Nightmare House, A Halloween Story
Part One:
Halloween is my busiest time of the year. I work for a
haunted house, so that’s to be expected. You’re probably thinking Halloween
should be my only time of year for that kind of job, but no. Nightmare House
runs all year round. Yes, business is kind of lean in the winter months, but we
get a steady stream of customers again in the late spring and all through the
summer. Of course, nothing beats the crowds I see in October.
Nightmare House isn’t actually a house. It’s a little
plywood shack that travels from town to town. We set it up in parks or empty
lots, wherever they’ll have us. I book our appearances, get all the permits,
take out ads, hang decorations, print flyers, sell tickets, lead the
tours…whatever my bosses can’t do themselves. Yes, that is too much work for
one single employee, but I get it all done.
Each night, right after sundown, all the kids line up and I
lead one group at a time into the house. I like to take groups of ten in the
off-season, but in October, I usually need to take groups of twenty or thirty kids
at once. I like to wear dark clothes, a costume cape, and maybe a little stage
makeup, if I’m feeling it. I lead each group to the corridor and tell them that
they are about to enter a space where their worst nightmares will come true to
haunt them. I’m not a natural performer by any means, but I like doing the
introduction. It’s the only part of my job that’s even a little fun.
Then the kids walk into the house and I close the door
behind them. Right away, they’re disappointed that it’s just a big empty room.
They always expect the winding halls and creepy exhibits like you see at normal
haunted house. But when their eyes adjust to the dark they notice that we are
not alone in here. My bosses are in the room with us.
That’s when the nightmares start to appear. It usually starts
with something small, like snakes or spiders. In less then a minute, the room
is full of nightmares. Mad dogs, lightning bolts, whatever scares those kids.
But, no matter how crowded the room gets, the kids don’t even seem to notice
anything except their own, personal nightmare. I stand in the back and watch
the room fill up with these awful things. I’m not really sure how it works.
Believe me, I try not to ask questions. The simplest explanation is that my
bosses are, for lack of a better word, demons.
I’m not sure if my three bosses are literally demons, I just
know that they’re not human. They do look sort of human, at least that’s the
appearance they take whenever they meet with me. But they don’t look quite
right. For one thing, their skin and eyes have these sort of purple undertones
that look unnatural. They also have a low pitch to their voice. I’m not certain
a human larynx can produce that exact pitch. Actually, these descriptions don’t
quite do them justice. Whenever they’re around, I get this feeling of
uneasiness, like an instinct that tells me something is wrong. No humans could possibly
mistake these guys for members of their own species. That’s probably why they
need a human employee. I can sell tickets and book locations for them. If any
of our customers had to interact with these guys, no one would ever come
near Nightmare House.
I know what you’ve been wondering. When the kids face their
nightmares, do they get hurt? Of course not. I’m not exactly the kindest soul
you’ll ever meet, but I’m not a monster. My bosses just terrify them for ten
minutes or so, then the nightmares disappear, and everyone runs out the exit and
into the back lot where their parents are waiting. The first few times I saw
it, I expected the kids to tell their parents everything that had just happened.
Then the parents would call the police or something and I’d spend the rest of
my days in prison for child endangerment. But the kids just talked about fake
bats on strings, wax figures, garbled sound recordings from 1973, and all the
other regular haunted house crap.
I guess Nightmare House puts some kind of spell on the kids
so they don’t remember what happened. I don’t think the magic is perfect,
though. When it’s over, the kids always look a little more rattled than they
should. And we never get return customers. If I’m in town for a week I don’t
see the same kids on Tuesday that I saw on Monday. The spell must not work on
adults either. I go into that house with the kids every night and I’ve never
seen any of my nightmares. I guess that’s why we only take kids and no adults.
That’s another strange thing about Nightmare House. With any normal haunted
house, you can be sure that some kid won’t go without one or both parents
tagging along or there will be at least a dozen parents who won’t let their
kids go in without a chaperone. But when families show up at Nightmare House,
the kids just line up at the door and the parents wait at the exit as if it that
was the only possible arrangement. Come to think of it, we never see any
childless adults, teens or college students either. Like I said, don’t question
it.
I think I’ve heard of spells like this before, but only in
fiction, of course. They’re called glamour spells. They make people see or
think things that aren’t real. As I recall, for the spell to work, the victim
needs to be open to the suggestion first. Glamour spells can’t make you believe
anything unless part of you wants to believe it. I guess these kids really want
to believe that nothing horrible really happened to them.
You’re probably wondering why actual demons would bother
using their magic to run a traveling sideshow. Simply put, fear is like food to
them. If they stop scaring people they starve to death. I suppose in the olden
days, demons would run around terrorizing humans to sustain themselves, instead
of finding willing volunteers. That actually makes this whole operation seem a
little less nasty, if you ask me. I mean, what other creature can eat without
killing anything? These guys just mess with their victims for a few minutes
then send them back, physically unscathed and able to go on with their lives.
Heck, their only victims are people who are asking to be scared. Sure, it’s
lousy that they only prey on children with this arrangement. And it would be better if they
didn’t have to scare them quite so much. And, yes, it’s a little unscrupulous
that we charge admission for the whole thing, but I have to get paid somehow. I can’t eat fear.
I don’t remember how I started working here. I probably
started the way anyone takes any bad job: I convinced myself that I really
needed work and I would only do it this for a little while. But then the years
piled on, I really can’t remember how many, and now I’m not sure I could quit.
I mean, I don’t think my bosses are dangerous, but I’m not looking forward to
their reactions if I ever bring them a letter of resignation. And I’m not sure how
I would find another job after this. The longest running job credit on my
resume would read, “Haunted House Worker.” Add that to the disadvantage of
starting a new career at my age. Actually, I’m not sure how old I am. That’s
the kind of thing most people remember, isn’t it?
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