I was on the toilet when I saw it.
Scrolling through TikTok to fill the void in my stomach, I stumbled across this new video where adults were dressing up and going out trick-or-treating for themselves, because, and I quote, “Kids are gatekeeping Halloween! Normalize adults having fun too!”
You would’ve thought the man recording was preaching the gospel or some sort of philosophical concept the way he acted. Comments seemed to agree with him, so, naturally, my brain agreed as well.
I commented: #NormalizeAdultoween.
In just a few minutes, the comment got flooded with likes and replies. All of the replies were so supportive and made me feel like my voice mattered. For once in my life I was actually a part of something.
I had a purpose.
When I scrolled down to a comment that said they were having a meet-up, I wanted in. I had no plans for tonight anyway, plus my job let us have a day off for the holiday, so I wiped my butt in a haste then looked around my house for DIY costume ideas.
I ended up settling on Tyler Durden from Fight Club. The man was my childhood idol with his spiky hair, infamous red leather jacket, and unlimited confidence. It was fairly easy to put together since I already had the leather jacket and a shit ton of gel to spike my black hair.
After dressing and eating some frijoles con queso, I was ready to go.
The Adultoween movement was scheduled to meet at 7:32pm in a park in Hollywood. For my safety and that of the people involved, I won’t reveal specifics, but it was a relatively nice neighborhood, and about a thirty minute drive from my not so nice neighborhood in Inglewood.
When I arrived, I made sure to park my janky Honda Accord with mismatched door panels about a block from the park. Couldn’t risk having that thing associated with me. I shut off the engine and hopped off.
Palm trees lined the sidewalk outside the park, Halloween decor dangling from trunk to trunk and swaying with the breeze. Dressed up kids skipped up and down the sidewalk, clutching buckets full of candy. Even the homeless people were in the Halloween spirit. Stickers and decor adorned their loaded grocery carts.
As I entered the park, an elderly woman dressed in a Miraculous Ladybug costume greeted me. Before I could even think up a response, she grabbed my arm and ushered me across the field to meet with the rest of the group.
I expected to at least see someone my age, twenty, but none of them seemed to be younger than forty. The leader, who recorded the TikTok video that morning, was standing atop a park bench, waving his hands around as if giving the most important speech of his life. He wore a baby shark costume, the shark tail wagging as he made those exaggerated gestures.
His confidence was admirable. I found myself thinking, How cool would it be to have a father like that.
I joined the crowd midway into his speech.
“…need to understand!” he yelled, causing some birds to flock away from a nearby tree. “They will no longer look down on us! This is a free country!”
The crowd cheered; I joined in like a sheep. They each had gray hair and dressed in costumes ranging from One Piece’s Luffy to Superman. The leader pointed at random people in the crowd to make his message sink in, lingering on me.
“You,” he said, “come on up here, brotha.”
“I… Uh… Me?”
“Yes, you. Come on up here.”
The crowd parted, making a path to the wooden bench. As I hopped onto the bench, the leader pulled me into a side hug like a drunk uncle at a family get together.
“This young man is a huge milestone for our movement. The voice of the youth matters!” The crowd cheered in reply, warming me up a little. “Voice your opinions on the matter, my brotha. What is it you want?”
“I… uh. I don’t…” I looked down at old, warm, and loving faces that reminded me faintly of my parents. “I want this,” I murmured.
“Atta boy! Haters will say we peaked in highschool or we’re too old to have fun. To that I say this brothas and sistas, why should age determine whether or not we are allowed to enjoy life? It’s just a number!”
Some random homeless dude, who I thought was someone dressed up in a costume, joined in. “Yeah! I’ve been saying that! I could’ve used y’all at my court hearing.”
The Adultoween crowd looked at him, hesitant to cheer.
“Brothas and Sistas, kindly direct your attention towards me. We will march door-to-door, demanding they treat us fairly. We will get our candy. Our voice will be heard. We will be seen!” He hopped down, leading us outside the park and down the sidewalk while cheering “Normalize adults having fun!” repeatedly.
The first few mansions up in the Hollywood hills immediately turned us away; having ten or so adults in costumes knocking on your door and cutting in front of kids would likely deter anyone. But we continued up the sloping, winding streets, ringing bells until it was rush hour. Younger trick-or-treaters and their parents crowded the sidewalks, all having the same brilliant idea to knock on the nicer looking houses for better treats.
The night went on and the Adultoween group slowly went home, satisfied with the few candy we did get (by stealing) and saying they had work in the morning or back pain from too much walking. Soon enough the leader and I were the only ones left. He was about to leave before I stopped him.
