts 2013: Plastic Fangs and Cotton Fur by Mark Onspaugh

Ah, Halloween.

That magical time of year when the air is crisp and redolent of burning pumpkins, when candy is collected, raw eggs are tossed, and the streets are filled with everything from pint-sized demons to last year’s Comic-Con castoffs.

When I was young, most kids wore costumes from Ben Cooper.  They came packaged in a box with a cellophane window that allowed you to see the mask.  Usually the drugstore (Halloween shops were unheard of back then) had sample masks and costumes hanging high out of reach.  The mask was brightly colored plastic with two eye holes and was held in place by an elastic band, often prone to breaking. The suit was a cross between long johns and a hospital gown (it tied in the back), and was made of (hopefully) flame-retardant material.  The suit was great because it was usually not made to look like a body so much as a surreal depiction of your character in action.

My favorite was the devil costume – make that The Devil. I mean, this was Satan, no two ways about it.  Angry, horned, red face, goatee – yep, it was Lucifer, all right.  The illustration of Old Nick on the accompanying red and yellow suit showed him grinning and wielding a pitchfork among glittery, sparkly red flames… I was only eight, but I could practically hear the screams of the Damned.  I tell you, such a costume would never be sold today.

Of course, you can’t be the Devil every year – or Mickey Mouse, or a hobo.  My Dad made me a cool robot costume one year, all silver with working lights and badass antennae.  I wore that a couple of years, then my younger brother took over the subjugation of Humanity.

Then came the lean years – too old for trick or treats, too young to date.  I got to see Halloween from my parents’ point of view, handing out candy to grubby, greedy, miniscule  superheroes,  princesses and clowns.  Finally, we’d either run out of candy or my Mom would say “Enough!” and turn out the porch light, then we’d all settle in to watch F-Troop or Branded or The F.B.I.  Sure, those shows were cool, but my stomach yearned for candy from strangers, strange exotic treats straining the confines of an old pillowcase, a veritable mountain of sugary goodness, even after they’d been culled of (possibly) razor-bladed apples, (probably) unhygienic popcorn balls and (certainly) poisoned Dum-Dums.  Dum-Dums were lollipops easily unwrapped, dipped in something toxic, and rewrapped.  According to neighborhood lore, my best friend’s Dad tried one and instantly vomited up blood! Cautious parents throughout the area tossed those death-pops before we had a chance to sample them for ourselves.

But more than risk-laden sweets, I yearned to be something other than what I was, a bookish kid who wore glasses and got picked last for sports.

My next chance came in junior high, and my first co-ed Halloween party.

The big question: what to be, what to be?  I loved comics, so what about Superman?  Maybe, but I also loved horror movies… what about Dracula?

Yeah, Dracula!

Mom made me a cape, and in her jewelry box was weird medallion that look positively Transylvanian (possibly the Order of the Crimson Fang).  These important props, coupled with my school slacks (black) and dress shirt (white) made me as dapper as Bela.  The crowning touch, a pair of plastic vampire teeth. Now I was ready to suck necks.

(Helpful Hint: Today, spoiled rich kids can buy custom fangs that fit over their own pitiful canines.  However, if you are stuck buying those plastic, hinged upper and lower choppers  that make it impossible to talk, cut them in half… as a vampire you only need the top teeth!)

My Dracula was a pretty successful venture, and was my costume of choice for several years thereafter.  But then, the Call of the Wild rose in my hormone-addled brain, and the Pipes of Pan called to my wild, feral side.

I loved the Wolf-Man movies – why not become one?  I was wholly ignorant of special makeup effects, and Famous Monsters Magazine just had pics, no how-to’s (I somehow missed the Dick Smith guide that became a bible for both Rick Baker and Rob Bottin).  I felt there must be a better way to “wolf out” than the plastic masks of my childhood.

Could I, a teen of little natural facial hair, pull off the most hirsute of Universal Monsters?

