The Malberrie Haunted House

It was the night of October thirty-first, and I was getting ready for my thirty-first shift at the Malberrie Haunted House. It was the Malberrie’s first year of being fully in business and it was quickly becoming the most popular Haunted House and Halloween attraction in all of Washington State. 

I won’t lie, this wasn’t where I imagined I would be at this time in my life. Not even close. I thought, or hoped I suppose, that I would be partying and hanging out with the rest of the kids in my grade, but money is money, and I happened to enjoy making it.

I have worked every day of October, six pm to midnight, and every time I have had to dress in crazy costumes and cover my face in fake blood.

I was given two costumes that I could choose to rotate throughout my time on the Malberrie scary crew, which is what we called ourselves. One was a ragdoll costume. It came with a bloody, torn up, doll dress, a messy red string hair wig, and of course the look was topped off with a stitched smile and fake blood dripping from my eyes, like scarlet tear drops. I also had to carry around a bloody teddy bear when dressed as the ragdoll. The second, my preferred costume, was a clown. I wore a jumpsuit of all sorts of different patterns. The left leg was covered with different patches of random cloth. The right leg was rainbow checkered and the abdominal section was bright yellow with pumpkin shaped buttons in the center, and each sleeve matched the opposite leg. So the right arm had patches and the left was checkered. 

The best part of this costume, however, was the object I was given to carry around, a knife. A long bladed knife. It was fake, of course. The difference between this knife and a real one was this knife would retract into itself when pressure was applied to the tip, rather than stabbing through whatever it had been pressed upon. This knife gave me the ability to truly fall into the role of a crazy clown. When dressed as the ragdoll, my acting options were extremely limited. I was unable to build my character and really scare the incoming customers. With the knife though, I was able to add my own touch to the clown. I didn’t just have to walk closely to the people coming through my area, with my head tilted and the teddy bear clutched tightly between my arms, hysterically laughing or screaming. Instead, I was able to act out the true psychotic nature of a killer clown. 

Some days I would choose to pretend as if I had just found the knife, and as I found it I acted as if I had just come up with the best idea. To use it on myself. So I would press the knife into my stomach, or chest, or leg, several times, until my audience was so disturbed they rushed away from my section. That initial stab would always receive a few screams from those watching, if not out of fear, then out of shock. That was good enough for me. 

Other days I would hide the knife behind my back, jump in front of a group, and tip toe up to my coworker from behind, making the customers believe they were unsuspecting even though they were absolutely in on it. Right as I reached the back of my coworker, I would turn to the crowd behind me, raise a single finger up to my lips, as if to signal their secrecy, and wink at them. Then I would turn swiftly, and press the knife into my coworkers back. My coworker would freeze before grasping at the knife that had been ‘implanted’ into their back, and follow that by quickly crumbling to the ground, pretending to die. After this act, I would turn to the crowd, give a large and crazed smile. Then I would sprint towards them with the knife raised above my head, implying that they too would suffer the same fate as my coworker had. They usually would all run and scream, and when they had completely cleared the area, my coworker and I would laugh and high five, pleased with the reactions we had invoked. 

The only other idea I had for an ‘act’, was to ‘stab’ one of our paying customers. However, that was against my contract. “The actors, a part of the Malberrie scary crew, within the Malberrie Haunted House were to not come in direct contact with any of the attractions viewers/customers.” It was implemented to keep the company safe from the looming threat of being sued. It was smart, I guess, just made my job slightly less fun. 

Tonight was the final night of the haunted house showing, so of course I planned to wear my favorite costume. I was running a little late already and was having a hard time finding all the pieces. I yelled to my mom, “MOM? Do you know where my clown costume is?” 

“I washed it!” She had hollered back. I ran down the stairs and into the laundry room where my clown costume hung from the shelf. I reached out to grab it, but it was still damp. 

I rolled my eyes, “Great,” I whispered under my breath, “MOM? Where is my ragdoll one?”

“In the washer right now, why?” she replied. 

“Nevermind, “ I muttered as I pulled the damp suit from the hanger. I threw it into the dryer and prayed that it wouldn’t shrink, or fade, or bleed. I had to wait a total of twenty minutes before the dryer dinged, calling out to me, letting me know the clothes inside were fresh, warm, and dry. I put it on as fast as I could, grabbed my keys, and rushed out the door. I didn’t realize until I was about a block from my house that I had forgotten the key part, not to mention my favorite part, of the outfit. The knife. I turned around and sped back. I threw my car into park, but I didn’t bother turning it off before I got out. I quickly ran up to the door, before I had even reached my hand out to grasp the doorknob, I saw the knife sitting on the front patio chair. I said a quick thank you to my mom in my head before grabbing it and hurrying back to my car. 

