Haunt

Jackie Sends You Backy - A Delilah Story

Weekend One - Friday Night

September 16, 2022

POV: Seven Wonders Park

Makeup started at 2:00 sharp in the afternoon.

Give or take, there were 412 costumed screamsters to paint and wig to resemble their assigned horror roles by the 6:30 p.m. lineup for the parade, and Jackie had – give or take - 23 makeup artists working for her. Realistically, this meant that every person who walked through that door had about fifteen minutes to sit their asses down and have their horror makeup applied quickly, effectively, and accurately. This was impossible on opening night. In Jackie's experience, it was usually Week Four that all her makeup artists mastered the routine. New makeup artists took twenty or thirty minutes on each look and needed to make corrections before sending their completed screamsters back out of the warehouse.

Jackie took no shit from anyone, not the makeup artists, not the house managers or the in-costume leads, not the twenty-odd yellow-shirted junior managers running around with their heads up their asses, and most certainly not the screamsters.

In ordinary life, Jackie considered herself to be a pretty nice woman. Her husband called her Butterbean, and the neighborhood scouts knew she always bought their fundraiser junk. Her kids' friends thought of her as "the cool mom." But oh lordy, in September and October each year, she turned feral, turned like Dr. Jekyll after a strong martini, and kept control over this makeup assembly line with an electrical fury that ran from the blazing blue of her eyes to the tips of her platinum-dyed hair. She ruled with an iron fist backed up by her whole 275 pounds.

She was giving the final "okay" to a growing line of supposedly finished screamsters, their makeup artists standing anxiously beside them, and she had just sent the thirteenth one back to the chair. While she had to remind herself that Week One makeup was always challenging, it was hard not to say, "Fifty bucks goes to the first person who gets their fucking makeup right on the first try!" She did not say it because she did not have fifty bucks to give.

"Vampires get prosthetic foreheads," she shouted to the room for what had to be the fifth time, "and I do not care what costuming said about hoods! And I don't care if the girls don't like them! All vampires get prosthetic foreheads!"

The next couple in the line of screamsters and artists tentatively approached for her approval. The young woman, meant to be a zombie, was painted too brown. "No," Jackie said to the makeup artist. "Here's where you went wrong." Jackie pointed with her stubby pencil at the wide-eyed woman done up in zombie tones. "Her skin tone is rosy; it makes the yellow too dark. Hit her with some green to even it out. We want rotting flesh, not petrified wood. Put more blood on the head. The tissue paper is showing on that gash. Hit those three things, and you're good to go. Next!"

Next came Nathan, one of the younger makeup artists and one of the few men in the department. He had wide puppy-dog eyes and a defensive attitude. He was punctual and could do good makeup, but he ignored instructions. "No," said Jackie, barely glancing at Nathan's young ghost, who sported a lovely black eye. "That's not ghost makeup. Follow the book."

"He's a street urchin," Nathan replied. "I thought an urchin would have bruises."

"He's a ghost; ghosts don't bruise, and you're not a screenwriter. Follow the book."

The screamster ghost-boy himself dared to say, "I think it looks terrific."

Nathan bit out, "You said to let our creativity shine."

Jackie snapped, "Next," and motioned for Nathan and his ghost to get the hell out of her face.

Behind her, she heard two girls bitching that their Swampocalypse makeup should be sexier and a vampire griping about looking too blue. A lot of these little shits would try to alter their makeup in the locker rooms – by God, if she caught any of them at that, she'd send them back to the chairs and dock their pay for the wasted time.