For the first hour, the groups came through steadily every five minutes or so. It’s like golf — if you bogey No. 15, put it behind you and try to ace No. 16. The best approach is to avoid breaking character, even when no patrons are around. You psyche yourself up, and think of something new to try.
“Just think of the one person you hate the most, and picture them walking in,” Bryan says helpfully.
The groups thin out as the evening drags on. Sunday is a slow night in the haunted house business. Bryan and I chat about his day job, his girlfriend, the amount of business Industrial Nightmare does on a Saturday. (“You can’t take a drink, a smoke, a piss,” he says.) On busy nights, the actors rotate in and out so they can take breaks; on this night, we take our breaks in the actors’ pockets. Bryan even lets me do the room by myself a couple of times, the way the room was intended to be worked. Fun.
After about two hours of scaring people, everyone who is coming through tonight seems to have come through. We mostly stand around and talk, occasionally joined by an actor from another room. When that rare scream echoes through the complex, we hastily retrieve our chain saws from the table and get into position. Method acting, it isn’t. After the last group comes through just after 11, we wrap it up. I consider how many showers it will take to wash off all this makeup. (Answer: Four.)
Avery invites me to come back on Friday, when it’s busier, try it out again. Maybe next year. He tells me I’ll do just fine, as long as I remember to “never back down.” That again. I’m pretty sure I backed down pretty often.
“Dude, it was your first night ever in your entire life doing that,” Bryan says. “My only advice — get on that saw a little more.”
