Yesterday I went to castle blood for their valentine show and there were a lot of pop-up monsters and jannas fortune didn,t love her and daddy peed his pants!Daddy got yelled at for not turning off his phone and mommy was not awesome the whole time.

I was awesome the whole time and i got to rip a hart out of a monster and it said i never loved you any way!

Katelyn (my frenemy) gave me cookies and love potion.

Today Mommy had to get her dumb fruit and Daddy acted like a idiot who is at work and he knows everything about the weird asian market and it smells like fish in there

They still wont let me get a durian!!!!!

October fucking flew by and I can’t stand it. Especially since this was hands-down the best October I’ve had since I was in high school, I swear to god. Here’s a shortlist of all the haunts I attended this year, mostly for my own record.

• Freddy’s Haunts: Sucked, though it has been so good in past years. This one is totally inconsistent.
• Castle Blood: Never disappoints, not even in a brand new location! This one is a goddamn aesthetic feast.
• TerrorTown: Awful, total disappointment considering I know what this one is capable of.
• Ghoul Mansion: Total psychological mind fuck. Maybe one of only a handful of times I was scared to the point of panic/tears in a haunted house.
• Mischief Manor: Used to be my beloved Victory Haunted School. Cost $10 (+tax, wtf) and took about 5 minutes to get through. Rip off. But it’s where Chooch learned to sass the monsters.
• Haunted Hills Hayride: This one has been so stupid in years past, but the walking trail was interactive and totally hilarious. And scary. And confusing. I got to shack up with Michael Myers (literally)!
• Allen’s Haunted Hayride: Chooch’s first hayride! Always a fun time.
• Hundred Acres Manor: Biggest bang for your buck, in my opinion. One of my favorites this season.
• Carnegie Haunted Trail: Chooch was Mr. Bravery until the chainsaw guy came and he and his cousin Ean completely left me and Danielle in the dust. I absolutely adore the people who put this one together.
• Sewickley United Methodist Haunted Church: Old school! Zero fucks were given that Chooch is only 6 — they went balls to the wall, start to finish, with this one. So good, so cheap.
• Carlynton Haunted High School: It was a haunted high school. You get what you pay for.
• Delirium: Um, it’s in an abandoned asylum you guys. That alone made it worth it. It was scary at times, but mostly insanely fun (OH DID YOU SEE WHAT I DID THERE).
• Shadows: A fairytale-themed walking trail. I think they were understaffed, so I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt and try it again next year if they’re back.
• Demon House: This one is generally inconsistent, but it was fun this time even though I got lectured by a dead miner for swearing.
• Dark Works: A local home haunt. I was so impressed by this, and it was my favoritist. A haunted house, just totally chilling in some dude’s backyard! Incredible. Thanks to Rick and Tammy for taking me there!
• Castle Blood matinee: Even though Chooch has graduated to the nighttime tour,  he  still needs to snag some candy from the denizens. (And see his girlfriend Katelyn!)
• West Deer Nightmare: This used to be one of my favorites, but then it went away and new (shitty) incarnations of it kept coming back. But the original has returned and we dragged Chooch to it. It was the only time he legitimately came close to tears and I felt like the Worst Mom Ever. Some girl actually said “Excuse me” to Henry just so she could run down the hall and scare Chooch again. He kept saying, “I hate you, Mommy!” but in the end, he said it was awesome (even after the chainsaw completely chased him to the parking lot), soooo……

Until next October…peace out, Girl Scouts.

Friday night, Seri and I were standing in line for a shuttle that would take us to a nearby haunted house. We were the first people in line, when suddenly a carful of assholes oozed across the parking lot, and I just knew the mom unit of the pack was going to try and plant her mom-jeaned saddle bags right in front of me.

You know who doesn’t play the line jumping game? One Erin Rachelle Kelly.

I made a point of taking an exaggerated step forward, just in case it wasn’t already clear that I was practically fucking the sign that said “Line for shuttle forms here.”

It worked. She took her white trash manners to the back of the line with all the other losers.

About a minute later, the shuttle arrived and I all but charged at it when I saw in my periphery that the assholes behind me were seriously going to attempt to go around me, usurping my head of the line title.

THEN WHAT IS THE POINT OF STANDING IN LINE.

However, I didn’t account for the fact that the shuttle was bringing people back to the lot as well, so when the doors opened, I almost got stampeded.

Look, I’m ALWAYS in a hurry, always acting like I’m trying to escape a burning building. And I REALLY REALLY REALLY like being first in line.

(For recreational things, that is. Not the dentist or the guillotine.) So I was pee-jigging it up, waiting for the shuttle to unload. I’m not sure what Seri was doing since I had my eyes on the prize (read: the front seat of the shuttle), but if I had to guess, she was probably wishing for a copy of 50 Shades of Gray to bury her face in, because that would be much less embarrassing than being associated with the Type A line stander.

Meanwhile, some asshole KIDS were encroaching my jurisdiction.

They were now standing to my side instead of behind me. I knew that as soon as the last motherfucker stepped off the shuttle, these brats were going to make a run for it.

NOT IF I RAN FASTER.

Last person exited the shuttle and I stuck out my arm like I was going to clothesline these dick kids; while bounding up the shuttle steps, I had direct shoulder-to-shoulder contact with one of them. One of the adults they were with snagged them by the backs of their hoodies, otherwise they might have trampled Seri, who I may have accidentally left behind in my haste.

When Seri fell into the front seat next to me, she shook her head.

“I’m sorry, but I’m not letting KIDS cut in front of me!” I cried.

“Gosh, Erin. You’d be a great example for my preschool class,” she laughed. And then, “Would you rather substitute for a preschool class, or high school?”

I didn’t even hesitate.

“Oh, high school. Totally. They’re practically my peers. I could talk to them about Jonny Craig.”

Oh, Jonny.

When we arrived at Demon House, I all but pushed Seri out of the seat so we could get off the shuttle first.

Babes!!!

When we first arrived at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum last Sunday evening, we only bought tickets for the haunted house and the flashlight tour of the morgue. “Most people come back and buy tickets for the second tour after they’re done with the first,” the ticket booth lady told us. And sure enough, once the flashlight tour was over, Seri and I exchanged knowing looks;  it was pretty clear we needed to take the other tour, too. God are we suckers.

I really liked that older couple up there in that picture! They were also in our group inside the haunted house and the old man was gracious enough to hang back after Seri and I got disoriented inside the foggy maze and I screamed, “PLEASE DON’T LEAVE US, WE’RE LO-HAWHAWHAWHAW-SSSST!” Andthen his wife-person handed us glossy advertisements for the joint after the wheelchaired ticket taker refused to relinquish the ticket stubs for the second flashlight tour. (I really thought I could fool him the second time around.)

We stayed inside the main building for this one, which would eventually land us in the Experimental Therapy ward. My Boyfriend In A Hoodie unfortunately did not join us for this tour. The Camera-Happy Couple did, though. Thank god.

The nurses would pass the patients cigarettes through this hole. If I were Henry, I would take me back to that place and pass me an engagement ring through that.

Henry would never think of something that romantic.

This picture accurately depicts what the world looks like to me without my Big Green Glasses. I took this picture because our guide told us that another guide had a tour up there (it was a ghost-hunting tour), and there was distinct activity coming from beyond those doors. When the guide suggested they check it out, the whole tour retreated to the stairwell and left her up there alone. WTF!? What a lame fucking group.

So our guide got us all amped for that, only to continue walking in the opposite direction! What the hell!?

