Pre-HF

A fair warning this page will include ALOT of reading so get your eyes ready

I asked 5 of you the same question with no context and yall delivered. I was given a assortment of answers, from short paragraphs to NINE PAGES long, thank you, this is what that was for.

scary guy #1

T.O.F Is where it all began for me, Matt Herman. One of my homies for life. The time line started around 2002/2003. Matt and I were always trying to hustle up some cash. So one day he saw an ad in the newspaper for Trail of Fear off of Startown Road. The ad was offering a $500.00 prize for any one who could create the best scene. So we went and met the owner, learned all the rules and regulations. Then laid claim to our spot. At this time I met 3 of the faces that would show up every October for the next 16 years or so. Those 3 faces, 2 of the 3 became my boys, my haunt family. Jason Dentino, Bobbie Kanipe, and the immortal Psycho Kenneth Walker. 

That year Matt and I created our own scene, a church and grave yard. And at the end of the season only 2 of the scenes were built. Ours and Bobbies. His scene was a frat house facade from leather face. It even had grandma in her rocking chair. We ultimately decided to split the $500.00 prize 50/50 and stay friends because of it. 

As for the other two, Jason had been a part of Trail of Fear for several years and was the man at making and working his own creation “ The Dark Maze.” While Kenneth aka Psycho was the chainsaw wielding Ringmaster of the circus tent. Always ending in chasing folks to their cars in 

legendary style. We did that for two seasons and due to drama and mine and Matt's need to hustle, we devised a plan. The idea, Me, Matt, Dentino and Psycho should open pir own haunt. Luckily Matt's family loved the idea and thus Deadly Shoals was born. 

It was either the first or second season by an act of God we met your dad. The one and only “Hatchet” and your paw paw shook, which became known as hop a long due to a busted foot. Shook and Hatchet came and picked a spot out of our scene area that the could make their own. Your dad had also started a haunt I think up and the mill hill house in hildabran. And the act of God I spoke of shut his haunt down. I will leave his story for him to tell. But nevertheless destiny had a plan for us to meet. So I built a lot at Deadly and kept walking by their scene sitting empty. I asked Dention, You think those boys will show? He was confident and told me to trust him. So I did. 

Week after week til what feels like now I walked by, still empty. Till a week or two before opening night they showed up, Built and rocked their spot. So that was the glue for me and your pops. I could trust him in and with a scene. 

And I feel like that took us into 2006, when because of a Zombie baby and bridezilla we were forcefully removed from Deadly Shoals by the town. After a healthy clean up that is. 

So a few seasons go by, us working where we could. Haunted pyramids and such… Until, Hatchet had an idea and created a portfolio and found a backer, which was Mark. We had a meeting with him that Hatchet set up, and next season, Horrorfields was born. And I believe its ledger ran for the next ten years or so. Then Me, Hatchet, Dentino and Psycho decided to walk away. Your pops wanted to be home more for your teen years and I was getting married, and well I'll let the others tell their tales. But since then I’ve worked a few lonely nights here and there but haven't opened another haunt since Horrorfields “ .com” MCL Jonboy.

And for my time at the haunted pyramids… I don’t remember who first found it for us to work at. But I feel like that first year we were just fill in’s. Then the next year came and we worked in clown town. And the following year we worked clown town again, making it our own. Which, we were all Juggalos so that made us laugh. We straight rocked clown town as far as fear moments. 

If I remember right, your dad ran a group into the vortex tunnel. A group of large black women. I busted up in there, exit side hotshot in pursuit, when all of a sudden, the “vortex” won the battle. Those ladies screamed, leaned to one side then crash they went over the side. HA HA we had to close down clown town for a few minutes… HA HA Good times! 

So I want to say we had a good two seasons running clown town and they loved it so much we were given free reign snotty scottie asylum which ultimately became Burke’s Asylum. Staring, yours truly, made it on the Haunts ticket. Which as the crew was able to assemble together again in the same spot in the haunt. That was the year it became cool. No more than cool to scream, “JERRY COFFEE” about 12 times in a row. Super amazing time! He He He 

And one, no two scenes to remember. One was perfect pressure from your truly and perfect timing from your dad. I ran them in and your dad made them hit the ground. Sending them into a panic running away so hard they hit the exit did a front flip over the banister rail, and then the local spooks ran them to their car. Epic! 

