Merry Halloween (Part 3): Some of my Favorite Moments from HHN

So here is part 3 of my Halloween series.  You know the drill.  If you haven't read part 1 & 2. . . .yada, yada, yada.


Now on with the show!

You have heard me mention Halloween Horror Nights (HHN) in the first part, and if you follow me on Facebook, you can see hundreds of pictures from the event on my page, so I will just quickly sum it up for you.    Every year, Universal Studios Orlando holds an event called HHN.  It goes from the last weekend of September all the way through Halloween.  It's a pretty safe bet that you will see my wife Linda and me there just about every weekend because it truly is JUST THAT MUCH FUN!!!!  They are now on their 21st year of doing it, and they really do go all out to make it top notch horror and scares for you and your whole family.

(Soapbox Alert)

It is such a horrific event, that Universal really doesn't recommend anyone under 13 from attending the event and makes it quite clear on all their ads, but every year, I get to see those idiotic parents that insist on dragging their small kids to the event because they think that they will be fine.  Usually they aren't fine, and the kid has therapy to look forward to in the future. I have seen kids in strollers being pushed into the houses and I always am shocked at just how stupid people can be.  I willing to bet that there have been cases where the parents have complained to, and probably threatened to sue, Universal because their kid got scared too bad.  These are probably the same people that would go to an X rated movie and complain about the nudity.  I don't ever blame the "monsters" for doing their job, I blame the parents for being that stupid and feel that they deserve to be up all night with a scared kid that won't be able to sleep for weeks!

(Climbs down)

Being that Linda and I have been going for the past six years on an average of 5-6 times per year, I have been able to have a lot of standout moments that make me love the event even more and more each year.  Some involve the houses, the people we took, and, of course, the scares that were gotten. The event is different each and every year, so you really do get a different experience each and every time you go.  The standard for the past six years has been 8 haunted houses and 6 scare zones.  The houses have ranged from campy and funny, to downright horrific, from gory and gross to supernatural, and just about anything in between you could conjure up.  In fact, this year they have a house that it actually snows in and you can see your breath as you walk through it.  I know that doesn't sound that amazing to the northerners, but to us Floridians, that's the closest I'm going to come to seeing snow.  It's the details that amaze me and I have gotten to see some of the best that haunted attractions get to offer. 

So in no particular order, these are a few of the things that have stood out in my mind as my favorite moments over the past six years of HHN.

#1.  The first time I ever felt bad.

  Amazingly, this event happened just last weekend, but deserves already to be on my list because it was the very first time that I have EVER felt bad at HHN.  Those that know me know that if you go to HHN with me, I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure you get the most bang out of your dollar.  You will see everything, experience everything, and get the living crap scared out of you.  It's what the event is for, and I will even participate in doing some scaring as the night progresses.  I've had some wonderful scares on the people that have went with us.  Just understand, you are NEVER safe when I'm around. 

One of my favorite things to do at HHN, is getting to take "newbies", people that have never gone before.  The ones that really have no idea what they are in for and have no clue on what to expect once we enter through those gates.  Most have had some small experience with a haunted house, but they were usually simplistic and low budget and really didn't scare them.  It was just some kid wearing a mask too big for his face and jumping out screaming at them.  Well Universal isn't like that in the least.  HELLO!!!!  They ARE a movie studio!!!!!

So last weekend, we found ourselves getting to take two new victims for HHN to chew up and spit out.  It was a married couple and the husband was looking forward to it, but the wife was a little more nervous about the event.  I would like to be sympathetic towards the nervous ones, but something in my DNA will not let me.  I'm not going to stand there and say, "Oh.  It's going to be fine.  There is nothing to be afraid of."  NOPE!  I'm going to stand there and say, "You are SOOOO dead.  The monsters won't kill you. . . they'll just rough you up a little bit.  Be afraid. . . . .BE VERY AFRAID!!!"   That's me in a nutshell.  No sympathy for the scared. 

We made it to the front gate and were waiting for the event to open.  Keep in mind, it was still daylight out. I told her that I will keep her name out of this, so from now on I will just call her Hael.  Well Hael was already starting to get super nervous because of all the build up that Linda and me had been doing about the event.  So when the gates were opened and we went through, I'm pretty sure Hael would have gladly turned and ran the other way.  We had already planned to head counter clockwise through the houses and so we set our plan in motion and headed towards the first house, The Forsaken.  Well the only problem for Hael, is that we had to walk through two scare zones on the way to the first house, "7", based on the seven deadly sins and Grown Evil, a forest gone "batty".  We plowed our way through the first one, and Hael pretty much just lowered her head and grabbed Linda and made it as quickly as she could through it.  We came out the other side and she was already showing signs of panic, which of course I feed off of.  She then looked up and saw the next foggy scare zone looming in front of her and asked if we had to go through it.  I laughed and said, "YEP. HEHEHEHEHEHEE.", remember, I don't have mercy on this kind of thing.  She let out a bit of a groan mixed with fear, depression, and panic, but on we walked.  We made it into the scare zone and the creatures were doing their job well.  We knew a short cut to get over to the first house, so we veered out halfway through the scare zone to head that way.  Hael was grasping her husband like he was a life jacket in the middle of the ocean and I of course found this hysterical, but then the next thing that happened actually made me feel bad for Hael.  Yes, that's right, the all mighty Scott "King of all Scares" actually felt bad for her.  Here's what happened.

