My Son Purchased a Strange Halloween Costume

Let me get one thing out of the way first: I hate Halloween. But don't write me off yet. Let me explain.

Every year when I was a kid, my mother would sew me some ridiculous costume that nobody in their right mind would wear. While my friends were out there as Batman and Green Arrow and the Flash, I was stuck as E.T. — yes, the alien from that 1982 movie with the stupid glowing finger. I was the laughing stock of my entire friend group that year.

My mom either had a terrible sense of humor or she genuinely didn't understand that the only alien I wanted to dress up as came from the planet Krypton. You know, Superman. But we were poor. Blue-collar, white-trash poor. We lived in a trailer with way too many cats, not enough food stamps, and an alcoholic maniac who made our lives a living hell every day of the year. My father's mood swings and the endless piles of Modelo bottles were haunting enough on their own. The thought of celebrating Halloween wasn't even on my radar.

When I turned sixteen, I stopped dressing up for Halloween entirely and put the whole stupid holiday behind me. Around then, the man of the house stopped acting like a man and started acting like a deadbeat loser, and I didn't have a choice — I had to grow up faster to fill the space he left. I got a job at the local diner to help my mom pay the bills, and all those silly costumes got shoved into a box and kicked under my bed to collect dust. A couple of years later I graduated high school, my mom finally divorced my dad, and I married my high school sweetheart.

We had one kid together. My son, Finneas. For a while, everything was great. I had a decent job making decent money, Guinevere was settling into being a stay-at-home mom just fine, and Finn was growing like a weed. Then, around the time he turned thirteen, I noticed something shift in Guinevere. She got quiet and distant. She started leaving the house at weird hours to run errands. She guarded her phone like her life depended on it. When I pressed her about it, she just guilt-tripped me for not trusting her, so I dropped it. For six months, I dropped it.

Then, sometime around September, my wife finally sat me down and admitted she'd been having an affair with our twenty-one-year-old neighbor. That led to our inevitable divorce. My son was crushed. The holidays were tense and miserable, with Finn bouncing between our two houses like a ping-pong ball. And while I was busy grieving the love of my life, she was busy playing house with her boy toy right across the street. It was like pouring salt in the wound every single time I saw the two of them out in their driveway. Moving on is a whole lot easier when your ex doesn't live a hop, skip, and a jump away.

Two years later, Guinevere got pregnant, and since she was so wrapped up in the new baby, Finn was free to visit me more than he had been before. He'd been spending so much time at my place that it had basically become his home. His room at his mom's had the necessities, but his room here was actually lived in — band posters plastered all over the walls, clothes strewn across the floor, a gaming setup in the corner that any teenager would kill for.

I didn't mind having him around more. And his mother was more than happy to hand him off. "A new, shiny baby is much more interesting than a son that reminds her of a failed marriage every time she looks at him," Finn spat the day after his new step-sister was born.

He didn't say anything else after that. He didn't have to. The sound of him slamming the front door and storming to his room said plenty. I couldn't claim I knew exactly how he felt, but I understood the feeling of being replaced. Guinevere hadn't spared anyone's feelings when she chose her own over mine and Finn's. At the time of our divorce, I'd been replaced by a man who was barely old enough to legally drink, and not long after, Finn had been replaced by his own baby sister.

Finn had been getting quieter and quieter over the last couple of weeks, clearly in some kind of slump. I knew he was buried in schoolwork, but I also knew that despite Halloween being my least favorite holiday on earth, he loved it more than Thanksgiving and Christmas put together. So I took the day off work, made a run to Spirit Halloween, and decked the house out in every creepy decoration I could find. Finn would never say it out loud, but I knew he'd appreciate it. By the time I got home with some pizzas, soda, and an oversized bag of candy, I expected him to be there already. I glanced at my watch and raised an eyebrow. It was five o'clock. School had let out at three-oh-five. He was running late.

"Dad?" Finn called, dropping his backpack by the front door and padding into the kitchen.

"Hey, bud. You're late." Two cheese pizzas were laid out on the counter next to a bottle of Mountain Dew. "You hungry?"

"Actually, Cam, Lacey, and I were going to go out tonight. Do a little trick-or-treating. So I probably need to get going."