And #2, This big cowboy fella. I busted out of an opening he jumps to see what I am and your dad busts out at that moment. Guy had a I’m frozen moment in his head and proceeds to trip over the toilet, in an I cant ever be scared of anything to how embarrassed my hard ass just had my soul leave my body moment. He climbs up off the floor grabs his ladies arm and says, “come on baby we’re out of here. Pissed off kicks open the back door…. HA HA HA That will be $15.00 sir… Ha Ha GREAT TIMES! 

scary guy #2

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always looked for a place where I truly felt I belonged. In 2006, I saw an ad for Deadly Shoals Haunted Trail looking for actors and crew. I decided to join and started out by digging graves in a field. During my time there, I took on many roles from a parking attendant to zombie soldier, wicked clown, and even a amputee victim. That season, I built strong connections with people who began to feel like family.

Sadly, the lease on the property wasn’t renewed the next year, which was disappointing. But that wasn’t the end of our journey. The driving force behind DSHT had connections with other haunted attractions in the area, and we teamed up with The Haunted Pyramids for a few years. Together, we created a creepy insane asylum experience that let us express our creativity and enjoy doing what we love.

In 2010, we joined forces with a local backyard haunt enthusiast who shared our passion. We helped bring Rebel Hell Haunted Trail to life. 

In 2011 a nearby haunt needed a fresh start, and our team was ready for the challenge. That led to the creation of Horror Fields a place where we built something amazing from the ground up. 

scary guy #3

My first haunt memory is seeing my little sister being scared, and thinking how awesome the lady playing the witch was.

There was this small local haunt, ran out of an old house. Honestly, more of a shack. I'm probably 15, my sister is probably 5, we are with my dad. Just waiting in line, as you do. And of course, she is freaked, she is just a little kid. And this lady working the front, KILLING it.  Just playing the best witch you have ever seen, and my sister is losing her mind. And I'm not scared, I am thinking how much fun that looks, how cool it is that she gets to do this. 

I finally get to do this years later. I start at the ground floor, literally. I am just a Boo, I curl up on the ground, through some leaves on myself, hold still, and pop out and scream. I remember the smell of the dirt and the leaves, the feeling of joy as the families jumped and ran from just the simplest thing. The feeling of acceptance as the lady who ran the haunt cooked supper for us before we started. The stories we earned. It was enchanting. But then they closed.

Next I went to work for a for profit haunt.  Did a big create a scene. There I met people who are life long friends and family. People who I have seen grow from children to having their own kids. There I learned the art of building a scene, telling the story you want, controlling the pace, crafting the sound and the look and the feel! But after 2 seasons, I knew I could do it better.

So a group of friends and I started our first haunt. Deadly Shoals. That plot of land changed people's lives, created the basis for whole families to exist, all through the power of the haunt. We were ambitious, probably too   ambitious, but we did not care, it was passion and drive and love and late nights and early mornings and advertising and adversity. We learned to create our own scares and our own sounds and our own effects. We traveled across the country, as invited guests, to conventions, as featured guests. We did parades and made friends and made enemies and eventually that was our downfall...but not the end.

Because then came the Horror Fields. Create the look. Create the story. Create the feel. It's all us, all myself and this group of madmen and lunatics who devoted themselves to this dream. But...I flew too close to the sun. I burned out. I lost that love. 

Its coming back. I get glimpses of it. I've worked a few nights, here and there, and being a regular boo is amazing. Having that power of another human in you hands is amazing. Knowing that you have taken professional haunters and frightened them to the point of collapse is a powerful thing. Knowing that you can comfortably switch from scary to funny as needed is wonderful. I love being a haunter. It has given me so much, so many memories, both scaring and building. It has created families and friendships, it has helped people find who they truly are. 

I would not give it up for anything. 

Scary guy #4

The year was… a long ass time ago. I was told Justin was building a haunt in his back yard. I decided that’s something I want to do too, since I use to think about it a lot when I was little. So I invested a little money and a lot of time to help make Rebel Hell, be what I feel was a big success for a little back yard haunt. Before we closed, Hatchet had been talking to Mark, I got a mural job for his haunted factory, where I painted seemingly the first design of Ichabod Nyx. Then there was talk of us all joining Mark and using his land, and you know all that history 🖤

scary guy #5 

In Oct. of 1986 I was 5 years old. I can hardly remember this and was told this story over the years. My Mom and Dad took me to the Star town or the Hudson Haunted house that was put on either by the Jay cees or the local fire department. The only thing I remember about that night was when we parked the car I was in the backseat as a 5-year-old and it being nighttime. I remember a wolfman came up to the window of the car and I started crying, I was scared. I did not want to get out of the car and my mom and dad were trying to get me out. That is My first Memory of where my Haunted houses begin. I’m not sure If we ever got out of the car and went through or not. 

