The Scare Mare...Revisited

I always enjoyed going to haunted houses and Halloween carnivals. Shoot, I wouldn't mind going trick-or-treating if they wouldn't think I needed to be committed or something. This time of year brings back an especially fond memory of visiting my first haunted house when I was in about the seventh grade. Of course, back in the day, the only way we were allowed to go anywhere like that was with the church youth group. I had just become old enough to go with my brother and sister to all of the fun activities and this visit to the Scare Mare in southern Ohio was my first chance to prove that I was all grown up. Church was all about getting everyone involved, so, I invited all of my neighbors to go along. There were several kids that were my age and we were having a really good time. We were standing in line behind my sister and her friends, and, I'm sure she would say that we were pestering her to death. I remember it being very cold and waiting for what seemed like hours before we were close to the door. Somehow, my sister got separated from her group and was forced into going in her kid sister's group. And we were glad she did. What sticks out more in my mind than anything was The Zebra Room. It was painted in black and white stripes and had a pulsating strobe light that made it nearly impossible to see. Nothing happened until this Merlin-looking character suddenly appeared from the wall and had blood drooling down the side of his face. He was headed straight for me; I screamed and jumped on my sister's back. Unfortunately, so did everyone else and my sister now had three or four screaming and crying adolescents on her back. Thankfully, we moved onto the next areas and had people jumping out at us and folks pretending to chop up body parts. It was a little gory and gross. Our dispositions were improving some until it came to the slide. You couldn't go back and there wasn't any stairs; you had to slide down about thirty feet into total darkness. Every one of us balked at going down that slide. My sister was tired of waiting and down she went into the blackness. I heard a muffled scream and a thump and that was it. People behind us were beginning to bunch up and we were getting a little upset. I went down the slide and was met with strong hands helping me up. Nobody was tying to scare you at that point; but, my friends didn't know that. All of them eventually slid down the slide and all behaved except the very last one. My young friend came down that slide kicking, screaming and slugging at anything he could reach. He landed a punch on the guy that was helping him up and ran straight to my sister and hid under her coat. He was scared to death and was crying like a new born baby. Thankfully, the slide was at the end of the haunted tour and we were back outside in just a few moments. My friend finally recovered enough to peek out from under my sister's coat and looked around at all of us somewhat embarrassed. Nobody said anything because we had all been scared at one point or another. My sister got caught up with her friends who remarked about her going through The Scare Mare with a bunch of kids. They were all in the tenth grade and hadn't been scared at all. My sister looked over at her friends and said this: I was surprised, my sister and her friends weren't scared at all. We had a really good time. Isn't that the truth? After all, that's what sisters do!

Happy Halloween

Have a spooky and safe day!

The Insane Haunted Barn Of Terror...Part II

The scariest part of the Insane Haunted Barn of Terror was the actual trip getting to the barn. Victims would arrive at our church parking lot and pay their fees and then wait to be transported in the church vans back a long gravel road until they reached the haunted barn. We had blackened the windows of the vans so people couldn't have a look outside to see where they were going. The drivers of the vans were decked out in scary costumes and were forbidden to speak to anyone. Once they got out of town and back on the gravel road they turned the lights off and rode with just their parking lights. It was pitch black. Upon arriving at the barn victims were given the usual instructions about not hitting anyone and attempting to run away screaming somewhere in the woods. They were then taken through the Insane Haunted Barn of Terror where all sorts of bad and unusual things fell upon them. I had fun running the chainsaw and making the little kids scream. Shoot, my mom even came through the barn and I scared her too. I'm not sure how much money we raised for the needy family. I guess the best part about the whole experience is the memory itself. Whenever I go back to my hometown for a reunion conversation always tends to lean towards the Insane Haunted Barn of Terror and how much fun we had. If you need someone to run the chainsaw, just look me up.

The Insane Haunted Barn Of Terror...Part I

One year a few weeks before Halloween my church youth group decided that we were going to put on a haunted house to try and raise money for a needy family. After several failed attempts at locating a structure where we could pursue our aforementioned tasks, it was decided that the only suitable place was inside a barn. This wasn’t one of those small buildings like they have around where I live that they like to call a barn. This was a real barn with a corn crib, stables, hay mounds, a stripping room and a place big enough that you park your combine on the inside if you wanted too. Every night after basketball practice, my friends, Barbie and Anita, and I would go over to the barn and help with the decorating. We would try to help anyway; actually, we didn’t really do a lot of anything. We couldn’t move. Our young muscles were so sore from going through basketball drills and conditioning that the rest of the group let us do as little as possible. We had a section that you had to crawl through and a section with a chain saw running. We had slimy things that you had to walk through. You had to be careful there, after all, we were in a barn and you never knew what you might step in. I played two parts in the barn. I ran the chain saw on one side and then I would run around to the other side and do my wicked witch scream. I scared lots of people but that wasn’t the scariest part…