One of the experimental therapy exam rooms! In addition to the standard shock therapy practices, this asylum also got all up in some eye sockets by administering trans-orbital lobotomies. I was totally into this part of the tour.

I was dawdling at the rear of the group in an effort to get a picture of this lonely wheelchair that would have such a great home with me, when a loud, staccato cry rang out in the next room where most of the group was.

There were two stairwells and numerous doors in this area; the sound seemed to have come from the left, away from our group, perhaps either from the stairwells or back in one of the other rooms. It was totally obvious that everyone heard it, people were shifting around nervously, but not one person said a thing about it. Not even the guide. So I chalked it up to someone coughing or a squeaking shoe, but later Seri backed up my original thoughts by swearing, “No, I heard it too. Everyone heard it. It totally sounded like a bark!”

Clearly, we need to go back there.

Right after that, we entered another section of the floor, where our guide told us a story about some poor man whose whorebitch wife admitted him to the hospital for alcoholism, where he met his untimely demise in the men’s room after some asshole who actually deserved to be there stabbed him 17 times. The guy was able to drag himself to the nearby nurses station before bleeding out on the floor.

Of course, Camera-Happy Couple had a field day posing candidly for each other by the latrines.

(Who am I kidding? I probably would have done the same if I wasn’t terrified of my picture being taken because I’m the fattest fatty who ever fatted.)

 Looks cozy to me.

 This was an area that was renovated in an attempt to capture the original feel.

 Adding a portrait of angry soldier-types make even the chilliest abodes seem homier.  It’s good that they tried to cheer up the patients through art.

 Supposedly, some people have taken pictures of this mirror and have spotted other faces in the reflection. I got really excited at first because it looks like there is a face with glowing eyes in the righthand of the picture below, but I think that’s probably just Seri.

Her eyes are always glowing with fire and brimstone.

And that concludes our tour of the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum.

When Seri dropped me off at home, it was past midnight. I poked my head through the passenger side door and said in a sing-song voice, “Hopefully we didn’t bring anything back with us. You know, like ghosts.” I let that sink in for a second, and then sang out, “Goodnight!” as Seri’s face filled with horror.

She loves when I do that to her late at night when she has to drive home alone. I’m a good friend!

I absolutely could not be happier with the way this Halloween season has been chugging along. I’ve gone to a ton of haunts, from hayrides to trails to church basements, and those are stories reserved for my haunted house journals. However! Seri and I went to one in a lunatic asylum in Weston, WV on Sunday, and then took an optional flashlight tour of the premises afterward, because we figured why not? I mean, our adventures are scary enough (some kind of fucked up shit always happens to us, even when we’re just hanging out at the high school track) but who doesn’t need a little paranormal immersion in their lives. The haunted house portion was a lot of fun—we came out laughing, albeit nervously—but the flashlight tour was definitely creepier. Here are some pictures. And by some I mean so many that I will need to divide them amongst  two posts so as not to break the Internet.

The Morgue Tour

There was a guy in a wheelchair taking our tickets. He wouldn’t let me keep the stub as a souvenir!

It was like this:

“But—”

“No.”

“But—”

“Sorry.”

There was an old lady behind us who made a big fuss about it too. I heard her throw down the word “scrapbooking” at one point. Yeah, she went there.

FA LA LA LA LAAAAAWHEELCHAIRS!!!!!!!!

The morgue tour was super creepy from the get-go because we had to walk outside behind the main building to get to the building the morgue was in. On the way, our guide (a tiny but no-nonsense lady who I’m sure I could have made cross in .0005 seconds flat if I wasn’t so distracted by all the broken glass and the desire to push Seri into a big mud puddle) pointed her flashlight to an area behind the building where there supposedly was once an APPLE TREE THAT SOME PATIENT HUNG HIMSELF ON! You guys, you KNOW how much I love apples and suicide! I mean…apples!

P.S. There’s totally someone looking out of that bottom window.

The hallway where the morgue is located.

Casket! Some imbecilic dumbass had the audacity to call it a coffin, which made our guide flip her shit. I can’t remember her name, but I’m REALLY wanting to call her Sally. She constantly used the word “setting” instead of “sitting.” Who’s the imbecile now.

Morgue curtains!

Morgue-y morgueness!

Morgue cleansing corner!

There was one young guy in our tour that I am positive I made a connection with even though he was there with his girlfriend, whom he even mistook me for at one point! And she was way less fat than me, so I took that as a compliment. Sorry, non-fat Erin lookalike. You can write about how insulted you were another day, because right now it’s my time to shine.

So yeah, this guy. He was like 20. But when we were outside waiting for the tour to start, some broad came over and scolding several of us for commingling on the steps when we should have been standing inside the queue. So there were like 6 of us who had to duck under the queue, just as my new boyfriend and his group of people were entering the line from the back.

“I swear we’re not cutting!” I pleaded, and they all said they knew, but when my new boyfriend got closer, he jokingly sneered, “Line jumper!” at me. I took this to mean he wanted to have all of the sex with me against a haunted hospital urinal.

During the tour, he and I were always the last ones in the group, lingering about and taking pictures. Seri claims she didn’t notice, but I think that’s just because she doesn’t want to choke to death on GUILT  the next time she sees Henry.

Anyway, he was wearing a hoodie and a hat. It was too dark to ever really see his face.

The haunted house portion of the asylum, while scary in its own right, was a little disappointing because instead of really utilyzing the natural creepy state of the space, they had most of it covered up

I don’t know what this is.

Random carriage.

I kept turning around and taking pictures of the halls behind us. Mostly because I was too scared to keep my back turned on it.

When we were still outside in line, there was a couple standing with us. Maybe they were in their early 30s too, it was hard to tell, but they seemed extremely unoffensive. Until the tour started and the girl-part of the couple went from quiet and mature to obnoxious asshole before the guide even started pointing shit out. We weren’t even out of the lobby yet and it was already photo bomb city. These mothers were in my way in every fucking room, acting all posey-posey for each others cameras in front of the morgue sink, a broken window, an exit sign. THEY WERE GODDAMN EVERYWHERE I WANTED TO TAKE A PICTURE. I could have pointed my camera at Seri’s ass, and that girl would have had a sudden urge to have HER picture taken there, too. And she kept posing like she was at the fucking beach. And she was wearing stupid boots.

And she was just a stupid twat, OK?

I can also tell you that she is a big Heath Ledger fan, because maybe I have big eavesdropping ears and probably not because she told me herself.

There’s one room that’s haunted by a little girl named Lily. Numerous paranormal groups have witnessed her playing with toys and balls in there, but I was too busy wondering how I could steal her baby doll without my soul becoming demon dinner.

I really want to point out that those streaks are probably spirits! But I don’t feel like being a douche today.

Balls.

My boyfriend and I had another cute little encounter by this door. I did my cute little “You have no idea that I’m really a Black fucking Widow” giggle.

I feel like maybe I missed out on a lot of the historical facts of the morgue tour because I was too busy fixating on my lust for the guy in the hoodie and my hatred for the Photo Bomb Couple of the Year.

It’s amazing how much progress has been made on the new Castle Blood digs in the last two months since we last visited. I’m so excited for the haunt season to commence!

Henry’s all annoyed because I walked away with more ideas for our future dining room.

But Ricky said he would help, so there Henry.

(Last night I put some bids on antique embalming fluid bottles to use as vases.

Worst case scenario: I’m gonna have the coolest tree house in Brookline.)

Of course Henry had to flaunt his handiness. Wouldn’t be the same otherwise.

