Throughout much of my life, I have not been attracted to the Halloween attractions and traditions. As a child, I can only remember trick-or-treating once. Part of that is because I was the only kid in my neighborhood and couldn’t care less. The other reason is the obvious, scared.  I always spent Halloween in the living room watching Halloween movies and indulging in a huge bucket of candy. Though my brother and our cousins always tried to force me to go to the haunted house in Helen, GA, during our family gatherings at Oktoberfest, I ran and refused.

About a  month ago, my youth group at church decided that we would take a trip to Scarowinds. I had always heard about how excitingly horrifying the park was during the fall season with patrons being terrified by those hiding in the dark bushes and fog of the park. As a person who had never been to a haunted attraction in my life, I decided to go. After a long bus ride with everyone filling my ears about all scenarios that I might encounter with my fears at the park, I got off the bus and out of my comfort zone, stepping into the dark world of every nightmare I ever had as a child when I arrived at Scarowinds. I was deemed a group leader since we had taken a crowd to the park, so I had the pleasure of hanging out with Andrew Moore, Kyndal Jackson, Brandon Rosenbauch, Anna Peterson, and Warren Greene. 

After entering the park, we headed straight for The Intimidator, the heightened roller coaster with epic drops in memory of the legacy of The Intimidator himself, Dale Earnhardt. Anna was the only person with the courage to ride front row with me. Following the freezing and windy ride, where I almost lost my beanie cap, we headed straight for the Fury. The lines for the Fury were incredibly long because it’s the top attraction in the park, so I suggested that we go ride the Ricochet and the Carolina Cyclone, two Carowinds classics.  Throughout our walking from park to park, we had a hilarious time scaring each other and watching others get scared. It wasn’t funny when the freakish creatures in the park came after me though. As we continued our endeavors, we all negotiated more severely than Trump and the Democrats to have me walk through a haunted house.  I absolutely refused; there was no possible way that I was going to let a group of sophomores tell me and my big senior ego walk through a haunted house. Well, they won. After much negotiating, their favorite guy, chicken, and entertainer of the night, me, went through the Zombie High School. I was not a fan of the place at all, though part of it reminded me of GHS, especially the chemistry lab which gave me flashbacks to how I acted and looked when sitting in Mrs. Bettis’s class. The bathroom also looked and smelled the same.

Anyways, it was dark, compacted, and full of zombies who enjoyed chasing me and who jumped out of every corner. I finally pushed everyone in my group through the building while saying just about every explicit word (I know; I’m a human. Don’t tell the Baptists. This Methodist did confess.) I saw the light at the end of the tunnel, in more ways than one. Once I had finished chewing my group out as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman did in the 1978 classic Full Metal Jacket, we made our way to the Cobra, and then to dinner where I ate the driest chicken fingers known to man. I absolutely refused to enter another haunted house, so I decided to go ride my favorite ride in the park, the Afterburn, which reminds me of the classic film. We continued to ride the night full of chilly air and brutal scares into a life-long memory. My group will never let me live past all of my moments of fear, as I shall not let them live past their moments of me scaring them with the supporter of the creatures and freaks inside the park. In all reality, I am just glad that I faced my fears and enjoyed a fantastic night with awesome friends, only to be disappointed by the fact that Scarowinds is not as horrific as its hyped fans make it out to be.