My eyes flicked up to meet his, a smirk tugging at the corner of my mouth. "Lacey. As in the girl you've been crushing on since the start of the school year? That pretty blonde girl?"

A blush burned across Finn's cheeks and his hand came up to rub the back of his neck. "Yeah. That one."

"Aren't you three a little too old to go trick-or-treating?" I teased, lifting a big slice of cheese pizza to my mouth, a string of mozzarella clinging to my chin.

"Halloween's my favorite holiday, and besides, Cam just got his driver's license, so he's driving us over to the rich neighborhood. The one that gives out the full-size candy bars."

"When do you think you'll be home?" I asked between sips of Mountain Dew.

"Probably sometime around midnight." Finn was fidgeting with a plastic bag in his hands, and the crinkling of it caught my attention.

"What's in the bag?"

"Oh, it's a costume. I had to grab something last minute. Everywhere else was totally wiped out. But this little hole-in-the-wall antique store downtown was open, and they had this sick Halloween costume hanging in the window." The excitement in his voice made me laugh, my mind drifting back to all the awful costumes my mom used to make me wear. I would have killed for something cool back then.

"Come here, let me see." I waved him over, wiped my hands on a dishtowel, and leaned back against the kitchen island while he pulled the costume out of the little plastic bag.

"Isn't it cool? It's crazy realistic, and I got it for pennies!"

Goosebumps crawled up my arms as I stared at it, every hair standing on end. Something about this costume just didn't feel right. An awkward chuckle escaped me as I crossed my arms and met his excited stare, one eyebrow raised, not answering.

"What? You don't think it's scary enough? Cam's going as Pennywise, but I think I've got him beat!"

My eyes traveled back down to the costume. The fabric of it looked disturbingly like human skin. It was a full-body thing, something like one of those weird morph suits. Hair sprouted up along the arms, and blood was smeared across the front, staining the clothing a deep, dark red. The face was even worse. Two holes cut where the eyes should be, a hole for the nose, another for the mouth. All of them were bloody and ragged, the skin around them frayed and misshapen. But that wasn't the strange part. The strange part was when I noticed it had a full head of hair. It almost looked like—

"Dad?"

"Oh, yeah." I coughed awkwardly and rubbed my chin, trying to shake it off. "Sorry, I was a million miles away." I stepped a little closer, my eyes trying to inspect the costume without actually touching it. Whatever it was, it creeped me out, and I wanted nothing to do with it.

"Yeah, I think you've definitely got Cam beat with this one. It looks so…" My voice trailed off as I noticed a raven tattoo on one of the costume's legs, the ink old and faded. And then my eyes narrowed on something else. It even had freckles. And moles? Were costumes always this detailed? Something about it was just so… uncanny.

"It looks so real, doesn't it?" he exclaimed, running a hand over it. I watched him hold it up, dangling the thing in front of me, before he threw it over his shoulder and headed for his room. "I've gotta go change, but I'll see you later. Don't wait up for me."

I wasn't usually strict with Finn, but staying out late on Halloween night was never a good idea. I don't know what kids get up to these days, but my buddies and I… well, that's a story for another time.

"Hey Finn, come home at a reasonable hour, alright?"

"Yeah, yeah, I hear you!" Booted feet thumped down the hallway and disappeared into his room, and his door clicked shut. Part of me was curious what that thing would even look like on a person, but I didn't get the chance to stick around and find out, because my phone rang.

"Guinevere?"

"What happened to calling me Guin?" I could hear the annoyance crackling over the line.

"Don't play nice with me. What do you want?"

"Jer went out with the boys tonight and I really need some help with my washing machine. It's been making this weird clicking noise and—"

"Let me stop you right there." Finn's mom and I didn't talk often, but when we did, it usually ended in a yelling match full of some combination of curses and insults. So I pushed open the back door and stepped outside. I didn't want Finn hearing whatever was about to happen. "Sounds like fixing the washing machine is your husband's job, and last time I checked, I'm not that."

"Why do you have to be such an insufferable prick all the time, huh? You used to—"

"Stop." My voice was short and hard. "I used to be a lot of things before you screwed everything up, but I'm tired of dealing with you and your pathetic attempts to win me back. I know Jeremy is a lazy, idiotic, sorry excuse for a husband, but that's your fault for marrying a literal man-child."

