It was Halloween and I was working the haunted house for the tenth or eleventh year, the club I belong to does one every year to raise some funds to help kids and keep our programs going the rest of the year. It's always a challenge getting a place to hold it, the props to furnish it and then finding volunteers to man it. But many of us do it every year and have become great friends through the organization.
This year I went all out designing a wall that looked as if it had fallen in on me crushing the lower half of my body, effectively killing me. I built a false wall then the "crushing " wall was put on a pulley system so it could be raised and lowered to let me out for breaks and to go home at night. The only small problem was someone else had to let me out, from the backside of the false wall. It worked real well I would lie still as the guides walked our guests through the maze we had built as they neared me I would appear dead then reach out grabbing the leg of some poor unsuspecting young lady begging for help as I bled out.
And of course there were trinkets to buy glow sticks, scary stickers, shrunken heads, and we gave the little kids candy on their way out. Our guides each worked out their own stories to correspond with their trip through the house. Shirley was fairly new to our group and about ten years my junior good looking gal with longish black hair, and a devilish personality. She had married Larry a year ago and he had been in the group about three years and was a fun loving guy. He was the chain saw guy, and had been since he started, no imagination.
Shirley was working as a guide and she was good setting up the next scare like a pro and getting the actors out of jams if they needed. What you don't know about Haunted houses is the characters quite often get punched, kicked or hit for their trouble and the guide sometimes has to protect them. I was particularly vulnerable lying trapped on the floor grabbing at people. We had devised a working set up where as I grabbed for them, the guide would step up kicking me across the face (missing of course) then as I lie unconscious they stood sort of over me guiding the people on to the next scare.
The witch costume Shirley wore did little to cover the well-defined body under it. The flowing black skirt parted as she walked reveling the tall lace boots she ore under it, her bodice lifted her ample breasts into a nice cleavage. This was a witch extraordinary, if the kids weren't scared of her, their "daddy" probably was.
As the first night progressed I had gotten tagged by a couple of the guides but just grazing shots, the last group of the night was Shirley's and she missed, or I missed, but I got tagged... hard! Next to my left eye, my head snapped and I damn near passed out. "Oh Shit!" I heard her exclaim as she pointed the people out of the room. "Mick... are you ok?" I waved her on and felt my face, knowing this was going to hurt. By the time they let me out of the wall so I could get to a mirror it was swelling up and would be black by morning.
Shirley felt bad real bad, as we had a couple drinks after closing, I told her not to worry. My wife Karen, had been taking money at the door all night, told her "don't worry, if he doesn't get hurt or lose his voice it wasn't Halloween." It helped some but she still swore she'd make it up to me someday.
Sure enough the next day I had a shiner, it looked like I had stepped in front of Mike Tyson, "Oh well" I told Karen "less makeup for the wall scene tonight." We got to the Haunted house early and were making repairs from the night before, along with some of the others as they showed up. Larry and Shirley came in just before we started, my eye was black and 1/2 shut from the swelling nearly bring Shirley to tears. I scolded her a bit. "Hey just be careful tonight," I hugged her reassuringly and whispered "besides you're the best looking guide we have, and you give the best show." She stepped back looked at me sort of funny and winked at me... I think.
