We had this old drive through graveyard on the out skirts of town. My brother decided he wanted to play a prank on his girlfriend and his friends and their girlfriends. So he recruited myself and some of my friends along with my parents and some other parents.
On late Friday night all of the “pranksters” drive out to the cemetery and parked far enough away from it and walked to the graveyard. So when my brother drove into it none of the people in his truck could see our vehicles.
We all dressed the part. This was a very old cemetery out in the middle of no where and it had no lights in it. The only light was from the moon. It was also a cloudy night so you could really only see shadows and movements. We would literally lie down on graves or hide behind old tombstones and move from one to another.
The vehicle path was just a circle around the cemetery so we made sure none of use were in the path of my brothers headlights.
We had a single candle lit on one tombstone in the middle of the graveyard and we also had a guy who would throw balls of fire from different directions. “Magic trick fireball kit”.
Well it worked, it scared the shit out of everyone in the truck. So the following Monday they went back to high school and starting telling everyone what happened.
My brother informs us that we need to go back out there the following Friday because he thinks people will show up. So we show up before dark and do the same thing. A few cars come in and see what was happening and speed off.
Now it’s the next week and it’s really gotten around the school and it’s a huge talk. So that Friday we go out again and by this time there is a ton of cars pulling through. One particular car stopped half way through, the kid got out of it and opened up his trunk and brought out a damn metal baseball bat and swung it straight into the concrete path and yelled “you better come out, or I’m going to walk in there and beat your ass”.
At this point we are totally caught off guard. This kid was a psycho path. So we just yelled back “it’s a prank kid” and he was pissed and just got in car and drove off.
We stopped after that, who knows, the next kid could have had a gun.
As a haunted house customer…
My Type 1 diabetic girlfriend and I were waiting to enter and begin the actual house. This was after the line to get in and the holding area for parties to be able to go together. There was this big demon tree thing that had an actor actually talking to us.
“Tell me, mortals. What do you think your souls taste like?”
I looked to my girlfriend. Just a sheepish grin and a shrug. Then I chime in and respond
“Well, I don’t know about me, but her soul would be pretty sweet because she has diabetes.”
“…. That’s…..awful.”
Still one of our favorite memories but that whole evening was just lovely and pleasant.
I have had many strange encounters with people. I could write a book about them. One time a guest jumped in front of me and said, ‘Boo!’ as if she was playing a game of tag or hide-and-seek. Another time one person touched my shoulder to get my attention but then ran away before I could turn around to see who it was because s/he didn’t want me to break character by facing him/her (which would ruin the effect). A third example is when someone asked for directions through the house from behind, talking into their cell phone without realizing that they were saying all of this out loud so there was no reason why I couldn’t answer back out loud too even though we were both pretending not to hear each other’s voices.
I had one other experience where a guest walked up to me and said, ‘You’re the only person in this whole house that I can talk to. You seem nice.’ After I thanked her she asked if I would mind walking with her through the rest of the house so she wouldn’t feel scared anymore. Of course I was happy to.
There is one more thing I will mention which has happened to me. It’s not exactly a guest who breaks my character but an audience member. Some time ago, when in the middle of performing with other actors for two hundred people at an event, someone stood up and shouted ‘Boo!’ or something similar to that effect. The whole audience started laughing and we were all caught off guard by it.
I am almost finished. I just wanted to say that I feel the most frightening thing is when we are walking around in a dark room and then someone jumps out at us, perhaps even from behind a closed door, because it’s so unexpected.
Had s*x where I was. Two teens (I would say 18) started f*cking right by me. I could see them (there’s a decent hole in the wall made from bricks, and it’s meant to be able to fall down) and waited to pop out. They we’re looking for a place to be alone and started undressing, and next thing I know, they are having s*x. I popped out of the wall and said “WTF, y’all are haunting me!”. They got banned from the haunted house and I never been to that place again.
Not a worker, but I ask the workers for high fives and sometimes they break character to do it. I also asked one how a sparking rod works and they showed me.