My mother consulted with her hairdresser, a woman with knowledge.  She had heard of a method where you took cotton and stuck it to your face with Duo Eyelash Adhesive.  No doubt this was employed by street corner Santas the world over.  Now, if you dyed the cotton brown, why, it would look just like fur, wouldn’t it?

Why yes, yes it would!

Oh boy, was I excited! I gleefully ripped holes in jeans and a shirt, and put a lot of fake blood down the front – I was going to be a ravenous werewolf!  I had big plans to do my face, neck, hands and bare feet.  I had already practiced walking on the balls of my feet like Lon Chaney Jr. – I was committed to my craft!  I also had some pointed ears left over from a year as Mr. Spock.

It turned out I was way too ambitious.  Doing my face and top of my hands alone was an arduous process.  Cotton kept sticking to my finger tips, and the black, pointy fingernails I bought would not stay on.  I finally wrapped scotch tape around each one, figuring my face would attract most of the attention.  The ears just looked goofy, so I nixed them.  I had a party to attend, so I had to abandon making up my feet, and encased them in all-too normal school shoes.  (Bah!) I painted my nose black with a Magic Marker (oops) and put my vampire teeth in upside-down, giving me the famous Lawrence Talbot underbite.  I went out to freeze blood and win hearts.

I arrived at the party, and I was the one in for a shock.

I was the only one in costume.

It’s true. My friend had gotten the news that it was just going to be a normal party and had forgotten to tell me.  I was embarrassed, but I had spent a lot of time and effort on my costume.

And…

People marveled at my makeup, and wanted to know how I got a mask to act so life-like, and what life was like as a werewolf.

Pretty cool.

Even better, some of my friends insisted on driving with me to various public places to terrorize people.  The group involved two of the cuter girls in my class, so I was very happy to oblige.

Being a werewolf had its perks.

As time went on, I studied makeup effects with Tom Burman and Rob Bottin, and even got to see people like Rick Baker at work.  My amateur efforts became more professional.  Cotton became yak hair and eyelash adhesive (basically just liquid latex) became spirit gum.  I bought a wolf-nose appliance my first year of studying and later created a full wolf snout full of teeth.

My werewolf makeups got better and better, but the fun I had never equaled that first year when I was the only one in costume.

Larry Talbot never had a night like that.

And no one tried to bash in my head with a silver cane, either.

TODAY’S GIVEAWAY: Mark is offering one free Netgalley review copy of The Faceless One and one free Hydra mug.

Giveaway Rules: Enter for the prize by posting in the comments section. Winners will be chosen at random and notified by e-mail. You may enter once for each giveaway, and all entrants may be considered for other giveaways if they don’t win on the day they post. If you would like to comment without being entered for the giveaway, include “Not a Giveaway Entry” at the end of your post. You may also enter by e-mailing memoutreach@horror.org and putting HH CONTEST ENTRY in the header.

MARK ONSPAUGH is a California native and the author of more than forty published short stories. Like many writers, he is perpetually curious, having studied psychology at UCLA, exotic animals at Moorpark College’s exotic animal training & management program, improv comedy with the Groundlings, and special-effects makeup. Mark has also written for film and television. He currently lives in Cambria, California, with his wife and three peculiar cats. The Faceless One is his first novel.

From a brilliant new voice in horror comes a riveting nightmare of ancient evil unleashed—and the bravery and sacrifice of those called to combat it.

In 1948, when he was just a boy, Jimmy Kalmaku trained with his uncle to be the shaman of his Tlingit village in Alaska. There he learned the old legends, the old myths, the old secrets. Chief among them was that of a mask locked in a prison of ice, and of the faceless god imprisoned within: a cruel and vengeful god called T’Nathluk, dedicated to the infliction of pain and suffering.

Now all but forgotten in a Seattle retirement home, Jimmy finds his life turned upside down. For when an unwitting archaeologist pries the mask free of its icy tomb, he frees T’Nathluk as well. Stuck in spirit form, the Faceless One seeks a human to serve as a portal through which he can enter our reality. The Faceless One can control—and mercilessly torture—anyone who touches the mask, which means there is no shortage of slaves to ferry it across the country to its chosen host.