Maybe you already know that Castle Blood is one of my all-time favorite, can’t-miss haunted houses, but if you didn’t already know, Castle Blood is one of my all-time favorite, can’t-miss haunted houses. I think there were only 2 or 3 Halloween seasons that I didn’t make it out there since I first started going when I was 16. (DAMN! Sixteen years ago.)

(And probably you’re thinking, “Why is this broad writing about haunted houses in May?!” Keep reading.)

Castle Blood is undergoing a makeover, which includes a brand new location for 2012! This location, an old library in Monessen, PA, will serve as the temporary digs for the Castle, after which the denizens and decor will mosey on down to their future, permanent abode, also in Monessen.

Gravely MacCabre graciously invited me out last weekend for a sneak peek of the new soon-to-be Gothic space. (I let Henry and Chooch come too, God forbid.)

Gravely was at the old site, loading up carfuls of decor and props to be sent to the new place, where our friends Chris and Dawn (whom I hadn’t seen since the Trundle Manor Halloween party since she has the nerve to live in dumb Canada!) were doing all sorts of heavy-lifting.

Essentially a shell yet to be filled, I still insisted that Dawn give us the grand tour of the building, during which we had to heavily rely on our imaginations to picture what the new Castle Blood experience will entail. (This means Henry basically blacked out and drooled, probably thought about maps and buying more Vidal Sassoon for his unkempt McNichol-locks. “Uh-maj-uh-nayyyyy-shun? Wot’s that?”)

Transvestite Little Mermaid mural in the childrens section of the old library, which was scary enough in itself. There were also Teletubbies in there. I shivered.

During our visit, a revolving door of denizens arrived with more stock to be moved into the new building. I didn’t recognize anyone sans graveyard makeup and prosthetic facial slabs until Dawn would point them out by their Castle Blood names. (This was also the first time I had ever seen Dawn without her makeup on too! It was exciting.)

Eventually, Dawn reluctantly said that while she would love to stand around with me and talk about how fantastic I am, she had better get back to work. I know Henry was itching to flash his blue collar, his foot was experiencing phantom pallet jack twitches, and the fact that Dawn was wearing work gloves was definitely giving him a manual labor boner, so the next thing I knew he was marching past me with a dead pirate balanced on his shoulder. Chooch decided he wanted to help too (which is a surprise since he’s basically Little Erin when it comes to doing things for other people, especially things that require lifting and being a good person), and actually took his role very seriously. He made me hold a cup of water, which he’d pause and chug from theatrically, I guess to show everyone how hard he was laboring, I don’t know. Holding his water was really asking a lot from me, since I was so busy standing around, taking pictures, and doing what I do best: generally getting in the way. It was truly my time to shine.

OMG I wanted to swim in this.

Chooch thankfully didn’t bust anything. He was even entrusted with glass lanterns at one point and I almost had a mom-stroke.

Chris pointed out that this was basically just Henry doing his regular day job: lugging beverage.

And then everyone talked at length about Henry’s awesomeness and I almost vomited. HENRY HENRY HENRY!

Chooch is absolutely obsessed with Castle Blood now, even moreso than he had been. I think he really enjoyed helping out that day, and getting to see what it looks like before all the magic happens. As soon as we came home that day, he immediately made me go to their website for him, which he pored over for quite some time and talked excitedly about wanting to have a part in their no-scare matinees. (I believe what he said was, “Yeah. HELL yeah.” when asked.)

The next night, I came home from the movies and he proudly showed me the Castle Blood mascot he crafted.

“Is that a weener?” I asked exasperatedly.

“No. It’s his….zipper,” Chooch stammered. “Yeah, it’s totally his weener,” he eventually conceded.

I was about to lecture him when I remembered that he’s only like this because of me. Dammit.

***

Even though this is essentially an end of an era for Castle Blood, I do think it’s exciting to see what will rise from the proverbial ashes. I know that they’re going to own it, totally make it their bitch, because that’s what a cast of haunt-loving geniuses do. And let’s be honest, Gravely could make a shanty under a bridge into a world-class haunted attraction, and would probably even find a role for the hobos living in it.

I have a feeling that the future of Castle Blood is going to be bloated with Really Great Things (and hopefully another celebrity appearance by Alex Vincent). October can’t come fast enough!

(P.S. In the end, I actually carried THREE WHOLE THINGS from a car into the building! I find it hard to believe that no one patted me on the back.)

I love when I split entries into parts and then wait over a week to finish it. That doesn’t fuck with the flow at all. It has taken me approximately two weeks to bang this out and I don’t care about typos at this point.

TerrorTown
I always get a little skeptical when new haunted houses pop up in the city. Oftentimes they end up being huge, overpriced, crowded clusterfucks that become nothing more than a bad memory after one season.

However, the idea of it being located in a basement with known paranormal activity in the Strip District did wonders to sway me. Laura and I got there as soon as it opened, and played it safe by choosing a Sunday night. As I suspected, there were very few people in line, but technical difficulties prevented us from entering the building until well after 7:00.

Once inside, we were immediately ushered downstairs into the basement of a very cold, industrial space which at one time housed a grocery store. We paid our way in and then wended through the rope-lined queue where we wound up standing in anticipation for another 20-30 minutes. The waiting area alone had us creeped out: it was illuminated in corners with red lights and a soundtrack of metal scraping and gears grinding loudly drowned out the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake which was playing on a screen at the front of the line.

Unlike Cheeseman’s, no one wanted to talk to us in this line. In fact, the young couple behind us kept no less than five feet between us at all times. I was kind of offended. But mostly relieved. When we got to the front of the line, however, the lady working the door gave us the 411 on the history of the space, which for real has been proven to be haunted. There used to be a paintball place on one of the upper floors of the building, and employees had reported sightings. The door lady told us that the actors of TerrorTown had been seeing a 10-year-old boy who had died down there years ago.

When it was finally our turn, we were sent inside the doors with the young couple in front of us, where we were then sequestered in a room and berated by a crazy-eyed funeral director.

He let the couple go and made Laura and me stay for some more ear-beatings and I thought I was going to have a stroke. We were then given permission to leave, but she and I were on our own after that and it was fucking scary. I kept imagining in my head that I was going to see that 10-year-old boy ghost and wind up spending the rest of my days in a rocking chair, listening to Katy Perry.

I almost don’t want to write about TerrorTown because I know in my heart my words will never do it justice. I go to a lot of haunted houses. The majority of them are hit or miss. But this one was near-perfection. It was literally like taking a schizophrenic tour through the underbelly of Pittsburgh, where the resident bottom feeders were free to antagonize us and scream in our faces. There was a contortionist dressed as a babydoll in a room that was essentially a landfill of flea market toys; there was a clown hanging out in a living room with Christmas lights (the thick bulbs that I love!) strewn haphazardly and stacks of static-screened TVs lighting up one wall.

It was like walking through the inside of my head and Laura often had to pull me out of each room because I couldn’t stop looking around all wide-eyed and whispering, “Whoa.” It was a creepy picture-taker’s wet dream, OK?

Numerous times we were taken off guard, nothing was predictable. The scares were intense, there were lots of moments that even left us laughing, and those actors were fucking legit. This was one of those places that didn’t need to rely on a chainsaw guy to evoke pee dribbles.

$17 and well worth it. They held us hostage in their twisted underworld of degenerates for at least 30 minutes and it was just a real visual feast. Well executed, scary, fun and I hope it returns next year!