My next Memory was I was 7 years old in Oct. of 1988 in Bethlehem and a church across the road from the trailer park I was living in had a Haunted Hayride put on by the Drama department of the High School. My mother took me over there and I remember the scenes pretty well. They had a graveyard. A zombie would come out of the grave glowing red and foggy, jump up and run onto the wagon and scare everyone. They also had a Freddy and Jason. I feared them both but also in 1988 Freddy was my hero! I think this was the first time I was Geeked or Star struck even though it was just some high school kids in costume. I remember Freddy had a real metal glove as he scrapped it on the side of the wooden wagon sides. The sound of metal hitting the wood I can still hear it in my head to this day. The last scene had the wagon stopped and a Huge Saw Blade turned on above our heads and it was spinning and sounded real. It swung down like a pendulum back and forth. Not sure if it got closer each swing or not but that’s what it felt like.  The next day I told a friend of mine Billy about how much fun it was and like I said this hayride was across the road from Where I lived, we both snuck over there as we were not allowed to cross the road by ourself. In the daytime we walked the hayride path in the woods. Even at 7 years old I was very interested in how things were made. I seen in the day time that the zombie had a pre dug hole with a red floodlight down in the hole. They also had a fogger set in behind a tombstone. I seen that the big sawblade was made of plywood only one side was painted and was hung up in a tree and had a regular lightbulb facing it in the tree. Everything clicked into place when I walked though in the daytime. I was so excited all year in 1989 for the haunted hayride to open up for the Halloween season. But in Sept. of 1989 Hurricane Hugo came through our town and really messed up a lot of people’s houses. The woods that the hayride was in had trees down all over the place. The Hayride never opened back up.

Fast Forword to Sept. of 1997 I was 16 years old and had a car, I was going to high school at Alexander Central and the Drama teacher had told some of her students about a haunted house that needed some volunteer actors in Taylorsville. I wasn’t in Drama, but I heard about it and went along too. This place was at an old train Station and Was built in the 1800s a very old building and the man who was running it was very nice, but You could tell opening night had him stressed out. He put me in the second to the last room in the haunt. It was an alien room, but it wasn’t working out very well. So, I had a Scream Costume and He had me wear it in that room. I was ghost face and In 1997 Ghost face could clear a room (this was the time Scream came out). I had such a blast. I would hide behind some barrels in the corner of the room, and I could hear the group coming from 5 rooms away. I could tell if they were going to be a (good) group or not. I remember being so excited about working at this haunt. Weekend after weekend I was there. My friend DJ was working there as well. We would head up to the haunt on Friday after school and hang out in the parking lot until someone came to unlock the haunt then we would get ready and hang out until dark when the show started.  I had so Much fun that year. I learned so much That year. I would hang around the owner asking questions and soaking up as much as I could. This is where my idea that hey I can build my own haunt Started. Not that felt like it would be easy, but I was just in love with it.

1998-2000 I was going to every haunt I could find. A lot of them were in Wilkesboro and the Hickory area. I would talk to the owners and get all the info I could at every haunt.

In 2001 I had a girlfriend whose mom and dad had just moved to a New Neighborhood in Newton. I ask them If I could build a home haunt in their front yard. They had no clue what that was but said Sure go for it. I had just got Laid off from corning and was working at a frame shop. The bossman said I could use some of the scrap pieces of wood. I was building a 5 room haunt out of wood scraps and black plastic to be open a few hours on Halloween. It was 3 days before Halloween It had been very dry that summer so I had to use a metal fence post and a sledgehammer to make holes in the dirt so I could put my scrap wood slats into the ground. I used a pitcher of water to soften the dirt. As I’m outside banging away at the sold ground my girlfriend’s sister’s boyfriend came outside to see what I was doing because I had woken him up banging the metal fence post. He came out the front door hair a mess and said Dude WTF are you doing? We weren’t friends at this time he was just someone I would see in passing. A tall pretty boy. Not my kind of guy. I pulled out a piece of notebook paper I had in my pocket and showed him a layout for a 5 room haunt for Halloween night. He was like OOOKKKKK….. He went back inside, and I went back to work, about 45 mins Later he came back outside with old clothes on, and Hair all gelled up. He said Hey man what you’re doing sounds cool do you mind if I help. So just like that Rodger and I was building My first Haunt. Halloween day came and right before dark We had about 30 people lined up waiting to get into my Haunt. We had 5 rooms and Rodger, and I ran 4 of them. The price was free to get in and if you made it to the end, you could get candy.  I had an absolute blast building and working this home Haunt. I learned Just how much work went into building a haunt. 

