The Halloween Spirit

The haunt

The Clair family hopped out of the car with Nathen in tow. They breezed past the growing line, past couples, families and solo adrenaline junkies all the way to the front booth. It was decorated like a circus ticket booth, with red and white vertical stripes and standing inside was a grinning clown. He had a cherry red afro, red and blue diamonds around his eyes and what appeared to be blood dripping from his mouth.
"Ah! The Clairs! My favorite costumers! How are we doing tonight?" He asked enthusiastically.
"Wonderful. Thank you for asking." Mrs. Clair said as she pulled a paper from her purse and passed it to the clown.
"Bringing more fresh meat I see." The clown grinned even wider at Nathen. "If you survive tonight, I wouldn't recommend you leave your house until Halloween is over." He said ominously. Nathen must have showed his distress in his face, because both the clown and Mr. Clair erupted in howling laughter. Christopher and Victoria giggled mischievously and Mrs. Clair shook her head. Darla grabbed Nathen's arm comfortingly. "They're just teasing you. You've got nothing to worry about." She whispered.
The clown stamped their paper and gestured to his right. A rope differentiated the people with the fast pass from the people waiting in line, and the Clair's happily walked into the fast pass line. The first room was a carnival. Little game and snack booths, all with the same vertical red and white stripes as the ticket booth outside. The Clair's strode bravely into the set while Nathen dragged his feet, and Darla insisted on sticking with him. They shuffled forward so slowly that they lost sight of the others, and that only made Nathen's anxiety rise. Suddenly a clown jumped out from the space between booths and honked a horn right in his face. He shrieked and stumbled backwards, the only reason he didn't fall being Darla's surprisingly iron grip an his arm. She gave a small squeal of shock then giggled.
"Good one Macy! You almost got me."
The clown was a shorter, more heavyset woman, with curly violet hair, white as paper skin and violet makeup, the most prominent of it being the hearts on her cheeks. But her most disturbing feature was her daffodil yellow eyes that contrasted strongly with her otherwise purple features. Nathen's stomach felt as if it had shrunk to the size of a golf ball. He was really regretting agreeing to this. Darla yanked on his arm and tugged him forward into the next room.
It was a grungy, rusty hallway. Caged lightbulbs cast an eerie orange light over the scene, but were spaced so that there were portions of darkness between the spots of light. There were brown splatters on the wall that looked suspiciously like blood. Darla walked forward without hesitation, dragging Nathen, tripping over his own feet, behind her. He suddenly got the sense that she was not over him disliking Halloween. The rev of a chainsaw cut through the air which had previously only been filled with the quiet buzz of the lights and all the adrenaline in Nathen's system kicked in. He bolted forward, somehow managing to free his arm from Darla's grip. She ran after him, her giddy laughter not at all helping the tense mood. He looked back and saw Darla, her blond hair almost hitting the masked chainsaw wielding maniac in the eye. She put on a burst of speed and joined Nathen as he burst out of the hallway into an entirely different scene. A large chalk pentagram was in the ground and nondescript hunks of meat were piled in the middle. Candles were placed at each point and large artificial trees obscured the walls. Darla giggled. "Ooh! They went all out this year!" She grabbed Nathen's hand again and lead him forward. Nathen's eyes cautiously scanned the tree line, where he caught glimpses of very convincing looking demons. Red skin, yellow eyes, horns, the works. As soon as they saw him look at them they ducked back behind the trees. Nathen shivered and tried to rush forward, but Darla had his arm in a vice grip again and was looking back at the pile of meat. She looked... hungry somehow, though the bloody mass made Nathen want to throw up.
"I wonder what they used this year?" Darla mused. They made it out of the grove in without being jump-scared, much to Nathen's relief, but his relief was short lived as they entered a twisting hallway, painted with black and white spirals. It looked as if you stepped into it you'd fall into an endless abyss, made even worse by the people in skin tight white suits, posing around the hallway making them look like mannequins.
Even Darla looked a little unnerved at this scene.
"What's wrong? I thought you liked being scared."
"I do, but I don't like being confused. I was never good with optical illusions." She said, stepping forward anyway.
The hallway made you feel dizzy, making you sway from side to side. The only point of reference were the mannequin people and your own shadow. They could see the door at the other end and stumbled towards it. Nathen glanced back, hoping to see how far they'd come, but with the door to the ritual door closed behind them it looked endless. Suddenly he jumped as he realized that all the mannequin people were now looking towards him.
"Darla..." he called uneasily. He heard her gasp as she saw it too. He dreaded turning around, but in this hallway it was the only way to navigate out. He turned and saw the mannequins that were between Darla and the distant door were looking towards them, and it appeared that they'd begun to move towards them too.
"Run!" He yelled and surged forward. Darla agreed and followed him through the door, into what looked like an operation theater with a body laying on the table. It looked like the surgeons had all abandoned the patient to go get a cup of coffee.
"Oh this is much more my speed." Darla sighed and went to inspect the prop. Nathen stayed back, holding his mouth and trying not to vomit. This place was everything he hated. He wanted to leave.
"Darla, let's get out of here." He begged. She sighed.
"Oh alright. If it's really making you sick." She grabbed his arm in her vice like grip and dragged him through the doors, back into the carnival scene, however another part of it. Seeing his nauseous expression the clowns stayed back, and they emerged back in the parking lot where the rest of the Clair's were waiting.
"Did you puke?" Christopher asked with a sadistic grin.
"Almost." Nathen admitted, causing the little boy to burst out laughing.
"What did you think of that hallway Nathen?" Mr. Clair asked kindly.
"It was... scary." Nathen said, desiring more than anything to purge the horrific experience from his mind.
"I thought it was quite the creative work. Just think about all the work that had to go into that!" Mr. Clair enthused as they walked to the car.
Nathen ducked out of the conversation entirely, thinking of anything but October to clear his head. His mind wandered to how his dad was doing out on that fishing trip. He hoped that his dad was alright.