Demon House

Regardless of the haunted house, this night was exciting because it was the first time my brother Corey, my sister Amy, and me were all together. Kind of a long story, but my mom had given Amy up for adoption when she was born and then found her again in 1998 I think it was. I never met her back then, but Corey did. Then Amy found me on her own two years ago and I’m glad she did because she’s an awesome sister and not like our mom at all. (Lucky for her!) Anyway, we all brought our respective date-people with us and it was a grand ol’ time. (Henry was a game time decision.)

As we were walking to the ticket booth, I was filling in Amy and her boyfriend Dick about what they could expect from this particular haunt.

“And the best part is, they give your group a number and then you’re free to mill about or sit by a bonfire, so there are no lines to wait in…

” I said on my know-it-all tone right before we stopped to STAND IN A LINE to buy our tickets. “…except for this line we’re waiting in.”

Because I’m used to being a sort of conversation conductor, I urged Corey to tell Amy about his latest bout with color blinded. I wasn’t even finished suggesting it when he and his girlfriend Danielle began to laugh and shared knowing smirks.

“We were taking bets on how long it would take you to bring that up,” Danielle laughed, I guess because I’m OBSESSED with this story.

Then we got to hang out by a fire while we waited for our number to be called, and I was harrassed by a man wearing a burlap sack over his head. I kind of had a crush on him. It was his heavy breathing that did it for me.

Demon House was decent this year however I was a little angry at one point during the first leg, which is outside and built to mimic a mine shaft. One of the miners was pretty rude and normally that’s part of the schtick, but this guy I think was just rude in real life. He yelled at me for standing too close but I didn’t know where else to go and then I pouted about that for awhile.

Before we got to the actual house, there was a chainsaw guy. I didn’t actually see him, but I heard him and that was enough to send me sprinting ahead of the pack. I made it to the front door of the house and then had to wait alone while the rest of my group calmly walked up the path like sane people.

When Demon House first started about six years ago, I thought their resemblance to Castle Blood was uncanny. I have since learned that it was no coincidence, that they were literally sending people to Castle Blood with video cameras and more or less doing everything in their power to ruin Castle Blood. They have since abandoned the interactive portion of the experience that they so desperately wanted to do better than Castle Blood, and I did have a decent time within the walls (the decor is really good and there are some creepy moments) but knowing what I know now, I won’t be giving them my money in the future.

But the important thing is that I got to hang with my sibs. And we got ride a short bus to and from the parking lot!

Screams

This piece of shit bullshit of a haunt is the biggest waste of money. Last year it was called Hobb’s Manor. So basically they changed the name to trick poor assholes into spending $12 to be completely underwhelmed by a bunch of indifferent teenagers in masks. Also, Laura and I spent longer than it took us to walk through sitting in my car just waiting for the assholes to get their shit together and open the doors.

After that, it took us approximately 10 minutes to walk, not run, through.

And then right outside the exit door, the chainsaw dick made me slip and fall in the muddy lawn.

I was displeased. We should have just went back to TerrorTown. I’m adding these assholes to the Blacklist with Demon House and Scarehouse, which is the haunt that made me start the Blacklist in the first place.

Dormont Dungeon
After getting ripped off at Screams, Laura and I came back to my hood and spent $5 to walk through a tennis court covered with black tarp and garbage bags ad inhabited by a bunch of middle school kids who put more moxie and vigor in their performance than any of those apathetic teens sullying the name of haunted houses.

I was especially enchanted with the little chainsaw boy who chased us through a laundry-line strung tennis court at the end. Laura and I were laughing so hard we were crying.

And THAT is the sign of a fun haunted house.

I still have one more Halloween party to go to tomorrow night, therefore it is still acceptable to be writing about Halloweenish things on this here blog. Also, some people (my friend/haunted house companion Laura) would cry if I didn’t write about certain haunted houses from this season. And by doing so, I’m hoping that it will seduce some people (Laura) to comment.

Hundred Acres Manor

Gosh, thank god this one happened to open the same weekend Andrea was visiting from California. She had never gone to a haunted house before because she was under the impression that the “monsters” inside these things are allowed to touch people, and she is a HUGE germ freak. Plus, she would have rathered stay at my house and watch Lil’ Wayne videos on On Demand all night, but I made her see the light by doing a lot of whining and flashing my puppy-eyes, which have no effect on Henry anymore but always manage to arrest the will of newer people in my life.

In line for the Manor, Andrea got a Super Gulp of Pittsburghese, thanks to the Steelers-emblemed assholes behind us. I was actually kind of embarrassed by them and their careless, flagrant slinging of the word “yinz” and “jagoff.”

Luckily, we got to go inside the Manor without them, but they managed to catch up to us in one of the rooms, at which point we got to witness one of the girls say, “This is just like being in horror movie” except that she kept pronouncing it “whore” movie and Andrea and I were like YOU GOT THAT RIGHT.

Then a candlestick flung itself off a fireplace mantel and hit Andrea in the ribcage.

But at least it wasn’t a person touching her. (I wanted her to sue, but she rubbed her WWL’WD bracelet and said, “Nah, I’d rather just make it rain.”)

She claims she wasn’t scared, yet you should have seen her jump when we were inside the maze and a RANDOM MAN (not even a monster) rounded a corner and caught her off guard. It was the only time she screamed.

Me? Oh, I was fine. My usual valiant self. Until we arrived at the entrance of the maze and I could hear the chainsaw over yonder. I clung to Andrea and started doing this weird hunched-over side-step that I find myself resorting to every time I’m trying to creep around undetected by a chainsaw-wielder. But then, in addition to hearing that sickening mechanical whir, I began to smell the fumes, so I knew we were pee-stepping in the same direction as him and I just COULD NOT HANDLE IT so I started to run blindly, slamming into dead-ends, snagging Andrea’s purple granny-cardigan with one of my obnoxiously large and dangerous rings, until I rounded a corner and found myself face-to-face with him WITH NOWHERE TO GO BUT A FUCKING DEAD END. The exertion of my screaming combined with my heart slamming against my ribs nearly made me pass out until eventually I wasn’t able to scream at all, just wheeze and flail hysterically like an asthymatic teenager in a Little Red Riding Hood costume being chased around a barn at a Michael Myers-crashed Halloween party.

It was a really bad scene.

Chainsaw Guy eventually let me skirt past him, at which point I left Andrea and ran so fast that I somehow managed to find the exit without using my iPhone compass.

Walking back to the car afterward, I said to Andrea, “Um, that chainsaw wasn’t even on, was it?” And then she was like, “Oh my god, you’re right – it wasn’t. He was just holding it quietly at his side and you were crying like a little pussy.”

On the way home, I put on some Lil’ Wayne so Andrea could get her fix.

“That was fun,” she admitted, “but it was no afternoon at Planned Parenthood with Lil’ Wayne, that’s for sure.”

She really likes Lil’ Wayne.

Castle Blood

See here & here.

Cheeseman’s Fright Farm

This was my first haunted house with Laura! Do you know how hard it can be when you’re a 32-year-old “grown-up” to find other “grown-ups” to want to spend money on this shit? Not really all that hard, but still. I even made a Jonny Craig-centric mix CD for to brainwash Laura on the traffic-riddled drive out to Scary Farmland, PA.

The hayride was a little disappointing this year, although Laura’s thigh was nearly cauterized by a too-close chainsaw, and there were definitely some laughable moments. But there was no simulated humping between me and any Jason-wannabes, so that was kind of a downer.

