Halloween Haunts: THAT’S (NOT) THE SPIRIT! by Evan Baughfman
When our son was not-quite-two, my wife and I—perhaps irresponsibly—took him into a Spirit Halloween store, scarring the kid for years. The demon-possessed animatronics and creepy-crawly creatures proved to be too much for little Mason.
The incident is forever preserved in a video, annually rearing its cringe-inducing head as a Facebook memory. Not my finest moment as a parent, forcing my boy to get so close to growling monsters. Yet there he is every October, in my arms, shrieking, white-knuckling my shirt, as Mom and Dad laugh at his expense and joke that he’ll need to get used to the spooky stuff if he wants to be “a part of the family”.
I’d do and say things differently now, of course. But back then I was a fledgling father, overzealous and naïve. All I had wanted was to share a love of horror with my firstborn—but throwing him into the deep end with a motorized Cthulhu didn’t exactly make him eager to swim in dark waters.
On the contrary, Mason—now a third-grader—tiptoes through darkness. When my wife and I are watching television, he asks us to press “pause” before feeling comfortable enough to step into the room. He always thinks Mom and Dad are watching something scary. He never trusts us at first when we tell him, no, it’s just a sitcom. Seriously, Mason, just listen for the laugh track.
To be fair, we are often streaming something with people screaming.
My wife and I celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary earlier this year. A decade ago, we were married on Friday the 13th. A life-size cardboard cutout of Jason Voorhees crowd-surfed over our reception’s rowdy dance floor. A mutual affection for horror helped—and still helps!—to solidify our bond.
We just wish our kids would also hop on board the terror train.
Our daughter, Story, is an October baby, and she’s naturally more confident and secure around things that go bump. She’ll watch a Demogorgon roar and comment how its head looks like a flower, while her older brother stays far, far away from Hawkins, Indiana.
Is Story more okay with the macabre because we decided not to break her blossoming Halloween spirit inside a Spirit Halloween?
And why do I care so much about how my children feel about goblins and ghouls, anyway?
Well, because “horror fan” is a big part of my identity, and I want my kids to spend time with me and the spooky. I want Mason and Story to be their own people—and believe me, they are!—but can they both please have this one thing in common with their dear old Dad? If it’s not reading or writing or fantasy football, can it be zombies and werewolves and vampires, instead?
I’m not trying to show them Carpenter, Craven, and King tomorrow, but is there a future where, as teenagers, they want—and feel safe enough—to visit haunts old and new with their creepy parents?
What a dream that would be! Mr. Krueger, I hope that Mason and Story decide to meet you someday!
We may have overstepped with Mason at almost-two, but now that he’s almost-nine, Mom and Dad have learned to take a different approach with their boy:
Let him lurch toward horror at his own pace.
Introduce him to old episodes of Goosebumps and Are You Afraid of the Dark? Let him binge those kid-friendly frights with his sister.
Give him books like Max Brallier’s and Letizia Rubegni’s Mister Shivers series. Let him explore terrifying tales with the lights on.
Have him visit neighbors’ Halloween lawn decorations under the protection of sunshine. Let him avoid anything that moves.
Decorate the house year-round with cuddly black cats, smiling jack-o’-lanterns, and gleeful ghosts. Let him illustrate cheery additions for the gallery if he chooses to do so.
Nudge and nurture that creativity for the “dark arts”. Let him incorporate his wacky, out-there ideas when co-authoring original stories with sister and Dad. It’s how we’ve ended up with one-of-a-kind tomes like Babyzilla the Giant Baby Monster, The Clown’s Curse, and The Tale of the Nightmarish Night Mayor on our home-library shelves.
Just last week, Mason asked if he could purchase a horror video game and play it with me. Father and son, fleeing in tandem from some evil entity called Huggy Wuggy. Not exactly sure how the game mechanics work, but if he’s willing to figure it out, so am I!
So, yes, lately it feels like we’re finally all venturing on the same dark and eerie path. At the moment, we’re all at different points on the candlelit map, but soon we’ll be traversing our fears together—down the aisles of a Spirit Halloween?—as a family of four.
As a family of horror.
Author bio:
Much of Evan Baughfman’s writing success has been as a playwright, his original plays finding homes in theaters worldwide. A number of his scripts are published through Heuer Publishing, YouthPLAYS, Next Stage Press, and Drama Notebook.
Evan has also found success writing horror fiction, his work found recently in anthologies by Improbable Press, 4 Horsemen Publications, and No Bad Books Press. Evan’s short story collection, The Emaciated Man and Other Terrifying Tales from Poe Middle School, is published through Thurston Howl Publications. His novella, Vanishing of the 7th Grade, is available through D&T Publishing. More info is available at amazon.com/author/evanbaughfman
Author’s note:
One lucky reader is the recipient of an autographed copy of Vanishing of the 7th Grade as a
giveaway prize. Comment below or email membership@horror.org for a chance to win!
