Anxiety, Fear, and Chainsaws: Our Haunted House Memories
News At 11: Scared Assed Bitch At Haunted House
(Jeremy)
I readily admit that I have had a life-long fear of haunted houses. I have never been the type of person that associates being scared with having fun. I blame most of this not on the act of being scared, but the sheer amount of anxiety it causes me. Sometimes to the point where I black out. So yes, haunted houses have never been my go-to Halloween fun time event. Especially as a kid.
There was one exception, though. Once, when I was about eight or nine years old, I had a family member ask me and my friends to go with them to a haunted house. And not even a real haunted house. It was actually the haunted house that the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis hosts during the month of October. So not only was it a baby’s haunted house, but it was a baby haunted house attached to a baby museum. I thought the decision through, however, and eventually caved to that age-old friend of mine: other kids calling me a pussy.
Now you’re probably thinking that this is a story about one child triumphantly overcoming his anxiety, facing his fears, and laughing in the face of just how much of a pussy he was for even considering not going. And if you are thinking this, you were obviously not present the day that we went. While I did manage to stand in line all the way to the door without freaking out, it was the Halloween music, and the dark tunnel that led into the haunted house that sealed the deal. Yes, before we even officially entered the haunted house, I cracked under the sheer anxiety of going into a small building populated by animatronic puppets, and had to be left by the entrance by myself while my friends went on in. You can imagine my shame and defeat, as I was now the new selling point for the people that worked there assuring other kids that this will be a terrifying experience. Spouting such lines as “Look here! This child was FAR TOO FRIGHTENED to even ENTER! Imagine the terror YOU will face!” This frightened no one, however. Leading to an entire line of kids calling me a pussy as they walked by.
2intense4Jeremy
And then the news crew showed up.
Yes, as if the situation couldn’t get any more demeaning, cue the Channel Six News to come rolling up, cameras on shoulders, ready to do their best to make the six o-clock news the harbinger for child suicide. I watched as they did their little news thing out in front of the building, hoping they would simply move on after they finished. But no, here those fuckers came right up to the door.
“Whose child is this?”
“Oh, he was too scared to go in.”
They all said this in a sort of jest, as the camera focused squarely on the child standing by himself in the corner of a chain-link fence. Of course the news crew jumped on that like some sort of starving feral animal onto an already dead corpse, instantly setting their camera up to ask me why I could not bring myself to enter a haunted house for five year-olds.
“It’s scary.”
That’s all I could muster as the news guy mercifully moved on to the next kid in line, who was all too excited about telling the city how HE wasn’t scared of no haunted house. To my credit though, he did exit the haunted house clinging to his mother in tears. It was a slight bit of vindication, though not nearly enough knowing that the entire city was about to see me chickening out on TV, when all that kid had to worry about was changing his piss-stained underwear in private.
A year or so ago, I did finally re-enter a haunted house. Not much of one, but still something along the lines of what I’d gone into at that museum. It was a small place that did not employ real people to do the scares. It was all kitschy animatronic stuff that was far more amusing than scary. The entire time I was thinking how stupid it was for me to refuse going through such way back then, and would have probably enjoyed myself just as much then as I did this time. So yeah, I guess that whole “overcoming your fears” thing did eventually happen. And I didn’t even have to piss myself pretending that I wasn’t afraid to do it.
So HAHA to you, little kid. You know who you are.
A Near Death Experience or Why To Not Take a Scared Ass Hot Girl to a Haunted House
(Billy)
My parents raised me up right. I was subjected to so many 80’s horror films and issues of Gorezone and Fangoria that I was pretty much immune to being scared by the age of 5 or 6. It’s always been great being able to go to haunted houses and watch horror films without having one ounce of fear. The only downside is that I have no appreciation for the fear of others and usually get severely aggravated when others are cowering and pissing themselves.
One year I attended an outdoor haunted attraction with a very attractive female I was friends with at the time. Like most fellows, even if you are not in a relationship with a very attractive girl, you still feel the need to put up with a ton of shit from them and forgive them for their many many flaws. Actually this girl was pretty cool, but I would soon find out she may have one small problem.
We enter the attraction, a very nice spread out in the woods, and immediately I notice that I don’t see her beside me. I look to both sides, and nothing. I soon realize this is because she is standing directly behind me, no less than 1 or 2 inches away. My newly acquired shadow would proceed to do this until we reached the first stop, a rickety cabin that consisted of mainly pillows on the floor so that your feet seemed as if they were sinking into the ground. This would not be the biggest obstacle I would face.
I was wearing a hooded jacket, as the autumn weather was rather brisk on that night. It was one of those usual hoodies with the strings and all. All of a sudden I feel a tugging around my neck, which grows tighter as the poorly-done Pinhead inside the building starts to near us and do that awkward thing where they get really close to you and then just have to stand there since they can’t touch you. The hot girl behind me had grabbed hold of these strings and was pulling back on them heavily, as if the strength of the pulling was a measurement of the terror she was feeling. Bitch must have been shittin’ herself.