The walk-thru part was entertaining as always though. Getting harassed and snarled at when you’re blindly combing your way through fog- and strobe light-filled corn maze is $12 well spent.

Plus, we got to pet some snakes. And I’m not talking about when I encountered Michael Myers in line and tried to shove my hand down his pants.

Real snakes!

But the scariest part was when we first arrived and staked out our spot in line.

“Just so you know, I’m holding this spot for like 10 more people,” a petite, older blond lady turned around and said.

Laura and I basically emitted sounds of ambivalence, because really — there was already a group of about 40 middle school kids in front of us, what the fuck is 10 more people at that point.

But instead of turning back around, she proceeded to talk to us for the next 30 minutes.

Here are things we learned:

• She lives in a ranch house in the middle of nowhere, but as soon as her divorce is over, she is moving the fuck back to the city
• Her son, who pays for her cell phone bill and why shouldn’t he — he’s a pharmacist, after all — has lived in a myriad of places in and around Pittsburgh since leaving home and I can name each and every place.
• She is a student at some college somewhere
• One of her classmates told her on the first day of class that he really likes blonds, then followed her to a bar afterward and put something in her drink, and she knows this because when she drank from it, she felt something go down her throat, so what did she do next? OH, SHE LEFT THE BAR AND DROVE HOME. But don’t worry, she’s a seasoned drunk so she knew what she was doing. (This is where I interject that she actually came off as being a semi-classy broad until THIS factoid gushed from her lips.)
• She is still in a class with her would-be rapist.
• One of the people she was waiting for was her soon-to-be-ex-brother-in-law, Bill, and I SUSPECT THERE COULD BE AN AFFAIR going on there. But that’s just me being a speculating sleuth.

She got elbowed pretty hard in the head at one point by one of the middle school boys in front of her, who profusely apologized and swore that he didn’t see her, and I had to bite the knuckle of my thumb to keep from laughing. She was so angry that it happened, as evidenced by the scowl she flashed us.

Anyway, her posse eventually arrived, thank god. “That’s them!” she shouted to us, pointing to them and waving wildly. They slinked into line with her and I waited for her to introduce us, but she never did. I couldn’t even fucking believe it. Not even to Bill, who was wearing a blue flannel similar to Henry’s signature lumberjack uniform and sort of made me yearn for him which I mistakenly admitted to Laura, who threatened to out my mushy moment on Facebook and I wailed, “No don’t!” and suddenly had a deja vu moment of my “friends” bluffing about showing my 8th grade crush — Scott Dambaugh — the photo of him that they had blown up to an 8×10 for me at the pinnacle of my obsession.

Then, after talking about it for 30 minutes, Laura ran off to buy cotton candy, which came spun on a plastic stick that lit up and appeared to be a glowing pink nipple sticking out of the cotton’s crown. She kept jabbing it at me.

First I have to hear about this stranger almost getting dape-raped by a classmate half her age, and now this?

Our line friend never spoke to us again, which was fine by me, because her friends came equipt with flasks and crass language and I liked them way better than her anyway.

[FYI: I just wrote this at work while feeling like I’m on speed. Sorry if there are typos, but I need to go now and run repeatedly into a wall a few times. Then suck on some Fun Dip.]

The last time we took Chooch to Castle Blood’s daylight matinee, he was three-years-old; The Lost Boys was still his favorite movie; he was super-enchanted by one Jason Voorhees; and we still spontaneously flinched every time he opened his mouth in public, praying the word “Asshole” (or worse) wouldn’t come rolling out. He spent the whole goddamn tour of the castle bitching about Dracula’s absence.

The denizens had been waiting for Chooch and his silver-tongue to return and we finally had a chance to take him last Sunday. This was my friend Laura’s first October in Pittsburgh so I insisted that she come along because everyone needs to experience the Castle, even if it’s in daylight. Chooch never STFU once during the 40-minute car ride, and guess who was in the back with him? HIS WEARY MOTHER. We eventually joined “Are we there yet?” forces and Henry wanted to blow his brains out. He’s the only one who hates me sitting in the backseat more than me.

When we arrived, some of the denizens were milling about and suddenly it was all, “Chooch! Is that you? Chooch is here!” and he took a giant step behind my back because I guess he thought I was joking when I told him that they were all waiting for him. Normally he handles attention with way more panache than me (I go through life hiding behind Henry’s back like a kicked puppy), but I think the costumes were throwing him off. One minute we were just walking down a sidewalk in a quiet town and then bam—there’s a bunch of dead people in gowns with the facade of a castle behind them.

We got in line after formally introducing Chooch to everyone, and he was sort of starting to get that smart-ass Chooch attitude back while being asked questions by the denizen guarding the entrance, like he was so put out and exhausted having to talk to someone and he kept turning away from her but then I realized he was blushing through his zombie flesh-wounds, most likely because he was trying not to look at her boobs.

Uncle Vlad soon appeared on the front steps and we were sent in with the family of four behind us, the parents of whom I had originally used my Ph.d. in Debasement to prejudge because the dad had a mullet and the mom appeared to be blitzed off Benadryl, but they ended up being pretty inoffensive, plus they had two little girls whose presence alone was enough to hold Chooch’s tongue through the entire tour.

That and the bountiful corsets of the female denizens. I finally found my son’s Kryptonite and it’s the same as every other boy in the world.

He walked through the entire Castle looking nervous and blubber-ready anytime he was spoken to, but this didn’t stop him from nearly knocking a bitch down anytime a candy bowl was presented.

Meanwhile, the mulletted dad would laugh and look to me for some sort of approval every time one of his little girls would say something that was mildly funny but not enough to have Bill Cosby come calling. The mom was always trailing behind with her eyes mostly-closed, laughing to herself and trying TO BOND WITH ME. Clearly my “Don’t even!” exterior is softening because strangers are trying to penetrate my anti-social bubble more and more. Sometimes EVERYDAY.

I need to start practicing that snarl some more.

Oh goodie, the Gypsy Room! There are these beautiful strands of beads that fill the doorway into the Gypsy Room and on that day, I learned that not only are they beautiful, but sharp as fuck thanks to HENRY whipping one at me. One of the half moons or stars, I don’t know which but it was something with SPIKES AND THORNS ON IT, punched me in the lip in such a way that tears spontaneously sprung to my eyes it felt like my top lip had been triple-shot with Botox.

Of course, I couldn’t bitch about it to Henry right away because I didn’t want to interrupt the Gypsy and get a talking-to from our (extremely intimidating) guide, so I sulked in the back and periodically checked with my tongue for blood. But you better believe as soon as we walked out of that room, I gripped Henry’s arm and yelled at him the best I could without raising my voice above a strained hiss. If it had been bleeding, I would have sued his broke ass for a hard copy of his entire SERVICE history because I know he did it on purpose.

Meanwhile, the mom of the two girls in our group kept slurring for me to go on ahead of her, probably because she needed privacy to huff beneath a gargoryl.

In the pirate room, Henry was volunteered by our guide to get up in there and show his bravery, which made me snort to myself because unless bravery involves reading Food Magazine and having a foot run over by a pallet jack with no retaliation, Henry had no business being up there.

But on the bright side, it helped him realize he has a pirate fetish.

After the tour, we hung around outside and talked to our new friends while I tried to appear as socially together as possible but inside my head I was screaming, “MY HANDS! WHAT SHOULD I DO WITH MY HANDS!?” I ended up just keeping them inside my hoodie pockets.

Someone mentioned that Chooch was way quieter than they imagined; Henry and I, nearly in tandem, said, “It’s because there are girls around.” Even Laura seemed surprised at how docile he had become.

