The Carnage Conga Line

We had a Halloween break-through this year. I've established that I hate haunted houses and scary movies and anything remotely in that genre of "entertainment" (Haunted House Hell, October 2009) And my 12 year old hates that type of scary stuff as much as I do (The Longest Night Ever, July 2009). Once again this Halloween season, these nightmare-inducing locations have popped up around Atlanta and there's some doozies: 13 stories (a mental institution that gets more intense the higher you climb--the challenge being to make it all the way to the 13th story--I hear few do), Chambers of Horror, and an infamous haunt called Netherworld, which is about 20 minutes from my home. Netherworld has been dubbed the "#1 Haunted House in the country" by USA Today so this place is not for the faint of heart. I have friends whose children have attended and made comments about it being "very intense," and "the scariest thing I've ever seen." My own brother in law reportedly "screamed like a little girl" through the entire thing (I did love THAT visual; LOL).



And once again, all my son's cohorts planned an excursion to Netherworld, and just like last year, Chase was sure he wanted to go and begged to do so. I spent days telling him he would hate it, reminding him of the crappy TV show last summer that kept him up all night, the fact that he won't watch scary movies. And even worse, experiencing haunted houses isn't like watching a flat screen you can turn off. These freaks are chasing you and seeming incredibly, incredibly real, I tried to make him understand. I recanted tales of kids he knew that I'd heard attended last year and ended up dissolved in tears. I shared my own horrid tales of ghastly behavior when I attended a haunted house once and only once and how I was haunted by it for years...not by the atrocities within the house but by the atrociousness of my own actions, having transformed into a sniveling mess, glued to the back of a guy I'd barely known and who certainly never called me again afterwards.



Chase was unaffected. The thoughts of headless men carrying their own skulls, the blood, the gore, the embarrassing behavior of a mother from 20 years past...none of it phased him. Evvvvvvverybody was going so surely he would be fine and couldn't he go too? After discussing with John, we decided that this falls into the category of him needing to learn for himself. No amount of me saying he'd hate it was going to convince him. So I figured if I was going to cave on this, then I'd stay nearby with phone in hand and if he hated it, I'd could easily go and get him.


So off we went last Friday night: him, 5 friends, a couple other moms, and me. The plan was to drop them off to meet up with a thousand other friends who were all going, and we parents would head to a nearby restaurant for a bite while they strolled through the halls of blackness and incredibly impressive costumed characters. I watched my phone like a hawk but in the 90 minutes Chase was there, I never got a peep. No call, no text, no flicker of terror from an impressionable pre-teen.

Huh. Amazing.

After eating and with still no word from the kids, we headed back to watch some of the activity at the house since I'd heard a lot of the characters walked around the parking lot. We ended up having a blast, watching kids and adults alike exit the house--some walking, some running, but all thinking they'd made it to safety, only to be chased by one last character: a mental institution-type with a "chainsaw." What a hoot watching that as well as all the other very realistic creatures that were strolling around the outside and along the line of waiting horror-seekers. It was like standing in some other world where the ghoulish and horrifying simply strolled around normal folks--making me think the name "Netherworld" is wildly appropriate.



Chase and all his pals were bundles of energy afterwards, recounting how they managed their way through the moving rooms, horrific creatures and suspiciously dark corners that were never as empty as they seemed. They jabbered and laughed about who cried like girls, who was the most scared, what the inside of the haunted house was like. I asked if they all walked through with linked arms like I saw a few others do and Chase told me about eight of them went through in a group and they were all holding on to each other's shirt backs. "Like a conga line, mom," he said.

Ah yes, carnage and conga lines. A natural combination. But they all reported having a great time. I heard reports that Chase was muttering "I don't know about this...I don't know if I can do this" but alas, he and everyone else in the group made it--and no tears from anyone. Not even me. He even slept through the night all by himself. So does he want to try another one now? "Um, no thanks."

Yeah. I figured not.