"Jeremy is far from a man-child!" she shrieked, and I had to pull the phone away from my ear.

"He's twenty-three," I ground out. "And you're forty-five. Maybe if you weren't old enough to be his mommy—"

"You know what, I don't need this right now."

When the line went dead, I couldn't help but chuckle. Cheating on me with that idiot was one of the worst decisions she'd ever made, and it brings a smile to my face every time he proves me right. I didn't want to say I told you so. But it served her right.

By the time I got back to Finn's room and rapped my knuckles on his door, I stood there for a second before pushing it open — and realized he was already gone. With a shrug, I wandered back to my bedroom, changed into some sweats, and turned on HBO. I'd been slowly working my way through Game of Thrones, and I was looking forward to starting another season.

Sometime around three forty-five, I woke up with a start. My TV was glowing, the words Are you still watching? glaring back at me from the screen. I threw the covers off, slipped silently into my closet, and grabbed my baseball bat. What had woken me was the sound of glass shattering, and all I could think about was whether Finn had made it home or was still out. If there was an intruder in my house, I could only hope it was the latter.

Slowly, my sock-covered feet crept across the hardwood of the kitchen as I scanned my surroundings. My eyes were crusty with sleep, my whole body on edge. I felt like a live wire about to snap, the bat gripped so tight my knuckles were white. Everything looked fine until I reached Finn's room. A cold sweat broke out when I saw his door was cracked open.

I heard shuffling from inside the room, and I held my breath. I wanted to move, but my feet wouldn't obey. It was like I was paralyzed. My heart was pounding. The shuffling from inside stopped and went silent. My hand was shaking as I reached for the door, fear and adrenaline flooding through me in equal measure. My fingertips brushed the doorknob before my hand finally closed around it.

Chills raced over my arms and I faltered, my grip loosening for just a second before I slowly twisted the knob, my fingers trembling as I pushed the door open a little wider. Light spilled out onto the hardwood and I hesitated to push it the rest of the way. A strange chattering sound echoed from inside the room, and every second I stood there, it felt like it was getting louder and louder until—

The door flew open and slammed into the wall. I jerked back, a quiet gasp escaping me, and stepped into the room. Finn's entire window had been shattered. Shards of glass, bloodied and broken, littered the floor.

"Finn?" I called, my voice shaking as I picked my way through the mess.

And that's when I felt it. A strange, warm sensation as something dripped onto my shoulder, the pattering sound impossibly loud in the silence of the room. Confused, I stopped and wiped at it. The substance stained my finger red. My hand froze. My breathing stopped. And slowly… my eyes darted toward the wall, up and over the blood-stained band posters, until they finally turned toward the ceiling.

A strangled, horrified scream caught in my throat when I finally understood what I was looking at. Huddled up on the ceiling was a man. A creature? My heart hammered wildly in my chest and the urge to run became overwhelming. His eyes glowed down at me, and a sinister smirk tugged at his lips — and then he started coughing. Violently.

I clenched the bat tighter, my mind racing as I stared, dumbstruck, at the thing gazing down at me. And then it vomited a strange, gelatinous slime that fell onto my head and clung to my T-shirt like thick, blackened tar. Another scream tore past my lips as I stumbled backward and tripped over a pair of tennis shoes, landing in a heap on the floor. To my absolute horror, the man scurried across the ceiling like an oversized spider, then crawled down the walls and inched toward me. And that's when I saw it. The raven tattoo.

"Finn?" I asked, my voice wavering.

"Dad…?" The creature mocked me, its lips curling into a wicked grin.

"Impossible…" I breathed, scooting back toward the door. "H-how did you?"

"You have such nice skin, Dad. Mind if I borrow it?"

A gasp caught in my throat as I shook my head, the realization dawning on me. "The costume, it's… Finn's wearing your…" I stammered, tripping over my words before I went quiet.

"Skin," the man finished, his tongue slithering out to lick his dry, crusted lips.

"Leave him alone…" I pleaded, squinting to see him better in the dark.

A weird sound — something close to a chuckle — left his lips as he stalked closer, walking on all fours like some kind of animal. "I'm afraid your son is the perfect canvas for my skin," he drew out. "Unless…"

"Unless what?" I asked, desperate to bargain. "Anything. I'll do anything. Please, just let my son go."

