When Haunted Houses Work
Tonight I did a bad thing. Or a good thing. I was good at doing a bad thing. Tonight was the night I took my daughter (nine) to her very first haunted house. There were many children there with their parents. I observed the children coming out as we were walking in - none had shattered expressions, or tears. None of them had me as a mother to prime their anxiety well.
In order to make the experience more exciting for my children I asked each of them, over a pizza at Pizza Hut, at least five times, "Are you sure you want to go?" I promised, "I'll leave with you if you can't take it." My husband offered the same reassurances to me. Over all we all had each other pretty much psyched to enjoy a Halloween trick as a treat.
We approached the haunted house through the broken pavement of a shopping center in the midst of a major renovation. The piles of debri somehow added to the general air of menace. Maybe it was the orange construction net I tripped over as I walked in off limit areas. A band was playing alternative rock as we entered the blackened interior. I asked again, "Are you sure you want to do this?" A small hand tightened around mine and my daughter looked up at me with that superior nine year old look and said, "MOM, are you scared!?" I nodded.
The screams began before we entered the "scary" part of the building. My screams. I was standing there thinking of more ways to pump up the anxiety when suddenly I felt a breath on my neck. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a leather mask. It was three inches from my ear and on the face of a huge man that was bending a good foot down to loom over my 5' 2" self. He had a knife. In the split second it took me to realize all this, my brain said, "FIGHT! FIGHT! no FLEE! FLEE!" So I screamed, and screamed again, said "DAMN IT!", then punched my husband a couple times in the chest. My daughter's eyes were a little wider as she laughed at my fear.
We entered a maze of tunnels through a creaking door. It was black as can be, until a chainsaw suddenly struck sparks from the metal grid in front of us. The small hand tightened still more and reached for her father's hand too. We walked on. Somebody was following. He lunged, bloody and wild haired. My daughter screamed and lunged into her father's back. Immediately a cell appeared with a corpse hanging like a crucifiction victim between chains on a wall. He wasn't dead! He sprang foreward with a shriek and electricity hummed all around him. My daughter started to scream and sob. She was a tiny little bundle of overloaded andrenal glands and I knew she'd had enough.
I couldn't do anything about the darkness and the intermittent strobe light flashes. Or the screams of others. I could do something to let the "monsters" know that an escape was truly needed. I started shouting to my daughter, who was sobbing and shuddering, "There is NOTHING SCARY HERE ANYMORE. NO MORE SCARES. NOTHING ELSE." A figure detached itself from the wall as we walked into a spinning white light and said in a perfectly humane voice, "Would you like to get out?" We did.
Tears were still streaming down a small face as we made our way past plain old dark walls. I told her it was over. She cried, "No its not!" Turns out she was right. In the lobby I approached a family with children and offered them two of our tickets. At $10.00 per ticket that was a nice little treat for somebody wanting only a trick. I explained my daughter was too scared to finish the first house and go through the second one for which we'd already purchased admission. The children in the group looked a little more anxious. I walked back over to where my daughter was still clinging, sobbing to her father. The leathermasked hulk with the knife suddenly appeared at my shoulder again. She SCREAMED. I put my arm around the guy and said, "This is my FRIEND. I know this guy. He's just an actor." She cried, turned away, just in time to see an eight foot monster lean over somebody and make them scream. She ran.
She let go of her father and RAN to the open doorway to the decrepit parking lot. I caught up with her and held her. She breathed the air for a few minutes, made the adults that were passing us actually stop at the entrance and look in to make sure it was safe. I told my husband and son, who'd ran out after us, to go back and enjoy the second attraction. Across the parking lot I could see the bright lights of a Dollar Store. We stepped over the orange construction net, avoided chunks of loose concrete and made it the few hundred yards to the civilization of off brand soup and wooden back scratchers. Finally the anxiety dropped and she talked about what had scared her the most while we bought a vampire flashlight for trick or treating.
Thats how memories are made.
In order to make the experience more exciting for my children I asked each of them, over a pizza at Pizza Hut, at least five times, "Are you sure you want to go?" I promised, "I'll leave with you if you can't take it." My husband offered the same reassurances to me. Over all we all had each other pretty much psyched to enjoy a Halloween trick as a treat.
We approached the haunted house through the broken pavement of a shopping center in the midst of a major renovation. The piles of debri somehow added to the general air of menace. Maybe it was the orange construction net I tripped over as I walked in off limit areas. A band was playing alternative rock as we entered the blackened interior. I asked again, "Are you sure you want to do this?" A small hand tightened around mine and my daughter looked up at me with that superior nine year old look and said, "MOM, are you scared!?" I nodded.
The screams began before we entered the "scary" part of the building. My screams. I was standing there thinking of more ways to pump up the anxiety when suddenly I felt a breath on my neck. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a leather mask. It was three inches from my ear and on the face of a huge man that was bending a good foot down to loom over my 5' 2" self. He had a knife. In the split second it took me to realize all this, my brain said, "FIGHT! FIGHT! no FLEE! FLEE!" So I screamed, and screamed again, said "DAMN IT!", then punched my husband a couple times in the chest. My daughter's eyes were a little wider as she laughed at my fear.
We entered a maze of tunnels through a creaking door. It was black as can be, until a chainsaw suddenly struck sparks from the metal grid in front of us. The small hand tightened still more and reached for her father's hand too. We walked on. Somebody was following. He lunged, bloody and wild haired. My daughter screamed and lunged into her father's back. Immediately a cell appeared with a corpse hanging like a crucifiction victim between chains on a wall. He wasn't dead! He sprang foreward with a shriek and electricity hummed all around him. My daughter started to scream and sob. She was a tiny little bundle of overloaded andrenal glands and I knew she'd had enough.
I couldn't do anything about the darkness and the intermittent strobe light flashes. Or the screams of others. I could do something to let the "monsters" know that an escape was truly needed. I started shouting to my daughter, who was sobbing and shuddering, "There is NOTHING SCARY HERE ANYMORE. NO MORE SCARES. NOTHING ELSE." A figure detached itself from the wall as we walked into a spinning white light and said in a perfectly humane voice, "Would you like to get out?" We did.
Tears were still streaming down a small face as we made our way past plain old dark walls. I told her it was over. She cried, "No its not!" Turns out she was right. In the lobby I approached a family with children and offered them two of our tickets. At $10.00 per ticket that was a nice little treat for somebody wanting only a trick. I explained my daughter was too scared to finish the first house and go through the second one for which we'd already purchased admission. The children in the group looked a little more anxious. I walked back over to where my daughter was still clinging, sobbing to her father. The leathermasked hulk with the knife suddenly appeared at my shoulder again. She SCREAMED. I put my arm around the guy and said, "This is my FRIEND. I know this guy. He's just an actor." She cried, turned away, just in time to see an eight foot monster lean over somebody and make them scream. She ran.
She let go of her father and RAN to the open doorway to the decrepit parking lot. I caught up with her and held her. She breathed the air for a few minutes, made the adults that were passing us actually stop at the entrance and look in to make sure it was safe. I told my husband and son, who'd ran out after us, to go back and enjoy the second attraction. Across the parking lot I could see the bright lights of a Dollar Store. We stepped over the orange construction net, avoided chunks of loose concrete and made it the few hundred yards to the civilization of off brand soup and wooden back scratchers. Finally the anxiety dropped and she talked about what had scared her the most while we bought a vampire flashlight for trick or treating.
Thats how memories are made.
posted by Nekyia (nom d'plume) at 10/29/2005 09:28:00 PM
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