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“Stay with your group, or you’ll face a grave situation,” he drones. “We accept cash, cards, andcryptocurrency.”
Groans and chuckles move through the line.
“I’m not funny,” he says in monotone. “I’m dead serious.”
Miles leans close to whisper. “If he’s the opening act, it’s reassuring me that the main event won’t be too bad.”
“That’s exactly what they want you to think. They lull youinto a false sense of security, and then—” I bring my free hand up to his chest to scare him. I get a fistful of pec, which I don’t regret, but he doesn’t even flinch. He just stares down at me. “It’s better when they do it.”
“Not to me.”
After a while, we’re finally allowed through the doors. They keep us in small groups of about ten, probably so we feel more isolated. Really drive home the spookiness.
The first room is a parlor filled with—I called it—creepy dolls. Some have heads that turn to watch us pass, some have red eyes that light up. One is telling us the history of the Abandoned Manor, and I’m focused on the menacing marionette when a full-sized doll lunges at us from the shadows.
I scream, plastering myself to Miles. Handholding won’t be enough for the rest of the evening. Jump-scares always get me. I’m laughing between shrieks, though. That doll’s makeup is really believable.
The next room is decked out like a fancy lounge, with drinks and plates of food set out as though it was just packed with people who have mysteriously disappeared. In the back, a man dressed in black hunches over an old piano, playing a tune that’s just off-key enough to jangle my nerves. When he turns and smiles, revealing fangs, we all scream and rush out.
The spooky factor ramps up with each room we explore, revealing the “manor’s” sordid history. The deteriorating furniture and deepening dark is almost creepier than the monsters that pop out of every corner. The ghouls become more supernatural the deeper we get into the haunted house, and I’ve lost the storyline entirely—I’m going from one scream to the next, laughing at myself in between.
Every step of the way, I cling tight to Miles. It’s for self-preservation, I tell myself. A horde of vampires open their coffins, and I press my face to his chest. Self-preservation.We escape a particularly evil set of clowns with my arm wrapped around his waist and my hand on his very nice stomach? That, too, is self-preservation.
We reach a hallway that’s in near-total darkness. Our group stumbles along, everyone alternately laughing and startling at nothing. Sometimes the suspense alone is enough to get a scream going. We’re funneled through a long hallway, and by the time the light of a fake moon shines on us, we’re deep in a pretend cornfield.
My breathing stalls. Then speeds. A logical voice tries to argue that this cornfield is just as fake as every other scene in the haunted house, but it’s drowned out by my brain’s fear center. And that part’s telling me to run.
I guess I make some kind of sound because Miles nuzzles his face against my ear.
“I’ve got you.”
I can barely hear him over the spooky soundtrack of crows and owls they’ve got washing over us.
“Maybe that’s all that will be in here—crows and owls?” My voice is thin and shaky, but I have to talk it out. Otherwise, I’ll start remembering all my worst, most vivid nightmares of running scared through fields just like this. “I could beat up a bird if it came down to it. Maybe not a guy in a bird suit, but I think if?—”
Every last thought in my head shatters. There’s a scarecrow in here. He’s hanging limp from a stake, andobviouslyhis fabric face and straw hair aren’t real. His lopsided hat is genuinely stupid. It doesn’t matter. It’s my childhood nightmares made real.
He lifts his head.
“I can’t do this.” I spin out of Miles’s arms and try to backtrack the way we came, but “ghouls” block the path.
“Can I please get out?”
They don’t say anything, just lift their hands and point behind me. This ride only goes one way.
My breathing’s coming too quickly now, my heart lodged in my throat as I pat down the fake cornstalks all around us. This is the community center. There’s got to be another exit somewhere. Or a way past this scene and into the regular activities rooms that must still be here.
A scarecrow springs out of the cornstalks right next to me, and I scream. It’s only a dummy, but that doesn’t soften the jagged edge of fear that’s slicing me in half.
This time, no self-conscious laughter follows the fright. I’m running on nothing but terror. I spin straight into someone’s arms and scream again.
It’s Miles. He’s holding me, soothing me, but it’s too late for that. Just past him, the scarecrow has climbed down from his stake. He’s moving toward us.
I need to getout.
Miles pulls me away, urging me through the room so we can complete the maze of haunts and be done already. I turn away from the scarecrow and follow Miles’s lead—I don’t need more nightmare fuel.
Something runs along my arm. I glance down, and my stomach turns to ice.