This was all the knowledge of my son that Professor Scrye and Lady Die’s little girl needed to know before chasing him around and antagonizing him with little else but her femininity. At one point, I think he was trying to dive into a garbage can.

The good thing about Chooch’s voice being smothered by estrogen was that he actually paid attention in there and took something away other than candy for the first time. Granted, he was still too young the other times we took him to really grasp the concept. I think 5 is the perfect age for a trip to Castle Blood. 5 and surrounded by little girls.

“I thought those little girls on the tour with us had makeup on, but then I realized they were just dirty,” Henry laughed like we’re so much better than them, I guess forgetting that people probably say that about our kid, too. Yesterday I unknowingly sent him to school with half of his head still caked in fake blood and he usually has last night’s meal hugging the corners of his mouth. My eyes don’t start properly seeing until at least noon, OK?

Chooch ate his whole bag of candy on the way home without me knowing (and by that I mean I wasn’t paying attention) and then caused a scene inside the gas station, making everyone in there believe that he earned his facial bruises and contusions.

I don’t really remember how it started. I know it was 1995 and something that my mom and I liked to do together, back when we actually liked each other and were able to get along for longer than one half hour at a time. We would get the weekend newspaper and scour it for haunted house ads, mapping out all the ones that were close enough in proximity to ensure we could fit in at least two a night.

It was a sickness. Some of my friends caught the bug from my mom and me and soon we were salivating for weekends in October, piling seven or eight people in Lisa’s minivan and driving down dark country roads to farm fields where we would scream like motherfuckers in the chainsaw guy’s face and horror-flirt with Michael Myers, not letting ourselves believe that it was really some Clearasil commercial douchebag in a cheap K-mart mask. It was an opportunity to play scared, helpless victim around boys I had crushes on and to be one of those obnoxious teens in lines that I want to punch in the face now that I’m a “grown-up” with a low patience threshold.

Fighting with Keri over Jason Voorhees outside of Terrordome (she won and ended up taking him to our high school’s Christmas dance that year, but he ended up being a real motherfucker, so I guess I won after all); peeing my pants inside the claustrophobic fog-machine-stenched halls of Victory’s Haunted School and scream-singing Superdrag’s “Sucked Out” with Lisa in order to be let out of one of the rooms; wrecking into the chainsaw guy’s car at that same haunted house years later and sometimes literally wondering, “OMFG WHAT IF THIS IS REAL & I’M GOING TO DIE TONIGHT?” while having some strange man snarl in my ear and coat my neck with his warm, sleazy breath: These are all some of my favorite memories and why, even as an adult, my stomach does little flip-flops every October. That adrenaline rush of being someone’s horror movie prey for 30 minutes a night and the release of tension when it’s over is what makes me continue to fork over money to this crazy industry year after year. (Though there are some that I refuse to go to because they’re over-hyped and just not good. Keep your animatronics and give me all the old-fashioned garbage bag-curtained VFW haunted halls; it’s the simple things that scare me.)

It started with a scrapbook of sorts, just a regular notebook into which I modpodged ticket stubs, newspaper ads and other haunt memorabilia. (Like a penny I found at the now-defunct Castle Shannon Haunted School. Who keeps shit like that? A future hoarder, that’s who.)

That same year—1995—I was in a writing class in high school and we had to keep journals which would be turned in to the teacher weekly. I would basically write about shit that I did, just as I still do, but when my mom and I went to the Terrordome that October with my best friend Christy and I wrote about it, my teacher particularly loved that entry because haunted houses were something she was scared of, so scared that she refused to go to any. She wrote in the margins of my journal that she enjoyed reading about it because it was her way of being there without having to leave her house. Around that same time, I realized that as much as she liked reading it, I loved writing it. So the following year, even though I was no longer in her class anymore, I continued writing about every haunted house in that same journal until I ran out of room and my friend Angie bought me a new journal.

I still keep hand-written haunted house journals which is why I don’t often write about it over here on my blog; in fact, I’m almost out of room in the Goosebumps journal I’ve been using. There are so many stories (literally tomes-full!) and photos that I should probably start sharing them on here, too; maybe start a series if anyone is interested in it.

Someday, Chooch will be old enough to do this shit with me and I just honestly can’t wait. Because when I think back on my early haunted house experiences, it makes me remember how awesome my mom used to be. I wish this was still “our thing.”

Usually, if someone suggests to me that I add one of their friends on Facebook, I decline the invitation. Especially if I’ve never met the person, because I have been trying very hard lately to not be a creep. (And it’s not really working out very well, thanks for asking.)

But last year, when my friend Erica was visiting Pittsburgh she suggested to me over lunch that I look up her friend Rick on Facebook because he’s also from the area and big into haunted houses. She mentioned that he used to run his own home haunt called the Haunted Chamber and I recognized the name immediately. I had never gone to it, but definitely remembered seeing ads for it every year.

Figuring Erica wouldn’t lead me astray, I looked him up a few days later, sent him a friend request along with a message explaining why some random broad in his city was wanting to be his friend. He accepted, but we never really interacted very much. Chiming in on a stranger’s status updates can be awkward, especially when it’s me doing the chiming.

Months later, he sent me a really wonderful message. I will never forget it, because it was when Henry and I were in Cleveland and I was sitting on the bed in our hotel room checking my email before the AP Tour show that night. Rick was writing to me about my blog, which is the one thing I always get down on myself about, and his words were just so encouraging and supportive. I sat there crying while I read it and was just really touched by how nice and honest this perfect stranger was being to me. Plus, it broke the ice.

A few weeks ago, we met for lunch and spent the next 2+ hours talking about his history with working haunted houses, my history with going to haunted houses, and I quickly realized that Erica was right — I had a ton of stuff in common with this guy and he is easily one of the most interesting people I have had the pleasure of encountering.

He’s friends with the people who run Castle Blood and invited Henry and I to meet him and his wife Tammy out there last Saturday. So with stomachs full of 80 different varieties of pie, that is exactly what we did.

***

Rick and Tammy were talking to one of the Castle Blood denizens when we arrived. He was already a familiar face, after years and years of making the worthwhile hike out to Bealesville for the annual Castle Blood tour. But now instead of Professor Scrye, I know him as Chris and he is awesome. (He just loaned me some fake skin in jars for my Murder Desk at work!)

Awhile back, I had written about taking Chooch to one of the no-scare daylight matinees. I usually only write about my haunted house experiences in my paper journals (because I’m dork-loser and have been keeping a diligent record since 1996), but for whatever reason, I wrote about that one here on Oh Honestly, Erin. One of the Castle Blood girls found it and shared it with everyone else, and it was cool because some of them even commented on that post as their characters.

But I didn’t think anyone there would remember that, so I was surprised when Chris and Ricky (aka Gravely MacCabre, Castle Blood’s caretaker) both brought it up to me.

“You might be a fan of Castle Blood, but we at Castle Blood are all fans of Oh Honestly, Erin,” Gravely said and I kind of wanted to die on the spot. Chris said that they’re always on the look-out for Chooch now at the matinees. Things like this don’t happen often and I usually like to assume that only 4 people read this thing, so whenever I’m in public and someone says, “I read your blog” — well, that’s a feeling that I’m not sure I will ever get used to. It’s cool and I love it, but it’s also very bewildering.

Gravely told me there was a girl inside the Castle named Dawn and that she was the one who found my blog. “You have to tell you’re Oh Honestly, Erin when you see her!” he urged, telling me what room she would be in.