We were walking to the first house and we were passing under a walkway.  There were columns on each side of the walkway and I decided that it would be funny to come around one of the columns and scare Hael as she walked through, after all, it was HHN and it's all about the fear.  So I timed it perfectly, came around that column right as she was walking through, and let out a snarl from the pits of Hell.  Wellllll.. . . . . . . .

You know when a kid is playing and having fun, but then runs their head into something hard?  They have this face transformation that goes from pure laughter to tears in slow motion.  It looks like some kind of weird seizure.  This is the reaction I got from Hael.  She let out this laugh, then her face did a slow motion change through all the emotions between laughing and crying.  Happy, shock, confusion, denial, fear, terror, hand to the face, then crying all in a matter of 5 seconds.  If you could have seen my face, it went from happy to "Oh Crap!" in the same 5 seconds.  I felt horrible!!!!  But worse, I felt horrible that I felt horrible! This was so unlike me, but seeing her standing there crying was too much for my hard cruel heart to take.  So what did I do to fix the situation?  I screamed ahead to Linda and when she turned around I pointed at Hael and pushed her off on Linda.   WHEW!!!!!  Problem solved.  Linda helped Hael calm down and we had a good night, even though Hael wouldn't step foot in another scare zone.  I felt bad for the first time and now have a new story to tell about HHN.

#2.  The Smells of HHN.

Universal goes all out to make their houses as realistic as they possibly can and this includes using smells to further immerse you into the scene.  This could range from dirt, food, dead plants, burning flesh, baby powder, to any number of scents.  Two stand out in my mind.

The first year I got to take Linda, there was a house called Psychoscarapy.  The premise was that an insane clown, Jack, broke free from his cell at Shady Brook's insane asylum and now led a riot throughout the asylum.  You would make your way through the building passing through cells, offices, and hallways while being attacked by the inmates, but the room that will forever be remembered most, was the room we now just call the "poop" room.  You entered the bathroom of the asylum and there were three stalls both on the left and on the right.  I will try not to be too graphic for those with weak stomachs, so I will just say that there was a brown substance smeared all over the place in this scene.  By the time you were able to take in the scene,  the smell would hit you.  I know that this wasn't the real thing, but I can only say that if I had ever stuck my face in a used diaper, this is all I can imagine it would be like.  It was a smell you could taste!  So as you walked through this scene gagging, you couldn't stop thinking that you were surrounded with poop.  Then to make matters worse, the third stall down on the right had a realistic dummy crouching over the toilet with a great pushing face, while sound effects of turds plopping in the water and then water would squirt out and hit you as you walked by.  When Linda and I walked out of that house, the first words out of both of our mouths were, "Did you smell that room?"  THAT'S how you know it was a great scene!!!  We will never forget that.

The second took place three years ago.  The name of the house was "Leave it to Cleaver" and the premise was that there is a meat packing company in Carey, Ohio.  They had figured out a way to have and endless supply of meat by using local transients and travelers for their "special" type of meat.  You would progress through the factory witnessing all the different stages of processing the "meat".  We were in the house with a friend of mine, and being that we had been through this house a couple time before she had been, we made sure to point out some of the cool scenes in this house.  One of the scenes was a hole that was dumping un-used pieces of "meat" into a large pile on the floor.  The visual of that scene was intense, but they took it one step further by adding a smell to it.  I can't really describe the smell but I will say, it smelled exactly like you would imagine a huge pile of intestines and chunks of flesh would smell like piled up on the floor.  We pointed that scene out to our friend, and being that it was kind of dark in that scene, she bent over to get a closer look at what the pile was.  I yelled out to her that it was intestines and guts and then the smell hit her and we discovered that she has a weak stomach.  She immediately begins to dry heave which causes Linda and me to burst out laughing but to also take a few steps back because we don't want to get puked on.  We hurry up and got her out of that room, but for the rest of the house, we would take a few steps and hear her dry heave.  It was hysterical!!!  "Hey Semi.  You still smell it?"  "***Bwak*** Shut up or I'm going to puke!!!!"   Got to love the smells.

#3.  Linda Scares

One of the finest and best memories that I have from HHN, is when my dear wife Linda gets the ever loving crap scared out of her.  That might sound mean, but it truly is the reason we are there. . . . TO GET SCARED!!!!!  Here are two of my favorites:

The first happened in a house called Psychoscarapy: Home for the Holidays.  In case you are wondering, yes, it does tie into the other Psychoscarapy house from the year before it.  This time, the inmates went out for a Christmas Activity and they overtook the van driver and after crashing into a house, they spread their Christmas cheer with the family that was living inside.  So you made your way through the house and got to see the demise of the family throughout.  They you walked outside and into the shed/workshop area in the backyard.  (Keep in mind that this was all inside a sound stage and they had the air down in the 50's to give you the impression that it was really winter)  Upon entering the workshop, you would walk past a lawn mower that was in the process of giving one of the family members a haircut, wet spray included, and then you had to walk around this post to make your way out of this scene.  WELL. . . .There was an inmate standing on the other side of the post as we came around it and he was crouching down.  Neither one of us saw him.  Linda was in front of me and the inmate just slowly stood up.  No screaming, yelling, or quick movements, he just stood up.  Linda suddenly noticed him and did something that she had never done before, nor have ever done since.  She collapsed!!!!  Not all of a sudden, it was more like someone was taking her bones out of her body from the top of her head down to her feet slowly.  It was truly a weird thing to watch standing behind her.  She let out this little gasp/scream and then became dead weight.  I noticed her going down so I grabbed her arms to see if I could help, but that didn't help.  She was going down no matter what.  I started to laugh because it truly was funny to watch and when she finally snapped out of it, she let me help her up and we finished the house.  That was the only time I have ever seen her just shut down from fear, but really do look forward to it happening again one day. 

