It's October, and that brings a few changes to one's surroundings. Typically these com in the form of lower temperatures, which result in outfits where less flesh is exposed, and shitty halloween decorations. From time to time, it also causes things like haunted houses to pop up, and most of them totally suck. I've seen but a few - none since I was a kid, and none of them were even close to scary, even to my fourth grade self. Well, I was over at the den of slack one evening (morning?) and one of the residents came back home, accompanied by his girlfriend, and I noticed that they were wearing an awful lot of makeup. Heavy coats of this are not uncommon on either male or female in your average goth crowd, but this was a bit extreme, so I asked what the occasion was. Turns out they dress up like vampires from B-movies and scare the shit out of people for minimum wage. And the haunted house they work at is actually scary. Knowing full well that I needed something to do at night, I asked if there were any slots left. Considering that this wasn't a job that most would flock to, there were, and I tagged along with another den-of-slack-resident to see if we couldn't (no pun intended) scare ourselves up a temporary job a few days later. These people aren't looking for the creme de la creme. If you know your name, are capable of screaming, and can stand really cheesy halloween tapes looped endlessly, you're hired.
So there I was, standing in a dimly lit room and wearing a hooded robe fashioned from burlap, with a few impaled bodies and a blood fountain to keep me company. My job? Stay in the scene, if someone comes through, spook them. If they piss their pants, so much the better. I've never really considered myself to be a very intimidating person, so I had no idea if I was actually going to be able to pull this off... the few suggestions I was given didn't seem too appealing to me, so I went and hid around the corner of the scene exit, waited for someone to come into the room, jumped out, and started yellling the cheesiest lines I could come up with. One might not think that this would be an effective strategy, but all the screaming suggested otherwise. Granted, the show was pretty much over once people got around the initial shock of someone coming out of nowhere and shouting strange things... but sometimes that initial shock was pretty good in and of itself; a couple men walked in, and one of them fell over backwards out of surprise. Bald man: one, patrons: zero.
The next night I found myself standing in another scene where there were skulls imbedded into the walls, and creepy cave-like sound effects blaring from a speaker that was hung just over the cell I was in. Oh yeah, I was wearing something else made of burlap, and the makeup made me look like I had some sort of shit fetish. But it beat the hell out of the impalement room, in any case. I have the best cue in the house there... the sound of a guillotine blade falling in the previous scene. Once again, the liklihood of me scaring anyone didn't seem too great, considering that now I was wearing rags, and how scary is a short skinny bald guy in that getup? Well, try asking the girl who is going to be wearing a triple coat of makeup for the next week to cover up a bruise that could only come from a drunken fratboy or running into a wall at full tilt. It's dark in most areas, and the walls are black. And they know this. Bald man: two, patrons: zero.
I hear that nobody likes working cell, and I'm still not sure why this is. It has a perfect signal for when someone's coming, and the sceam probability is high. The best part of that spot is that when someone runs out (hell, even if they walk) there is usually ample time to sneak up on them, chase them halfway to the next scene, and then resume hiding before someone else comes along. And it's not like one has to stand in the same spot all night... I work a few weekdays and Sunday, so it's not too busy. Go up a scene or two and talk to the executioner or the vampires, stick your head out the door and take a smoke break. Anywho, that's going to be my spot every night... I like to make sorostitutes scream, and the boss likes to hear it even more.