This was my third year helping the Frederick Jaycees with their haunted house. It’s not a haunted house in the strictest sense, the past two years it’s been the “Haunted Hayride” at Crumland Farm, the year before that it was the “panic asylum” at Harry Grove stadium, but it’s still a lot of fun.
One of the recurring bits of fun is the teen couples. They tend to come in with the guys trying to impress their girlfriends with how strong they are and perhaps hoping the girls will be scared and hold on to them. The more the guy struts, the more likely it is that he’s going to be the ones who screams. 🙂
I’d been up to help out two weeks ago, and spent the evening on a scaffold, screaming and dropping a piece of pipe onto some other pipes, making a lot of noise and watching startled people jump from one side of the hay wagon to the other. On Saturday, I was in makeup out in the cornfield, chasing people with a chainsaw racing.
It had been a while since I’d worn makeup for this event (last year was mostly spent on a scaffold screaming and dropping a dummy that looked as though he’d been hanged), so I wound up with Anna helping me with the makeup. After I’d put on the base layer of pale, she added a bruise across the right side of my face along with dark circles around my eyes and a few other black lines as accents. Then she added blood rolling down my face. It looked quite ghastly, which was the intent after all. The blood never did dry, so over the course of the evening it became increasingly realistic. I did experience a brief moment of concern when it rolled into my eye, but the only problem that caused was that my eye briefly got stuck shut. (A fine example of method acting!)
The temperatures on Saturday were a little chilly, but I was prepared and had worn layers. In all, the weather was actually perfect for haunting – clouds racing across the sky, a constant wind through the trees and the corn, and cold enough to make sure you knew it was fall. I don’t know how many people went on the Hayride that evening, but even though I was near the end of the route, quite a few of them were startled when the maniac with the chainsaw started running toward them.
After putting everything away on Saturday, the group headed out for dinner at TGIFriday’s. Having a bunch of zombies walk in always gets a few people at the bar doing double-takes, and the people sitting in the dining room usually have the most interesting expressions on their faces as the group heads to a table. I arrived a few minutes behind the first group and when I walked in, the hostess took one look at me and before I could even look for them, she told me, “oh, your group’s over here.”
When we eventually left Friday’s, I stopped off for gas. Nobody else was at the gas station, so my appearance didn’t get any attention unless the attendant happened to look out from the booth. Next, I stopped at the 7-11 to get a drink so I’d stay awake on the drive home. Nobody noticed as I pulled up and got out of the car, but as I walked up to the door, I definitely got the attention of the two guys sitting in front of the store. Likewise, the cashier and the only customer in the store also stopped in their tracks when I walked in. (Naturally, I encouraged all four of them to get up to Thurmont on Sunday for the hayride’s final night. I’m pretty sure that at least one of them did.)
When I finally got home around 12:30, Wylie was quite happy to see me and wasn’t at all bothered by the make up. I took him out for a late walk, the whole time imagining what would happen if any of the people driving around that night happened to come by when I was under a street light. Unexpectedly seeing a zombie out walking his dog would probably make you wonder if you’d somehow stepped into a scene from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 🙂
The final horror of the evening came when I stepped into the shower. The makeup was all water washable and as it went down the drain, it made for a wonderful recreation of the shower scene in Psycho.
It was a fun evening.