Now my all time favorite moment took place at HHN 18.  The name of the house was Doomsday and it was based off the movie of the same name.  One thing you have to understand is that Universal just doesn't build a haunted house and then send you in, they build a entire facade in the front of the houses so you can be even further welcomed into the theme of the house.  This house was based on the whole post-apocalyptic theme where the survivors would do anything to survive, including killing you.

Well the facade before you even got into this house was a huge steel wall with the letters R.I.P. paint on it.  There was a doorway in the wall and once you went through this doorway, you had to hang to the right to walk the other 50 feet or so to the entrance of the house itself.  In this large open area, there was a burned out car on the left and a dumpster or something like that on the right.  You would walk between those two things as you entered the house.

We ended up getting luck as we went to this house.  There was a couple about 30 feet in front of us and not a soul behind us.  This is lucky to say the least, because usually it's just a continuous conga line of people going through the houses.  We watched that couple go through the doorway and immediately, a guy started a chainsaw and went after them sending them running towards the entrance of the house.  I thought in my head, "Crap!  We just saw that scare so we aren't going to get it."  As we walked through the doorway, the chainsaw guy was walking back to his spot behind the wall and me and him caught eyes.  I gave him a little nod and he nodded back at me.

Let me say that Linda is always in front of me during HHN.  I usually have my hands on her shoulders and help lead her through the houses.  I hadn't put my hands on her yet because we weren't in the house yet, so when me and him nodded at each other, I stopped walking behind her and he started walking behind her.  He was tall like me, so she just assumed that I was still behind her.  She took about 10 more steps and then wanted to say something to me so she slowly looked up over her right shoulder to speak to me and at the same time the guy slowly leaned down towards her and then pulled the cord starting the chainsaw.  LINDA FREAKED!!!!!!

She let out this scream that was like no other that I had ever heard before.  If you were able to read scream, it would have said, "Oh dear!!!  Where did you come from my fine young man.  I hope you don't mind if I poop myself and then run do you?"  She took off to her left towards that burned out car.  As soon as she got to the car, another guy jumped from in front of the car and whacked the hood of the car with a bat.  Well this next scream said, "Goodness me!  This large gentleman here is angry at this car and is hitting it with a bat.  I had better run the other way to stay away from him."  She pinballed to the right towards the dumpster and as you might guess, there was another guy there waiting for her.  He jumped out and once again her scream rang out and it said, "Golly gee willikers!!!!  These chaps are aggressive.  It might be best if I just stop here, look for my idiotic husband, and then grab on to him like a leech in a stream."  She turned around to find me, but I was standing there laughing so hard by what I just saw happen.  They all backed away from her and as the chainsaw guy was heading back to his spot, we high fived each other.  Linda just looked at me like she had been through Hell, and then it dawned on her, we hadn't even went in the house yet!!!!!  I walked up to her and we entered the house where we immediately ran into that couple we saw outside when we were coming in.  They weren't moving and they told us to go ahead because they were leaving.  That left Linda and me in the house all by ourselves and that didn't turn out to be too much fun for Linda that time because EVERYONE got her.  I couldn't even stay up with her because she ran through that house sounding like a car alarm.  When she finally made it out of the house, she just turned back and looked at me and said, "You crucified me in that house!!!"  to which I gladly laughed, "YEP!!!"  It will truly be hard to ever beat that one.

In closing this rather long blog, I will say that all those are my favorite things and I have many others that I just didn't have time to write about due to space.  I will say though that my absolute FAVORITE thing about HHN is the time I get to spend with my wife Linda.  She is a trooper and she didn't know what to expect the first time she walked through the doors at HHN 16, but she saw the excitement on my face and let herself get caught up in it.  There is no one I would rather go with and every year I look forward to the event knowing that I will get to spend it with her.  I like taking people to the event with me, but I love taking Linda and it would NEVER be the same without her.  She is my favorite thing about HHN!!!!   PERIOD!!!!

SMILE!!!

Merry Halloween (Part 2) Unleashing My Own Terror

(This is Part 2!!!!  Which means that if you haven't read Part 1, you need to follow directions better.  I bet you are that type of person that ends up with 6 left over screws from building something because you don't do it in order!!!!   Sheesh, Part 1 first, THEN Part 2!!!!!)

(If you already read Part 1. . . . . . ENJOY!!!!!  If you haven't. . . . . . .I'VE GOT MY EYES ON YOU)

Here we are once again  in the middle of a blog about my favorite time of year. . . . Halloween!  You read about my first experience with a Haunted House, and you learned many things about what type of girl I was as a child in my first haunted house. You got a bird's eye view of just how brave I could be in the face of that horror. . . . but. . . . you also got to see where it all began for me as far as loving that feeling of pure terror.  What follows next, here in part 2, is when I got the chance to become one of the monsters and be on the other end of the scare.  Trust me when I say, "I had a blast!!!!" getting people to scream, drop, run, cry, and in a few instances, pee themselves, but more on that later.  Let's start this puke that I named, Unleashing My Own Terror.

