Green around the ghouls

On Friday night, the ghastly ghouls, scary zombies and bloody brides prepared for another night of fright at the Kenosha Auctions and Events center’s first ever Haunted House.

A thick fog slithered in and around the events center as students from Platte Canyon High School and Fitzsimmons Middle School in Bailey chose their costumes, bloody make-up and scare strategies. The students are volunteers at the haunted house sponsored by the events center in Pine Junction. The house will be open again on Friday, Saturday and Halloween from 7 to 11 p.m. at 66803 U.S. Highway 285. The cost is $12 for the Scary Room and $7 for the Not-So-Scary Room. The haunted house isn’t recommended for those under 10 or over 90. A coupon worth $2 off admission is available on the events center’s website, http://www.kenoshaauctioninc.com/Event_ctr.htm

— look for the out-of-place pumpkin.

A 500-straw-bale maze in the Kenosha’s parking lot adds to the fun, and refreshments and scary movies satisfy the stomach and then bring on the queasiness.

Kenosha Auctions and Events general manager Rick Arnold said he’s been pleased with the haunted house but said it’s taken a lot of time and energy to put it together.

“We were sitting around after an auction and we got to talking, and nobody is sure who came up with the idea,” Rick said.

Arnold said the ghouls and goblins are friends, family and students from local schools who volunteer to haunt the 13 rooms of terror.

“I’m so proud of the Platte Canyon High School kids because they are really selling it,” Arnold said.

As she applied a thick layer of hair spray, Rebecca Krafcheck, 14, a freshman at Platte Canyon, said she didn’t realize how enjoyable it is to scare people with impunity.

“From the first, it sounded like fun, because I’ve always wanted to be an actress,” she said.

Ghoul Nicole Watson, 12, from Fitzsimmons Middle School said it was fun to hang out with her best friend and her boyfriend, but her ghoul companion Amy Fabing, 12, also from Fitzsimmons, really got into the spirit of Halloween.

“I thought it would be cool to be the one eating guts,” she said, though she wouldn’t share the guts “recipe.”

Arnold touted the disorienting lighting, screams and howls and surprising twists and turns in the 2,500-square-foot house. Items from previous auctions, aged smelly trunks, hairy spiders, angry-faced skulls, and lots of fog fill the chilly house.

“There’s also a really nasty-looking guy who takes the tickets at the door,” Arnold said. “It’s me.”

Wrapped in a bloody T-shirt, Platte Canyon student and zombie Rochelle Warren, 15, found unexpected perks in her creepy character.

“It’s fun to give people you don’t know a really good scare,” she said.

Harley Bode, 8, had a straightforward strategy worked out for those brave enough to enter his dark corner of a blackened room.

“I let them walk into the room, then I jump out at them,” he said.

Mom Heidi Bode donned a blood-red ball gown, complete with a ratty train, and was a bloody-good part of the show.

“It’s so cool to have something like this up here,” Bode said. “It builds a sense of community.”

Jake Borchard, 12, a student at Fitzsimmons, said he’s been training his whole life for his skeleton-framed part.

“It’s better than being the one who’s scared,” he said.

Mom Andrea McGarva of Pine brought her kids to the haunted house even though they originally wanted to go somewhere else. Judging by their screams and squeals, Kenosha’s haunted house was a success.

“They wanted to go to Heritage Square, but I like to support local businesses,” said McGarva.

Cecilia McGarva, 10, a student at Elk Creek Elementary, said she was chased through the straw-bale maze by bloody zombies, As a result, she decided to forgo the haunted house.

“I think it’ll be too scary,” she said.

This story ran in the October 27, 2010 edition of the High Timber Times.