I walked down the narrow hallway, petrified of what was awaiting me around the next turn. My heart thumped, my pulse raced, a scream rose in my throat, ready to burst out at a moments notice. With each step I took, I knew I was getting closer and closer to the terror that was surely waiting for me. This may seem like a bad dream I would soon wake up from, but I wasn’t that lucky. No, it was more than a dream; it was the Middletown High School drama department’s haunted house fundraiser.

When I first heard the drama department would be embarking on this spooky task, I was somewhat skeptical as to how they would pull it off. How scary could a student-run haunted house be? Well, I found out how talented our MHS actors really are.

After seeing the posters advertising the event as the “Nightmare in the Valley,” I got more excited. Having promised my eight-year-old sister that I would do something special with her for Halloween, this seemed like the perfect opportunity. A friend of mine and his ten-year-old brother tagged along, which turned out to be advantageous if you believe the old saying “there is safety in numbers”.

When we arrived at the school, Halloween music immediately put me in a heightened mood. After paying a reasonable fee of $3.00 per student, we were escorted into a make-shift waiting room, which happened to be the school auditorium. While waiting for the group ahead of us to finish their frightful tour, we were told by a member of the Drama Department that, “it doesn’t matter if you are the fastest person in the group, only that you aren’t the slowest.”

After hearing this statement and the frightful screams of the groups walking through the haunted house, I got extremely excited. Maybe this haunted house wouldn’t be so bad after all.

The second that we walked into the actual haunted house, a figure clad in dark clothes jumped out and scared me so badly I actually screamed. “Alright,” I thought to myself. “This is what I paid for.”

As we winded throughout the rooms, I was constantly screaming from different people jumping out at a moments notice. The actors did an incredible job of portraying many different characters two young girls, one painted ghostly white and one with a deformed face, literally haunted my memories for the rest of the night. The actors sincerely made this haunted house an incredible one; they obviously took their job very seriously, seeing as the number of times I screamed out loud.

Besides to the actors, the set was the next best thing. The Drama Department did an amazing job creating a haunted house that had many uniquely frightening rooms. Each room had a specific story; one room featured a funeral parlor which held the body of the late “Mary Alice Jenkins.” The actress playing her laid so still in the coffin I actually thought she was a dummy; at least, that is, until she abruptly sat up and scared me half to death. One room even served as a butcher’s den, complete with a gory body and lots of blood.

The Middletown High School Drama Department did more than just fundraise; they put on one of the most frightening haunted houses I have ever had the extreme terror of visiting.