Who would have thought that the very place that originally turned me into a quivering, crying, screaming, estrogen filled little girl, would one day invite me into its halls to take part of being one of the creatures that would destroy someone else's world.  I have to thank a friend of mine at the time, Dave Martin, for he was the one that originally got me into the Haunted Schoolhouse on the opposing end.  Dave had gotten a job there for one of the seasons and on the last day the house was going to be open that year, they found themselves short a monster and no one to fill his roll.  Well Dave called me quick and asked if I could rush over and be a monster for a night.  He didn't have to ask me twice and two hours later, I was sitting in an electric chair, hair spiked straight up, glow paint on my face, and surrounded by metal bars.  It was a great scene because I also wore these metal bands around my hands that, once I hit the metal bars, a visible spark would be emitted.  So all I would have to do is act like I'm being electrocuted on the chair then when the victim (customer) would walk by me, I would lunge out of the chair with a yell and hit the bars with my hands and create the spark.  It was a very visual effect and I was able to get good scares out of that scene.  I can remember that the night FLEW by that evening and I was sad when it was over because I also knew that that was the last night of the event, so no more electric chair for me.  It really was like a drug to me and I was addicted after just one night, but I also knew that the next year, I WAS GOING TO DO IT AGAIN!!!!

Fast forward one year later and I was hired on to work for the Schoolhouse's sister, The Haunted Laboratory.  They were right next to each other and the Laboratory was even a more impressive four stories tall.  More Scares, More Fright. Come on in the Laboratory Tonight!!!  I would be remiss, though, if I didn't point out that working in a haunted house is not always fun.  Your voice gets blown out, you get tired from the hours, and you have to deal with a lot of drunk, testosterone filled idiots that make it their job to be a pain in the butt to everyone.  You will get hit occasionally and you won't scare everyone, but when you do get that "golden" scare, it really does make up for most the crappy stuff you have to deal with.  You have to be a little off to enjoy it and anyone that knows me knows that I am a little off.  I will be writing on a few of my favorite stories from that year.  Some I'm proud of and some I'm not. 

The Mausoleum

The first scene I was hired for was called the Mausoleum Scene.  This was on the first floor of the building and the first scene, which made it the final floor for the victims, because like the Schoolhouse, you started at the top and worked your way down.  The good thing about this was that they were already good and scared by the time they got to me.  The scene was pretty simple, it was a graveyard with trees, an open casket with a body in it, tombstones and skeletons scattered about, and a large mausoleum with a iron gate on it.  The victims would enter the scene and immediately get scared by a guy wearing a skull mask hiding behind the wall.  They would then turn to their right and walk diagonally past the open casket and they would see the mausoleum on their right.  The path would then make them turn right and walk in front of the mausoleum in order to get out of the scene.  Now the mausoleum was approximately 12 ft back from the path and about 3 ft lower than the path, giving it a sunken in look. There was a ramp from the door of the mausoleum that lead up to the path, but the only problem was that this ramp went from flat to real steep immediately, so I always had to be careful when I came out of there fast not to trip.

My role was to stand inside there and shake the bars screaming to be let out and then right when the people made that right turn in front of me, I would bust out of there and run right up to the path to scare the crap out of them.  It really was a great scene and I got a ton of people to either run straight out of the scene, or collapse on the floor right there until I had mercy and let them leave.  That was when it worked WELL, but I found out rather quickly, things could also go bad in that scene.

About two hours into the first night, I was in place and there was a couple that was coming through our scene.  The first guy did his job and scared them and they continued on the path towards me.  I grabbed the bars and started banging them hard screaming, "LET ME OUT!  LET ME OUT!".  I got their attention and the girl was now nervous as she clutched a little tighter to her boyfriend . . . .I knew I had them!!!!   Well they made that final right turn to go in front of me and I made my move!!!!  I slammed the gate open and bursted out of the mausoleum to seal their fate.   WELLLLLLLLL!!!!!!   Remember me saying that the ramp for me to use went from flat to steep immediately??? 

I flew out of their like a bat out of Hell, they both saw me, and the girl got that huge eye syndrome where you know it's going to be followed by a huge scream, BUT. . . . the second, I hit that ramp. . . . I tripped.  So instead of the couple getting to see their death lunging at them from the bottom of the crypt, they ended up seeing a large un-dead creature burst through the gate, proceed to pinwheel his arms as he tried to remain upright then falling on the ramp about 4 ft. from them going into a roll that dumped him somehow on his back looking straight up at them.  I can still see their looks of pity as they looked down at my very UN-scary performance.  It's a good thing I had a mask on or they would have seen just how red a human face could get from embarrassment.  I know that you are always supposed to "stay in character" when you are doing something like this, so all I could do was offer my scariest voice and say, "Well that's a first!!!"  They continued to look down at my until I grabbed the last of my zombie ego and slithered back down the ramp to my crypt hoping they would be gone by the time I turned back around.  Thank God they were, but I'm pretty sure they remembered MY scene that night and told their friends not to miss the "clumsy zombie" on the third floor.  *Sigh*

Count Spitcula

On the last night of the season, they needed someone to play Dracula up on the top floor.  I liked variety so I volunteered for the role.  It turned out to be quite the production because I didn't wear a mask in that scene.  They actually did the whole make-up thing to my face, they gave me a widows peak, white face, and blood dripping down from the corners of my mouth, and instead of wearing the normal black robe, I got to wear the iconic tuxedo that Dracula wore even down to having a large cape.  It was AWESOME!!!!  When it came down to the fangs, I figured that these bad boys would be so cool.   Certainly they were going to give me professional fangs that would look so real and scare the victims to death  . . . RIGHT????   WRONG!!!!!  They handed me a pair of those cheap plastic fangs that you can get for a quarter from a vending machine. (see above picture)  CRAP!!!!

