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!!!