Almost gliding, he comes upon a large man at the door handing out wristbands. Gazing slowly upon Angels Rock Bar, Gavin breathes in deeply, fully prepared for everything the universe has prepared for him tonight. He swells with the pride of being an armor-clad warrior, on their way towards battle and certain glory. Time moves slowly around him as he surveys the crowd, chest thrust out under the enchanted fabric. In large strides, Gavin bounded onto the grounds of Power Plant Live with a newfound confidence, seemingly summoned from somewhere deep down within his soul, untapped and waiting for this exact moment to be unleashed. A faint aura emanating off the fabric, glowing in the dim moonlight as he stepped out of the car. Gazing at himself in the rearview mirror, Gavin could feel the weight of generations of Sheets there with him. Even his father once found a $20 bill on the ground while donning the magical garb. The time his great uncle, on one eventful Halloween, pulled a family’s pet hound dog from a raging house fire caused by an errant jack-o’-lantern candle the Spooky Ghost Costume somehow remaining pristine and untouched by the savage flames. How his great-great grandfather was wearing it when he first met his future wife. By the age of four or five, members of the Sheets family can perform the legends by heart, seemingly ready at a moment’s notice to reel off tales of Halloweens gone by. The stories of legend and the prestige of the Sheets Clan Spooky Ghost Costume reverberate through, filling the air of any family gathering an event. Just as his father before him, a 25-year-old man himself at the time, Gavin Sheets takes his place as the head of the family, succeeding in taking possession of the family’s heirloom and namesake: The Sheets Clan Spooky Ghost Costume. The moment where the man can look his ancestors directly in the eyes, unflinching, without fear or shame, and overflowing with the pride of the clan. Not something flimsy, like a simple lifelong dream, but the true living legacy of his family’s name.
He would play all the possible variations on a loop in his mind the feeling of achieving everything you had ever hoped and strived for. Gavin had been imagining this day for as long as he could remember. “You were born for this time of year,” his father would recite like an incantation, like clockwork as the weather began to falter. The chill that comes along with truncated days, and the way nature seems to surge with life one last gasp before the cold, dark hands of winter take hold. The October air always felt different on Gavin Sheets’ skin.