In July of 2002 I knew I wanted to be a part of a haunt but didn’t have any place to build one, so I went to the local fire department in Rhodhiss NC I knew they did a small, haunted trail each year at the park down by the lake to raise money. So, I stopped by one afternoon. I went in and there was one guy watching tv. I said Hey man I was wondering if I can work at your haunt this oct. He said we haven’t even started to think about that yet. He said come back Monday at 6pm when we have our weekly meeting and talk to the chief. So that next Monday I was there 30 mins early and I ask for the chief. He said sure we can always use extra people. He said do you have a costume? I said yeah, I have enough stuff for 5 rooms. He said Well if you can staff those rooms then I will let you build your own area at the front of our haunt. I was so Excited that I was going to build a few rooms in a real haunted trail. I was on cloud 9. By this time, I was still working at the frame shop and was dating my what is Now my wife. I went with the same game plan use scrap wood and black plastic. I built a graveyard. With a coffin Bossman helped me build at work. His wife and daughter came and worked that scene that season. Rodger was still around I can’t remember his scene, but his friend Damn it Dave was around, and he worked the clown room and my girlfriend, and I worked an insane asylum room. I was in a strait jacket, and she was a nurse. This would be the ONLY time she ever had worked as an actor in a haunted house.   It rained so much that season. Every Friday I would get off work at 12pm and I would spend the whole rest of the day rebuilding the plastic rooms. We had to put down gravel on the path because it was so soggy. I would have to almost rebuild the whole thing every Friday and Trying to be done in time for the first customers. This is when I learned that black plastic is not for making haunts. We had lots of fun and many stories from that season.

By the Spring of 2003 I had gone to the Fire department some Monday in April.  All the guys Knew me well from the last haunt season and were happy to see me come to the meeting. I ask chief if I could help again this season. He said just hang out for the meeting. I did and they did their normal meeting it was about to end, and the Chief said Hold on guys Jamie has something to talk about. I was like what? On the spot. I got up in front of everyone and said Hey guys I was hoping yall would let me work in yalls haunt this season. Most of them started laughing and I was like what?  Why are you talking about Halloween in April? They thought it was ridiculous that I was making plans 6 months ahead. See these fire department guys would start building plastic walls in picnic shelters the week before they opened. As funny as it was to them the Chief said Yeah, we will be glad to have you back this season. Then he said you did such a good job last year we will let you have one of the 2 Picnic shelters this year. This was a dream come true. They were going to let me be responsible for ½ of their haunt. I was going to have a building to build a haunt! Then chief said the town don’t let us start putting anything together until 2 weeks before we open. But even with this stale news I was on top of the world. So, for the next few months I was planning and building props at my house. Getting ready as much as I could. Then in July Something happened that Changed my whole outlook. I picked up the book Behind the Paint. Boy this book was so inspiring; I had a fire burning inside of me, but this book was like throwing gasoline on a bon fire. I went back to the chief and begged him to let me start building the haunt asap. He agreed and it was on. I spent 100% of my time down at the Rhodhiss park for months.  I was there day and night. We needed plywood walls, and I couldn’t afford a 2x4. So, while I was at work one Friday. I called Rodger and said Hey man Plywood Friday is a go. See in Bethlehem there was this house that had burned down many years ago. They cleared the land and started building a new house 2 story very nice but at about 1/2 of the way though construction they stopped building and had been like this for 3 years. I had stopped by there one day and found probably 35 sheets of plywood and lots of 2x4s. so it was time to do some dirt. I said Rodger go to the trailer store and pick up a truck. I had work there for years and the owner let me have keys to the truck and the store. I told him after that go to the Trailer Park I once lived in, and I told him to go to the bottom of the park and the first trailer on the left is a friend of mine named john. I had not seen john in many years at this point. Tell john who you are, and that Jaime Benge sent you to pick him up to help with a small project. He was like what? are your sure this guy is cool like that. I was like yeah man he will help. Just take a blunt with you and he will be down. So, Rodger go’s picks up the truck then went to John’s house and gets him then they go to the old House with all the plywood and they loaded up the truck as full as it would go. They then took the load of wood to the haunt in Rhodhiss. Then went back to get a second load of wood.  Rodger called me about about 5 hrs later that day as I was still at work. He said it’s done!!! It went off just like you said. John was cool as Hell, I told him what you said we smoked a blunt and he didn’t ask any questions he just was down for whatever. All the wood was at the haunt and ready to build. Now we had everything we needed, and the building started. The haunt was coming together better than I could have imagined. I even had my girlfriend Carrie making dead babies. Like I said the book had me fired up for advertising. J said in his book that Failure was NEVER an option. I started making flyers. J said people see things differently some people Brite colors catch their eyes and other just plain text and other Pictures work. So I made about 8 different flyers up for the haunt. All different kinds. I started putting flyers out everywhere from Morganton to Statesville. And everywhere in between. I was a madman during this time. I would even go to K-Mart and go to the Seasonal Halloween section and find things that I felt like a mom would buy like one of those candy bowls that the zombie hand would come down into the bowl when you reached in to get candy. I would open the box and stuff and haunted trail flyer into all kinds of Halloween related things. I would tape flyers up in bathrooms on the mirror. Pay phone booths at gas pumps on drink machines. You name it. At the weekly meeting the firefighters would make comments like man I had a friend of mine tell me he seen a flyer for our haunt all the way in Shelby. Who is doing this? I just kept quiet. So now it was time to staff the haunt. I had a graveyard that didn’t need someone it was just very pretty in a blue light with an old mattress that would make the ground sink as you walked on it. Then the next room was a dr. room. I had my Stepdad shook play the Dr. and My Uncle Kenny was the patient. See Kenny had a motorcycle wreck back in the 70s and only had ¼ of one of his legs. Those Guys KILLED IT!!! I heard stories from people about how Dr. Cutcha Gutcha was cutting off a guy’s leg and he would stand up and shake his nub around and blood and guts were flying everywhere! Then the next room was for my friend DJ who had worked in the haunt in Taylorville. He wanted to do a satanic ritual self-sacrifice. And let’s just say he did a wonderful job, but the towns folk wasn’t having it. I got so many complaints from people and the fire chief telling me we had to change what he was doing and if we didn’t, he would shut us down. We even had a church outside one night telling people if they went through this haunt, they would burn forever in a lake of fire. So, I had to tell DJ he had to take the pentagram off the floor and off the walls. When we took all the satanic writings out of the room it seemed like the rest of it was fine. The next room was a hallway with strobe lights and clear plastic hanging all the way to the floor with sheets cut up and about every inch. The plastic was blood splattered. The next room had dead baby dolls hanging by chains and my friend from high school Kent was leather face and (HE HAD A CHAINSAW!).  I had a speaker that had a sound of a swam of flies and had a 5-gal bucket of rotting meat for smell. I had to change the meat out each week. Then I had Frank in the celling coming down as a wolfman. The scare from above was never expected. He was very intense and even fell out of the celling one night and broke his tooth out. The next room was Rodger in an electric chair. It wasn’t very scary, but it was a sight to behold. Strobes, fogger and a good actor made this scene. The for the last scare as you walked out of the building a big metal door slung open and Rodger with a chainsaw would chase them all the way to the parking lot. And I mean it was about 60 yards. People fell down lost their shoes you name it. We had that Place rocking!! Shook said the energy that came out of that small haunt was like the walls were breathing. After this season I knew it was time to move on. I could do this for real. I even had come up with a Haunt company name Hatchets Haunting. Rodger made the logo, and I had T shirts made for all the staff that work my haunt that season. The back of the shirt said (Scaring the Shit outa all yall!)

