I Don't Do Scary

Last week I built a haunted house. No, I did not get bored and create a haunted house in my couch-less living room for Wilbur. I joined the Madison Jaycees, and their largest fundraiser is the annual haunted house they build in a park close to my house.

On Monday after work I arrived at the bare bones building in the park to find wood, props, plastic and tools spilling out of two semi-trailers. I found the man in charge of the haunted house and was promptly given the job of drilling plywood onto frames to finish the walls. I completed a few walls, helped mount them in the house and wandered through the black maze that was already feeling a bit scary. The lights were on, the pop music was blaring, everyone was talking and many of the walls were bare wood, but I could feel my heart rate increase. I don’t do scary. Even though the haunted house was far from scary, my mind was racing ahead to what it would look like, what the characters would act like and how dark each of the hallways would eventually be.

About a month earlier we had a meeting to discuss the haunted house. Jordan shared diagrams, maps, photos and internet print offs to explain exactly how people would walk through, the theme of each room, and where each character would be stationed. As he described the military lab gone bad, I had goosebumps. With every corner we turned in his description, I jumped when he mentioned a person popping out, up, in or down to scare the patrons. He chuckled at my reactions.

After the aggressive timeline for building was discussed, the volunteer sign-up sheet was passed around the table. I quickly volunteered to build every night after work and to sell tickets every night I could. Jordan noticed that I was consistently adding my name to the ticket booth space and asked me to be a ticket taker instead of seller. I asked him what that meant. He responded, “well, you’ll be in a military outfit with a gun. You have to take the patrons tickets, or security clearance as we are calling them. Remember it’s a military experimentation facility gone bad, so you need to be mean, yell at the people, scare them if you want and then eventually let them into the house. Make it fun for them.”

I responded, “fun for them? By scaring them? That sounds horrible! I’ll stick with selling tickets.”

Jordan laughed and the meeting was over.

Building the house continued on Tuesday and Wednesday after work. I painted walls and thresholds black, organized frightening costumes and props, helped to put the black roof on top of the walls and always carried a flashlight.

By the end of the night on Wednesday, I was petrified. The massive spider and body bags were in place, the doors were attached, and the house that I had navigated with ease on Monday had become a black maze of terror (for me). Let me set the scene and say that the pop music was still blasting, people were still talking through the walls and doors, but I couldn’t get out of my own head and stop myself from being scared.

When it came time to test the fog machine effect Jordan asked me to lock him in the house from the back. Everyone else was in the house with him, watching and helping to figure out the fog machines that were acting up. I gladly obliged and stood in the lighted hallway behind the house, listening to the chatter and relieved that I wasn’t standing next to the mutilated body on the surgical table with them.

After about ten minutes Jordan told me I shouldn’t be alone in the back and told me to come through and watch the fog machines do their thing. I hesitated. The haunted house was getting too scary for me, so I took two flashlights, slowly walked through the frightening maze of the white room, avoiding the splatters of blood until I found my way into the room with the rest of the crowd. Everyone laughed when I finally made it to them and then regretted the fact that no one had scared me. Within fifteen minutes, we called it a night and went home.

Thursday evening I backed out of helping at the haunted house, partly because I had a date and partly because I knew it would be too scary for me. On my date we talked about the haunted house and I described my incredible fear of everything and anything remotely scary. He told me about his obsession with horror movies.

Friday I returned to the park to work at the ticket booth. I sat in a tent at the bottom of the hill collecting eight dollars from each person and barely able to contain my desire to tell them to turn around and go home. Hundreds of people came to the house. Lots of children came to the house. I wanted them to stay at the bottom of the hill with me and keep them from being frightened, but they all came back with smiles on their faces! I put my best smile on and thanked them for the support, unable to grasp how anyone could find a haunted house to be fun.

I ventured up the hill about halfway through the night to grab myself a bottle of water. I walked past the line of people and scary ticket takers to the back of the building and the hallway that had once been lighted. I found a flashlight, took a bottle of water, found a soda for my fellow ticket seller, returned the flashlight and left the building. I turned left around the corner, carefully retracing my steps.

I jumped. I dropped the soda. I screamed.

It was a dad. He was wearing loafers, glasses, khakis and a North Face jacket.

He laughed and said, “I’m not supposed to be scary.”

“I know, I know, I just scare really easily. This is why I sell the tickets and don’t work inside.”

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This weekend I am in Tulsa and obviously unable to volunteer in Madison, and not surprisingly, I’m okay with that. The ticket booth is fun, but I will have plenty of time to sell tickets next weekend, and that khaki-clad man gave me enough of a fright to keep me on my toes for at least two weeks.