If you have ever worn a pair of these, you should remember that as you wear them, your spit builds up.  So I was standing in my scene waiting for the house to open and I kept having my mouth fill up with spit as I waited.  I decided that I would take the fangs out and flick them against the wall to get the spit out of them.  Well after awhile, I happened to look behind me and noticed that the wall now looked like one of those cool water effect walls.  YUCK!!!!! 

The shout came that announced that we were now open.  I put my fangs in and waited behind the wall looking forward to my first scare of the evening.  I was the third scene in the house, so I had a little bit of a wait before I saw my first victim.  This scene was an attic scene where the path came into the scene and left the scene in a V pattern.  I would stand behind the wall when they entered my scene and then jump out and scare them sending them running out the other side.  I got myself pumped for my first scare as Dracula, and when the moment came, I jumped into action.  I came around that wall and let out my growl.  Thanks to the time that I had those stupid fangs in, my mouth was FULL of spit.  When I let out my growl, this HUGE wad of spit came flying out of my mouth and headed right towards the man in front of me.

Have you ever seen something in slow motion?   That is what happened to me.  I saw this wad of spit about 4 inches long and 2 inches wide slowly turn end over end as it flew out of my mouth.  I couldn't take my eyes off of it!!!!  Thank goodness the man got scared, because he looked away from me out of fear, but all I could see was this Transylvania Throat Lugee head towards him in slow motion.  It managed about 4 or 5 rotations before it landed right in the center of his shirt.  I expected him to actually feel the impact and snap back from his fear, so I knew I had to do something quickly.  I just went psycho crazy on his wife behind him so she would shove him out of that scene as quickly as possible due to fear.  I'm glad she was scared, because two seconds later, they were gone.  Whew!!!!   Count Spitula lived to see another day and that man had Vampire Spit all over his shirt.   I went back to the wall fling after that and just was very careful NOT to lean on the wall.

Now those two stories were just a couple of the funny things that happened to me while working in the house.  There are a ton of stories I could tell you of some of the scares I had, the people piles I created, and the kids I made cry, that is what made it so much fun, but I'm going to give you a break and just tell you my all time favorite scare.  This is always one of my "go to" stories if I want to get a laugh and I hope that me putting it in writing does it justice.  I will feel the pride and joy for it for the rest of my days because it was truly a magical moment.

The Ultimate Scare or  Wee Wee Wee. All the way Home



Let me set the scene for you.  I feel, this was the best scene in all the house because you were almost guaranteed a scare each and every time you attempted it because of the way the scene worked.  The costume was simple, just a cheesy mask and a black robe, but that didn't have anything to do with the scares effectiveness.

All you did was stand inside this little cage.  This part of the maze was pitch black, now when I say pitch black, I mean that you really couldn't see your hand in front of your face as you went through this area.  The path came from the right of the cage, turned right in front of the cage, then turned away from the cage, then turned right, then left and so on, and so on. 

(Now that is dedication to actually draw it)



 Now inside the cage, there was a light switch.  Once you sensed the victim was in front of the cage, you flicked the light on and let out a loud scream.  Being it was so dark, they would just about jump every time.  Men, Women, Boys, and Girls, it didn't matter, you would get ALL of them.  That's what made it such a great scene.  Then the fateful night came and I earned my badge of honor!!!

I was standing in my cage just waiting for the next group of victims to come by and I heard them coming.  I could hear a girl coming first followed by a guy, another girl, and another guy.  I got in position and waited for them to come in front of the cage.  The first girl came around the corner and I heard her saying, "What way do we go?".  There was a glowing mask embedded in the wall catty corner from me that would distract them and let me know where they were based on being able to see their shadows.  I could hear her come in front of me and I got ready to throw the switch, but right before I did, I sensed something.  I sensed that instead of turning away from the cage, she turned and started walking TOWARDS my cage.  To say excitement coursed through my veins would be an understatement.  I leaned forward and put my face/mask right against the bars of the cage and waited. . . .waited. . . . waited. . . .until I could almost feel her breath.  At the last possible second, I flicked the switch!!!!

My senses hadn't betrayed me because she was about 4 inches from my face when I let out my scream.  The first thing that happened was her eyes shot open so that she now resembled Kermit the Frog.  Here mouth flew open next followed by the most pathetic scream that I had ever heard.  It was like her body was shutting down and blowing up all at the same time.  I heard her take a huge breath and then let out with, "OH MY GOSH!!!!  OH MY GOSH!!!!  OH MY GOSH!!!!. 

Her body then decided to go into "Flight" mode and she turned and ran.  The only problem in that plan was that she was now blinded by the light I flicked on AND she was in shock so she didn't realize the path turned to the right immediately.  So this is what I heard:

"OH MY GOSH!!!  OH MY GOSH!!!!  OH MY" *BAM* (as she hit the wall)

I figured that she was either knocked back into reality or unconscious but she was in full freak out mode and continued to run.  So I heard this"

"OH MY GOSH!!!!" *BAM*  "OH MY GOSH!!!!" *BAM*  "OH MY GOSH!!!!" *BAM* 
as she proceeded to hit each and every wall on her way out of there.  It got quieter and quieter as she ran so at least she was heading in the right direction, but I think I cringed each and every time I heard that *BAM*.  . . . .  well cringed and laughed that is.