Yet the Faceless One has foes as well: Stan Roberts, a tough New York cop whose pursuit of justice will lead him into a dark abyss of the soul; Steven, Liz, and Bobby, the family of the doomed archaeologist; and Jimmy Kalmaku, who must at last become the shaman of his boyhood dreams.

Advance praise for The Faceless One

“A stunning debut . . . With The Faceless One, Mark Onspaugh has given us a chilling dark fantasy with an Alaskan shamanic backdrop. The beauty of this weird world is as profound as its terror. I could not turn these pages fast enough!”—Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander and Paint It Black

“Mark Onspaugh’s writing captures that same eye-popping strangeness I loved so much in the works of Charles Beaumont and Fritz Leiber. The Faceless One is classic horror from an author who has earned his stripes and knows how to scare you blind.”—Joe McKinney, Bram Stoker Award–winning author of Dead City and The Savage Dead

Read an excerpt from The Faceless One by Mark Onspaugh:

Chapter 6

Seattle, WA

Jimmy awoke with a start, his heart racing. The nightmare had been a bad one, filled with violence and darkness, but it faded rapidly like wisps of smoke from a drowned campfire. He had one fleeting glimpse of something like a large eel in a deep cavern, then this too evaporated in the light of day.

He was on the balcony again, sprawled in a plastic deck chair. His body was cramped and aching, and there was a wicked crick in his neck. He rotated his head gently, trying to work the kink out.

The balcony was a small area, just large enough for the chair, a small plastic table, and a plastic palm that wouldn’t have fooled a child. Instead of a railing, there was a concrete wall, three and half feet high and topped with a balustrade of hollow metal pipe painted a pastel blue. Golden summer was filled with these Easter-egg colors, and Jimmy despised them.

A raven, its black feathers as shiny as ink, stared at him from its perch on the blue balustrade.

“Hello, Naas shagee Yéil,” Jimmy said respectfully. He had no doubt this was the same raven that had visited him earlier.

The raven turned its head to peer at him, its left eye glittering in the bright sunlight. The raven walked sideways along the rail, then back. Three steps to the left, four to the right. It peered again at Jimmy, then repeated its steps.

Three and four. A phone number?

“I’m sorry; I don’t understand your message.”

The raven ruffled its neck feathers again until it looked like it was wearing a thick fur collar. It opened its beak and cawed, one sharp, harsh note.

Jimmy didn’t know what to do. Had his uncle been there, he could have conversed with the bird in its own language. The raven might know Tlingit or English, but it was rude to ask it to speak in a foreign tongue. This was something it must opt to do on its own.

The raven regarded him silently. Jimmy stared back.

The raven walked sideways again. Six steps to the left, eight to the right.

Now Jimmy was completely lost. He saw no pattern to the numbers outside of the second set being the double of the first.

The bird looked at him, as if expecting an epiphany. Jimmy shook his head, ashamed at his lack of understanding.

The raven pecked at the metal railing, producing a resonant ping every time he struck it. Seven pecks, pause, seven pecks, pause.

Jimmy concentrated, but nothing would come. He sat there, not wanting to offend Raven but suddenly filled with dread.

The bird began striking harder, like a woodpecker. Its blows were making a clanging sound, like a beater striking a triangle. Faster and faster it struck the railing, all patterns lost in the rapidity of its assault.

Paint chips began to fly from the railing, and the floor of the balcony as well as Jimmy’s shoes and jeans were soon covered with falling flakes of blue enamel snow.

Still, the raven continued, its blows like a hammer to an anvil. It was a sound Vulcan might have made at his forge, crafting lightning bolts for Zeus.

Faster, faster, the railing was actually bending under the repeated blows. Jimmy covered his ears, afraid that the din would make him deaf. He could feel the vibration of each strike through his clamped hands. Why wasn’t anyone running in to see what was making this horrible sound?

