The Time I Went to a Haunted House

Now that Halloween is safely behind us, here's a story about the only time I've ever been to a haunted house and the reason why I'll never go to another one again.

Let me preface this story by saying that for the most part I hate Halloween. It makes no sense to say that you hate something for the most part, but in an attempt at full disclosure I have to admit that even at my age there's a small part of me that gets more excited than it should at the prospect of free candy. I'm alright with the treats but could do without the tricks and the other Halloween regalia. The costumes, the makeup, the knocking on the doors of complete strangers. And pumpkins. I hate pumpkins, jack-o-laterns and despite my love of candy I hate those candy pumpkins that taste like someone poured a mass of sugar and Dimetapp Cold and Cough© into a container and shaped the resulting mixture into little miniature pumpkins. But probably my paramount complaint about Halloween is the notion that it's the time of year people collectively decide they need to have the shit scared out of them by flocking to horror movies and haunted houses. Unfortunately the same childish portion of my brain that lights up like 5 yr. old at free candy, completely takes over when I'm in scary situations. For most of my life I was able to largely avoid the depraved and sick culture of Halloween centered on scaring people…until I got to college.

It was a nondescript Sunday evening my sophomore year of college and Halloween was coming up. College students, as their wont to do, mostly use Halloween as an excuse to party like it's the end of the world and at my school people had been in full effect a week ahead of schedule, as Halloween was the following Sunday. Given the hard weekend everyone was recharging their batteries that entire day. As was my routine every Sunday evening, I was in my dorm room watching TV and doing a whole lot-o-nothing, when I heard someone announce over the PA system an invitation to dorm residents to make their way to the lobby around 9:00 pm if they were interested in taking a trip to a haunted house. Being a Resident Advisor in my dorm I was completely aware that some of the other RA's had planned a trip to a haunted house and knowing that the trip had nothing to do with me I complained under my breath about how startling, loud, and random the PA system was, and completely disregarded the announcement. It wasn't for me, it had nothing to do with me, I hated all things Halloween. The announcement was randomly made a few more times and with each one it was evident no one was showing up in the lobby despite the fact that it was now after 9:00pm. About 5 minutes after the last announcement two of my fellow RA's, responsible for the trip to the haunted house (Meredith and Danielle), knocked on my door. They told me that no one had showed up to go to the haunted house and asked me to see if I could get any of the guys on my floor to go. Ultimately I was able to convince 1 guy (Travis) on my floor to go and I got him met up with Meredith and Danielle, told the 3 of them to have fun at the haunted house, and started walking back to my room slightly pissed off that I'd just missed 10 minutes of whatever TV show I was watching in the service of a pointless haunted house trip. I'm certain I probably muttered something about how ridiculous Halloween and haunted houses are but was satisfied I'd prevented having to hear that PA system again. Somewhat expectedly, as I began to walk away the 3 of them almost immediately began to protest that I had to go with them to the haunted house and started pleading and begging in a way that annoyed me more than the PA system. I really hated the random loudness of that PA system. The point is they were somehow able to convince me to go due to my general benevolence as a person and soft spot for people in bad situations. As I walked back to my room to get my coat I was partially angry that my evening routine had now been turned on its head, and oddly a little excited that I was about to conquer a childhood fear. For the first time I was about to find out what all the hype was about and was finally going to a haunted house. Except it wasn't a haunted house it was an abandoned school. And there wasn't any hype because we were the only people there.