Within 3 seconds, I had forgotten. Tammy and Henry both admitted that they hadn’t heard what he said, so then I was left to internalize my panic while we stood in line, because I can’t ever just be a normal, calm human being. What if I didn’t say hello to her, and then Gravely found about it later and became angry that a subordinate had crossed him? Because clearly this was the most important thing on his mind that night, never mind the fact that he was ensuring the night’s tours went off without any fires, stink bug attacks or gang violence.

While in line, I became temporarily distracted from my plight when one of the denizen approached us with a big basket of commemorative Castle Blood roses. They were only $3 and I really wanted one. Henry and I don’t often go to haunted houses together anymore and I thought it would be really ROMANTIC if he could spare a measly $3 of his blue-collar beverage factory income, but he merely smirked in response.

Then I remembered why I don’t go to haunted houses with him. He’d sooner leave me out for the chainsaw guys than be a man and claim his property. I guess he doesn’t have hero fantasies.

So Rick bought two and I was all happy about that until he said, “What? I bought this one for Henry.” Figures, people always side with Henry within 7 seconds of meeting him. (Sometimes even BEFORE meeting him. That’s because I write him as a downtrodden underdog. If only you guys knew the truth.)

(OK fine, that is the truth.)

Meanwhile,  the lady with the roses had fetched her albino friend and brought him over to inspect me, thinking I would make a good wife for him. I was very enthusiastic about this prospect, because at this point I would like to be SOMEBODY’S wife. Why not a dead albino guy with scary eyes?

He asked me what blood type I am, but then he and the rose-slinger ran off on an O+ tangent that rivaled Who’s On 1st. While those two were bantering, I looked at Henry in horror and whispered, “What’s my blood type?”

“I don’t know!” he said in that shitty, nerve-scraping tone that makes me want to castrate him along with the entire male population.

So then I spent the next countless moments suspended in time with my blood type quandary, until my prospective husband asked me again and I blurted out, “O+.” Henry said that’s probably what it is anyway. Not like he cares about my blood.

God, why can’t he just care about my blood?

Gravely was walking by so I snagged him and asked him to remind me who I was supposed to say hello to.

If someone tells me to do something, my blinders go on and I’m on a pothole-filled track to the finish line, with sweaty palms and shallow breaths, ignoring everything that passes by.

I’m kind of tightly-wound.

A witch with prosthetics was all I could think about the entire time we were in that fucking Castle.

So in every room on the tour, I would hiss to Henry, “Is that her? Do you think that’s her?” to which he would always hiss back, “I DON’T KNOW!” He was too busy nursing a corset fetish to help me not have a panic attack.

I was distracted from my mission once and only once, in the laboratory where I developed a hearty crush on the cute steampunk inventor guy.

I’ll be back for him.

Eventually, I found my contact and after everyone else in our group continued to the next room, I blurted out, “AREYOUDAWNI’MOHHONESTLYERIN” and we shook hands and I think she said something (not once breaking character) but all I could hear was my heart pounding in my ears because OMG I had to TALK to someone.

I really should have a perpetual Xanax prescription.

The worst part of the tour is always the end. I mean, yeah—It’s great to turn in the talisman your group has collected and get your vampire teeth prize, but it just means that it’s time to leave. I’ve never had a bad time at the Castle, not even when Henry and I were stuck with a group of disrespectful teenagers who subsequently got thrown out and we were given complimentary tickets for having to deal with that, but going with Rick and Tammy really made it a cool, personal experience. It was really awesome getting to meet everyone there for real and it made me wish my mom and I were on speaking terms because she would have died. Castle Blood used to be our thing to do together. You know, before she went crazy. I will forever associate it with her.

(OMG, that steampunk guy was so hot.)

***

Afterward, we decided to go to dinner.

“I don’t care where we go, just as long as I can get a grilled cheese,” I said, whining about being sick of pie. “I just need cheese, anything with cheese.”

We wound up at King’s and Rick taunted me as we walked past the pie case. I was choking back regurgitated crust every time I even THOUGHT of the word “pie” after eating it all day at the pie party.

However, I did remark that there was not one pumpkin pie to be had at the pie party, which surprised us all. That’s not saying I was desiring pumpkin pie at that point, I was just simply making an observation.

King’s has creamed spinach now as a side, and I kept trying to coax Henry into ordering it.

“Why?” he asked, clearly annoyed at my persistence.

“Because you’re old. And also, because I want to try it,” I reasoned.

He did not order a side of creamed spinach with his burger.

However, when our waitress brought our food, she said to me, “I was told to bring you this instead,” as she slid a slice of pumpkin pie under my nose, followed by a bowl of creamed spinach.

According to my dinner companions, I looked like I was about to cry. I craned my neck to look for my grilled cheese while everyone laughed. The waitress didn’t have the heart to drag out the prank any longer and finally rewarded me with a sparkling plate of God’s Favorite Sandwich and sweet potato fries.

It was a perfect ending to a great night which served as a reminder of why I keep writing in this blog. It has provided me with the opportunity to meet so many awesome and interesting people, and it’s something I think about whenever I feel like throwing in the towel. I’m just really appreciative. (And now I have to go egg an orphanage to balance it all out.)

[If you live in the Pittsburgh area and haven’t ever been to Castle Blood, you’re dumb. But seriously, go check it out! And if you have little kids, they offer  daylight matinee tours on the last 2 Sundays of October. It’s only $5 for that and the kids get to trick-or-treat inside the Castle. Totally worth the drive out to Bealesville, so go and do that now.]

Hello. I’m reposting this oldie from LiveJournal to remind Henry that, while I may currently have a crush on his old ass, THINGS CAN CHANGE. He could still LOSE ME.

I do crush easily, after all. (Seriously, I’m juggling about three of them right now. One of them might be yours.)

***

At Least It Wasn’t Chucky

October 2007

Last night, Henry and I kicked off the 2007 haunted house season with a VIP treatment at Castle Blood. I’ve been patronizing this haunt for quite literally the past twelve years of my life, so when Henry came home one day and bragged about his company scoring a promotional partnership with them for the season, I exalted on high. He got stacks and stacks of free passes out of the deal, too, which is fantastic because it regularly costs .

This is why I’m always broke after October.

Henry embarrassed me by wearing his Freek Energy Drink t-shirt and managed to succeed in juxtaposing himself with all of the giant Freek ads every chance he got while we stood in line. An employee dressed as a mad scientist came over and slyly said, “Are you the man who dropped 100 cases of love on us?” and Henry puffed out his chest so everyone could see the logo and then the scientist gave him handfuls of Freek swag which made Henry happy.

“Wow! No one ever gave me the tattoos and magnets before!!” he exclaimed. He even wound up with two Freek highlighters by the end of the night. Congratulations! You just got a bunch of shit that you could have gotten from your office.

Then Henry rained free passes on the people in line with us and acted all ass-wounded when one of the little girls didn’t reciprocate by acting like he was Santa. That mustache freaks kids out, I keep telling him. Then the guy who runs the place came over and told the ticket guy to only send us in with the three people in front of us so that we could have a pleasant experience, sans the screaming obnoxious brats who polluted the line behind us. I was smug. Thanks for wearing your Freek shirt after all, Henry.

(You’re still a loser, though.)

I know you all think this post is going to be about how I loved/hated the haunted house or how Henry’s weener ended up in a wall-cranny or how I found the perfect coffin to be buried in, but really this is about the most intense and pure and real human connection I have ever (never?) had.

