The Secret World: Halloween Candy

The Secret World: Halloween Candy anthology
After reviewing all of the materials collected by envoy Shirakawa, the council's department of cryptozoology has hypothesized that code name “Sam” is one of the aos sí of Irish legend. Though it is impossible for the council to confirm this without examining the entity, the creature’s behavior is consistent with that of previous sightings of aos sí in all Templar, Illuminati, and Dragon records available to the council. While “Sam” may not pose a threat to high ranking agents, it should be noted that the creature is easily agitated, and may be provoked to violence by individuals disregarding the folk traditions associated with Halloween. Among the traditions most likely to provoke violence are.
1.	Blowing out a lit jack-o-lantern before midnight on Halloween or destroying a jack-o-lantern, (this is regarded by aos sí as a sign of disrespect by mortals.)
2.	Failing to make an offering to spirts or visitors on Halloween. This is considered a breach of the pack between humans and Tuatha Dé Danann, the council currently honors this treaty even though the Tuatha Dé Danann have not been seen for over 7,000 years.
3.	Failing to don a costume when seeking offerings. Samhain is a sacred night for the aos sí and is meant only for those touched by the other world. Agents that cannot utilize anima are advised to “disguise” themselves when conducting operations on Samhain in order to prevent agitating wandering aos sí (“Sam” in particular.)
While “Sam” may be prone to violence, the creature is not considered hostile unless provoked, for the most part “Sam” appears to be a creature out of time. He appears to be more curious then malevolent, when “Sam” is provoked to violence he appears to utilize sharp objects such as razor blades and broken glass as opposed to any magical weapons, normal fire arms however have proven to be ineffective against “Sam” as he appears to have remarkable regenerative capabilities. If an agent encounters Sam in the field, it is advised that they reframe from aggravating him and to make an offering to the creature in the form of candy (IMPORTANT: Do not under any circumstances use fruit, vegetables, dental hygiene products, currency, or Christian evangelization materials as offerings.) Many questions remain about the nature of the cryptid code named “Sam” however more data is required before the department of cryptozoology can deduce anything further.

Afraid of Yellow:
Dear Envoy Shirakawa,
Please allow me to introduce myself, my name is Shizuku Hazuki, I manage a internet café outside of Tokyo that is owned by your former “Employer” Daimon Kiyota. I recently came across your request for information while browsing my twitter feed a week ago. I have encountered the creature you described though it was under strange circumstances, I am not sure if this is the kind of information you are looking for but I will recount the event the best I can in the hopes that it might be of some use.
            It was during October 2012, I’m pretty sure it was Halloween, as I remember being dressed in a costume (Usagi Tsukino, but that may have been the year before) and so was everyone else on the train. For the most part it had been a pretty boring night, I had gone to a party downtown, entered a costume contest (lost but still had fun), and gotten pretty drunk. Since I was still a little tipsy, I made the mistake of getting on the Yamanote Line and was now surrounded by drunken foreigners. Among the revelers though, there was one who stood out in particular, a tall slender man in a yellow robe and pallid mask who was not so much participating in the party as watching it. I took a seat across from him and tried my best to start a conversation in English (my English was and still is terrible). To my great surprise, he responded in Japanese, asking what we were celebrating. I did my best to explain Halloween to him as I understood it (I am sure there is a video of it somewhere on the internet) before asking why he had come to Japan. He said only that he was here on business.
            As the train pulled into the station, he asked if he could walk me home, I was intrigued and still a little drunk, so ignoring my better judgment I agreed. As we walked I figured that I must have had more to drink than I thought, as the world seem to bend around me and the homes around us started to seem…unfamiliar. I asked my new friend to tell me some more about himself, and he told me about his family and his co-workers a pair of women named Cassilda and Camilla, whom had called him to Japan. The more he spoke the more things seemed to change, the street turned from asphalt to stone, I could hear waves on a shore that I was positive wasn’t there, and I swore that I could see a second moon in the sky.
            We reached my home about midnight, and feeling a little bold I said, “Halloween is over, time to take off your mask.” My friend responded “I wear no Mask.” It was only then that I realized I was no longer in Tokyo, I was no longer in Japan or even on earth, The city I was in was completely foreign to me deserted save for the stranger and I, as I fell back in terror, the man seemed to rise up off the ground as fog rolled in around us. The pallid mask, he wore broke apart and was pulled into his face which was now a writhing mass of tentacles and as his thin bone like finger reached out for me I screamed “Please not on me!” When he touched me, I felt myself-begin to fall, from where I cannot say, but that is when I saw it. The creature you described, hopping from one mass of floating rock to another dragging a burlap sack behind it, I saw it for only a second before the darkness vanished and I hit the ground outside my house. I saw no trace of your creature or my “friend” from the train. I hoped that it was only a nightmare but then as I picked myself up, I cut myself on something sharp, a shard of porcelain from a broken mask.
            I am not sure if this helps, but I hope you find the creature you are looking for.
Kind regards
Shizuku Hazuki
Null pointer café
Tokyo

