A Strangely Specific Haunted House

Are you a fan of haunted houses? No? Neither am I. However, I don’t think I would mind designing a haunted house. One that’s truly terrifying, filled with all of the things I find the most frightening! It would probably look something like this…

A traditional haunted house might resemble a rundown Victorian manor, or some other similar sort of place that looks like ghosts might frequent it. But this one does not. This looks like a house you might find on a beach, because despite the absence of rising tides (this haunted house is located in the land-locked state of Utah) this house stands on stilts. In order to get to the door, you must ascend a set of stairs. But not usual stairs, of course. Clear stairs with gaps between them, so you can see how high up you are and convince yourself that you are going to fall through the gaps!

Once you approach the door to the haunted house, you may notice a foreboding message spelled out in vinyl permanently stuck to the door: SOLICITORS WELCOME!

As you head into the haunted house, try not to scream when you notice who is sitting in the living room as bad Netflix romance movies play on the TV in the background. Relaxing on the couches sits every boy you’ve ever had a crush on, and they’re all talking about how awkward you are! Except that one boy you liked in junior high (the super egotistical one) who is, of course, talking about himself.

As you walk towards the first room on this haunted house tour, your former crushes’ eyes will follow you. You may notice that one of those former crushes– that one situationship (if you can even call it that) you keep bringing up even though it’s been years– is waving a ten dollar bill in the air. Ten dollars that is rightfully yours, but that he will certainly never give back to you.

The main hallway of the haunted house is lined with framed photos (all of which are slightly crooked) of judgmental-looking strangers. Their eyes track and follow your every move, and yes, they do think you’re incredibly weird and ugly.

Inside the first room of the haunted house is an array of different sizes of moths. They are motionless, all resting on something in the center of the room. As you approach they all fly in different directions, their gross gray or tan wings getting far too close to you. Eventually, once they are scattered and settled on the walls of the room, you can see what they were resting on. It appears that these moths have eaten holes into all of your favorite sweatshirts. Strangely, they’ve left some of the sweatshirts you own– the ones that fit just a little too tightly– completely untouched.

Once you escape that first room and make it inside the second, you will at first be relieved to see that sitting in this new room is your parents! Except, they appear to be busy reading newspapers. Your mom looks at you over the top of her paper and says, “There’s one for you on the table.”

Sure enough, sitting on a table off to the side of the room is a third newspaper. You skim the headlines, which are, naturally, all about you. Featured articles include: High School Student Gets a Bad Grade on Midterm Report Card and Cries About it, Eight Year Old Pees Her Pants at Lagoon Amusement Park, and Girl Pursues Creative Writing Degree Instead of Becoming a Doctor. When you are done with the newspaper and begin to make your way out of the room, both of your parents look up at you and simply say, “You’re a disappointment.”

In the next room is even more people, and they’re all cops. They aren’t actually doing anything other than standing around in their uniforms, but you get the sense they all think you’re being suspicious. You flee the room before one of them can arrest you, even though they would have no reason to do that. You’ve never committed a crime in your life.

After the room full of police officers is a room that appears peaceful at first. This one’s a library, with a desk in the middle of it. As you look at the books around you, you realize something’s off. Every single book is the same. There are hundreds of copies of a book titled Why Women are the Worst. The author? It’s that guy from high school, the one who told you his mom says, “women are the devil.” When you grab one of the books and quickly flip through the pages, you see the writing is riddled with grammatical errors and complaints about Taylor Swift, who you love. If you make any negative comments about the book, a speaker hidden somewhere in the room will start loudly playing a pre-recorded message (from that high school guy) about how women aren’t funny and can’t drive.

As you move to leave the library, the chair behind the desk in the middle of the room swivels around. Sitting in the chair is your high school principal, and he’s holding your diploma. He rips the diploma up and informs you that you actually never graduated high school, and you have to repeat it. Except this time, you’ll be repeating it with a bunch of kids who were born in 2011 and make jokes you don’t understand about the number 67.

After getting the news about how you will have to be a super super super senior, you make your way into the last room of the haunted house. This room is by far the scariest one. Inside it is an older woman you don’t recognize. She’s sitting in a rocking chair in the middle of the otherwise empty room, and she’s finishing up knitting a sweater that appears to say I Love Global Warming across the front of it.

The woman looks up at you as you approach her and pauses her knitting, setting it in her lap. She sneers at you and says, “I’d like to speak to your manager.” Then she starts maniacally laughing, which confuses you. Before you can ask any questions, the woman pulls her phone out of her pocket and turns the screen to face you. You get close enough to see what’s on the screen, and it’s a press release from Michael’s craft store, announcing they are going out of business and closing all of their stories effective immediately. You’re officially jobless. The old woman begins to cackle, then smugly says, “Oh wait, looks like you don’t have a manager!”

Just before you run out of the room and this dreadful haunted house, you notice the old woman is wearing a name tag on her shirt. Her name? Joann.