A guy walked past me as I stood in line. He was short; in his twenties; looked apathetic, like he’d rather be at a Magic tourney. Trailing closely behind him in a cacophonous bubble were two young kids whom he seemed unable to shake. My initial guess was that they were his siblings and he was forced into bringing them there. I didn’t think anything of him after that. A few minutes later, I glanced to my left and saw him again, but this time he was stationed behind his AUTOGRAPH BOOTH BECAUSE OMG IT WAS ANDY FROM “CHILD’S PLAY”!!! No wonder why he looked like he was forced to be there!

And because:

a) I was bored
b) I was standing in line and bored
c) I was with Henry standing in line and bored
d) I have ridiculous crush criteria;

it was only natural for my heart to swell with that intense love that your typical Ed Gein probably felt as he stood above the body of the attractive barfly he snuffed earlier that day and just realized how fabulous her hide would look as a lampshade. I buried my head in Henry’s armpit and squealed as Alex (that’s his real name in case you assholes didn’t know) approached the children behind us and did card tricks for them.

“Oh my god he’s so cute! Oh my god I can’t handle it! Oh my god he’s so close to us right now!” I broke up with Henry a few times so I could run off into the sunset with Alex;  Henry pretended to be good natured about it. Probably because being there was like a business meeting for him and he had to maintain his facade of phony sleazeball salesman.

He did, however, push me off the curb once.

Alex’s autograph booth was set up right next to Castle Blood’s exit. When we came out, there was a teenage girl getting him to sign a photo. She bounced from foot to foot like she was running through tires and talked in a quick high-pitched voice fueled by star lust. “Oh my god I can’t wait to tell my friends! You have to understand, no one ever comes to our town!” (Bealesville, Castle Blood’s locale, is about an hour outside of Pittsburgh and there’s  honestly nothing to do there.) Alex smiled and pushed the photo back to her.

I didn’t want it to be my turn! I wasn’t ready! I tried to get Henry to do it for me, but he shouldered me toward the table.

I made a brilliant first impression.

“Hi can I have your autograph?”
“The colored photos are $15. Black and white are $10.”
“Shit, my money’s in the car. BRB.”

I probably wouldn’t have been back. I’m a tightwad. BUT! As I made to walk away, Alex stopped me.

“So, is it any good in there?” he asked, nodding toward the castle with his REALLY CUTE HEAD.

So I had an opportunity to get into my element and tell him about how fantastic it is and how I want to live there. He remarked about that as I walked away so I laughed along with him, but naturally I have no idea what he said.

On the way back to the car, I completely unraveled. “Oh my god did you see how cute he was? Oh my god, should I really go back? Oh my god, was I worse, better or the same as the girl in front of me?”

Henry told me I talk too much.

I went back after all and bought a black and white photo. I know, there’s little I won’t do for love. I made a big production of choosing between the TWO black and white photos, before settling on one with him and the director. “That’s my favorite one,” he said. “Cool,” I remarked, trying to keep my composure. I wanted to ask him to write “Your blog is the best” or “We made a really cute kid together!” but instead I stood there silently, gnawing on my bottom lip as he wrote “To Erin, Chucky did it!” Then we had a brief exchange about how he spelled my name right and he scoffed at the thought of people spelling it wrong and said, “But then it would be Aaron!” and I’ve always been attracted to people who even say the boy’s version differently than “Erin.” He is an amazing man.

He then asked me if I’m from Beallsville and I yelled, “No, Pittsburgh!” because God forbid he should think I’m a townie. I asked him where he’s from, and he said, “Jersey.” I should have asked him really awesome questions, like, “If you had to have one of your organs stolen, which one would it be?” (For me, it would be any of the ones that I’d die without. ANY of them. Take them all, fuckers. Or my skin. I seem to have a lot of that.) Or, “Where should we go to make this baby?” But instead I was all, “Yo-de-doh, how long are you here?” delivered atop of serving of insane giggles.

I really think though that the only thing preventing us from embroiling in the passionate act of porno-making was that damn table with his seven-year-old mug plastered all over it. He asked me if there’s anything to do around there and I should have said “Yes — me” but instead I rolled my eyes like a disinterested teenager and said, “Ha, no!” and he laughed but what if he was hoping I’d invite him down to the pier for a cock fight? (I’m not sure there are any piers in Bealesville, but if he wanted one, I’d have made Henry build one.)

So that was that. No swapping of spit, no crude genital introductions. Instead, we stuck with just saying goodbye to each other. I rushed back over to Henry, who was talking to the owner of Castle Blood a few feet away from my love, so I had the excruciating chore of remaining in his line of sight. I tugged on Henry’s arm. “Give me your cell phone!” I whispered, like one of those annoying children who have little regard for when their parents are in the middle of a conversation with another grown up. I had one whole friend I needed to call and relay this sorrowful tale of The One Who Got Away! Henry distractedly pulled out his phone, looked at it, then dropped it back in his pocket, too engrossed in his discussion to fully understand what I had asked. I growled like an angry teen.

On the way back to the car, I reiterated what went down. “I really think he liked me back because there was this REALLY STRONG eye contact. I mean, it was intense! But I was so sweaty though.” (It was 90 fucking degrees that day and some of the humidity lingered in the air that night, making the hallways of Castle Blood stuffy and moist.)

“Some guys like sweaty girls,” Henry said encouragingly.

I talked about it the whole way home.

“Can you believe I met him?? Oh my god, I love—-” I had to pause to refer to the autograph because I forgot his name. “–Alex Vincent so much! I really feel like it was the strongest connection I’ve ever forged with someone. Oh shit I should have given him my business card! I could have written ‘KIT’ on it!”

“KIT?” Henry asked.

“Uh, yeah. It means keep in touch. Maybe if people actually signed your yearbook, you’d know that.”

Then Henry changed the subject by ridiculing me for being the only person he knows who consistently leaves her business cards at home.

After the excitement of getting Alex’s autograph wore off, I morphed into full-blown stalker mode. “We’d have an awesome life together I bet. I’d call him and be like, ‘Hey Alex baby, what do you want me to bring home for dinner?'”

This caused Henry to laugh with aneurysm-triggering force. “Oh, that’s funny. You would never ask something like that! Maybe if it started with ‘Could you,’ ‘can you,’ ‘will you,’ it would be more believable.”

I’ll be back for you, Andy. I don’t feel like I got my $10’s worth.

Everyone knows I love haunted houses, but what I love even more is going to a haunted house with someone who hates haunted houses, and by that I of course mean someone who has a weak heart and pees herself at the mere sight of an animatronic corpse rotting on a blood-squirting commode and then has to schedule an extra session with her therapist because she can’t stop the sensation of walking through a hallway cramped with dangling body bags.

And that is exactly the kind of person my friend Gina is. It took a little bit of needling, but I finally got her to agree to go to Hundred Acres Manor last night.

It was a bit of a gamble, considering she’s a new friend and I try to wait at least half a year before lead-footing the abuse pedal.

Since it was a Thursday, and a few minutes before the ticket booth closed, there was no one in line.

This made Gina whimper and begin back-peddling, but I reminded her of the scandelous photos I have of her from 1998 and that made her quit tugging me back to the direction of the car.

Today, when I went to her house to retrieve the clump of my hair and flesh from my hand which she tore off in one of her scared rabbit fits inside the Manor, I found her diary splayed open to this page:

…and calls Henry to tell him all about it.

I stole Henry’s phone while he was sleeping so I could make this recording for all of you special people to hear.