As an active member of the Public Relations Student Society of America chapter here on campus, I became enthusiastic about the opportunity to help with fundraising by participating in the Haunted Forest, located one block east of Jack Trice Stadium. I might not be a professional haunter, scarer or actor, but I would take about any chance to get dressed up in a costume for the fun of it. I signed up for a Sunday night a couple weeks before Halloween to work for a few hours.

When the day arrived I became increasingly aware of how easily I get scared by places like the Haunted Forest and was worried that being out in a forest, at night, by myself, could lead to a frightening night where I would be the one to get scared instead of me scaring others. When I got there, I was assigned a place in the forest and told I could be creative with make-up and costume. The guy who assigned me to my spot told me I looked like a natural for this — scaring people is what I assume he meant — I didn’t know whether to take that as a compliment or whether I should just skip the make-up routine because maybe I already looked scary enough.

I was wearing all black and just stood in the make-up room for a good 10 minutes awing at all the people who actually knew how to apply the make-up. Creepy clowns and bloody zombies were being all done up around me. With an overwhelming number of masks on the wall to choose from, including Frankenstein’s monster, a werewolf and Hillary Clinton, I decided to white-out my face and black-out my eyes. Unfortunately, compared to the others who were experienced, I looked more like a raccoon. Nonetheless, I took a couple pieces of candy and a bottle of water and went to my spot in the forest surrounded by trees and a fog machine.

I claimed my spot behind a net because I made the immediate realization that I can’t make scary noises and by hiding behind the net I was able to throw my hands into the net as people walked by. Just as I predicted, I scared a good number of people but was predicted to be hiding behind the net by an almost equal number of people. Many approached the net saying, “I bet there’s someone behind there,” but I was still able to scare some of them.

A highlight of my night included a group of middle school-aged kids who taunted me and told me I wasn’t scary. It made me think I probably would’ve been scarier without the make-up. Even though I spent the night alone, crouched down in the wet sand, I didn’t get scared and was able to do my part — volunteering to scare others. Although it was well worth my time to help out my club, I’ve definitely decided I would need some acting lessons before my next haunting experience.

— Rachel Trampel is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Cedar Falls