It is 29 October. There are 2 days until Halloween.

At first glance, I must seem a rather poor excuse for a Halloween fan. I don’t like parties. I don’t like dressing up. I’m not much for decorating the house. Fact is, I’m not in this for the socializing, people!

One other Halloween activity I can do without is the haunted house. Maybe it’s the closed-in-ness of the rooms and corridors, the noise, or the fear of being photographed in full-on “flight” mode, but they just don’t appeal to me.

That was not always the case.

In high school, I got the chance to be a part of a neighborhood Halloween tradition. Yes, I was a teenage…

No, I was a teenage…

Let me finish…I was a teenage haunted house worker!

In my neighborhood during the 1980s, the Berry family had been putting on a scare show for a few years. Their haunted house was a must-see stop on the trick-or-treating route. The scares were legendary. As a younger trick-or-treater, I can remember walking past the house and being freaked out by the screams and crying kids. Truth be told, I never went in. Too scary!

Fast forward to high school: trick-or-treating was a thing of the past, but I still had that itch to participate. As luck would have it, a friend was dating the Berrys’ daughter. As October approached, Mr. Berry asked us if we would want to help him plan and build that year’s haunted house.

I’d be the scare-er and not the scare-ee? Count me in!

For the next few weeks, the Berry family, my friends, and I planned, prepped, and built a haunted house in a one-car garage.

You read that right – a one-car garage.

Through the clever use of painted cardboard, plastic sheets, and wooden frames, Mr. Berry showed us how to expand the space of the garage by limiting it. We built a corridor that twisted and turned back and forth across the width of the garage. This corridor seemed to go on forever thanks to the scares that were planted along the way. A mad scientist cackled and gibbered in the doorway that led from the garage into the house. A witch hid in an alcove just before the trick-or-treaters entered the back room…er, I mean the burial chamber.

The back of the garage was laid out like a castle dungeon. There were a couple of coffins, one lying flat, the other standing up. This is where a friend and I waited. He was Dracula, lying in his coffin, and I was standing in the corner wearing (if I remember correctly) a skull mask, leather gloves, and black robes. We’d wait patiently a moment or two as the entire group entered the chamber, then – BOO! My friend would slowly sit up, while I raised my arms and shuffled forward.

Outside the house, through the judicious use of sound effects records, creepy silhouettes in the upper windows (including Mrs. Bates!), and a local kid armed with a chainsaw (minus the chain, natch) roaming the streets, our ballyhoo game was strong.

The shrieks and screams inside and outside the haunted house were really something to behold. Boys and girls were equally affected. Even kids my own age who were usually too cool for school jumped and crowded each other when I lurched forward from my coffin. 

That night ended too soon. As kids headed home to go through their hauls of candy and visitors became fewer and farther between, we were able to take stock of the evening’s work. We broke down the haunted house and ate whatever candy Mrs. Berry had left over. We compared notes and relived the best scares – “Did you see that guy’s face when I…” “Did you hear the scream that girl let out when I…” We figured out what worked and what didn’t. Next year’s haunted house would be even better. 

Only there wasn’t a next year. The Berrys moved away, and the Halloween spook shows came to an end. 

You know…my wife and I are talking about buying a house in the next year or so. Maybe…just maybe…if it has an attached one-car garage…the haunted house, like the town of Pleasant Valley in Herschell Gordon Lewis's 2,000 Maniacs, could make another appearance…