Haunted Houses and Caves and Fairs, Oh My! Part I
The Little Lady and I decided we needed to get away for a while. Nothing major, just a little day trip. We agreed that three hours was all the longer we wanted to spend in a car, got out the map and started looking. We thought about Starved Rock or maybe Lake Geneva, but figured everyone else would be headed there as well. We wanted something a little more remote. Then we stumbled upon a park in Iowa right across the border that boasted caves. Sixteen of them. And when we discovered that there was a haunted house along the way, well, how could we say no.
I love road trips. Living in Chicago for so long without a car I forget how much I love sitting behind the wheel, the windows down, The Boss on the radio and nothing but road as far as the eye can see. When I was in high school my father was kind enough to gift me with a car not long after my 16th birthday. It was an late 80s model Mustang. Four speeds and a rubber spoiler on the back. I loved that car and I loved driving it around the winding, twisting, narrow dirt roads of rural Pennsylvania. I used to just get in and drive, not headed anywhere in particular.
We've had a run of bad luck lately with K's car. It's pretty much nothing but a hunk of metal waiting for its ride to the scrap heap. So we had to rent a car. Not something I look forward to, but hey, when you wanna get away you gotta do what you gotta do. I haven't had the best of luck renting cars. I drove home at the beginning of July and could only score a PT Cruiser. While those look like fun on the road, they ride like board strapped to rock. But I got lucky this time and last the car at the rental place was a Dodge Avenger. Needless to say that baby loved the open Illinois farm roads.
We headed out Friday evening and, after a quick stop for dinner, managed to arrive at The Raven's Grin Inn around 10pm. We knew nothing about this place other than it was supposed to be haunted and tours took about an hour. I'm so glad we didn't do any further research. The parking lot was empty except for two vehicles which have been modified to look like they're some sort of rolling creature. Then we saw the house. Or at least one side of it, as the rest of it was obscured by trees and brush. As we approached the front door, with the remains of an old yellow cab smashed into the side of the house, a white-haired head popped out of an opening and demanded to know what we wanted. It was a great way to start. K. and I both jumped. We chatted with the head for a bit, forked over our $24 and braced ourselves for the worst.
As soon as the head disappeared strange clanking and banging sounds began to eminate from the house. A disembodied voice yelled "Step away from the door! Step away from the door!" and as we did, the front door lowered like an opening maw about to feast on out of towner's flesh. We slowly entered, clutching each other, and found ourselves in a living room that was part horror-fan-boy-alter and part Norman Bates' bedroom. A video was playing on one wall of a man, wearing oversized glasses and a rainbow fright wig, playing with a roll of toilet paper and cackling madly to himself. We sat watching this for about five minutes and I whispered to K. "I didn't tell anyone where we were going, did you?" She shook her head, never taking her eyes off of the television, when, with a great zap and loud thud, the power went out and we were left in total darkness.
What a great way to start a haunted house tour, huh? We didn't know what was coming next. And if the rest of the night had been nothing more than putting my hand in a bowl full of peeled grapes, it would have been worth the admission price. But there was more to come. Soooo much more.
In the darkness we heard a rustling noise and suddenly our tour guide, Jim, was there, flashlight under his chin, ready to tell us the haunted tale of this haunted house. His little pocket flashlight was the only light and it did a pretty good job of letting you see shapes but nothing else. It also played tricks with your eyes, because when he's stand with his hands behind his back, the light behind him, his face was in shadow and my imagination kept trying to fill in the details. Sometimes it would be twisted and demonic and sometimes it would be blank. Either way, I was always glad when he moved the flashlight back to his side.
He told us the history of the house and of the Lady in White who is said to still reside there. He told us some of his own history as well. A tale of a near death experience at the hands of a tractor-trailer with faulty breaks. This is where the fear started to subside a bit, as the story became punctuated with lots of tiny weiner jokes and tons of innuendo, usually involving one of his ex-wives. This bit went on a touch too long and pretty soon, instead of being scared, we were starting to get bored. When I finally had enough light to glance at my watch I saw we had been listening to him talk for 45 minutes. Then, the doorbell rang and he excused himself, as other guests had arrived.
I suppose it's no easy feat trying to run a haunted house all by yourself. During the peak season around Halloween he employs about fourteen people to help him out. But tonight it was just Jim. K. and I looked at each other prayed that he wasn't going to start the story all over from the top. Though he did flip on the light and fire up the VCR tape of the laughing loon. Three teenagers entered and I breathed easier because I figured I could throw the smaller girls in his way to make my escape if he decided he wanted to make us a permenant part of the tour.
The lights went out again and again there was silence as he made his entrance. He focused more of his story and sudden startling jumps at the teenagers. Thankfully he didn't start at the top and after the couch lurched up and nearly spilled us out, we were led into the kitchen. Here's where it became obvious that this man has dedicated his life to this house. Everything in it has been rigged in some fashion or other. You open a drawer and the faucet turns on. You open the fridge and a gargoyle from the ceiling comes shrieking down at you. He's even rigged a pair of pruning sheers, a moment that I saw things going suddenly horribly, bloodily wrong, so you think he's going to cut off his own nose.
Everything ends with a laugh though. And he's quick to point out the way the trick is done. This unsettled me more than anything. I kept waiting to be led past a room full of bodies in glass coffins, waiting to hear how he'd fashioned each one out of styrofoam and corn husks and then realizing that the empty coffin at the end of the row somehow had my name engraved on it. That never happened, but he was short staffed, so we might have skipped that part of the tour.
He led us all over the house and there were lots of jumps and starts along the way. But the highlight, at least for me, was that he managed to build not one, but two slides in his house. The first one leads from a closet to the basement. It's pretty obvious what's coming. The second one, however, starts out looking like some strange bed. He asks if you want to lie down and after wrapping you in, what's basically a denim bag, he flips a lever and the bed disappears and you're sliding down a dark tunnel that twists and turns before you finally come to a stop in complete, damp, dank darkness. After a moment a motion sensor flips the light and you find yourself in the wine cellar. The Lady in White's favorite room.
All told, K. and I spent two and a half hours in this house. We were exhausted but very happy with ourselves for finding this place and living to tell the tale. We'll definitely be gathering together a group to head back. Maybe even take him up on the "hide and seek" offer that's on his website. Though I can't imagine how you would ever find anyone in that place once they were hidden.
The next morning we continued our journey to Maquoketa, IA and the caves...