“Y-You think you could, uh, you know, take me to one more house?” I asked.
“Really devoted to the movement, eh?”
“Yeah, s-something like that.”
“Brotha, I wish I could, but my kids have school in the morning. Gotta make sure they get some sleep.”
“O-Oh… That’s totally fine.”
“I’ll tell ya what.” He pulled out a business card and handed it to me. “Give me a call sometime. Besides Adultoween, I start up many movements. Like AdultPotterHeads, DisneyAdults, and I’m also a mechanic.”
“Cool, cool, I’ll give you some calls! …Or, I mean, a call, like one. Or maybe it can be a ‘from time to time’ sort of thing. Or–”
I looked up from the card, realizing he left. I was alone again. Well, not entirely—my stomach’s been talking to me ever since I ate those damn frijoles.
As it grumbled, I decided I would knock on a few more houses to make my time spent up here in the Hollywood hills worth it. But it had to be quick. If I were to shit my pants that would be no bueno. The sidewalks bustled with trick-or-treaters. They would notice for sure.
Eating candy made it worse. My behind was a shaken up soda can ready to burst.
I pushed past younger trick-or-treaters, making my way to the next mansion. It was beige colored with floor-to-ceiling windows glaring at me like scolding, fatherly eyes. The driveway split off to the front door and continued down to a ten car garage that looked like a mouth ready to devour trick-or-treaters and nothing but red cars inside resembling a tongue. Something about the sheer size of the mansion was scarier than the actual Halloween decorations all over the driveway and lawn.
Scarecrows, carved pumpkins, and huge inflatable skeletons spooked little kids as they walked by. In their moment of shock, I cut in front of them then knocked on the door.
The door cracked open and I recognized the man who answered. He was a famous Hollywood writer, one that wrote and directed many of my favorite movies and shows. I couldn’t believe I was seeing him in the flesh.
Dressed in a Spiderman costume that was tight around his body in all the wrong places, the man put out a weird-looking bowl for me to pick candy from.
“Little too old to be trick-or-treating, aren’t ya?” He chuckled.
My mouth flopped open, but I couldn’t find any appropriate words to say. I wanted to tell him I loved his work. He was probably tired of hearing that and I wanted to stand out to him.
“I… I’m, uh, I’m not that old, sir. I’m twenty.” Shit, why’d I say that of all things. “No, I mean, we should normalize adults having fun.”
“Uh-huh…” he said. “Well, Twenty, you mind grabbing a candy? My arm’s getting sore here.”
Was that a joke? Shit, laugh, laugh now. I let out an incredibly forced laugh. “I see what you did there. You called me Twenty because I said ‘I’m twenty.’ Good one!”
He looked at me how people in a cinema would look at those long ass trailers before their movie, arm still outstretched.
“Sorry.” I snapped out of it, reaching to grab an off brand chocolate bar from the bowl. “Thanks…” I stared for a little too long before speaking up again. “By the way, I love your—”
“See ya soon, maybe,” he interrupted, slamming the door shut. The fanning air smacked me across the face. I blew it. I had a chance to talk with the creator of my favorite show and I blew it.
With a sigh, I trudged back to the sidewalk, a sudden weight slouching my shoulders. It was time to call it a night after that mess. As I made my clumsy way down his street, my stomach growled again. This time it was from hunger. So, I peeled the wrapping off the chocolate bar he gave me. It was a heat sealed wrapper with spelling errors on the nutrition label. Odd, I thought, it’s probably a homemade brand or some shit. The chocolate covering was thick in some places and thin in others as if spread carelessly and left to dry.
My hungry ass took a bite nonetheless.
It tasted like cardboard covered in chocolate and needed to be chewed on for about a minute. My stomach seemed to know something was up the second I swallowed it, rumbling and turning and saying whatever I ate was not edible. I hunched over by some bushes outside a neighboring mansion, shoving a finger down my throat, gagging and gushing out spit. My eyes watered up. Nothing came out. I practically shoved my whole fist down there, but instead my vision began to ripple.
All of a sudden my sense of depth was off.
I focused on a bush and everything surrounding it was pushed miles away. Things I didn’t focus on ran away from me. Even though they were just mansions and trees that didn’t belong to me, I wanted them to come back so badly because I didn’t know what I did wrong. Chasing after them was no use; the distance only grew.
My vision rippled and spun, then it stopped. All of a sudden my field of view increased like something straight out of Call of Duty. I could damn near see the edge of a tree behind me. And something levitating beside it.
I turned around, nearly shitting myself. It was a ghost. A whole group of them. They turned to look at me collectively as if I had called out to them in some way.