My visions of a haunted house were crowded lines of nervously excited adults, teens on group dates, and kids jacked up on adrenaline waiting to enter some temporary structure with a cheesy name like, "Frankenstein's House of Frights." As the 4 of us piled into Meredith's car in the pitch dark night at about 9:30pm and started toward our destination it became increasingly apparent that's not what I was about to experience. My university was located about 20 miles south of Toledo, OH in a small town that's surrounded by farming communities. Essentially if you got into the car to go somewhere you were either heading toward Toledo and slightly more civilization or away from it and deeper into the country. Meredith was driving deeper into the country. So deep she had a Google maps print out she was constantly referring to for roads with names like Junction 2. As I sat in the back seat making small talk with everyone else in the car I tried to quietly keep abreast of where we were going, but given how dark the country gets at night and the heavy layer of fog it produces on a cool fall night, it wasn't long before I was completely lost. When Meredith pulled into a parking lot of some structure I couldn't see through the fog, off a gravel road in what was now the middle of nowhere, I was more than apprehensive. For many reasons we were way past black people territory both literally and figuratively. In my mind I had just been talked into joining a real life reenactment of some civil rights movie about freedom riders. All I could think was that my kind wasn't wanted around those parts. It was only once we arrived that Meredith and Danielle bothered explaining to me we were at an abandoned school that had been converted into a haunted house just for the season. "YAY!" I thought sarcastically, "This keeps getting friggin' better!!" As the four of us walked through the darkness and dense fog toward the school and what appeared to be the open doors of a very dimly lit gymnasium I looked around in the parking lot and at the outside of the school and noticed we appeared to be the only people there. There were no adrenaline jacked kids. Again to myself I thought, "of course there aren't, who would bring their kids to an abandoned school in the middle of nowhere at 10 o'clock at night. This is ridiculous I knew I shouldn't have come to this crap." We walked into the gymnasium that had maybe 1 very dim light, and it looked like a tornado had ripped through the room—random items you'd expect to find in a school strewn about, plus the school was clearly in disrepair for some time. And there was no one there. The four of us stood in the middle of the gym for what felt like a very long time until we each started nervously yelling, "Hello? Is there anybody here? Hello?" to be greeted only by our own echoes off the gymnasium wall. The mood of all 4 of us individually and collectively changed immediately from "what is this place?" to "holy shit we're gonna die even if we start heading back to the car right now." Shit got real, very fast.

Out of small doorway tucked into a dark corner of the gymnasium a man wearing overalls and what looked to be the traces of a costume (it was too dark to completely tell) appeared and cheerily walked over. He was a middle aged man with a beard wearing overalls that'd appeared out of the corner of an abandoned gymnasium at 10 o'clock at night in the middle of nowhere. It didn't matter how cheery he was, my blackness put my brain into immediate defense and sensory overload. As he moved toward us and met us in the middle of the dark gymnasium someone asked if we were indeed at the haunted school, he explained we were, and casually mentioned something about how he couldn't guarantee our personal safety. I was frantically thinking, "Is he part of the act?" I didn't know what was going on, my blackman sensory system was choking on confusion. He asked for the $5 fee and I got right down to brass tacks and demanded to know where all the teens on group dates and adrenaline jacked kids were. He deftly avoided my question by essentially saying the place was still open and I watched him place our money in his pocket. No cash register, nothing formal out in the country around those parts apparently. I was feeling safer by the second. He instructed us to go through the dark doorway he had entered through and walk up a flight of stairs, where we'd be greeted by a woman. We walked up a narrow, short, hallway of stairs that were better lit than the entire gymnasium and saw a pale lady completely decked out in an all white lace outfit from the 19^th century sitting behind a desk at the end of hallway. The 4 of us tepidly approached her and she handed each of us a piece of paper and instructed us to write our names down in what appeared to be a put upon haunted act that also came across as completely normal and legit. The problem was Cheery McOveralls had completely thrown my ability to distinguish reality, and I couldn't tell if he was the start of the haunted house, or if this lady was? It all seemed too real to be fake, and since my blackness had broken down back in the gymnasium I was feeling completely vulnerable at this point. I wasn't the only one either. Travis started quizzing the lady about why she need our names and what she was going to do with paper that had our names on it once we gave it back to her. It was at this moment that an unspoken pact was made between the 4 of us as we huddled in the corner together, completely confused by the non-responsive lady from the Victorian age that kept demanding our names, and agreed to all write down fake names. We were all prepared in that abandoned school in the middle of nowhere, to die together and anonymously that night.

