Funhouse

A Halloween Special 2009 Tale

It was a tired concept, one used in colleges throughout the land. Always short of funds, fraternities were constantly dreaming up ideas to generate revenue. Halloween was a perfect opportunity to part fellow students with their money. Roger had been placed in charge of coming up with an idea for Gamma Alpha Gamma (GAG, get it?) contribution to the spooky holiday.

“A Funhouse!” He’d said immediately, followed closely by the groans of his fellow frat brothers.

“It’s been done to death.” They’d all commented.

“Not like this one,” Roger assured them, “you’ll see.”

Roger enlisted his friend Tom and they enthusiastically tackled their task. A pair of tractor-trailers were procured and placed side by side forming, in motor home parlance, a “double wide”. Sheets of plywood were used to craft a maze within the interior of the structure. Then it was outfitted with black lights, synthetic cobwebs and mannequins dismembered in a myriad of gruesome fashions.

When finished, the frat boys did a walk through. All thoroughly under-whelmed by the tacky, adolescent-ish efforts of Roger and Tom.

“We’ll be lucky to get our rental deposit back,” They moaned.

Roger and Tom remained supremely confident.

Halloween arrived, bringing with it a smattering of rubes willing to plop down five dollars to wander through.

“Sorry, no refunds.” Each was told upon exiting.

Things got a little more exciting when the girls of Beta Alpha Beta (BABe’s, get it?) showed up. Tom took their money, while Roger slipped inside. Unknown to any but these two, the plywood dividers had a unique feature. In the center, normally blocked off from access, was a small room. Simply sliding a wooden wall to one side, briefly exposed the room and then would disappear once more with the wall replaced.

As the girls wandered through the maze, becoming more and more disoriented, their group began to thin out. The first was Candy. As she crept along in the dark, a wall to her right seemed to vanish. Strong arms grabbed her and although she called out in fright, no one paid any attention to one more shrill feminine scream. A hand clamped over her mouth, silencing any further outcries. The panel slid quietly back into place, scant seconds before another sorority sister turned the corner. Heather came next, followed by Dawn. The others in their group simply wrote off their disappearance to rendezvous’ with their boyfriends.

By eleven o’clock, word had spread like wildfire about the funhouse. A line formed, all the patrons anxious to see the ‘Mummy Exhibit’. A steady stream worked its way through the trailer, slowing at one particular spot.

There, lit up by several red tinted spotlights, lay three extremely curvy mummies. All the patrons commented on the state of the art animatronics used for the display, as well as the realistic sound system. It actually looked as though the mummies were alive, trying desperately to free themselves from the burial wraps, groaning and mmmph’ing all the while.

By the end of the night, the funhouse was clearly a success. That, and Roger found out he had three lovely volunteers who couldn’t wait to help out next year.

30.10.09