I had never been to a "haunted house" before, so I didn't really know what to expect. It seemed like one of the things that a man in his mid 20s ought to have done by now, so cynical though I was, I decided to give it a try. There was a fairly popular "halloween fair" not too far from where I lived, so I decided to give it a try.
My first experiences with the fair were less frightening than they were boring. I waited for over half an hour in a crowded line, which looped back on itself several dozen times with the aid of ropes and posts. During my wait in the line there was little to do but watch the people around me talking among themselves, look at the imposingly large sheet metal building that we were waiting to enter, and occasionally take a step or two forward as the line moved.
After an interminably long wait in the chilly autumn evening, I eventually reached the head of the line. I saw that my progress had been so slow because the moderators of the event were only allowing the public into the building in small groups, spaced out by several minutes each.
As I waited for my turn to enter, a haunted house employee loudly explained the various rules of the event. I half-listened to a fairly boring minute of shouting about flash photography, and not touching the "monsters" inside. I also noticed that traversing the large haunted house was expected to take 45 minutes or more. After this was done, the speaker ushered about ten of us into the building, including myself.
I had seen from the outside that the building was quite large, but from the inside it would have been impossible to tell. All that my neighbors and I could see was a narrow, twisting corridor made of what appeared to be black painted plywood. The light inside was barely enough to see by, and as we followed the turns of the corridor we were alternately plunged into complete darkness or blinded by unexpected light sources. I found this combined with the loud constant sound of "spooky" music and sound effects to be thoroughly disorienting.
The pattern of the design of the place became clear fairly quickly. The serpentine hallway kept weaving us around until we had no idea of where we were. After just enough of this to disorient us, we would find ourselves in a room or widened segment of hallway with some kind of exhibit. The exhibits themselves were amusing but tame, featuring things like wax dummies in replica torture equipment, or the like, and were not very frightening.
What was frightening were the people in various "scary" costumes who were forever jumping out from unexpected locations. Some would come from hidden doors and sneak up behind us, seeming to just appear behind us out of the darkness, often close enough to touch us and whisper or yell something menacing before vanishing. There seemed to be a network of hidden ways that they used to get around. Some would hide in shadows when we had just been blinded by a bright light, or would remain so still that we took them for dummies until they moved.
The costumes were many and varied. Sometimes they had something to do with the theme of the area, and sometimes they did not. In the first few minutes were were startled and accosted by zombies, pirates, men in blood-stained lab coats, and even one cowboy.
One actor in particular caught my attention, in the third or fourth room that we passed through. It was a medical-themed room, with corpses on gurneys and other obvious elements. One of our scares came from a small young woman, probably about 19 or 20, wearing pale makeup and a hospital gown. I suppose that she must have been a reasonable facsimile of a corpse or an ill patient, with her pale skin, limp hair and lurching motions, but I couldn't help but think that she would be very pretty in other circumstances. I found myself staring at her for a moment, even as another actor lurched out of the shadows to frighten the person behind me. To my great discomfort I found that she returned my gaze with an impassive and rather intense stare. She played the part well, because even though I looked away and moved on, she stared unblinkingly at me as I passed. The effect was quite unnerving, even though I saw a flicker of a smile on her face as I passed by her stationary form.
After a few minutes, I started to get into the spirit of it, trying to guess where the next scare would come from. It was good fun. Our small group had spread out a bit as we all traversed the path at our own speed, so there was nobody directly behind me when I entered a small room full of shelves with various rubber creatures in jars. Without warning the lights abruptly went dark. Even though I had been through the same situation half a dozen times before in the last few minutes, I still jumped and let out a yelp when I felt someone move behind me. I was prepared to revel in being startled in one of several now familiar fashions, but I was genuinely startled to feel a hand firmly grip one side of my bottom. At the same moment, soft lips brushed the lower tip of my ear and a soft female voice hissed quietly, in a voice that was at once inviting and threatening, "I'm going to get you, little boy..."
Of course, I jumped and let out a cry at this completely unexpected event. It took me only a moment to recover my equilibrium, but when I turned around I met only darkness and the quiet wooden thud of a wall segment falling back into place. Because of how the place was constructed, it wasn't even possible to tell which bit of wall had been the hinged hidden door, because everything was made out of panels of the same black painted wood.
I shivered, not from actual fear, but from startlement combined with the unexpected forceful sensuality of that brief encounter. I could only assume that some adventurous young woman had decided to have a bit of fun deviating from the script. After a moment's thought, I decided that I didn't mind, but actually found it a bit exciting, and continued on my way as soon as the lights turned on again.
The next section was a cheesy science-fiction themed room, with a Frankenstein's monster on a slab surrounded by archaic electronic equipment and more plastic things in jars. The only light in the room came from a "jacob's ladder" behind protective plastic. Every few seconds the power to the device was cut, meaning that the eyes of the guests passing through the room vainly struggled to adjust to alternating blinding light and pitch blackness.
As we entered the room, an "Igor" character lurched towards us, muttering to himself. He moved very little while the light was on, but must have scurried quickly in the moments of darkness, because when the light came back he was always in a different spot. Often where we least expected him, or showing up behind us to herd us through the room. As chance would have it, the disoriented wanderings of my group as we entered the unexpectedly open space left me in the front-most position before much time had passed.
Once I had gotten my bearings in the disorienting setting, I was startled to notice something out of place. Standing by the exit of the room was the same girl in the hospital gown that I had noticed earlier, or someone looking very like her. A moment after I noticed her, I saw that she was looking at me with the same intent stare, and expression that was mostly blank with a trace of a concealed smile. After this, I was certain that she was the one I had seen near the beginning of the haunted house.