2004, In February I found out that in about 8 months I was going to be a DAD.  I put off building a haunt as the baby’s due date was the end of Sept. first of Oct. I was on Hauntworld message boards all the time, back then we didn’t have much social media, so Message boards was how ideas were spread and I talked to many people in the haunt industry. I found a new haunt just right down the rd. from me in Dudley Shoals. I knew I couldn’t work with them as I had responsibilities to handle soon so I thought I would go by and meet the owner and introduce myself. I went by and 3 guys were there working on the trail Jason, Psycho and Johnny. They were pretty good guys and the seemed to be on the same page as me. I found out they all had met at another haunt nearby where you could win $500 for creating a scene inside the haunt. It seemed like they got the bug just like me and decided they could run their own haunt. Deadly Shoals Haunt Trail was born. They were doing twisted tales of OZ like a wizard of OZ theme. I didn’t care much for it, but Later I would realize just how cool telling a full story would be instead of random rooms that don’t fit together.  I told them my story and that I was taking this season off as I had a baby coming in Sept. They told me that if I found any time during the season that I was welcome to come work any nights I could. That was great because I couldn’t work the whole season, But I could come a few nights. On Sept. 27th  Maggie Benge was Born! I made sure to wear my Hatchets Haunting shirt to the hospital to welcome the newest member of my family. I even saved a small shirt for her so that when she was older she could wear it. She still has it to this day. Right as the Haunt season was kicking off.  Shook and I came back one afternoon and made a very small scene in the woods that even if we weren’t there it would be fine. We set up a strobe light and we hid in the woods with skill saws. It was very simple and easy scare. I think we were able to work 3-4 nights that season. It seemed Like a good bunch of guys running this haunt. At this time of my life, I had a 2000 Eclipse, and it was red with a Big Black Hatchet man on the hood.  Jason started calling me Hatchet because of my car. That nick name has stood the test of time and even until this day people call me Hatchet. One of the Issues I remember they had at the haunt was their workers were almost all new people who have never worked a haunt before and didn’t understand much about how to scare people. One of the Made me feel good memories was one Sat. evening Shook and I showed up to work that night and as we got out of the car and started walking down the hill to the Haunt Jason seen us and said Thank God someone who knows how to scare people! Even though I only worked a few nights that season I was still learning and making contacts. When the season was over those guys invited me to the After Halloween Party they had for all the workers. I brought my wife so she could meet this rag tag group of people. She had a good time at the Party. At the party was a guy but I didn’t see him working the haunt. This was the First meeting of Johnboy. He had been hemmed up all season with his girlfriend and couldn’t make it to work the haunt that season. He had all kinds of stories about everything. But he said that it was over with his girlfriend Angel, and he would be there next season.

