The Goalie Mask

​When I was a child on Halloween nights there was a man that walked around my neighborhood wearing a hockey goalie mask like Jason from the movie, "Friday the 13th." I first remember seeing him when I was about the age of four and his sightings continued until I was twelve. On Halloween night just before it turned dark the man wearing a hockey mask would appear out of nowhere walking down the street. If a person didn't know any better and if it wasn't Halloween, as soon as you saw him you would have run back into your house and locked the door. But everyone in the neighborhood knew the man in the hockey mask was someone from the area, but nobody knew who. I remember talking to my friends many times the day after Halloween as we tried to figure out who the man in the hockey mask was. We would go through the names of all the people that lived in the area and try to piece it together but we were never able to figure it out.

​Then when I was thirteen years old the man that stalked my neighborhood with the hockey mask on Halloween was no more. Apparently he had retired. 

Years went by and I completed University at the age of 22 and moved out of my parent's house to start my career in finance. I got married and had three kids. 

Then one night when I was in my early forties I went over to my parent's house to visit and by chance this night was Halloween. I stood in my room where I slept as a kid and looked out onto the street as the children went from house to house trick or treating. Then a man came around the corner, he was walking quickly and he was wearing a hockey mask. My mind then tripped back thirty years as I recalled watching him hiding in bushes and jumping out to scare children.  

As I stood at the window watching him I wondered if it could be the same man from 30 years ago, but the chances were unlikely. There was something very different about the man with the hockey mask that distinguished him from when I had seen him thirty years ago: this year he was trick or treating which was something he had never done before. I watched as he continued going from house to house asking for candy.

I looked at the clock and it was 8 p.m., my parents had gone to sleep and I told them I was going to stick around for a while. I stood in my bedroom with the window open so I could hear his approach as he made his way closer to my parent's house. I saw him walk up the driveway to our neighbors and hollered, "Trick or Treat" in a creepy voice. I stepped back into the shadows of my room and waited. I watched him walk up our sidewalk and step up on the front steps, then there was a pause. The doorbell rang and he grunted, "Trick or Treat."

I was sure now he was not the same man from over thirty years ago. I went to the front door and opened it, he looked at me straight in the eyes and said, "Well, I haven't seen you in almost thirty years. Did you come back home to live with your parents?"

He laughed. I couldn't believe it was the same man from over thirty years ago.

I spoke, "Is that still you from way back then. I gotta ask you. Who are you? I'm dying to know."

He responded, "I'm actually quite famous."

I watched as he slowly pulled his hand out of his pocket which revealed long razor blade fingers and he then slipped off his hockey mask to divulge his face which was completely burned to the third degree. He smiled and said, "Now, do you know who I am?"