I crept up to the red and white beanie poking out among the mannequins from the movie The Warriors. When I saw the hat within arm’s reach, I leaped toward Waldo, only to see that the punk had stuck his hat atop one of the chrome domes belonging to the Turnbull ACs. I heard the punk’s laughter in the background.

Then he howled.

I scrambled to my feet, running in the direction of the scream. Edwige, my kangaroo companion from my misadventures across North America, had Waldo cornered . Then Edwige jabbed one of her boxing gloves deep into his crotch. Waldo passed out, pale.

— To be continued.

I unearthed another documentary about a sordid situation that happened in Rockland County, New York. Back in 2009, people died at a haunted house attraction named Hell House in the town of Abaddon. Keep in mind this is one of those fake haunted houses people pay to get into around Halloween, the kind with props and actors trying to spook people. We get a home movie of one of these guests going into the house and the chaos that ensues. It seems that several guests were trying to get out of the basement, rushing past the oncoming guests to flee the house.

Many experts opine on what happened. One journalist named Martin Cliver is almost giddy when talking about the deaths of the people involved. Maybe don’t get too excited about this, you sicko! Anyway, the police said it was a gas leak in the building that caused the deaths, but no one’s buying that story. And then the 9-1-1 call leaked online with some woman screaming about something wrong with the walls. We then get an interview with Sara Havel, the only surviving member of the haunted house production company responsible for this attraction. Diane Graves, the producer of the documentary, conducts the interview and Sara does not look all there though she says she’s in a better place.

Sara then hands over a bag of video tapes for the documentarian to go through. We are then shown footage where the members of that haunted attraction company are planning their next venture. It seems they’ve either rented or purchased an abandoned hotel in Abaddon, New York. While searching around the basement, they find all sorts of Satanic paraphernalia and graffiti. Alex, the head of the company, thinks this is great. The props are already there!

I’ve seen stupid characters in horror movies, but this haunted house crew might be The Champions of Stupid. They decide to live in the hotel for a week while setting it up, but all sorts of strange things keep happening. They set a creepy clown dummy in the basement that keeps finding its way to different parts of the hotel late at night. They all figure that Mitchell, the jokester of the crew, is pranking them, but he denies it. Other odd events happen like Sara sleepwalking, the parlor piano playing by itself, and various ghosts getting recorded on camera. Mitchell goes missing and is later found comatose. Alex insists on the company going through with the haunted house and then all hell breaks loose on opening night.

That isn’t a figure of speech 

Expect a twist ending involving those making the retrospective documentary on Hell House. And there are two sequels and a spinoff to this documentary so the story doesn’t end here.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443, episode 444, episode 450, episode 477, episode 491, episode 492, episode 493, episode 495, episode 496, episode 545, episode 546, episode 547, episode 548, episode 549, episode 575, episode 596, episode 597, episode 598, and episode 599) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.