2005, I was still very much fired up for owning my own haunt and was always looking for places to build. I drove by the Henry River Mill Village one day and said WOW this is it!! This would be a Great place to build a haunt. I done some research and found out the owner of that whole place was Wade Shepard. I found out where his house was, and I made my way there. It was up on a hill with a long driveway with gates up. I couldn’t get there. Over the next few weeks, I would drive by every chance I could get hoping one time the gates would be open. Well one day they were open, I went up the driveway I was met about ½ way to his house. A nice car was heading my way. I pulled off to the right side of the one lane driveway. As to let them pass. When they got to me it was 2 guys in the car. The driver was a younger guy, and the passenger was and older guy. I figured the older man was Wade. The driver and I both rolled down our windows and the driver said can I help you? I said I was looking for Wade and I wanted to talk to him about running a haunt in the old houses at the mill village. The older man said I’m Wade. I gave him a very fast background of myself and told him I want to do the same thing at the mill village. He heard what I had to say, and his only question was Who will the Money go to? I had no idea because I was wanting to run a for profit haunt. But at this time no one had ever done that before in this area. I thought about the Rhodhiss Fire department and how they did their haunt as a fund raiser. So, because this haunt would be in Hilderbran I answered with the quickness that I was planning on give the profit to the local fire department. I guess that was the right answer because he said OK yeah that will be fine. I was in shock and happiness filled me. That feeling didn’t last long as the young guy who was the driver and was right next to me. I guess he felt I wasn’t a threat after his dad said yeah it would be fine to run a haunt. I seen him pull a gun up from behind his door and stick it in the console area between them. He had a Gun pulled on he the whole time. I would find out later that people who knew him said he was very paranoid and was always pulling guns on people. I thanked him and told him that I and maybe a few other guys would be there for a few months working building the haunted trail. He said that would be fine. This would be the last time I would ever see Wade or his son.  I started working making a plan. In the back of my head, I knew I was going to have to go to the fire department and tell them I wanted to run a haunt and give them the money I made from it. But that mite entice a few of them to come and work the haunt too. I kept putting that off. I came up with the name and put a whole sheet of Plywood as a sign at the big building that was all black with red letters (coming this OCT.  Henry River House Of Horrors) The plan was to use outside of the Big brick building (which was later used in the Hunger Games movie) as the start of the trail and down the hill to one of the smaller houses and out the back door down the trail and into a big house and back up the hill to the parking lot. I was going to make a trail that led into 2 houses with a total of 12 scenes and about a 15-20 min walk though. I even had the fire Marshall come out one day and go over everything I need to make safe. I worked very hard on the big house first making everything safe and painting the walls, bring props and I even had DJ come help a few of those workdays. I was making some very good progress. One day DJ and I were down at the river getting water in a bucket to mix some quick drying concrete to make a ramp off the back of the house. When up the hill I see some people walking around. As I got closer it was Jason and Psycho. They had seen the sign and was coming to meet whoever it was starting the haunt. Turns out it was me. Jason said He thought it might be the guy who came and worked a few nights at their haunt last season. I walked them though my plans and Jason always had some good ideas. Jason told me about how they planned on doing a zombie over run military base at Deadly Shoals.  When it was over they wished me well and I wished them a great season too. I worked as much as I could to get the haunt ready and one July afternoon I was at home. We had a huge thunderstorm. I mean lightning stuck near the house and I thought the 250-gal propane tank had exploded that’s how loud it was. When it was over I decide I needed to go check the haunt and see if the storm had done any damage. I got into my truck, tried to crank it and the only light that came one was the check engine light. It wouldn’t do anything. I got my motorcycle out and went over to the haunt. As I pulled into the driveway, I could see the main house I had been working on had a massive oak tree had fell right down the middle of it. The tree had crushed the house. I was in shock, and I was still on my bike moving slowly and this was the first and only time I ever dropped my bike on the ground. I was in disbelief. My Haunt was over. That Storm Hit my truck and Carries car. The insurance totaled both of our cars. Over the next few weeks, I cleaned up everything I could, and it was clear the Henry River House of Horrors was not going to happen. I called up my neighbor haunt and told them what had happened and they welcomed me right away to join them at Deadly Shoals Haunted Trail. The 2005 season went well in Dudley the haunt was much better than it was the year before and Johnboy was living in the packhouse. I got very close with those guys over that season, This is when I met Jerry Coffee and his 2 nephews Adam and Blake. These guys would play a bigger role later on in wrestling and the haunt . But this was the first time meeting them and Most of all the Crew at Deadly Shoals Haunted Trail all shared the same love I had for the haunt. This was also the first year of the Christmas haunt. After the Halloween season they decided to do a Christmas haunt and give the money to a needy family. We built all Nov. to make our haunt look merry. The Granite falls and Hudson Christmas parade we were going to advertise this New scary Christmas haunt. This had never been done in this area before. Me being the advertising (genius) I was at the time I said Let’s drag a dead body from the back of my truck with a Full sheet of plywood sign for this parade. This was not a good Idea. As it brought lots of attention to us. Also during the Hudson strech I was walking along the parde with my truck dragging a deadbody... and I had a bush axe as my wepon. I would drag it across the street and make a loud scratching sound and sparks as I would run up on girls or kids to scare them. this went well until I ran up to a small sweet old lady and the street had a curb. As I had a hooded mask on I didnt see it coming and as I was running as hard as I could dragging my bush axe across the street and screaming like a madman my whole 250lb self tripped over the curb and FOOTBALL tackled this 70lb Grandmaw....... I picked her up off the ground and told her I was very sorry. I walked off in Shame.... Well, the Christmas haunt didn’t go over well I think we had 2-4 people go through. 1 group for the 2 nights we were open. Oh well next season will be better!! Or so we thought……