They glimmered like glow sticks, some red, others yellow or green. The yellow and green ones looked more human-like. The ghosts shrouded in red auras resembled demons with glares that paralyzed me. I couldn’t move. My skin felt as if it were boiling. Sweat clustered beneath my red leather jacket, the collar coiling around my neck and making it harder to breathe.
Collectively, they hovered towards me then circled me. I stumbled backwards, my back pressing against the thorn bush. I was cornered. Corned and needing to shit so badly. Before the fear could make me poop, my stomach rumbled louder than anytime prior, sending me to my knees. Hot stomach acid clawed its way up my throat. Then thick and clumpy liquid spewed out of my mouth. I aimed for the bushes, but it got everywhere.
That’s when the ghosts spoke.
“Disgusting,” one said.
“He can actually see us,” another voice whispered.
“Is he… Like the rest of them?” another voice asked.
“This guy looks like a pussy. I doubt it.”
I looked up at the voice who said that. A yellow aura surrounded the ghost. He had a sort of rugged, construction worker charm to him: A stubble beard, a buzzed head, and thick hair all over his arms and chest like a bear. He looked at me as if I were gonna be a mere inconvenience to his night, like a drunk friend he’d have to escort home after getting carried away with liquor.
There was no malice in any of the yellow or green ghosts’ eyes, just a look of surprise and disgust. The red ones seemed suddenly repelled by me or simply uninterested. They hovered away.
“Bobby,” a curly haired ghost said to the buzz haired ghost looking down on me, “you think he ate the–”
“Look at him. Of course,” Bobby replied. Turning to look at me, he said, “Try your best not to fart.”
Him saying that only reminded me of the feeling I was suppressing. I let a wet one rip, my buttcheeks jiggling as the drawnout gas escaped. When I let it all out, my anus retracted, creating this sort of vortex that caused Bobby and his friend’s bodies to ripple.
Like toilet water swirling when flushed, they got sucked into my butt.
I felt an ice cold feeling in my behind. My bare ass was exposed to the environment. Turning back, I saw two ghosts were attached to the opening like genies. They loomed overhead, looking like stands from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. I quickly pulled my pants back up.
How the fuck did they come down? And why am I cold?
The burning sensation vanished, replaced with an uncomfortable chill. I now found myself trying to remove the ghosts. I swatted at them, but my hand phased through their bodies and chilled as it did so.
The remaining ghosts looked at me with shell-shocked eyes. They let out gasps as I turned to look at them and hovered away quickly. They seemed more scared of me than I was of them.
“Wha-What the hell just…”
“Hell would be better than being attached to your ass,” said Bobby from over my shoulder.
“I’m…” I honestly didn’t know what to say or ask first. How did my ass become a genie lamp? I thought, What the hell did I eat?
I turned back, looking at Bobby’s friend. There was a green aura around him. He scrunched up his frizzy, tousled hair with dramatic facial expressions, attempting to bring the curl back to it. The ghost’s every move looked deliberate, as if he expected a camera to appear from anywhere at any time and was determined to catch them off guard instead.
“Why are… How are you guys in my ass?” I asked, a little too loudly.
A mother passing by covered her son’s ears, looking at me with disdainful eyes and shaking her head. As she ushered him to the sidewalk across the street, I picked up on her faint whisper, “Think back to that man if you ever think of doing drugs.”
“Oh fuck off, lady,” said Bobby, trying to chase after her. He recoiled back after five or so feet, as if he were leashed to my butt. “Drugs? Can you believe that?”
“Guys,” I said, “what’s going on?”
“The living boils everything down to drugs or the house settling, sons of bitches,” he continued talking over my frail voice.
“What did you expect? Everyone in Hollywood has drugs on their mind,” said the other ghost.
“You would know,” said Bobby. I noticed needle marks in the other ghost’s translucent forearm.
“Okay?” The other ghost looked offended. “That’s why you look like a caveman with your protruding ass brows.”
“Say that again, you crop top wearing fuck,” said Bobby.
“Say what again?”
“Fuck you. Your name really suits you, you know? Casper, the pussy of the ghost world.”
“And like pussy I drive grown men wild.” Casper winked.
Bobby’s eyebrows furrowed. He shoved Casper, sending a gust of cold air rushing past me. Casper grasped his chest as if he’d been shot like in those old movies.
“You’re mad,” Casper murmured.
“I’m not mad. I’m pissed off.”
“Guys?” I said, “I’m still here.”
“Yeah, yeah we see you,” said Bobby.
“Smell you too,” Casper added.
“H-How are you guys in my ass?”
