The clown stepped out of the walls and laughed maniacally.
A moment earlier we'd been staring at the pattern on the walls, walls made of clown dolls and and stuffed animals, and then it came to life, leapt towards us. I bolted back. One of the teenage girls following behind us screamed and grabbed my arm and then apologized.
I looked to the clown. "Good one," I said.
The weekend started low-key, less and more active than I'd hoped. If I was going to participate in a literary event, I would have liked one that drew more people. If I wasn't going to do much, I think I would have preferred to not do it at home. The literary event, Saturday took place an hour's worth of towns over in a free space, a vacant storefront in a mall that had seen better days, before the coming of Big Box and Amazon. I had my hopes up when I arrived, noting from the corner of my eye people facing each other in a crowded room. Was that an author giving an autograph? I quickly realized I was walking by the advance poll for the municipal election.
We sold three of my books and I made some contacts. Someone livestreamed my reading. Several of us went out afterwards to a Texas-themed restaurant. The food was good and the décor, as promised, was clichéd. "Imagine," someone said, "the most Texas thing you can think of."
"Longhorns?" "Ten-gallon hats?" "Disowning your child for being gender non-conforming?" The wait was long-- Saturday night it was apparently the place to be. I arrived home late, the first of two late-night drives on a weekend when I probably should have been recovering from the week.
Sunday brought me into contact with those demonic clowns.
I went with a friend and future book-collaborator to Snyder's Farm, about an hour away, near Plattsville.
The drive could not have been more suited to the occasion. Clouds loomed overhead. The sound system played a Halloween mix. We took the rural route, through small towns, multicoloured autumn leaves, and more cemeteries than seemed likely. We passed an antique store of exactly the sort that would have sold us a cursed artifact, if we had been in a horror movie.
We stopped at a place called Trail's End, because it was close to our destination and we liked the name. The small-town pub and restaurant had a pleasantly diverse menu. We had hoped to encounter the creepy old guy who tells us to go back, or that we're doomed. If I were running a haunted attraction, I would place such a cast member in the nearest popular restaurant. What we got was an overworked young waitress who fondly recalls working at the October Fear Farm when she was a teen.
The pub was packed, mostly locals ("Am I gonna need to start makin' reservations?") but also families returning from an afternoon at the farm. During the day, in October, it runs a family-friendly Pumpkin Patch sort of attraction. That closes at 5:00 pm.
The horror begins at 7:00.
The Fear Farm features an effective atmosphere, Gothic facades surrounded by corn fields. They've got an old hearse parked on property and rural buildings, some in stages of constructed decay, some unexpected cast members roaming about, and an alien encounter building that might have stood on a Mos Eisley backstreet. A small stage sits roughly at the middle of the action, where magicians and fire-jugglers can entertain people. We also had those looming clouds (though no rain) and a friendly farm cat who walked up to us, looking to be petted. It vanished as the crowds grew.
Three of the attractions are variations on a theme: the Hiller House, the Carnevil, and the Visitors. Each is a standard dark walk-through with a range of effects and actors. The first has a conventional haunted house theme, the second, an evil clown-infested circus setting, and the third, aliens. Animatronics and live cast members alternate jump scares and spookiness. Nor do they shy away from grotesque effects and body horror. It pales behind some of the more disturbing places out there, but the owners do not recommend the evening for anyone under twelve.
The walk-throughs are fine, though we noted room for improvement. After passing through the creepy clown's-mouth entrance to the Carnevil line-up, we felt cheated by the lack of appropriate music, deranged carnival organ. The ghoulish guy in the busker outfit just walked about, rather than delivering, say, horror-host patter.
The mad scientist at the start of the Visitors had a European accent so bizarre it might have come from another planet, but that's arguably on-point.
We both agreed the best attractions were the Hillbilly Hike and the Haunted Hayride.
The hayride takes you through a number of set-ups in the wood, witches, an old west ghost town, a cemetery (with a tie-in to the Hiller House) and so forth. Two headless horsemen rode by at various times, costumed hires on actual horses. The ride wasn't especially frightening-- though creatures bending in and nearly touching you is effective-- but we were impressed by the presentation.
The Hillbilly Hike goes through the woods and fields, inhabited, of course, by mutant killer hillbillies. It gains much of its power from being outdoors; it has more than one path, and appearances by the inbred horrors cannot so easily be predicted as in an indoor walk-through. At one point, visitors pass through a tunnel with a smoke-and-lighting effect that looks uncomfortably like passing through water. I found it disorienting in exactly the way it intends to be.
The Stalking Dead looks to be a smaller Hillbilly Hike with a different theme. I give them credit for incorporating an entire junked schoolbus. We gave it a pass, however, due to time constraints and the fact that we've by now both grown weary of zombies.
Another missed attraction: you can pay for a haunted campfire experience. I can offer no comment on what happens at those.
If you happen to be in the region some October, I recommend going early. We were among the first in and blew through most lineups, until the second half of the evening. The final line lasted an hour, and that was for the Visitors, somewhat disappointing, if only because we'd already done everything else. We were able to leave a half-hour before closing, thus avoiding the chaos the parking lot must have become.
I liked the escape. This is fear for fun. We passed back through one small town in the dark in time to catch the police, lights flashing in the dark, converging on a drugstore where someone had raised an after-hours alarm. Opioid-seeking thieves perhaps?
The real world's horrors, alas, are a little too unsettling.
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