2006-2009

Early in 2006 I was taking pallets over to Deadly Shoals and I found a business card taped to the door of the packhouse it was from someone from the town of granite falls. He needed someone to give him a call. We called and they wanted a meeting with us. Jason and I went to this meeting at city hall and turns out the neighbor had made a complaint. I’m not sure what it was but the city found the owner of the property and he was being threated with fines if he didn’t shut down the haunt in 60 days. Well, that’s what happened we had 60 days to vacate the property.  Everyone was at an all-time low but as the season got closer, we were ready to work at a haunt. I’m not sure who or how we got hooked up with toney at the haunted pyramids. But we were going down there working every weekend. It was so much fun as this was a very well-established haunt and was huge. 3 haunted houses in one place!! Even though it was an hour drive each way we made it happen year after year. Toney loved us being there so much that the 2nd year he told us that your crew can run the Asylum.  Now we had a whole haunt to our self. Me, Jason, Johnboy, Blake and Psycho. We gutted that haunt and started over. We build a great haunt. This is also where we learned to do latex makeup. Some random guy and his wife were working there for one weekend. They were doing some sick makeup, and I think Johnboy and I set down at the picnic table and They showed us what to use and how to do it. This opened a whole new world. We had the most bloody and gross makeup you could imagine. People loved it. Also, during this time, we were wrestling during the off season. Someone had a great Idea that hey before the haunt opens while there were people standing in line lets act like a crazy person from the Asylum has escaped and the doctors are chasing him around. We did it. We made a big scene that a patient had escaped and 4 Drs. We’re chasing him around yelling get back here you need to be locked up. The whole crowd of well over 150 people seen what was happening and was like WTH. Right in front of the Asylum Toney had an old broken down tour bus…we had staged a latter on the back side. The escaped mental patient ran behind the bus and climbed the latter got on top of the bus and he was walking back and forth. The Drs were on the ground yelling get down here people in the crowd was saying things like OMG what’s going on and is this real. The smallest guy of all of us was Blake he was on top of the bus. Blake jumps off the top of the bus hitting a Perfect cross body onto all 4 of us. The crowd went silent as what they just witnessed was insane.  We all hit the ground Blake jumps up and runs away into the darkness. The crowd was in disbelief we all got up and ran after him. We heard the crowd cheering after it was over. This stunt was talked about for Many years. Even in 2021 I worked at the pyramids and some of the old people there remembered that and was asking me about it. We all worked there until the end of 2009 each year was better than the last. I even took Maggie down there 2-3 times to help me work on building during the summer.