Suddenly, the raven’s beak broke off and landed at Jimmy’s feet, a small husk of ebony keratin. Jimmy looked at it in horror. The raven exhibited no concern or pain, just kept striking its ruined face against the railing, and the sound grew louder.

It was the sound of church bells, but churches from some lower region, where the bells were made of a foul-smelling metal, and the offerings were consecrated in blood. Jimmy cried out because the sound was jarring his bones, making his teeth rattle. Much more of this, and he would fly apart, an exploding ruin of leathered flesh and brittle bones.

One last cataclysmic blow, and two objects flew from the raven’s head, landing at Jimmy’s feet like two bright stones.

Its eyes.

The raven stopped then although the railing continued to vibrate like a tuning fork. It seemed to look at him although it was surely blind. Deep within each empty eye socket he saw a miniature aurora borealis, the bright blues, pinks, and greens shimmering within small caves of infinite darkness.

And Jimmy suddenly remembered.

The Faceless One.

For a moment, he thought Yéil was going to become The Faceless One, and he staggered back, falling down as the chair skittered away from under him. He cowered on the ground, praying that his death might be swift.

There was no sound. The humming of the railing faded into silence.

Jimmy looked up.

The raven regarded him with its mutilated face.

The Faceless One, myth behind all myths, truth behind all tales.

The sky grew dark, and trees beyond his balcony grew brown and cracked under the weight of ice that suddenly encased them. The railing glittered with frost, and Jimmy’s ragged breath formed thick plumes of vapor.

He could not face such a being, no one could. Raven might, but he would need his eyes and beak. Gingerly, Jimmy gathered them up and offered them to the bird.

The bird flew away in a shower of ice crystals, their falling prisms casting jewel-like brilliance in its wake.

Jimmy stood there, clutching the beak and eyes of the bird.

He heard the sliding door open and knew what had opened it.

An icy hand fell on his shoulder, and he heard a sound like the howling of the wind through caves of ice.

It was saying his name.

Jimmy awoke sprawled on top of his bed, his legs bathed in sunlight. He looked around in a panic, disoriented and frightened.

The railing of the balcony was undamaged. There was no sign of Raven, nor that the Final Winter had descended on the world.

With a pounding heart, Jimmy slowly turned, thinking he might leap off the balcony if the thing was still behind him.

His dull little apartment was undisturbed.

It had been a dream.

He sat up, wincing from a sharp pain in his neck. It was as sore as it had been in his nightmare, and there was a sharp pain in his right hand. He held it up and could see blood dripping from the underside, splattering his jeans with drops of bright crimson. Slowly, Jimmy opened his hand.

In his palm were two marbles, made of polished jet.

Raven’s eyes.

These lay next to a small knife, which had cut into his palm. The knife was no more than four inches long and exquisitely crafted, with a hilt of ivory and a blade of polished obsidian.

Raven’s beak.

Jimmy looked at them for a long while, his mind full of confusion and wonder. He felt great shame, for he did not deserve such gifts. Hell, he didn’t even understand their purpose.

He got up, old bones creaking, and went to the bathroom. He cupped his left hand under his injured one to keep blood from staining his carpet. It wasn’t that he wanted to save the carpet; indeed, to him it was the color of shit from a sick dog. But blood would bring questions from the staff, especially Nurse Belva.

He ran the water until it was cold, then cleaned the obsidian orbs and the knife. He set them gently on a folded hand towel on top of the toilet tank and tended to his cut hand. He washed it under warm water with soap, the sudsy water pink for a long while. When at last it ran clear, he replaced the soap and dried his hands. He considered treating the wound with Bactine or iodine but was afraid that might offend Raven. He decided to leave it unbandaged and let it heal on its own.

He lay down for a while, puzzling over what he had dreamed. While he had looked with wonder at the talismans left by Raven, he hadn’t been shocked or filled with disbelief at what he had seen. He was old enough to remember a time when miracles had not come from movies or television, when life was far more dangerous than the computer games that passed for today’s entertainment.

Damn, he needed a drink.

