A little fright

There is a small bit of woods nearby, tucked back behind a friend’s house. It’s got a stream that meanders through, a nice variety of trees, and some walking paths. One day every year the people who live on the street turn it into a haunted forest. This year the weather was a tad dreary but that’s Halloween appropriate. There were witches milling around, waiting to take groups of kids through the dark forest. *

As we meandered along the dark paths we were met by a ghost asking for a toothbrush in order to allow passage. Silly, the kids laughed. But then there was something lurking nearby, something we couldn’t quite see. The sounds of large chains dragging echoed through the darkness. Then we came upon a cemetery scene; a gravedigger lamenting the difficulty of his work especially with the fellow he was trying to bury right there, the one who wouldn’t stay dead. Said fellow sat up suddenly, scattering the leaves covering him and causing many of the kids to jump back in fright.

Sam started claiming that it was “stupid” which we understand is code for “scary” but he took off ahead of me to try to hurry us along and out of the woods. The man on the zipline scared a few folks, and then the noisy ninja circling the trees finished them off. Finally, we ran into our friend, the ghost of glow sticks, and we finished the tour.

*They wisely set it up so the least scary tours are early in the evening and we decided it would likely be best not to try to scare Sam witless. Then he claimed it wasn’t scary so now I think we should let him watch the “Wizard of Oz” just to see his reaction to the flying monkeys.