#4 Thirteenth Floor

Four days left in Denver and I must write the story of my first visit to a haunted house.

I had been looking around for a Halloween event in Denver, so Patrick and I would have a reason to dress up. Our costumes this year would be Patrick as the Showtime vigilante/serial killer, Dexter, and I, as one of the bad guy victims in his famous kill room. Being that Halloween is a close second to Christmas on my list of favorite holidays, I was giddy with the vision of how awesome we would look. Just needed an occasion for sporting our getup. So, when I saw cheap VIP tickets for "One of the best 13 haunted house attractions in the US" [USA Today]  at Costco, I grabbed them. Oh how naive I was as I read the description and sampled frozen lasagna next to my oversized cart.
 “When you climb the mountains of Denver, Colorado, you’ve got to check out the 13^th Floor Haunted House” –The Travel Channel
“One of America’s best haunted attractions” Hauntworld Magazine.
"The scariest haunted house in Colorado" – MTV
I had been to a haunted house at some carnival once and it was quite exciting. I held the hand of a second grader, as I screamed at the skeletons and monsters. This would be the perfect occasion for costumes!

Creepy scene of the kill room, from Dexter.

Ironically, we didn’t end up getting Patrick dressed up because he was just too swamped with work to get into the spirit. I had spent so much time imagining myself in plastic wrap and fake blood that I decided to dress up anyway, despite lacking my partner. Patrick took one look at me and told me I wasn’t allowed to answer the door for trick-or-treaters. The fake blood in my plastic wrap kept threatening to leak out. I couldn't stand it, so ultimately, no one saw my costume but Patrick and my facebook friends. Might try it again next year.

I'm supposed to look like the person on the table in the picture above.

Despite our jack-o-lanterns on the porch, we only had three kids in costumes ring the doorbell. We set the bowl of candy on the top step and drove downtown to the 13^th Floor Haunted House. It was in a seemingly deserted part of town, industrial and full of warehouses. It was easy to spot the warehouse now converted to a haunted house because the line of people switched back like seven times. There was a gang of tightly and darkly dressed guys with huge Mohawks sitting in the back of a hearse. Seemed like the place to be. And it seemed this wasn't the first time at the rodeo for some of these cowboys in line. They weren't anxious or concerned in the least. I'd heard of people like that. They go from haunted house to haunted house, getting high on horror. As we walked up to the crowd I set Patrick up for success. “I think I’m going to be really scared and so I don’t want you to push me into things or pull any monkey business. Really. Promise me you won’t try to scare me.” He begrudgingly agreed. I was already clinging. The VIP pass got us to the front of the line a little too quickly for me, and we were told to stay on the path. The actors wouldn’t touch us and we were not to touch them.

The pure terror I experienced in the thirty minute tour left me with patchy memories. I remember complete darkness mixed with moments of light- pupils dilated in vain, stripped of my ability to see and touch. My instinct was to suck everything into myself as closely as possible- my hands feet, head, my butt, hair, jacket- I wanted to be so small the dark figures, stomping howls, slithering shrieks and absolute unknown could not touch me. I wanted to be so small I could hide inside Patrick. Along with my protective shrinking, the only thing that kept me grounded in my own skin was Patrick’s arm, hand, shoulders, waist (whatever body part seemed to bring the most security) and my feet touching the ground. I was unable to lift my legs to step, for fear I would lose my balance, step on a body part, slide off the path or simply be lifted away by the spirits around me, so I shuffled--sideways, backwards, straddling Patrick. Trying not to scream was futile, along with breathing normally or relaxing any muscle in my body.

The tangled mass that was Patrick and I shuffled through dark curving hallways into various rooms with different themes. Although I blacked out much of it, a few horrifying images are seared on my senses. At one point the vulnerable mass of Patrhea staggered into a small, dark barn room-- outlines of hay bales and a tractor barely visible. As we tried to find the pathway and searched for the horror in the dim space, a pupiless black boy in bloody, tattered overalls was illuminated suddenly, standing in the pathway we thought was safe to walk. He limped toward us, no sound or expression, within inches of my face. I clung to Patrick as we slithered through the narrow space between the boy and the hay. The lights lowered, giving me the impression the barn terror was over, but as we neared the edge of the room, another flash of light spotlighted the boy, somehow in front of us again. This time, he moved at us quickly, charging with an animated and angry face, power drill spinning in his swinging arm. The scream that escaped my gut sounded foreign. Patrick laughed.

In another section, we seemed to be walking through the rooms of someone’s house. A dull orange light revealed a bathroom, solitary and bloody. Movement from the tub came into focus in the form of a stringy haired, injured girl-- writhing and reaching for us, her head draped over the edge of the tub. Relieved she didn’t grab at us or stomp or startle us, I breathed and purposely relaxed my shoulders. Maybe this stretch would be a little more endurable. I couldn’t sustain my state of anxiety much longer. We rounded the corner to an abandoned kitchen, clearly the scene of a tortuous death by knife. Flashes of light only allowed short glimpses of the scene. Another guttural scream erupted as a skinny, half naked zombie appeared in a back bend, neck exposed to the sky, upside down eyes and snarling mouth rabidly coming at us.I think I threw in some bad words with that one. Patrick laughed.

We were bombarded with merciless moments of fright and panic repeatedly for an eternity. Finally, we approached my longed for exit from the maze. The chainsaw man targeted me and chased me out of the building, where I met a deformed, inbred, zombie human monster. He growled at me, nose to nose. Smelling my fear and reacting to my tortured scream, he followed me to the edge of the concrete exit platform, breathing down my neck and actually touching my ponytail. I’d had it. I released in a desperate wail on the waiting crowd, still zig-zagged in line, “They weren’t supposed to touch me!! He touched my hair!”

As we returned home, it took me at least an hour to come down from my state of alarm. And even though I would never do it again, and I would never recommend it to anyone, I  understand the motivation of some of the haunted house junkies we saw in line. My body had a primal reaction, like our tribal ancestors did when fighting for their survival. Much worse than any threats we experience in middle class America, the 13th Floor Haunted House exposed my raw, animal instinct for fight or flight. At one point, I almost kneed a dark figure that came at me head on.There was no time for logic, nothing to talk about or analyze, only room to react. The 13th Floor gave me the closest brush with death I've had. And walking out of there, having survived, left me somehow feeling more alive.