Now my manager happened to be in the back hall at the moment I scared her, so he took off to follow her to see how far she ran being that there was only one more scene, Frankenstein, left before the exit.  He came back about 10 minutes later laughing.  He told me that she never did stop running and Frankenstein didn't have a chance to scare her because she ran right through his scene.  He then told me that he watched her as she ran out the exit and when she turned around to look back for her friends, her crotch was SOAKED!!!!   He was laughing so hard and I was so happy to get the "GOLDEN SCARE" notch on my belt that evening even at the expense of turning a girl into a pug.  Hehehehehehehehe

Like I said, there are plenty more stories that I could tell, but I will just leave it at that.  Writing about it makes me miss it even more now.    Oh the good Ol' Days!!!!

SMILE!!!

Merry Halloween (Part 1) My first visit to a haunted house.

MERRY HALLOWEEN!!!!!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh. . . . My favorite time of year.  The smell of fog machines, dirt, severed body parts, blood, guts, and fear permeate my nostrils.  This is the time of year that all the freaks and monsters come out to play and the sounds of terrified people screaming, fill the night air.  This is my Christmas, Birthday, Arbor Day, All Saints Day, and Victoria Day all rolled up into one.  October. . . .my month, my season, my love. 

“What is it about October that excites you?” you might ask. (I’m just going to assume you did or the response isn’t going to make any sense and you would have to stop reading it now)  Is it the change in the weather, the leaves changing color, the smell of hot cider and pumpkin pie filling the night air, or getting to put on my favorite sweater to shelter myself from the cold?  NO!!!!!!!   I live in Florida so the weather only changes from Hottest to Hotter, our leaves don’t change color, cider gives me gas, I do like me some pumpkin pie though, and finally. . . .what in the heck is a sweater??? 

Nope, for me it’s one thing and one thing only. . . HAUNTED HOUSES!!!!! 

I am lucky enough to live a little over an hour from Universal Studio’s Halloween Horror Nights (HHN from this point forward because I’m lazy by nature).  This is their 21^st year of the event, and my wife Linda and I have gone religiously since HHN 16 and see no sign of letting up for the foreseeable future.  In fact, we kid each other that we hope our walkers will fit through the houses when it’s time for us to use them to get around.  In truth though, we aren’t kidding at all, we WILL be those old people in line. As long as I have a walker and a fresh pair of Depends, I’m going to be there.

If you are not familiar with HHN, it where Universal turns the entire park into a haunt fest with 8 haunted houses and 6 scare zones scattered around the park.  The best part about this event is that Universal doesn’t go half-way on the event, they spend top dollar to give us the best props, smells, sounds, and scares for the money.  (I don’t want this to be a commercial for HHN, but trust me when I say that if you ever get the chance to go, GO!!!!!  Look for Linda and me when you are there.  We will be the ones with the walkers and the full diapers.)

 I love haunted houses, costumes, fog, loud sounds, gross effects, and everything else that goes along with them.  The darkness, the feeling of being out of control, the heart pumping, and all the emotions that happen when you walk into that “safe” environment that soon feels like the gates of Hell have been opened and you have walked right in. 

Unfortunately, through having worked in haunted houses, I don’t get scared or startled in the houses anymore, but this doesn’t dampen my love for them and it wasn't always this way as you will now read.   I still love seeing others get scared and looking at all the props and effects that go into the house to make it what it is.  I will now go into some of my favorite moments from haunted houses that make me love them so much.  I will tell of my first visit to one, my experience of working in one, and then my favorite moment with my wife Linda at HHN (at her expense of course).  This will probably be broken up into 3 parts, so bear with me.  Part 1 will be my first visit to a haunted house.

I can remember my very first experience with a haunted house like it was yesterday.  In Ohio, where I grew up, there was a place in Akron called The Haunted Schoolhouse.   As a child, I would always see their ads in the newspaper and feel compelled to visit them.  They would have some scary picture in their ad and I just knew that that would be the coolest place on earth to visit.  (I know, call me weird)  So after years of not going, a friend of mine, Matt Kern, and I finally convinced my dad to take us.  If I was to guess our ages at the time, I would have to say somewhere between 12 and 14.  We were so excited to finally get to go and loaded into dad’s car and off we went to have the time of our lives. . . . or so we thought.

Upon pulling into the parking lot, I think both of our inner voices started to ask us just what the heck were we thinking.  This place was HUGE.  It was literally an old school that was converted into this haunted house.  Three stories of pure evil stood right in front of us daring us to come in and visit.  When we parked and climbed out of the car, the inner voices once again spoke to us and asked us once again if we REALLY wanted to do this.  We were MEN dang it and we were going to be going through it with my Dad, so we told the voices to shut up and mind their own business. 

Upon walking towards the Schoolhouse, we began to hear noises coming from the building itself.  Screams, groans, evil laughter, and creaks were blaring through the night air.  Our inner voices perked up once again and pointed out that some of those screams we were hearing were live and not taped like the other sounds.    We stuffed the voice down once again and proceeded into the lobby to purchase our passports to FUN TOWN!!!!

Of course the lobby was decorated with cheesy Halloween decorations and we found out where the scary sounds were coming from.  There was a huge speaker system blaring the creepy noises out of it.  The lobby was lit brightly and there were tons of people in line waiting to go in. There was nothing to be scared about now, just the excitement of getting to go in to our first official haunted house.  We soon figured out where to purchase the tickets and as we approached the ticket counter, the worst possible thing happened to us.  There was a WARNING sign!!!!!