End of the Harvest:
Hi Yuuko,
My name is Ronelle Cassini, a mutual friend at the council told me about your project and gave me your email. I have seen “Sam” on a few different occasions but it’s always been at the same place. The last time I saw him was last Halloween during my annual trip upstate to see my family. I know it sounds weird, that I would see a monster at a family reunion, but please hear me out on this as it may be useful to you.
           My sister and I were driving up to a cabin our family has in the woods in upstate New York to celebrate Halloween with our family. I usually dread these trips as I almost always have a fight with my mom during these kinds of family gatherings, my mom is very devout and has never fully accepted that I chose to lead a more secular modern life. My sister (Angela) who is about 5 years younger than me, leads the same secular life I do though she is spared the same abuse( and was chosen as the sacrament that year to boot!), I think it's probably because she still lives at home and my mom figures she will “grow out of” the secular world. Anyway, on our way up I was trying to explain to Angela what being the sacrament entailed and I was getting frustrated because it looked like she wasn't paying attention (her eyes were glued to her phone). Needing a break from driving and to stop for gas, I pulled into a gas station on the side of the road. I went inside to pay and when I came back out, a man in a suit was pounding on my car window, screaming about witches and babbling about god's wrath, the little can of mace I keep on my keychain was enough to deter him, but not before damning me to hell and insisting I was lesbian. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little rattled, you expect those kinds of things in the Deep South but not in New York (even if it is upstate). Angela was also ok though I’m fairly sure she provoked the incident (even though she denies it to this day).
We arrived at the cabin a little after sunset, and after unloading the goat (don’t judge me it’s delicious), we started up to the trail to the ceremony site (a clearing in the woods). At this point I was already rehearsing the traditional mother daughter argument in my head (and was not paying close attention to much of anything else), but I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were being followed, a few times I thought I heard a twig snap, but I figured it's only Angela whom I thought was close behind me. When I arrived, I found mom and Aunt Jean preparing the unguent, and after being lectured about the kind of goat that I brought (apparently not bring a live goat is the reason I don’t have a Coven of my own) I noticed that Angela was not behind me anymore. It quickly dawned on the rest of the congregation that the sacrament was missing, but before we could panic something drop from the trees. When we went to see what it was, I recognized it as the man from the gas station. Angela joined us shortly after, apparently the creep had followed us and had tried to take Angela (had he known what she was I doubt he would have tried, but you never know with those types.) For man who as actively yelling about witches earlier in the day he seemed quite shocked at what he was seeing and was starting to scream and you can’t help but be a little offended when someone sees you naked and start screaming.  Regardless Angela was a wonderful sacrament that year and she had brought as a fine sacrifice to open the gate.
Here is the part you might find useful Yuuko. Each time we have ever opened the gate between worlds, the first creature through is the “Sam” you described, he usually doesn’t stay long, he stops only long enough to collect some of the candy my grandmother brings with her, before hurrying off into the woods. Where he goes I am not sure, but he must find another gate somewhere as I have never seen him outside of the Sabbath.
Hope this helps, best wishes
Ronelle

The Washington  road incident:
The following is a transcription of Sheriff Helen Bannerman's account of the Washington Road incident that took place in Irvington New York and was recorded via cell phone:
Hey,
This Doc Green said you folks in the white uniforms were looking for a little guy in Orange pajamas right? I ain't seen him myself but about a year before the fog rolled in, I read about a case down in Irvington New York. I don’t have the particulars in front of me but I will try and recount the story the best I can.
Anyway about October of last year (I think it was last year 2011, fogs messed with my sense of time) there was this teacher at some school out in the sticks of upstate New York, I don’t recall his name but the picture that came with the file made him look like one of those real intellectual types you know. Tall, real skinny, tweed jacket, and NPR tote bag you know the type. He was coming home from this party in town when his car got a flat, when they found his phone the battery was drained so they figured he was walking back to a gas station a couple of miles up the road from where they found his car. This part is where things start stepping outside my jurisdiction, about a mile from where they found his car they found the guys shoe, another few hundred feet they find his glasses and part of a tooth.
Now I am not one of those CSI types, but based on what was in the case I would say, something spooked him pretty bad and he took off running and after a few hundred feet he tripped over those lanky legs of his and landed face first on the road. That’s not the weird part though, he apparently made it back the gas station, and the clerk says he saw him, blood coming out of his mouth bagging on the windows. The clerk comes out to see what all the racket is about and he says he sees a guy on a horse come thundering into the gas station swinging a sword and laughing all crazy like. The clerk ducks behind the counter and hopes no one sees him, now the teacher takes off towards this old bridge up the street and the horse guy rides off after him. About 15 minutes later, the clerk hears someone screaming like their heads getting cut off or something (the police would have find the teacher's body in the morning), that’s when the little guy, in the orange pajamas showed up. I don’t think he was connected to any of the horse shenanigans though as the clerk said he was coming from the other direction, didn’t say anything just walked into the store filled his sack with snickers and left like nothing was out the ordinary. At first I thought maybe he was a trick or treater wandered away from his group, but this all took place around 11:00pm. I hadn’t given this a second thought, till Doc Green came around here, asking about it on your behalf. Anyways good luck and hope this helps.
The Carnival:
The night came, the birthday party of his wife had passed. Gin Synrio sighed to himself as he sat atop a dilapidated and pumpkin covered picnic table in the Thibodeaux's carnival ground. A carnival of delights, made just for their family... and to lure in the creature known as "Sam".

