It’s about 6 p.m., and there’s a chill in the air as the sun sets on the small town of Palouse, Washington. It’s an hour till showtime.
The streets are mostly quiet, but a few clues hint at the night to come: A giant scarecrow is propped up near the entrance to town; two skeletons sit atop air bikes at the local fitness center; a “haunted” train on Whitman Street, manned by two more skeletons, is decked out in purple and orange.
It’s inside the Palouse Community Center where things really come alive. Or, maybe, undead.
Teenagers are morphing into vampires, larvae and horror film antiheroes.
The girl from the horror movie “The Ring” stares out from between two curtains of black hair and checks her phone. Across the room, 15-year-old April Gaber brushes black eye makeup onto her friend Atlas Melton, 17, who plays Beetlejuice.
“OK, close your eyes all the way. Stop being so twitchy! I swear,” she said, “you’re like my cat.”
At a nearby table, Leah Halterman is stippling layers of gray-green face paint onto her daughter, Lily Halterman.
“She’s supposed to be a larva. She’s in a web, and so it kind of reminded me of Frodo from 'Lord of the Rings,'” Leah said. “So, I’m just kind of trying to make it look sickly and blobbing lots of green and mixing colors.”
Leah has been to many haunted houses. Sometimes, she said, embracing the scary things can be empowering.
“Nobody’s actually gonna hurt you, but you can step into that realm that we just don’t very often,” she said. “Mostly, scary stuff is just scary. Being able to leave and laugh about it (is fun).”
That passion for fright is shared among the many volunteers who make Haunted Palouse happen.
Richard Link, the Haunted Palouse's director, said around 300 people volunteer each year.
“ Last year, we had 302 named volunteers that put in over 3,000 hours,” Link said. “ And there are people that I know that helped that did not put their names down.”
The event is notorious for bringing out the inner creative directors and thespians of both town residents and volunteers from the surrounding area.
Cas Burns runs Palouse Paintball. He also designed and constructed the Shady Lane zombie hunt attraction. Guests are handed glow-in-the-dark gel blasters to shoot as they make their way through a maze.
“ We actually do have people pee their pants when they're out here,” Burns said. “We keep a running total.” Last year, there were nine.
Burns said he loves building tension in his set design.
“It's about working up to it. You get in there, you're like, ‘Oh, this isn't that scary,’ ” he said. “And then you get to the first section, which has almost no lights. Then, they work their way to the meat shack. And usually by the time you get to the meat shack, you don't want to go in there.”
For his son, Alex Burns, the fun is in the scaring. He’s one of dozens of volunteers doing that job, both at specifically assigned stations and roaming the streets.
“ I like seeing the terrified faces of people who are running through,” Alex said. “I've been a zombie for the past two years, so I kind of have a little walk I do.”
This year’s theme is “classic horror movies,” with a heavy emphasis on the haunted house specifically.
Karen Peltier designed the haunted house. Though the details of its interior are top secret, the hours of work that went into the production are not.
“We went to my house, and we made this outta chicken wire,” she said, pointing to one of the dozens of handcrafted set pieces. “Paper, and then foam spray, and then the nails came in, and the painting.”
It’s a lot of work to make a compelling experience. When it gets dark and the scarers start roaming, the little town’s quiet ambiance paired with a vampire’s unblinking stare or zombie’s hunger for brains might leave guests with a shiver of fright despite themselves.
Haunted Palouse, which started as a community fundraiser in 2002, originally raised money for a flood-damaged museum. It has since expanded to support numerous local groups and programs including local robotics teams, Future Farmers of America, the Palouse Arts Council, school clubs and the city pool.
It’s netted roughly $890,000 for local groups since it began.
“Our community center wouldn't have been paid for, for years still, if it wasn't for this influx of cash. The museum would not be in a great place,” Link said. “Our robotics team, it's like a quarter of our budget. And it would be really hard for us to fundraise that any other way.”
In addition to the haunted house and zombie hunt, Haunted Palouse includes food vendors, live music, dancers and tarot readings in the museum.
There’s also a free family-friendly Spooktacular Saturday on Oct. 25 from 2-6 p.m. on Main Street for families and children of all ages, including magic shows and performances by fan dancer Venus Venom.
Spookier attractions, including the haunted house (open to those 12 years and older), begin at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
Tickets, which include the haunted house and zombie hunt, are available at hauntedpalouse.com. In-person ticket sales are also available, but sales are capped at 1,000 people.
IF YOU GO:
Haunted Palouse
When: 7-10 p.m. Friday and Saturday (12 and older); 2-6 p.m. Spooktacular Saturday (all ages).
Where: Downtown Palouse
Tickets: $30 at hauntedpalouse.com or in person. Sales are capped at 1,000 people.
