Haunted House In Trouble For Simulating Rape; Simulations Of Murder And Bondage Still Ok

“No. I can’t handle that. Too spooky.”

“Ok, let’s do the all-ages tour.”

“Great. I’ll buy us a couple bottles of water in case our throats get sore from screaming!”

Sarah and Ryan thought they’d played it safe. They thought they’d made the right decision. Little did they know that the 16-year-old kid who wears the Jason mask in Room 6 of the R-rated tour had been huffing turpentine all afternoon. When the manager yelled “places, everyone,” the teen was completely disoriented. He stumbled into what he thought was his position, behind the creaky door in the “haunted AirBNB bedroom” of the R-rated circuit. Instead, he’d passed through a fire door that spit him out into the all-ages, family-friendly tour. There, he crouched on his haunches, balancing with difficulty against his plastic machetes. He waited.

The turpentine fumes had made him horny. An aspiring actor, he’d applied for the role on actorsaccess.com. He’d submitted his headshot, bio, and a short reel of him wielding sticks to show off his fencing skills. The role paid so little, and the talent pool was so small in Akron, Ohio, that the haunted house had hired him on the spot. No interview, no audition necessary. This was his second month on the job.

He could hear the couple approaching, winding their way through the adjacent rooms. There goes the jack-in-the-box, he thought, hearing Sarah shriek as the toy burst forth. I’m next. 

The door creaked open. Per his orders, the boy was supposed to jump from behind the door as the couple hit their mark in the center of the room. He would walk slowly toward them, making no noise, swinging his swords slowly like pinwheels. If he truly embodied the character, he would send them screaming from the room, on to the next stop. Then, he’d resume his position and repeat this for hours.

Sometimes people fucked with him. Guys would try to impress their girlfriends and stand still, rooted to the floor, telling him “I’m not scared of you.” You couldn’t do much with these people. They didn’t want to play the game.

The job was dull–duller than his blades. To make things interesting, he and the goblin in room two had taken to inhalants. They’d douse a dirty rag in turpentine, paint thinner, or whatever else they could find under the dirty sink in the break room, pull their masks up, and breathe deeply through their noses. The high actually informed their work as actors, and recent yelp reviews had commended the “convincing, terrifying lurch of both the goblin and Jason characters.”

But being a 16-year-old boy comes with a great dear of hormonal influence. The boy had no control over his urges. And when the couple came into the room, he decided to let his instincts take over, to get out of his head, per the Meisner method of acting. He pounced on the young man.

“Stop! What are you doing? That’s my boyfriend,” screamed the girl.

“Not anymore. He’s mine now. I’m going to rape him!” yelled the actor, fully embodying his character now. He began to dry-hump the young man, as if to suggest that they could do more if only the girl would leave them alone.

In hindsight, it was a bold choice. Too bold, perhaps. But then again, acting is all about taking risks. Where he’d expected his scene partner to “yes, and…” him, he’d instead found himself bathed in light as the manager ran into the room. There he was, lying on top of a customer, humping his thigh like a Corgi.

He no longer works at the haunted house. But he hasn’t given up on the acting dream. He’s running around in the commercial circuit these days, doing voiceover work when he can get it.

But if you ask anyone in Akron about the haunted house, they’ll say the old Jason was the best they ever had.