The jinn glanced down to his wristwatch as the time struck a minute before midnight. He'd lean down to the table next to a jack-o-lantern and would blow out the candle. After such a slight, a howling wind started to blow. The gates to the carnival swung open in front of Gin, revealing a little boyish figure.

"It seems I've... broken a rule." Gin curled his lips into a cruel smile as the creature known as Sam leered forward to him. The game had begun. Sam didn't like when people broke his rules - especially people who blew out the candles of his prized jack-o-lanterns before the midnight hour had passed.

What was the man to do, though, when he had the little creature in his sights? Was Gin to fight the little boy and destroy him? Capture him? Soothe him? What was this creature to him - or rather, to the Council of Venice? Just another log in the archives to be dusted like all the rest of the magical creatures out there, the man thought to himself.

The raven haired jinn looked down to the little boyish creature, noting his disfigured pumpkin mask and ratty pajamas. Sam did the same. The boy knew a human wasn't standing before him. He seemed to be infuriated that he was tricked at a time like this! Instead of treated...

Out of vengeance, the little boy started to raise hell by slathering the grounds beneath them in what looked to be blood. The smell grew awful - and hit Gin with surprise - only to pass out at the copious amounts of blood on the ground, tables, and tents around him.

Sam was pleased with the results of the jinn fainting. Served him right to trick another supernatural creature. He gave a childish laugh and disappeared from the carnival. "Trick r treat!"