Somehow I pulled into the parking lot at five fifty-five pm, thankfully not late, not yet at least. I raced into the “employee’s only” door, frantically tossed my stuff into my locker, and grabbed the tablet to clock in. The time read five fifty-nine, practically right on time. I let out a heavy sigh of relief, and felt a hand on my shoulder. I spun around swiftly to see who it was. 

“Jeez! Sorry,” Amber, my coworker who would always put on my acts with me, said, “I didn’t mean to scare you.” 

A small laugh escaped my chest, “It’s cool, I was just filled with adrenaline, thought I was late.”

She smiled.  She was the first person I met when I started here, and we had become fast friends. She started working here shortly before me and showed me the ropes when I was brought on. We had similar dreams and hopes, but mainly we got along because we both enjoyed scaring the heck out of others. 

“So what’s our first act tonight?” Amber asked. 

I brought my hand to my face and rubbed my chin with my pointer finger, pretending to give her question a serious amount of thought, when I had really had my mind made up since that morning, “I think…” I started, slowly allowing my hand to retire from its task, “we should probably start with the regular attack, but let’s spice it up a bit. I’ll sneak up on you like normal, but this time, when I turn around to tell them to be quiet, you turn around slowly, wink at the crowd, and grab my knife and ‘stab’ me instead.”

Her eyes shimmered with excitement, “Oh my gosh!” she squealed, “That is guaranteed to get us more than just a few screams!”

“That’s not all, I say you follow me to the ground, ‘stab’ me again, and then raise your head up to the people, slowly tilt your head,” I explained as I illustrated the way it would look as she did it, “and then run at them.”

She jumped back a little and laughed as I ran towards her, “Now that,” she agreed, “will get us a lot of screams.” 

I smiled at her, “Okay, you ready?”

She nodded. I grabbed the knife from my locker, and we headed towards our designated area of the haunted house to prepare for our first audience. 

After about three minutes of standing around and waiting, we heard voices coming from around the corner. “Our first victims,” I told her as I rubbed my hands together and let out a small mischievous giggle.

We quickly got into our positions, and as the group rounded the corner, I snuck out in front of them, the knife behind my back. The crowd let out a gasp as I tip-toed beyond them, they even paused in fear when I initially jumped in front of them. I knew we were about to get an amazing reaction. Slowly, I crept towards Amber. When I reached her I turned to the people behind me, I raised my hand to my lips telling them to be quiet, just as we had planned. 

As I did this I surveyed the group. Four teen girls. Probably around the same age as myself, sixteen or seventeen. They all clung to each other's arms, whispering, “Oh my god,” and “I’m scared,” to one another. I smiled behind my finger, knowing that our act was about to scare the absolute shit out of them. 

In my peripheral vision I saw Amber beginning to turn towards me and the crowd. I actually had to bite my tongue in order to keep myself from laughing. I could feel the anticipation surging through my body. 

She winked, and swiftly grabbed the wrist of my hand that held the knife. The group let out another gasp, in unison, and they all screamed as Amber pushed the knife into my abdomen. 

Strangely though, so did I. I screamed louder and harder than I ever had in my life. Amber immediately broke out of her character and looked at me, concern stained her face, panic flashed in her eyes. I watched as her gaze shifted from my own eyes down to where the knife was. My legs began to feel tingly and unstable. I could feel myself drifting to the floor. Amber followed me down, just as planned. That’s, I think, when she saw the blood. She rapidly ripped the knife out from inside me, and hurled it down the hall as if the knife was the scariest thing in the world. 

The group saw this as an opportunity and rushed past us. I heard one of the girls say to the others, “That was too real for me.” They just didn’t realize how real. But no one came to my aid, and my vision blurred. Amber sat holding her legs to her chest, unblinking, and held tightly onto my hand. I wonder how long she stayed that way. Five minutes? An hour? Until close? I’ll never know, because that night, the night of October thirty-first, during my thirty-first shift at the Malberrie Haunted House, I was stabbed. I died.