Timidly they step through the door into a room bathed in the spiritual magic of black light. Scores of brightly glowing masks cover all four walls. The guide points out the fact that none of the many masks are the same. The The haunted house has tunned into a tourist attraction complete with a tour guide. Now the participants relax even more as they study the masks swimming in their own bright fluorescent colors. But buried deep in the brain stem just above the back bone in that part of the brain that sends shivers down your spine lies a seething monster just waiting to get out. As the group approaches a dark corner of the room an apparition suddenly rises out of a large wooden coffin and the sub conscious monster is released. The monster squeezes the adrenalin glands hard and it pulls the vocal chords so tight that only shrill high pitched screams can get out. Some of the group staggers backward others frantically run for the exit. For a few the tour ends there. They are so shook that they can't or won't go any further. A person rising out of a coffin in itself is not very scary but with careful manipulation you can prime your victims. We primed ours by taking them through the spooky trees where they were sure some thing would happen but it didn't. The same thing happened in the grave yard. In the black light room we got them to completely let their guard down. Deep in their subconscious their fears still stirred but now their guard was down and we sprung the trap. We did the same thing in the mad scientist room. Soothing there fears and lowering their guard with demonstrations of a Tesla coil and jacobs ladder. We even brought a zombie to life after making bright dramatic but safe low voltage sparks that seemed to emanate from the zombies chest. With their guard once again down we buzzed the group with a large bat that swooped down from the ceiling. You would think people would get wise but after several great scares we nailed them with our best attack on their senses yet. Outside in the yard we constructed a large imposing gate out of 4x4's. We made it very plain that this gate was the exit from the spook alley. As they went through the gate they completely let down their guard. Three teen boys and their dates had gone through the haunted house and as the exited the gate they were trying to convince the girls that they hadn't been scared. Along the path outside the gate were some Roman torches for atmosphere, for light and for some thing mischievous, deviously evil and downright sinister in it's planning. Attached to each roman torch was a packet of black powder mixed with iron fillings and little extra sulfur to slow down the burn rate slightly. The powder made a hissing sound. the iron filings Made loud crackling sounds and brilliant flashes of light and the sulfur made lots of smoke. The packets were wired with an igniter like the ones used to ignite estes rocket motors. All we had to do was wait till they exited the gate completely confident that it was all over. With the flick of a switch all hell broke loose. Three screaming girls were nearly trampled by their three screaming panic stricken dates. It wasn't for lack of trying that those brave teen boys didn't climb right up the walls of the garage and onto the roof. As a testament to how successful our haunted house was we had a car load of people stop and they said they had just come back from the March of Dimes haunted house. Yours was free and better. The March of Dimes wasn't as good as our and it cost $5 to go through it. On another page I will deal with the black powder charges. One note of caution. anything that produces live flame should never never be used indoors. We had no flame devices indoors and we had the necessary fire extinguishers cleared our plans with the local fire department.      .  Dozens of masks cover the wa