Again another passing mother covered her child’s ears, looking at me with disappointed eyes. Bobby sighed. “Take us somewhere less crowded, you ‘crackhead’. Offense intended, Casper.”
“Offense received, asshole, “ Casper replied.
We walked down the winding streets. House lights and trick-or-treaters were becoming less frequent as the night went on. Ghosts, on the other hand, became more frequent. There were a shit ton of them, hovering to and from and going about their regular business of, I assumed, haunting and spooking the living. I was wrong though. Most of them looked desperate for attention. Some green ghosts frantically waved at passersby with frowns as if in denial. The red ones just looked like douchebags. They would swat at people, tousling hairs, or blow littered trash their way.
Bobby and Casper chattered behind me the entire way—something about ‘Hollywood writers’ and ‘needing a plan’, I don’t know. I was more focused on the questions racing in my mind. How will I detach them? Will they be with me forever? What the hell did I eat?
Soon enough we reached the street where I had parked. There was no sign of my janky Honda. If it were there it would’ve stood out like a sore thumb among the newer cars.
“Shit,” I murmured. “Shit, shit, shit.”
“Shit what?” asked Bobby.
“My-My car… Someone stole it.”
“I’m sure it’s around here somewhere. You hardly looked,” said Bobby, matter-of-factly.
“I don’t need to look. I parked it right fucking there, I know I did.”
“Where’s your keys? Use the car remote thingy,” said Casper.
“My car didn’t come with one.”
“What kind of car doesn’t come with one?” said Casper with a giggle in his tone.
“Mine,” I said flatly.
“Well,” drawled Casper. “You sure you didn’t, I don’t know, park it elsewhere?”
“No. It’s gone. This kind of shit always happens to me. Secure one second then gone the next. Just fucking gone.”
“It’s a car,” said Casper, chuckling. “You’ll get another. Have a little optimism.” He tried to nudge me, but ended up phasing through me, swishing my jacket as if a gust of wind had blown.
“Look how much good that’s done me.” I pointed at them, then at the spot where I knew damn well I parked my car. “I try to have a little optimism, just an incy-wincy bit, and life snatches it the fuck away.”
I sat down clumsily on the curb where my car once was, burying my face in my knees.
“Boo-fucking-hoo, your life sucks, so did ours.”
“So does ours,” Casper corrected. “We’re stuck in his ass.”
Bobby continued, “No one cares, kid, trust me. The faster you learn to suck it up, the better.”
He made me feel shitty for being sad or even complaining. “I’m…”
“You’re stupid,” said Bobby. “That’s all there is to it. You left your car unattended and ate something you shouldn’t have. Now we’re easier targets for those uncreative Hollywood writers.”
“I’m… I’m sorry.” I had no clue what the hell he meant by uncreative Hollywood writers, but Bobby had a scolding, father-like voice that made me be sorry whether I felt sorry or not.
“Sorry and stupid. Fuckin hell.” Bobby facepalmed. “We’ll fix you, kid, don’t worry.”
“H-How?”
“I don’t know, we’ll, uh, throw in another adjective. Sorry, stupid, and fixed.”
“Read the dictionary, dumbass, that wouldn’t work,” said Casper.
“Yeah, well, fuck you too.”
“What did you mean by easier targets, Bobby?” I asked, my face still buried in my knees.
“Since we’re stuck in your ass, they’ll kidnap you and–”
“Bobby…” Casper interrupted. “Look.”
Kidnap me? What? In my peripheral vision, Bobby and Casper were staring off at something with widened eyes.
“Let’s go,” Bobby whispered. “Now.”
I looked up, following their gaze to see a white van parked in the corner. Two silhouetted figures were sitting behind the wheel and though I couldn’t make out any features, I knew they were staring at us.
There was an airbrushed logo on the side panel of the van. A logo of two men filming a cartoon ghost that was running away. Underneath the painting were the words: Ghostbusters 2.0
“Son, get your ass up, let’s go.”
Son? My heart melted, as if hugged by warm, fatherly arms. The way he said it made me feel cared about and seen in a way I’ve never been cared about or seen before. “Did… Did you call me son?” I asked.
“Son, daughter, alien, whatever the fuck you kids use nowadays. It’s a figure of speech, cancel me for all I care.”
Casper gave him a disdainful side eye.
“Oh,” I said, lowering my head.
“No, no, I mean, I did mean to call you that. Look, uhh, think of this as a GTA mission or a magical quest or whatever the fuck. Take the ghosts to safety! Can we depend on you, son?”
I smiled and nodded, completely forgetting about my stolen car.
“Great, get your ass up.”