Alcohol, of course, was frowned on at Golden Summer. There was apple cider at Halloween and the occasional dose of cough syrup, but that was it.

He needed something stronger than holiday cider.

Jimmy checked the lock on the door and dragged a wooden chair from the corner over to the closet. He opened the closet and put the chair partway in. He climbed up, the old chair creaking a bit, and rummaged around on the top shelf.

Here were two shoeboxes containing photos and documents, out-of-date fishing licenses and expired coupons for everything from a bamboo fishing pole to a Venus flytrap. There was a box with his cowboy hat, a genuine Stetson with a beaded band. One small beige box lay atop the hatbox. Although it wasn’t what he was after, he brought it down anyway.

The box was splitting along one seam, and the logo across the top was for a store in Juneau long gone.

Inside, wrapped in white tissue paper, was a single wool mitten, red with a stripe containing a blue-and-white snowflake design. Of the many things he owned that had belonged to Rose, this is what he had elected to take with him to Golden Summer. It made him think of the first time he had seen her. He was twenty and had returned with the other men from fishing, and she was there visiting from a neighboring village for a dance his village was hosting. She had caught his eye immediately, but he had pretended not to notice. He had wanted to see if she was promised to anyone. She wasn’t, and they watched each other shyly as the flames rose high from the bonfire. His friends had nudged him and made jokes, but he had ignored them. When he went over to talk to her, he noticed Uncle Will smiling and nodding as he smoked his pipe. Uncle Will had been dead seven years by then, swept off a fishing boat as he exhorted halibut to the hooks. The village had mourned him three days, and when they returned to the sea, their nets were overflowing. Uncle Will’s last act as shaman had brought them great bounty. Now he smiled at his nephew, then vanished when the fire roared up, its sparks spiraling into the sky like incandescent emissaries.

Jimmy went to Rose and introduced himself. By then he was a shaman’s nephew but no longer officially a shaman. Times had changed in Yanut; television and radio had convinced many that Science and Technology were the new gods to embrace. Some of the elders still sought him out when they were ill, and he still blessed the one or two boats they asked him to, but mostly he pumped gas at the Esso station two miles out of town. It was steady work and paid enough for him to support a family. Rose shyly held out her hand, clad in one of the mittens. He took it, feeling a charge run through him. She had looked down, blushing, but a smile had crossed her face. Jimmy thought she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

After the dance, they had walked together down to the inlet, where trees and waves whispered secrets. He had taken her hand to help her over a large log even though she was as sure-footed as he was. He felt the strength in her hands, the warmth, and wondered what her skin felt like.

They had married that spring, and the mittens still made him think of her dark, shining hair and laughing eyes. Sometimes, he missed her so much he just lay in the dark and cried.

He stroked the mitten gently, then wrapped it again in the tissue and put it away.

Behind all these other treasures was a box roughly a foot square and three inches deep. The art and text on the lid proclaimed that it contained a truss by Halbert and Sons Medical Supply of Whitney, Illinois. It was good for both hernia sufferers and those wishing not to become hernia sufferers, was washable, and guaranteed for five years. The illustration showed a smiling man who seemed to be on his way to win the decathlon although he was only wearing his truss.

Jimmy had found the box in the Dumpster behind the rest home. He had no need for a truss but thought the box might deter any spies. He climbed down from the chair, placed the box on the bed, and sat down next to it. After glancing guiltily at the door, he opened it.

Inside the box, cushioned by paper towels, were five bottles of liquor, the small kind you got on airplanes. Three Johnny Walker Red, one Smirnoff, one Bacardi.

George had snatched these when he had flown to Portland for his brother’s funeral. The flight attendant had been so taken with George that she had left the drink cart unattended to fetch him an extra pillow. George had hurriedly taken fourteen bottles in all. He had wanted to leave money for them, but the flight to Oregon had taken most of his cash. He had stuffed the bottles into his carry-on just before she returned. The only one who had noticed had been a small child of three, who had just goggled at George, then smiled when George had waved at him. The child’s mother had smiled at George, too. George had that effect on people.

