When Halloween nears, I always start to remember Halloween haunted houses that I have visited in years past. I don’t know why I keep going to these scary places. I am one of the most easily frightened people I know. I can work myself into a fright just being alone in my own house.
Every creak of the hot water heating pipes or the wind blowing leaves around the deck makes me jump. Any odd thump or bump and I’m sure it’s an ax murderer scoping out my house. I think I have an overactive imagination.
It’s even worse if I’m alone with the dog. We are a cowardly duo. Fearless is as big a chicken as I am, so he barks at any little thing. Since he’s barking I have to walk around the house, checking doors and windows—tentatively of course. I’m certain that at one of the windows a character like the guy from Scream or Freddy Krueger from Nightmare on Elm Street will be peering back.
So the dog senses that I am nervous and he walks so close to me that the real danger I am facing is tripping over him and breaking a limb.
I quit watching scary movies long ago for this very reason. I just don’t need the added images of horror in my head. I can think of terrifying situations well enough on my own.
But I still like a haunted house. A few years ago I shared the story of the haunted house we visited in Tacoma when Chuck and I were first married, decades ago. It is definitely the scariest of haunted houses I have ever visited—it was actually a haunted barn.
The journey to the haunted barn itself was creepy. We had to drive out of the city, far out into the country, down a narrow gravel road. The haunted barn was sponsored by a radio station and the directions to get there were simply “follow the searchlight.” So we did, for miles and miles.
We finally arrived at a cornfield and then had to take a little path through the woods to get to the barn. Imagine my horror when a blood-covered creature with crazy dreadlocks and an eyeball dangling jumped out of the woods at me. We made it past him and there was a character with a chainsaw—a real chainsaw! Waving it around and cackling.
It was horrible and we weren’t even in the haunted barn yet!
I somehow made it through the haunted barn with its zombies and witches and spiders and blood and guts and more. Of course I was completely panic-stricken, but I made it.
I swore off haunted houses…until a few years ago I visited the haunted ship on the Duluth waterfront. It was pretty scary. There were a lot of battered and bloody pirates and bloodcurdling screams and strobe lights and ghostly things that brushed by you.
But it wasn’t as scary as the Tacoma Haunted Barn.
This year I’m going to test my fortitude again. I’m going to visit the haunted house food shelf fundraiser on 121 West Third Street in Grand Marais. Community volunteers have been working like Santa’s elves—but twisted—creating a house of horror.
I had the pleasure of touring it this week, to get a look at it in semi-daylight, without the scary music, the costumed people and the fog. It still looked pretty scary.
See the details on page A15. I think the Haunted House on Third Street may just give the Haunted Barn a run for its money. Bring a canned good for the food shelf and check it out. You might see me—I’ll be the hysterical one.
If a man harbors any sort of fear,
it makes him landlord to a ghost.
Lloyd Douglas
Leave a Reply