Now let me state that I’m pretty sure they just put this up to keep from getting sued by someone, but this sign had a MAJOR role in how the rest of the evening went for Matt and me.  It wasn’t the entire sign that ruined it for us; it was only #2 that sealed our fates.  #2 stated that “Those with heart conditions should not enter.”  Such a broad statement right, but it was enough to catch my dad’s attention.  Let me say that I truly believe that he read WAY too much into that statement and took it ENTIRELY too serious.  It’s not like he had a bad heart, but he had recently found out that he had a slight murmur and he took it a little overboard by thinking he was going to drop dead at any second because his whole family had heart problems.  So he read that, and here is where it went downhill for us.

He turns to us and tells us that he can’t go in.  He could die of a heart attack according to that sign right in front of us. STUPID SIGN!!!!!!   He then asked us if we still wanted to go because we would now have to go through it by ourselves.  I don’t know if our inner voices got drowned out by the loud sounds being played in the lobby, but something happened to them because we both looked at each other and said that we still wanted to go.  We were teens and we were MEN!!!!!  Dad said that would be fine and he purchased our tickets and handed them to us.  We then said our goodbyes to dad and proceeded to go stand in the line to wait for our chance to enter the Schoolhouse. 

I really don’t remember how long we waited, but I do know that during this wait, the inner voice spoke up louder and pointed out the fact that we were about to go into this haunted house alone. Neither one of us could shake the voice away because our crutch, my dad, was no longer part of the equation.  We also realized though that we couldn’t chicken out now, because we had told all our friends we were going and there was no chance we were going to return home and say we were too scared to go in.  Catch 22 if you ask me.  There was no chance of winning this battle, so we chose the lesser of the two evils and continued on over he teasing we would endure from our friends.

Nerves now showed up to the party, nausea made an appearance, the sweat glands felt left out so they came too, and the inner voice just kept repeating over and over, “NOT A GOOD IDEA DUMMIES!!!  NOT A GOOD IDEA DUMMIES!!!!”  But we were too far along to turn back now.  The line got shorter and shorter for us, and we soon looked up and saw that we were going to be let in very soon. 

Now we had noticed that they were letting groups of people in, so we figured that we were at least going to be in a group of people, so there was nothing to be afraid of.  Safety in numbers right???  So the man lowered the rope and about 15 of us got let through.  There were some teens and adults in our group so all was good in the world for us.  The nerves went away, nausea went home, no more sweat, and the inner voice said, “We’re in a group!!! Yeaaaaaa  We are safe!!!”

So we all walked through the doors but all at once it hit us, we weren’t going into the house, we were climbing stairs.  Not only were we climbing stairs, but we were climbing three flights of stairs.  The house didn’t begin at the bottom floor; it began at the top floor.  That was okay though, we would just enter as a group at the top and laugh and smile our way down through the house.  Then the line stopped!!!  We were on the landing right before the last walk up the stairs to the entrance when we noticed something.  There was a guy at the top asking people how many were in their party.  Then he would let just that number in.  That's when the inner voice went nuts:

*DING DING DING DING DING DING*   *AOOGA  AOOGA  AOOGA*

*ALERT ALERT ALERT ALERT ALERT*

*All bodily functions please report to the inner voice for further instructions*

*Nerves on full alert!!!!!*    *Nausea on full alert*  *Sweat like you've never sweat before*

*Knees.  Commence shaking*  *Bladder.  Get ready for full evacuation!!!!*  

There were no adults going in with us!!!!!   There was no safety in numbers!!!!!   There was no Santa Clause, Easter Bunny, or Tooth Fairy!!!!!  There was only fear and his minions waiting for us just beyond that door!!!!!   OH MY WORD!!!!!!!     WHAT HAVE WE DONE?????   WHO IN THE WORLD CAME UP WITH THIS IDEA????  MOMMY!!!!!!!!!

We were no longer men, we were no longer teens, we were now just two scared girls trying to figure out how in the world could we run out of this Hell and never look back.  Where was my purse?  I wanted to go home!!!!!  As that all rushed through my mind, the line got shorter and shorter until we were next.  He asked us how many, and if I could have shouted 132, I would have, but the word two came out of our mouths and our fate was now sealed.  He waited and waited so the group in front of us would be way out of reach of us and then he turned to us and nodded his head and said, "Go ahead".  I'm pretty sure he knew what was going on at that moment with us, because he kind of laughed when he said it.  SICK FREAK!!!!!!

We slowly walked into the house and were blown away by the darkness.  We had to turn left immediately upon entering, and there was a long dark hallway in front of us.  I'm sure it was only like 20 feet, but it looked and felt like a mile for the both of us.  We proceeded down the hallway that ended and forced us into a U-Turn to our right.  That's when the fear took over.  We knew that death waited for us both as soon as we made that turn.  WE FROZE!!!!!  We then started the whole, "You go first."  "No, you go first." back and forth debate that two friends will do when they are trying to sacrifice the other to some cruel fate.

It was either us coming to an agreement to go together at the same time, or the guy that let us in yelling at us to get going, that forced us around that corner into the darkness that sealed our fates.  We did the whole 1,2,3, GO thing and sprinted around the corner to run face first into . . . . . . .NOTHING!!!!!   There was absolutely nothing around the corner except more darkness.  I'm not sure how it happened, but we were now holding each other tight like two lovebirds on their first date.  We quickly let each other go, then went forward and the path turned to the left where we would run into our first scene.