In 2010 we all met Justin from wrestling and some of us knew Thomas, but he wrestled with the Lenoir crew Not sure where Justin had been at this whole time as he was very close by and was into wrestling and haunted houses. But somehow, we ended up building a haunt Justin’s back yard. Rebel Hell Haunted Trail. This is also the year I finally ask my girlfriend to be my wife! We worked very hard that summer but with Thomas and Justin added to this crew the Quality of the Haunt was 10,000 time better than it had ever been. These guys were true artist. The pictures speak for themselves. Rebel Hell was only open on Friday and Sat. nights in Oct. A New haunt had opened in Lenoir called the Haunted Factory. My wife and her friends went to it one of the nights I was at Rebel hell. She said it was a huge factory and it was so open and just didn’t feel much like a haunted house. I went to work it one Sunday night. I had a good time, but I seen what she was talking about they had so much space to fill and hardly anything to fill it. When the night was over, I stuck around to meet the owner. His name was Mark. I talked to Mark about my time in the haunt business and that my crew was running rebel hell. He told me that lots of people coming though the factory were telling him about that haunt and how good it was. Like a true Businessman He ask what I thought about his haunt and what could he do to improve it. I was very honest with him that he had good ideas, but he was trying to do to much at one time. He liked what I had to say, and he ask if I could come back and work. I did a few nights like 3-4 that season. 

2011

Around February I got a Myspace or Facebook message. I think it was Myspace, It was from Mark the owner of the Haunted Factory. He ask what my plans were for this upcoming Halloween season. I told him that was up in the air as of now. He said I’m having a meeting at the factory about this year can you make it?  I said sure. I went and he had 3 other guys there too. These guys had worked at Carowinds last season but wanted to work at a haunt closer to home. These guys were talking big had some ideas and a drawing of a character they called the foreman. One guy suggested that mark buy a hearse for advertising and said they could use the factory and build a haunt no problem. I noticed when Mark would ask about finical questions these guys didn’t have a clue. I wasn’t ask many things at all I was just there. We did a walking tour around the factory and Mark took our phone numbers then the night was over. After that I felt like well Mark has some guys that will help him run his haunt this season. That was that. About 3 months later I got a phone call. It was Mark, He said can you come to my office and let’s talk about this haunt season. He made the meeting for the next week. In the afternoon. I felt like this is my chance to really make this into something. So, I need to make a business plan and look like I know what I’m doing. I had a book called so you want to be a Haunt entrepreneur. It was a book written by a guy who started his own haunt with all the things you will encounter when doing so. I had read that book 3-4 times. But the main thing was he had a copy of his business plan he gave to the bank to get his loan. I copied that business plan word for word and changed the names and locations. My haunted house name in the business plan was called Splatter House Haunted Attraction. I detailed the populations of Hickory, Lenoir and Morganton. About how the fall would bring people from major cities like Charlotte to see the changing leaves and all the fun things that families do in the fall that would bring them to our haunt. I had sponsor Ideas and advertising budget. It was a well thought out business plan. I printed it off and was ready to WOW Mark at this meeting. This meeting would change not only my life but would set into place many things for many people. I showed up dressed nicer than my normal Honda or Toyota work shirts that I wore all the time. I was so nervous. He was very nice but got right down to the point. He was selling the factory building and wanted to continue the haunt. I handed him my 20-page business plan and explained it somewhat. He flipped though it vaguely and said do you think you can make a haunt in an open field? I told him normally you would need cover like woods but maybe we could make a corn field and use that as our cover. He liked that idea and said come on let’s go look at it. Little did I know this field was right across the street from his office. This was a field that had 18 wheeler trailers all stacked on top of each other he said this is where I park trailers we are not using right now. We have some woods in the back of the field. Do you think you could do something with this property? I said yeah I’ll need to make some plans and get back with you. He said every Wednesday after church we go to each at village inn pizza in Lenoir meet us there at 630 next Wednesday and bring your ideas.  Over the next week I came up with ideas and meet him there. He had his whole family there. We had a table of like 12 people. He introduced me to everyone and they all started asking questions. I was on point and by the end of the dinner we were in the parking lot, and Mark ask why I wanted to do all this work. I told him I had been doing building Haunts for a long time and I’ve had a lot of fun. But now I want to make some money. His face lit up. He said OK Let move forward. I was so Happy I could hardly get my 1998 Toyota Corolla in gear. I was on top of the world. I could not wait to tell my boys WE ARE STARTING A HAUNT!!!

THE REST IS HORROR FIELDS HISTORY....