Okay, let’s be honest. The house wasn’t that scary. It wasn’t that professional, either. And yet, I had fun. I’m not sure whether I had five dollars’ worth of fun or not, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Fall is in full effect here in Cresco, and of course that means Halloween is coming. Personally, I like this time of year. I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe it’s the weather—not too hot, not too cool, and it starts as being not too hot before becoming not too cool. When you deal with spring, you have not too cool weather becoming not too hot weather, and while you get a happy medium with both of them, I just like the heat gradually subsiding, driving people indoors at the end of the shortening days to occupy their own little worlds. Kids go and do their homework. People turn on their TVs for the latest promising series, and blog writers go inside to figure out just what they’re going to write about this time.
This year, my month has been almost swallowed up by martial arts practices, to the point where northeast Iowa has slipped into the background. It’s hard to enjoy the beauty and uniqueness of northeast Iowa when you’re constantly trying to complete forms, write checks and learn the finer points of whacking people in the head. The side effect is that I really haven’t gotten much of a chance to enjoy the run-up to Halloween, which is a shame. Halloween is on Monday, but I don’t know if there are going to be any good parties going on during that time. I’m pretty sure I could find a bar full of drunk college students in costume, but that does seem to be missing the point a bit. So when I saw a haunted house had opened up for the time being in downtown Cresco, I was all set to go in and get a few shivers. It was going to be fun, too. Just me, a couple high school kids who were obviously, obviously way too cool for this haunted house crap, the high schooler’s younger brother, and his friends.
The haunted house opened up at 7 p.m., so I decided to get there fashionably late—around 7:15. After that, it was only a half-hour wait until the doors opened up. So much for punctuality. On the other hand, they had the place done up pretty well. Scary door decals featuring a zombified face with teeth the size of most arms, and all sorts of assorted bric-a-brac in the store front window. Flickering lights, assorted creepy-crawlies, and various scary masks promised good times within.
Once inside, the dummies of Herman and Grandpa Munster kinda dimmed the scare factor. On the other hand, this was supposed to be the waiting area, so you didn’t want anything too scary. And let’s face it, dummies can look pretty scary when they just have a mask over them, staring at you with black voids where their eyes should be. Still, it was a kitschy kind of scary, what an antique store would look like if it were a haunted house. And they served cookies and punch while you waited! I didn’t mind at all.
Then came the haunted house itself. As I said…it wasn’t necessarily scary. People blew their cues, and the special effects had a strong smell of cheddar about them. This is not to say there weren’t some high points. The little girl with the pale skin, sunken eyes and bloodstained face asking, “Would you play with me? I want to play!” gave me a bit of a shiver. There was also a “statue” that got me when it came to life. As for the rest—they were fun. It was well worth the money I spent to get in. I left suffused with the spookiness of the holiday spirit.
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