We stood at the opening to the scene and just stared.  It really wasn't that horrible of a scene.  It was just a tree and some hay scattered on the floor blocked off by rope.  The path led right in front of the scene and then continued off to the left into more darkness.  It was this moment that the whole fight vs. flight thingy was written about, but what they didn't tell you was that it is possible to do both.  We fought the urge to turn around and run and decided instead to make a dash for the only way out of this scene. So technically we were going to fight it by running past it. I guess we figured that if it couldn't see us, it couldn't catch us.  We did the 1,2,3 thing again and on 3 we ran as fast as we could through the scene just knowing that at any moment this creature would come from behind the tree and take one of us.  That is why I ran on the outside and let Matt stay closest to the scene.  Mama didn't raise no dummy!!!!!   We bolted through the scene and made it to the dark hallway on the other side and maybe the guy was on break, maybe we ran too fast for him, or maybe he was too busy laughing at the two hugging boys that stood staring into the scene, because nothing happened.  We stood there and wondered what had happened.  We just went through a scene and no monsters came out at us.  There was a ray of hope that just shined on us.  It was just going to be scenes with no monsters!!!!!  We were golden.  We could do this.  How stupid did we feel for being afraid of nothing?  JUST SCENES!!!!!   WHOO HOO!!!!!  So with our bravery now intact, we headed forward to take in the scenery with NO MONSTERS!!!!

The next area we came to was all dark except for a glowing skull mask across the room from us.  What cheap props we thought.  Just a stupid glowing mask staring at us from about 12 feet away.  I was leading at this point because I felt safe after that last scene.  I can remember it being so dark that when I ran into the wall in front of me, I paused for a second to figure out that I needed to turn right to leave this area.  Well as soon as I hit that wall, Matt ran into the back of me, and then it happened. That nice innocent, cheesy skull came charging at us from across the room. In that moment our testicles went up inside of us, we both grew boobs, and we both found out that our inner voices were really girls all along.  I really don't know who screamed first, but I do know that in seconds we sounded like those girls you see in old footage of the Beatles.  Plus to make the testosterone leave our bodies even quicker, we just stood there and held each other.  That's right, we didn't/couldn't move.  The skull was now a foot from our faces and all we could do was stand there hugging and screaming at the top of our lungs.  Oh how the kids in the neighborhood would have loved to seen us right then. 

Be it mercy or tired of growling at us, the skull backed away to let us leave.  I think it took us both a second to realize that we were now free, but once it hit us that we could leave that scene, we unlocked our arms from around each other and once again ran as fast as we could out of there.  I will have to admit that I had to check my pants to make sure I hadn't peed myself and much to my relief, I hadn't.  It was, however, at this moment that we knew we were in trouble. There WERE monsters in here, there wasn't just scenes, there was no one around to help us, and if that was just the first scare, we were DEAD!!!!  We just stood there in the dark and watched our tiny little lives run past us in our minds.  We had a mini board meeting right there and decided just to run as fast as we could through each and every scene from that moment on until the end.

That is exactly what we did.  We would see a scene coming up, grab each other, scream like women at a reunion, and RUN!!!!  Sometimes the monsters would get us and sometimes we would out run the monster.  It wasn't a great plan, but it was at least a plan.  I was never so excited when I came around the corner after what seemed like an eternity and saw a doorway with light.  THE EXIT!!!!   I was so happy as I turned to Matt and said, "There's the exit.  We made it!!!".  We both burst out the door only to have reality punch us dead in the face when we saw the stairs leading us down to the SECOND FLOOR!!!!!   $%#@! That was only ONE floor we just went through, WE STILL HAD TWO MORE TO GO!!!!  Inner girl voice said, "I told you this was a bad idea".  STUPID GIRL!!!!

As we walked down that flight of stairs to the second floor, I swear I heard, "DEAD GIRLS WALKING".  Upon entering the next level of fear, we decided to stick with our original plan.  Hug, scream, and run. . . . Hug, scream, and run.   About half-way through this floor, we were running through a scene and I ran smack dab into a body.  I screamed loud, but it dawned on me that this wasn't a monster.  IT WAS A HUMAN!!!!!  AN ADULT MALE!!!!  Thank you Jesus!!!!  Thank you Auntie Em!!!!  Thank you stranger in front of us!!!!!  WE WERE SAVED!!!!

I have no idea who this poor man was, but I do know that Matt and me latched on to the back of his jacket like we were grasping for a life jacket in the middle of an ocean.  We didn't ask, we didn't beg, we just grabbed on to him and held on for dear life as we went through the rest of the floor.  When we burst through the exit for this floor, we finally got a chance to introduce ourselves and beg the man to let us hang on him for the rest of the journey.  I think he could see the mixture of terror and desperation in our eyes and he told us that it was fine. So floor three came and went with more screaming and running, but we now had this man's jacket to hold on to.  I kind of feel bad for the guy, because I'm willing to bet that he was NEVER able to get the wrinkles out of the back of jacket from where we held on for dear life. 

We walked out of that house, sighed a HUGE sigh of relief that we made it, and went off to find my dad in the lobby.  I guess it was the realization that we had survived and a secret pact that we made right then and there to never speak on what happened inside, for when we found my dad and he asked us how it was, we both said. . . .

"WE HAD A BLAST!!!!" 

And the addiction had begun!!!

SMILE!!!