The thing we saw in the woods

Dear Envoy Shirakawa,
My primary employer recently brought your request for information to my attention and I felt it was prudent that I contact you directly. Before I start I would like to apologize for waiting so long to contact you my employer has me advising a well-known presidential candidate on preternatural matters and the United States cabal relations and she has kept me on a relatively short leash for the last few months. I suppose I should start with introducing myself though, my name is Jackson Miller, I am a alumni of Innsmouth Academy and one of the founding members of the League of Monster Slayers. My current employer should be able to confirm my identity but if you need further proof you can check the ledger in the tree house in Kingsmouth my name should be number three on the first page.
I have encountered the creature you call “Sam” during the Halloween of 1984, with two other league members/friends, William Dexter and Mike Dougherty (Bill and Mike). The events of that Halloween are well documented in the tree houses notebooks and would go on to become a particular popular story with future generations of Slayers. However I am not sure how accurate the accounts in the notebook are (Mike would swear to this day that he didn’t have a asthma attack near the end though I am positive he did), so I will attempt to recount the events that happened that night as best I can.
Bill had planned an ambitious rout for us that year, we were not only going to visit every house in Kingsmouth, but every house on the island. He planned to accomplish this by having each of the Slayers start on a different street of Arkham avenue and then circle the block before meeting back up at the end of elm street and hitting the remain houses by the docks. This is tried and true route passed down from Mike's older brother and we could usually start around 6:30 and finish around 8:30. But that year Bill wanted to hit every house on the island, so we started at 4:30 (just after school let out) and finished around 6:30 just as it was getting dark out. So we loaded our loot up onto our bikes and began the long ride up Solomon road to Sasqua pond, and that’s where we met the creature you call Sam. We found him trying to trick or treat at the old black house, at first we just ignored him but after going to a couple of the same houses he just kind of fell in with us.
I still remember Bill asking him, “So what are you supposed to be,” and how he just tilted his head and kept following us up towards Red's Bait Shop. Then mike chimed in with “Maybe he is retarded”, this caused Bill to hit mike in the arm and shoot back with “Don't call people retard, butt munch,” Mike shot back “Don't call people butt munch, Ass goblin”(as you can see 11 year old boys are a classy bunch.) After punching each other in the arm for few minutes we arrived at reds only to find the shop was closed(Red usually keeps the shop open during halloween and gives away surplus) and this is when Bill got his big idea of the night, “Why don't we hit up the Franklin Mansion, it's only a mile a or two up the road”. Before continuing on I should explain a little bit about the Franklin Mansion, depending on who you ask, the Franklin Mansion is either the layer of a notorious old witch, that eats kids before trapping their souls in the body of a cat or the only home the island that gives out full size candy bars. I was already pretty tired, and mike wasn't keen on the idea of carrying 20 lbs of candy up Blue Mountain, but Bill had gotten that look in his eye that said he wasn't going back home until he saw what was at the Mansion. Before either Mike or I could raise any objections, Bill had already taken off on his Bike, Sam was following, though I am not sure if it was out of curiosity or if he knew what we were about to the encounter.
It took about 45 minutes for us to make it up the mountainside, but things didn't start getting out of hand until we got to the fork at windigo way, when sam took a left instead of a right. Bill (for some reason I still don't understand to this day) went after him, we road after Bill but lost Sam in the process, What we did find though was a group teenagers from Innsmouth. They were drunk or maybe high, but they saw us and naturally things went south from there. I can still remember how he seemed to tower over us and the mocking tone in his voice, “What do we have here? Awful Late to be out trick or treating ain't it boys?” Another one came up behind us and pushing Bill and knocking Bill’s mask off, “thats a lot a candy for 3 little girls like you,” the other one said as he circled around us, “Hey candy ass, you want some candy!” he called out to a half naked girl giggling on the hood of his car. “Why don't you 3 drop your purses and you can run back to mommy” the first one said as he tried to grab Bills bag, Bill responded by spitting in his face and saying, “Go fuck yourself dick licker.” This went over about as well as you would expect, he grabbed him by his shirt and took a switchblade out his coat pocket. Before things went any further I dropped my bag, picked up a rock and beamed him in the side of the head, all three of us took off in the opposite direction as fast as we could. Not 30 seconds later, I could hear their car behind us, we went off the main road in the woods east of the mansion, thinking this would deter them, and for a few minutes it did, then they got out and started chasing us. This is when Mike started having an asthma attack, he started breathing funny, he dropped his sack and fell off his bike, and started gasping for his inhaler, I skidded to a stop and Bill jump off his bike and started back to help, but we were two late. Mike was already pinned up against a tree, and soon i felt a arm lock around my neck, and herd Bill tell some to get the fuck off him, even though I was struggling to get free, I can still remember the terror I felt when I saw him stick that switch blade in mike's mouth. That's when I heard it, the sound of wind moving through the leaves accompanied by an insect like clicking, and before I knew what happened a blur had knocked the teen to the ground. I looked over at it only saw it briefly, some kind of moth, bat, bird thing, it's three slimy tongues pulling his head into what I think was its mouth. Moments later i heard something screaming as Sam fell from the trees on the other teen, stabbing him with something, as the girl looked on in terror. I didn't stay to see what happened next, I grabbed my bike and road as fast as I could, trying to block the crunching sound of the moth thing eating the one teen and the wet sucking noise of what ever sam was stabbing the other with.
    When I finally made it to the edge of the woods I found Bill and Mike, mike was still recovering from his attack and Bill was looking as defeated as I ever saw him. Then out of the woods came Sam, covered in blood, his burlap mask ripped, and dragging behind him our candy! Underneath the mask his skin was orange and had a gourd like texture to it, this made his head look like a pumpkin. For a few moments I thought that maybe he was a familiar from the academy but he was to aware for that, if anything he reminded me more of an alien than a monster. We were all to shocked to do anything other than stare as he dropped the pillow case full of candy at our feet and then continue on to the mansion. I think we must have felt some kind of weird loyalty to Sam after having traveled all this way with him, else we wouldn't have followed him to the mansion.
When we arrived, we were greeted by Mrs. Franklin, her arms folded and a cigarette resting between her fingers and a stern look on her face. “Can I help you?” she said, we could only mutter “trick or treat” in response, “Trick or Treat ended at 8:00pm, didnt you see the sheriff's notice?” Mike's mouth fell open at the mention of the notice fearing that we had come all this way for nothing, Bill could only got out a “but”, before she continued “Or maybe you're not here for trick or treat at all, maybe you have come to soap the windows, maybe I should call the police, wait here.” She closed the door and disappeared momentarily, Mike attempted to run, only to have Bill grabe him by the shoulder just as Mrs. Franklin reappeared, holding a cardboard box, a sly grin on her face, out of the box she pulled 4 full sized snickers and dropped one into each our bags, “Happy Halloween” she said as the door closed behind her. Sam was completely unphased by the whole ordeal, he simply picked up his sack and walked to the Moon Bog. That was the last time we ever saw him, I would only go trick or treating 2 more years after that. But the tale of our encounter with Sam would live on in Slayer lore for decades to come. I am not sure if this has been helpful or not but that is everything I remember of the cryptid called Sam.


Best of luck Envoy and Happy Halloween
Jackson Miller
Preternatural Policy Advisor
Hillary for America