A raw lamb’s head rots on a butcher’s table and baby-dolls are pinned to trees. Werewolves jump from bushes and men with chainsaws come out from behind a wrecked car. This is just part of the 2-mile trail at the Haunted Forest in Yorktown, Indiana.
For the past three years, Nancy Carlson, co-chairwoman of the event, has spent every Friday and Saturday night of October preparing these haunts. For Carlson, the planning starts way before October.
In early November each year, Carlson starts looking for props, decorations and costumes at after-Halloween sales. In the months leading up to the Haunted Forest, Carlson works on building the different scenes along the trail.
“I’m an outdoor farm girl and tomboy, so I like being outside building [the props] and spending the months before the Haunted Forest in the forest,” Carlson said. “I like the smell of the trees and the plants and the flowers.”
Junior Emily Combs, a telecommunications major, has a similar love for Halloween-time, which is part of the reason she volunteers every weekend to help Carlson set up and run the Haunted Forest.
While most people volunteer only one night to fulfill requirements for Ball State organizations, she comes back every night because she enjoys scaring guests.
“[I love] the fear in their eyes,” Combs said. “I like making them jump and scream. People come into the forest and they say, this [isn’t] scary. Challenge accepted.”
For Combs's insight as to why crowds enjoy that fear, read on at BallBearingsMag.com
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