You’ve waited all year for this night. The night that they say the ghosts and goblins roam. The veil between the mortal world and the world of the dead is thin. Some people believe you can talk to those who have passed before you. Your thoughts on the matter vary. While you aren’t sure that you believe in ghosts, you know that sometimes strange things do happen on this day. They call it All Hallow’s Eve, Samhain, Halloween. The name varies between people.

Regardless of what someone calls it, it’s a time of merriment and spooks. You worked hard to ensure that the attraction you owned would give everyone a proper scare. At least, that is the idea. One thing that is said about your haunted house is that it was never the same yearly. This is your idea of trying not to be predictable. You don’t want your patrons to anticipate what is coming next or expect something. The more it remains the same, the more they learn the quirks of it. So you change it every year.

This year is a hard one. Usually, your best friend helps you build the gizmos that run the scares. Only, this year, they aren’t there. It had been months since they left. When they told you that they couldn’t live in a small one-stop town, they went somewhere else to spread their wings and left you high and dry. However, you did manage to have a couple of volunteers from the local high school. A couple of students who came every year to be scared and genuinely complimented your ideas.

You have four hours until dark when you open—four hours to ensure that everything runs smoothly. There were the obligatory scary clowns, but more than that. You have enough people to be various creepy scares that this night will be pretty awesome. At least, you hope it will. It was why you are currently walking through the haunted house maze, ensuring that every path led the way it needed. This was different, unlike many places where you started on the bottom and worked your way up.

Some stairs would lead the visitors to the very top floor of the Victorian house. Starting there, they would be greeted by the undead butler of the house. Where they would be given the rules of the house and where not to go. Not that there was anywhere they couldn’t go. Every room had an exit. Even the secret rooms. One thing that was new this year was a bingo game. See, you were going to give everyone a stamp card. For each room they successfully found, they would get a stamp on the card. There would be someone to do it or a stamp kit in the room. The hope was that they would explore and find hidden paths and spaces.

Having grown up in this house, you knew every nook and cranny. You will wait outside on the front porch, the final exit. Where you would look at the stamps and award prizes based on completion. Those that managed to get the most stamps would win a grand prize. You are not yet ready to share what that is. It was why they were only supposed to let people go in groups of four every fifteen minutes. To give time to not run into other people.