thrill me

We finally went to the haunted house last night. We had been talking about it for weeks and a group of six or seven turned into just Tyler and me but we still went because there was a lot of hype around the Tomb of Darkness and we wanted to see what it was about.

It was located on Highland Avenue between Sahara and Spring Mountain. There were giant spotlights in the sky to direct us toward it but we missed it the first few tries. Our sense of direction in maneuvering around the strip got turned around and we ended up circling around it but not quite getting in it. When we finally found what we were looking for, the anticipation started to build. KISS FM was out there along with someone selling sausages. Who can eat when you are getting ready to get the crap scared out of you?

There was a small crowd of people waiting to be let in. Some had on costumes, most did not but everyone seemed eager to start the madness. We joined them, taking our places at the end of the line. There was a girl who was dressed as a carton of milk and she let me take her picture. Couples dominated the crowd and we found ourselves sandwiched between two cute, young couples that spent their time in line snuggling and kissing each other on the forehead and rubbing each other’s backs. I wonder if they were trying to reassure each other. Tyler and I are a not a couple and not even interested in each other in that way. We are just buds that like to laugh together. So while the couples on either side of us are hugging cuddling and cooing, he and I were giving each other a hard time trying to psyche each other out and anticipating what we were going to see on the inside. I also took pictures of the Tomb of Darkness sign and the hearse they had sitting out front. A sign when we got to the head of the line informed me that I wouldn’t be able to use my camera inside so I put it away.

When we finally got inside we were made to wait in a foyer where we heard the most gruesome sounds. It built up more of what was in store for us. There was an eerie type of music playing. Music that you would expect in a haunted house but there were also lots of odd sounds. I jump at odd sounds in my own house, so this was not helping me remain calm. The foyer is where you purchase the tickets for the haunted house so we had to wait for everyone they let in with us to buy their tickets.

We were ushered through a door leading from the foyer into the house proper and were given instructions to head towards the right and stay against the wall. As I passed through the door I saw a glass window through which I could see chopped up body parts lying strewn around a bloody room. The room was dark and the lights kept flickering on and off. I started to genuinely feel nervous. Heading around the corner as we were told, we were thrust into an even darker room. A woman could be heard screaming. The lights flickered on for a minute and we are all able to see. We laughed with each other and looked around the room. Every girl was holding on to her boyfriend. I was standing as close to Tyler as possible without knocking him over. The lights went out again. When they came back on a very ghostly looking man was standing right in front of my face. I screamed. Then I laughed because I couldn’t believe I screamed like that. The man stayed in my face. I stopped laughing and inch a little closer to Tyler. The man matched my steps. The lights went out again. When they came back on, the man was standing in front of someone else. Another man who looked like he could be his twin had joined him. As a spooky, recorded voice told us the rules of walking through the Tomb of Darkness the lights continued to go on and off and the men continued to scare the crap out of us.

Everyone else was getting just as jumpy and nervous as I already was. It felt good not to be the only one scared. I glanced at the girl in the couple behind me. She smiled nervously at me and we laughed. Somehow a bond was forged or something because during the remainder of the tour, she would grab the back of my jacket. I almost ran her over a couple of times too so I guess it balanced out.

I can't even begin to remember all of the rooms. We walked through a funeral parlor, an asylum, a morgue, a forest, a prison, death row, a spinning tunnel, a polka dot room where the walls came alive, several murder scenes, and I remember running past a girl in a bed with looking very much like Reagan in "The Exorcist". I ran through a spinning tunnel with my eyes closed because I really felt like the room was turning over on itself and I started to feel dizzy. There was something in every room we went in. It seemed like all the ghouls and ghosts and demons and demented souls in that Tomb were focused on me. It started in the first room we went in and continued throughout our tour. I became the unwilling victim of every terror. The man with the chainsaw chased me. Violent J from ICP chased me through the forest. When I started running from him I ran into a lumberjack with half his face cut off. I screamed and tried to run again and he stood in my way saying, “What are you running for? You don’t want to play with me?”

So yes. I was acting like a girl! I was holding onto Tyler, tripping all over his shoes trying to move from one room to the next and escape the things chasing me. I bet the people in our group were thinking, okay this grown ass woman knows she needs to calm down but I wasn't the only one screaming while walking through there and I am cracking up as I write this because the memory of it is so funny. It was maddening and I couldn't stop screaming and laughing. I felt hysterical and it was fun. Perhaps it was a release of sorts, something that I needed.

When it was finally over, I was on the biggest adrenaline rush ever. I felt like we should have come bursting out of the haunted house performing the dance sequence from “Thriller”. It was the best I have been in, well worth the $15 admission price. I thought about going again because it was that good. I'm glad we went and I'm glad we went on Halloween. I'm glad I went with someone that likes to get silly just as much as I do.

As we walked to the car, Tyler and I went back over what we had just experienced. We had to ride to my house with the windows down because we couldn't breathe and it had suddenly become extremely hot and we needed that rush of cool night air to bring us back to reality.

When I went to bed last night, I was still tripping off that haunted house. Luckily I didn’t have any nightmares.

How did you spend your Halloween?