Being a generous man, George had given Jimmy almost half his haul. Jimmy hadn’t begrudged his keeping the two bottles of Chivas and the Tanqueray; hell, most people wouldn’t have even told him about the liquor, let alone shared it.

Jimmy picked up one of the Johnny Walkers and twisted the cap off. He looked at the door one more time for good measure, then drained half the bottle in one gulp. It burned on the way down, a fire that was both pleasant and familiar. He supposed he had taken to drinking too much after Rose had died. It had been hard to fill up his days once they were empty of her. Sadly, among his people he had been considered a moderate drinker. John Muir had once observed that many of the Tlingit gave literal meaning to the phrase “howling drunk.” Jimmy had noticed on more than one occasion that those howls were full of misery, not celebration.

Thinking of Yanut, he decided to give his hometown a call. Perhaps someone in the village could help him. Surely, there was someone there who could tell him the meanings of Raven’s visits. Maybe he could mail the talismans to that someone, where they could prove useful. If The Faceless One was involved, they needed a warrior, not an arthritic resident of a rest home.

Jimmy drained the rest of the bottle. He looked longingly at the others but decided to ration himself. George couldn’t afford any more flights, and it was unlikely anyone would give them brandy or schnapps for Christmas.

He looked at himself in the mirror above the bureau. For a moment, his face looked strange, then resolved into the familiar terrain of lines and scars.

The Faceless One. His uncle had told him what he knew, knowledge passed down since the time of the First People. Such stories were secret, reserved for a shaman and his initiates. Jimmy had studied those ways until he was thirteen, but then his uncle had drowned. Some of the elders had wanted to search for a new shaman, perhaps continue Jimmy’s training, but the newer members of the council had been more concerned with road improvements and the installation of a traffic light at the town’s one main intersection. They had hoped to bring in fast food and coffee, tourists and their money. There was no room in such discussions for the ways of the past. Uncle Will’s parting bounty of fish was soon chalked up to weather patterns and tide anomalies. Masks once used for sacred ceremonies were crudely copied for people with cameras who had little regard for the meaning of such things. Jimmy had tried to take his uncle’s place, but no one had taken him seriously. Even the elders who had believed saw him only as a boy playing pretend. He had kept his uncle’s trappings but was rarely called upon to heal the sick, chase away demons, or summon fish to the nets and hooks. Someone offered his parents five hundred dollars for his uncle’s cloak and headdress, but Jimmy had refused to sell them. His parents, seeing the fire in his eyes, had honored his wishes.

Those same artifacts were in boxes in a Stor-Mor private storage facility in Juneau. Some shaman.

Almost sixty years had passed since his Uncle Will had died, and he had had no one to whom he could pass on the tales of The Faceless One. Though he had sworn never to forget his lessons in the ice cave, the memories had dimmed through time and disuse.

But Naas shagee Yéil had chosen him. Raven had given him the Chin Eater talisman and its own eyes and beak.

Shit, he was an old man in a rest home. His most noteworthy accomplishment of late had been stealing fried chicken from the kitchen one night.

Yéil has chosen you.

Bullshit. Raven was a Trickster, after all. Could be he was having a laugh at Jimmy’s expense. He would get all worked up, then the Trickster would reveal it had all been a joke.

But what if it wasn’t?

Surely there was someone younger than he, someone more qualified to investigate these matters. Maybe he could ask Milo to check on the cave, see if the talismans were still in place. Milo was a drunk and a braggart, but he would recognize the talismans and not violate the space they guarded.

Jimmy resolved to call the village tomorrow morning. It was getting late, and dinner would be served soon. Tuesday was fish-stick night. He hated fish sticks, but the coleslaw was pretty good. It gave him gas, but what the hell, he lived alone.

He placed the empty bottle in the box, then placed it carefully back in its hiding place behind the mementos of his former life.

My real life.

Jimmy sighed and checked the clock. Time for a card game before dinner. He went in search of George and the Old Fart, the whiskey a pool of warmth in his stomach.