Victorian pale lady pointed down an extremely dark hallway and told us to enter at our own risk and that she couldn't guarantee we'd make it out safely because of past events. I convinced myself it was an act, but I was getting real tired of people making veiled threats against my personal safety. What's worse as we all slowly walked into the engulfing darkness of the hallway there was an expectation that I being 1 of the 2 males walked in the front. Being the only black person in our group only heightened the expectation I be tough. So there I was walking alongside Travis with Meredith and Danielle behind us into a dark abandoned school at 10pm at night...in the middle of nowhere. Once completely in the darkness walking between rickety old doors with things like "Science Room 105" written on them, a teenager popped out of a door dressed like a zombie in a quaint folksy manner, with face paint and such. That's not to say it didn't scare me to the point that I nearly pissed my pants because it did, but after I collected myself and got a full look at the "zombie" I reasoned with myself. "If this whole place is going to be like that, it won't be that bad." It was a mistake. Each hallway was darker and often we didn't have a clue which direction to even walk, because we were the only people there and it was the most random abandoned school on the planet. And each person that accosted us in the darkness was more frightening than the last. Until it happened. 

We were well into the bowels of the school building and we had just been chased by a man in a ski mask down a hallway that had NO light to the edge of a descending staircase. I still wasn't convinced we weren't in an actual haunted school traversing our way closer to the depths of hell, as we all stood at the top of the staircase practically in tears debating what to do. At this point our nerves had been put through the ringer. From behind us "ski mask" angrily yelled at us to go down the stairs. Reluctantly we did, and slowly descended into a hallway that felt like it was below ground level, lined with beat up lockers that had clearly seen better days. The faintest bit of moonlight shined through the dirtiest old window as we walked cautiously as ever. About halfway into the hallway a locker door slammed open behind us and out jumped a man in a flannel shirt, wearing a Jason mask, and holding a fully operational chainsaw. He let out an evil laugh and he stretched back the pull-start of the chainsaw and raised it in the air. I. Lost. My. Shit. I guess we all did. But I mean I really lost my shit to the point that it should have been embarrassing. I'm talking about 5yr old me in a grown man's body. I Screamed like girl, pushed Meredith aside and ran for my life. When I turned. And saw that idiot. And heard the distinct sound of a gas powered chainsaw. My blackness which I'd lost earlier in the gymnasium completely returned, and I ran as he slowly marched down the hallway after us. The hell with everybody else, I had been pushed to my limit. I'm surprised I didn't wet myself.

It was at that exact moment while running in sheer terror that I snapped.  I turned around a saw the looks of indescribable fear in the face of the 3 people with me (Meredith’s reaction was probably made worse by the fact that I’d pushed her to get myself to safety) and made a plea to our chainsaw wielding attacker’s humanity.  I could take the blurring of the line between reality and whatever was taking place in that fog draped abandoned school in the middle of the night no longer.  “Are you crazy?” I yelled, “is that a fucking CHAINSAW!!”  The attacker was stunned for a moment, and after a long pause broke character and replied that in fact it was a chainsaw but that in the interest of our personal safety (which to that point no one had been able to guarantee) the chain had been removed.  I suppose that was supposed to make me feel more comfortable about what had just happened.  I wasn’t.  I had just been willing to sacrifice a girl in the interest of my own safety.  It was a classless move and I’m not proud of it but in my defense I thought I was going to die.  Besides it not like she was my girlfriend.  Ashamed and emotionally violated to the highest degree we made our way out of the hallway.  I had just experienced someone’s sick twisted interpretation of fun.       

We were all scared beyond any level that is ever necessary and thankfully the chainsaw gambit was the last “attraction” at the abandoned school haunted house.  We walked back into the gymnasium out into the autumn darkness and fog, and agreed that we had just gone through the most surreal experience ever.  My memory is kind of hazy but I think someone accepted Jesus and welcomed him into their life and their heart on the car ride home. But mostly we sat in silence.  I’m sure Meredith was reflecting on how willing I was to sacrifice her life.  Once I got back to my dorm room and sat back in front of my TV I was certain I would never be going to anybody’s haunted anything ever again.  I’m still not convinced that school ever really existed and we hadn’t entered into some alternate haunted reality folded between the dense fog in some random cornfield.   Either way I relearned what I already knew about me and being scared.  And I fully developed and cultured as a grown up what I already had as a child.  A special hatred for Halloween.