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 Welcome to our virtual tour of our haunt 2001. Some new
animatronics made an appearance this year and we decided to add a
 costume party
for the 1st time as well. It was held a few days before Halloween to serve as a
dry run for the haunt. That was a good thing too, since some of the things that
worked during the days leading up to dress rehearsal decided not to in the heat
of the night. Once we
 concluded our
Guardian
of the Darkness party we had a few days to work out all the bugs.
As the TOTs make their way to the top of haunted hill
 where our haunt has been
for the second year now, the first thing they notice from even blocks away is
the front of the house being washed in lightning while thunder rolls in an
awesome
 clasp every 15 seconds. (Last year we had TOTs show up that said they
saw the "lightning" from town, which is 7 miles
 away!) The front of
the house is blocked off so they are routed to the back where we have our haunt
setup.
The victims enter the haunt through the right side of the
Grand
Entrance but you must make your way past the Death Lord. This year a friend
of mine who happens to be 6' 6" tall already, donned the persona of the
Death Lord and made him stand an imposing and
 awesome
7 1/2' tall. His job is to
keep the victims from entering the haunt more than 3 to a party and not before
the last party has made their way through the 1st half of the haunt. He growls
to the TOTs in a huge, booming voice from hell. The satanic voice gurgles down
at you as you stare up at the monster that seems to be alive, but is way too
big. He
 wants your candy...
The shadow monsters roaming around make it impossible to slip into the haunt and
back down the driveway without a dark confrontation. "I hope you're happy
now!" snapped the 12 yr old witch as
 she ran to the others who had already
made it to the top of the driveway where the line formed to the haunted house,
"I just wet my pants!"....
Once inside you are immediately met by skeletons, cob
 webs in your face and a
very creepy life-sized ghoul at the first corner that you are forced to pass immediately in front of to enter the next chamber of the maze. The second
chamber has an egg strobe in it and cob webs like the first chamber, but no
monsters. Just the sick and distinct crunching sound of hundred of beetles
underfoot as you fumble to find the way to the next chamber.
 In this opening of the maze there are the same cob webs and beetles as before
but now there is a peephole in the wall to your left and there is black light
coming from the other side of the wall. You look through to see the ghost of
Elvira
hovering in the air. She speaks to you with her eyes dancing red with her words.
You fumble for the next opening.
Here you must bend down to the floor to pass through the opening for the final
chamber of the
 maze. Upon looking up, there is something directly in front of
you nearly close enough to touch. The image is
 bathed in a slow moving strobe
and at first glance it seems to be moving toward you. You try to focus on the
image yet it is difficult to see, since he is shrouded in a fog and it occurs to
you at the same time that it is a life-sized werewolf and it is moving
toward you! At that same moment the wolf screams out at you in a loud rumbling
snarl and the sound of
 flesh being gnashed off of breaking bone and the screams
of another victim fill your ears as you dash out of the opening toward the light
coming from the next room.
 You are now in the main part of the haunt and as you
pass under the shredded tarp you glance to your right and see skeletons hanging
from the walls.
Within only a second your eyes are drawn to a
screaming rat at your
 feet that is
caught in a trap and is tearing his own head off to get away. His tail is
flicking in and out of the mouth of a giant cat that is hissing and clawing at a
dozen rats who have turned on him as two giant rats prepare to add to the fray.
Past the rotted bones on the floor and the skeletons hanging from their wrists
on the walls.
 A man is standing, holding his own head with one hand and his other is
 outstretched toward you. His mouth is moving and you hear that he is begging you to help him. On closer look you now see his neck is turning from side to side
and a huge knife is still wedged in his spine, turning with it. His
heart
is beating bright red under his shirt, so he must still be alive.
The bones of rotting skeletons and skull heads lay all
 around the headless man's
feet and more hang from the chamber walls.
The smell in the air is
significant; an earthy, freshly
turned soil odor is mixing with 100
lbs of shredded landscape netting
and real ivy vines covering the
walls. You would reach
 out
and touch it just to see if they
were real or not if they weren't
covered in cob webs. The air is
filled with moans and groans and
strange, off beat music.
 Tense
and eerie, it mixes with the chant
of the incantation the hovering
ghost is delivering.
You turn the corner and the buzz of a Jacob's ladder rips through the air. You
glance toward the sound as you hear the cackle of a familiar voice. It is the
Crypt
Keeper. He is
 surveying the room from side to side as his mouth tells you
the little things that he hopes for you on this special night. The six foot tall
throne he sits in is adorned from top to
 floor with the bones of the dead. Just
then you turn to see who is standing directly behind you.
As you look up your eyes stop at 7 feet to the top of an
executioner.
His eyes are pitch black and he looks as lifeless as the gargoyle statues that
 flank his sides. But in the next instance, the huge bloody ax he is holding
lunges out directly toward your face as his other hand reaches out to grab you.
And then his head, already looking down on you suddenly leaps to nine feet high
in the air and he lets out a blood curdling scream! You begin to move away but
the skeleton dummy that stands next to the executioner moves for you and
actually reaches past the rope barrier
 that keeps the monsters from you! His hand lunges down toward your legs but you can't see what he is doing,
because you have fixed your eyes in terror at his face that is now fully
animated with mouth wide open as a crashing sound erupts at your knees! You have
just been had by the rattle can shadow monster that slips in and
 out of the
haunt to torture the victims at will.
You now know that there is nothing between you and the exit except some boxes of
junk by the
garbage can that was just left there
 at the end of the haunt. You make a
dash for the waist-high exit but as you near it the trash can 2 feet from you screams to life with an intense bright light flashing in high strobe across the
contents. A monster comes up from the inside of the can and one arm literally
reaches out for you as you pass!
 Now, if you can just get past the monsters who chased you into the entrance of
the haunt when you entered.......
I hope you had as much fun touring our manor this year as I had putting it
together!
Rest In Pieces.
Death Lord
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