From Haunted Cavern to Mad House: Ruby Falls scares up for 2015
It all started with an assignment, some serious obsessing, and then…the promise of pizza. I had survived 23 years without ever stepping foot into a haunted house, and that era was coming to a close as I received word that I, an intern whose worst fears had been realized, must enter Ruby Falls Haunted Cavern.
Anticipating that evening for days, I moaned my trepidations to my fiancé only to hear in return, “How old are you…?” It doesn’t matter how old you are when you’re a scaredy cat! Knowing what might await me 260 feet below ground was enough to make me panic, profusely. Adrenaline coursed as I waited in line opening night.
I prepared myself to board the red-glowing elevator, palms sweating. Below my feet were supernatural entities beyond my wildest imagination, preparing to prey on my weak frame like starved vultures. Repeating my “do it for the pizza” mantra for the thousandth time, I stepped into the elevator and began to descend.
Dark corners, shifty shadows, and soft, sadistic whispers filled my senses as my group hurried through the caverns, the undead victims of Project Bloodborne breathing in the scent of our flesh from beyond our vision’s reach. I wanted to peer over my shoulder, but was afraid of what I might see. I kept my eyes forward. “Remember the pizza.”
When a military man hurried our group out of the monster-infested caverns and into the crisp night air, I felt I was finally safe. But…
We were ushered onto a van, which returned us up top to enter The Mad House, a look inside the head of notorious mass murderer Eugene Todd. Thanks to a machine created by his psychiatrist, Dr. Rousseau, we were able to experience the different personalities on which Todd blamed his murders. Charred bodies, clowns, big boys in pig masks, playing hide and seek with psychopaths, it’s all part of the “fun’” that comes with a trip into The Mad House.
Being hunted in damp caverns was enough, but finding my way in a chicken-wire maze through the sick and twisted mind of Eugene Todd was the macabre cherry on top of a fantastically frightening evening.