Halloween Haunt

A friend of mine did a "yard haunt" for charity for Halloween, and I was among the volunteers for it. I'd do it again in a heartbeat, but as I understand it, she's moving before next year and won't be doing it again locally.

I was wearing a full head mask like the Rohrschach character in the Watchmen movie and a monk's robe, for a nice, creepy effect. I added black gloves to make my hands less apparent in the darkness. I was posted at the end of a hallway full of fake spider webs and a floating head suspended on a track from the ceiling, which was motion/sound activated and would move toward victims as they entered the hallway. The only light in the hallway was a strobe just over my head at the exit end. My job was to lurk under the strobe, where I was supposed to be virtually invisible, and jump out at people as they went by. In practice, it didn't work quite as well as that because a little bit of light was able to get through the exit, so victims were often able to see me after they got about three steps in.

That made it more interesting, since I had to modify my approach and experiment to see what would work. I usually stood as still as I could at my end of the hallway and watched the eyes of my victims as they entered, then decided what to do based on their reactions. I found that I could terrify the little ones just by standing there motionless, and actually had to move forward and to the right (leaving them an escape route to my left) to get them to run past me and out of the chamber.

Groups of teenage girls were the easiest pickings, but required a different approach. I'd wait until the first one in took that third step and could just barely perceive me, then charge the group, yelling as loud as I could. That usually caused the leader to scream and back into the others, causing them to scream because they could just barely see what was coming at them.

Adults were the toughest scares, but the most rewarding when I could get them. My best scare of the second night was a man with a little boy who walked right up to me while I remained motionless, assuring his son that I was just a dummy like the ones they'd seen earlier in the haunt. Then he asked out loud which way the exit was, more to himself than to his son. All I did was point toward the exit, and he jumped back about three steps and grabbed his own chest, laughing and saying "Good one, you really got me, buddy" before leaving.

I love Halloween!