‘Goosebumps’ Star Kathryn Long Reveals Where the Haunted Mask Has Been for the 3 Decades Since the Episode Aired (Exclusive)

Kathryn Long played Carly Beth Caldwell in the Haunted Mask episodes of the 1995 TV series ‘Goosebumps.’ The actress turned theater director/producer, 44, tells PEOPLE about the making of the special episode and the mementos she walked away with.

Fox; Courtesy of Kathryn Long

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Kathryn Long played Carly Beth Caldwell in the Haunted Mask episode of the 1995 TV series Goosebumps

The actress turned theater director/producer, 44, tells PEOPLE about the making of the special episode and the mementos she walked away with

Long is now parting with those mementos, eager to pass them on to a devoted fan as part of Propstore’s Summer Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction

Kathryn Long never knew how much Goosebumps would mean to so many people.

Long was around 10 years old when she was cast as Carly Beth Caldwell in the 1995 TV series, based off the beloved children’s book series by R.L. Stine. When she learned that she got the role and that she’d be acting out the iconic “Haunted Mask” storyline, Long was thrilled to be a part of it.

Speaking with PEOPLE ahead of a Propstore auction of mementos, including the Haunted Mask itself, Long shares how special it was to see the involved props come together for her and her costars.

“There was a lot of excitement for sure on set. And I think just because it was the ‘90s and there wasn’t CGI and as many special effects, all the stuff was made by artists. So the graphic artists on set were doing all of our prosthetics and stuff, which was really an amazing process. I remember we all thought that was really cool, seeing all the masks and the prosthetics and being a part of that,” Long explains.

The making of the mask required a facial mold, which was the first time Long experienced something like that as a young actress. She recalls, “The making of the mask was quite the process. There are photos of the making of the mask out there. They had to fully cast my face, so they did a mold of my entire face, which means that you just have two straws to breathe out of through your nose.”

Courtesy of Kathryn Long

“They put a mold over your entire face so you’re blacked out. It’s a little claustrophobic. They don’t warn you how bad it’s going to be until you’re in there. I just breathed and got through it,” she continues. “Knowing that they were making a cast of my face and then seeing it later was really a fun experience for sure, knowing the mask was made for my face. And they made different versions! They made ones that I was able to pull on and off during some scenes, and then they made ones that were extra skin-tight for the scenes where it had to be glued down and very realistic-looking.”

Long recalls there being seven different versions of the bask altogether. Of where they ended up, she explains, “I know that [producer] Steve Levitan got one. I don’t know what happened to the others, but on the last day, I remember them saying, ‘Hey, you should keep these as a memory of the experience.’ I guess because they had seven, they didn’t feel the need to keep them all.”

The actress walked away with her mask, the bust of Carly Beth that was made for the episode, her script and the corresponding Goosebumps book.

“They all just got stored in a perfect plastic bag in my dad’s garage for 30 years. So they’ve been perfectly preserved for a very long time,” she shares.

Courtesy of Propstore

Long is parting with Carly Beth’s Haunted Mask in Propstore’s upcoming $10 million Summer Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction, from Aug. 26 - 29. She was inspired to make the move after attending a recent fan convention and understanding what these keepsakes mean to the devotees who bring them home.

Consigned directly from the actress’s personal collection, it is the first time Long is sharing the keepsakes she quietly held onto from the role that defined a generation of childhood nightmares. The Haunted Mask is expected to sell for between $20,000 and $40,000, while Long’s annotated script is estimated at $2,000 to $4,000. The screen-matched bust of Carly Beth is also available, estimated to sell for between $15,000 and $30,000.

Long explains how she got the motivation to part with the items, which she admits, “I thought I’d have forever.”

“I did not think there would ever be any desire or urge to part with them. But when I got the phone call for the anniversary of Goosebumps this year, I was invited to go and appear at some conventions, which I had never done before. At the very first one I went to in Houston, the turnout was just way bigger than I could have ever expected. I had no clue that the fan base was so large and that all the millennials were just really out there in full force for this. And that it meant so much to them,” she shares.

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Courtesy of Propstore

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The actress continues, “Just hearing them talk about their collectible editions and how much money and time they’d put into saving for their collectibles and how valuable it was to them personally, I thought I bet this would mean so much more to someone to have this in their collection than for it to just be sitting in my dad’s garage. And I thought, ‘Wow, that could be so meaningful for someone to have a part of that history of Goosebumps.’ And so I thought, ‘This, now, is a good time to part with it.’ ”

Art Andrews, Director of Consignments, Propstore, tells PEOPLE, “The Haunted Mask has become one of the enduring images of the series and of 1990s children’s horror more broadly. Pieces with that combination of recognizability, provenance and cultural significance are precisely the type of material collectors tend to prize, and we expect this to be a centerpiece for any serious Goosebumps collection.”

“There is something fundamentally different about acquiring an original production artifact. These objects were not manufactured as collectibles. They were created as part of the filmmaking process and, in many cases, were never expected to survive beyond the production,” Andrews continues.

He concludes, “When a collector acquires one today, they become the next custodian in that object’s history. That carries both the excitement of owning something directly connected to a favorite film or television series and, particularly with historically important pieces, a responsibility to preserve it.”

Courtesy of Kathryn Long

Though she’s no longer acting, Long is excited to get back into the Goosebumps world and let fans know about her life today.

“I’m still in showbiz — on the other side of it. I direct and produce theater in Washington State. It’s been a great transition for me. I stepped away from film at the end of my teens and still continued performing arts in a different way. It’s always been very much a part of who I am, and it will not be,” she says.

Long adds, “It’s super exciting to look back on all the benefits I got from being in the film industry as a kid. I had a really positive experience with it. I know that’s not always the case, but it definitely gave me a lot of good life lessons and skills to bring forward into my career.”

Propstore’s Summer Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction runs from Aug 26 to 29 and is open for registration.

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