The creature stopped, clearly considering my words, before it spoke again. "Unless you can find me another host. Someone young… and fresh."

My mind scrambled for some kind of solution — and then I noticed headlights shining through what used to be the window. I smirked when I realized who it was. Jeremy. I didn't know what the hell he was doing in my driveway, but I'd never been so glad to see his stupid, smug face swaggering up to my door.

"I've got just the host," I said. "Let me invite him in."

The creature held up a single finger, stopping me cold. "If this is some kind of trick, I promise you that this will be the last Halloween costume your son ever wears."

With a gulp, I nodded and scrambled to my feet. By the time I reached the front door and yanked it open, a thin sheen of sweat had collected on my forehead and my breathing was ragged and sharp. I'm sure I looked completely deranged.

"Hey, bro. You look like—"

"Jeremy, hey! You wanna come in?"

He eyed me, one brow quirking up. "Nah, man, I'm good. I'm just here to grab some mail for Guin. She's been nagging me for a month to pick it up, but I've been busy Twitch streaming, trying to get my gaming channel off the ground!"

"Yeah, um, can you just—"

"You know, I tried to tell her that just because she's had a baby, it doesn't mean she can be a lazy slob. She can pick up her own mail. In fact, I could have sworn she had the post office—"

"Jeremy," I seethed, then forced myself to calm down as an idea clicked into place. "You know what, why don't you come inside and talk about it? Maybe I can give you some advice on how to handle her. I mean, we were only married for twenty years before you ruin— I mean, came into Guin's life and rocked her world." The sarcasm in my voice was impossible to miss, but this kid was dumber than a box of rocks, and he reeked of alcohol.

"Man, you're a real one. Maybe we can finally bury the hatchet? Say, I've got a six-pack of beer in my truck. You wanna crack open a few?"

I despised alcohol. Memories of my own father flickered through my mind like an old film reel — him slumped in his recliner, buried in empty beer bottles. And right now, I was feeling better and better about my decision to offer this kid up as a sacrifice to that creature, or whatever the thing was that had taken over my son. Finneas deserved better than this.

"You know what, don't even worry about the beer. I've got some in the fridge. Let's put the past behind us." I pasted on a perfectly fake smile, doing my best to hide the anger simmering underneath.

When Jeremy finally stumbled into my living room and got comfortable on my couch, I couldn't stop the laugh that bubbled up out of me when I saw the creature skitter across the floor toward the back of the sofa.

Jeremy peered up at me, confused and clueless, and then all hell broke loose. I couldn't look away. The scene in front of me would have been almost unbelievable if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. In a matter of seconds, I watched the creature pounce on Jeremy, its skin melting off my son like thick, oozing sludge.

A gurgling scream tore out of Jeremy's mouth as he fought it off, but it was no use. The melting skin stuck to him like plaster. A mix of horror and fascination washed over me as I watched it work its way into every inch of Jeremy's body, molding to him like a glove. The skin of the costume crawled and rippled, spreading across Jeremy's body and sinking into his pores. It started slow — up his legs, climbing toward his torso, winding around his neck, and finally swallowing his face. One last scream ripped free from his lips before he went deathly silent, his body twitching once, twice, three times, and then going limp.

My eyes, wide as saucers, snapped back to my son. Finn toppled to the floor, covered in thick black slime, and then his eyes opened and he gasped, choking on it. I rushed to him, leaned him forward, patted his back. His eyes were wide and bewildered, darting around the room in a panic before he finally came back to himself.

"Dad…?" he croaked, tears glistening in his eyes, his thick blonde hair sticking up in every direction. "What… where am I?" His voice was small and confused as I wrapped him in my arms and buried my face in his hair. I didn't care that he was covered in God knows what. I just had my son back.

When my eyes finally lifted to the creature, I gave it a single nod. It raised its hand in a little wave and strolled out my front door. I didn't relax until I heard the truck pull out of my driveway, and when it finally did, it took everything I had not to break down in tears. Holding my trembling son close, I couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

Last night, my son bought a strange costume from an antique store, and this morning I found him crawling on the ceiling. But what really made me feel better was knowing that later that afternoon, Guinevere found Jeremy crawling on hers…