I struggle through the pillow floor, stumbling and reaching ahead as if I am a worn-out wrestler who just spent the last 10 minutes getting his ass beat and is trying to tag his partner. There was no man in my corner as I continued stumbling on while the neck of my jacket began to function like a corset. I nearly lost my footing, but knew that I would surely be buried deep within a pillow tomb if I did. I soldiered on, seeing the end of the building ahead. I noticed that the room was getting darker was I got toward the end, even though I could tell there were lights just outside. I soon realized this as not because of darkness within the room, but because I was slowly becoming very light-headed and about ready to pass out.
Your chainless chainsaw frightens no one, except this bitch attached to my back.
I realize that the sound system was so loud that she would not be able to hear me curse at her and ask her to release me, nor was I actually able to process sound at that time. I knew I had to get out of that damn building to find some relief. I proceed to put my head down, nearly lift her off the ground, and march forward as quickly and steadily as I can. Each step was made with purpose, and when I finally reached out and touched the doorway to the outside, I finally knew I was going to survive.
We exited the building, and I quickly pried my exceptionally large-breasted (but not too large, just right) cape from off my back. I never got any, nor did we ever attend another haunted attraction. Would I do it again? Yes – but shirtless.
Dent Schoolhouse: I’m Probably Traumatized
(Amanda)
I’m kind of like Jeremy in that I am a tremendous coward. Being a dame and all, it is fortunately more excusable for me than it is for him, but it is still a little embarrassing. I went to a haunted house event that seemed pretty standard when I was about twelve years old, but it didn’t really impress me. My friend Jennifer hid behind me and eventually choked me with my own shirt as she dragged me backwards out of an emergency exit after we had been stuck in a pitch black maze for a long while. I don’t even remember what had happened to make her flee like a deer, but I can acknowledge that she is not the kind of friend who would ever leave me to die.
So I went a good eighteen years without ever attending another haunted house. I have no interest in being terrified. PAYING to be terrified, actually. But last year I was hosting a guest from Australia during the Halloween season, and it was my duty as an American to teach him about the only thing we do better than the entire rest of the world. We had many activities that we had to do, and one of them was to go to a goddamn haunted house.
THIS goddamn haunted house.
Fortunately, I guess, I live in Cincinnati, home of many great attractions of this sort. I chose the one set in Dent, Ohio, however, based on the good reviews I had read and heard. The Dent Schoolhouse is set up around and inside of an old small school building, built in the 1840s or 1860s or something. There is a premise surrounding the event, saying that it was closed down in the 1960s (which is true) because several of the students were murdered by the janitor (which I decided to believe so that I could feel it was a distasteful exploitation, hoping my indignation would make me braver). If it DID make me braver, I am ashamed to think of how terrified I would have acted instead.
I was like the girl in Billy Holiday’s story. I had turned into Jennifer from when I was twelve. However, I didn’t chicken out like Child Jeremy, at least. I just sort of felt ill and tried to go unnoticed, hiding behind friends and trying valiantly to ignore the scenes and actions going on all around me, and there were PLENTY.
Now, the Dent Schoolhouse is really one of the best-rated haunted attractions in the United States, maybe even in the Top Five or Ten. Only the best for my guests! But, this meant that it was a little intense. Things leap out at you, the props are top notch, and the sound track that played occasionally on old staticky radios seemed to very often be the haunting melodies of Slim Whitman “the Yodeling Cowboy.” Pretty early on, you must go down into the basement, down narrow wooden stairs that are open in the back. I understand that those stairs are psychologically distressing for some people, myself included – and so are horrible dirt-floor, stone walled basements from the 1800s for that matter! Oh and also there was a scene where you stumble into a “deserted carnival” – just a few of you at a time – where you are confronted by demented clowns. At the Dent Schoolhouse, the characters DO get within two feet of you. The murderous janitor heavy-breathed directly into my ear, the morbidly obese school cafeteria worker grabbed me by the arm, and some guy shouted at the side of my head, his nose touching my temple. I assume they are all trained in the art of knowing how to take punches because they HAVE to get a bunch. A buncha punches! Unless I didn’t look punchy enough. Come to think of it, once I started shouting back and making fight-fists, I wasn’t approached as much. It was a lesson I needed to learn, and I am glad that I did.
I am jumpy by nature, and fairly paranoid. And I detest being yelled at. Ugh and I hate being touched. But I have to say that this place delivered on the scares. I may ask Billy to go to it, as he is a man of horror and NO FEAR. Between us, we might be able to have a fair and balanced reaction to it. Except that I am never going back to it again. No sir.
