This weekend, the streets of Ames will be filled with ghouls, ghosts and freaks of every variety. For some, it’s a chance to exercise a little bit of the fight-or-flight reflex. But for a select group of individuals, Halloween is part of a livelihood, a fundraiser or a chance to have a little bit of depraved fun.

Forest jump

“Oh my God!”

“Keep going!”

“Holy shit!”

These are just a few of the screams heard on a typical night at the Haunted Forest, South 4th St. With 35 actors and thousands of dollars invested into scenery and props, this place isn’t a home for the weak.

“It’s pretty funny when you’ve got the middle school boys with their girlfriends, and they’re like, ‘Come on, I’ll take care of you’ and they’re the ones who get scared,” says Benjamin Schreurs, Haunted Forest chainsaw massacre actor and senior in management.

Schreurs puts on his mask, takes his stance behind a tree and as unsuspecting children come around the corner — blinded by strobe lighting — Schreurs makes his move.

“Go first,” pleads a girl to her mother. “Go, Mommy!”

The child is paralyzed with fear as Schreurs jumps in front of her path, thrusting the chainsaw in front of her face as she runs past.

Schreurs takes off his mask and waits for his next victims.

“The best is when you’ve got two people and one of them falls down,” he says.

He takes advantage of those situations by trapping the fallen patron while the other runs free. Most actors do their best to split the groups up, making the forest even scarier.

“It’s really fun being on this side,” Schreurs says. “When everyone else is screaming, you’re laughing.”

Kirk Meyer also works the chainsaw shift in the forest. Meyer, sophomore in aerospace engineering, says his job is a lot of fun and different from typical college jobs.

“It’s all about distracting people,” Meyer says. “I pop out at people and rev [the chainsaw] in their face until they scream in agony.”

Meyer says he gets fairly interactive with people roaming through the forest. To him, the job is the same as acting in a play — each night is a different performance.

ISU groups also join in the acting at times. The 4-H Club, Public Relations Student Society of America and the rugby team have all made decent profits for their organizations by working at the Forest, says Lee Ballard, part-owner of the family-run forest.

Ballard says the Haunted Forest, now in its fifth year, takes two months to build. At the end of each season, it gets torn down until the next August.

Each year, the Ballard family adds to the forest, improving the quality and reality of the show. This year’s additions included a real coffin and an enclosed spark cage. There are still the time-honored traditions of mazes, chainsaws, sparks and coffins. And, of course, complete darkness and haunting music.

“I get so sick of it, hearing that music for five hours,” Schreurs says. “You want to cut yourself with the chainsaw.”

Field of screams

The Dan D Corn Maze, located just east of Ames on Highway 30, is tamer than the Haunted Forest, but can be just as entertaining.

The maze, a tribute to the rivalry between cross-state mascots Cy the Cyclone and Herky the Hawkeye, has gotten plenty of attention from the media for its design.

“We were in USA Today,” says Dan Dennison, owner of Dan D Farms in Knoxville, the site of the original corn maze. “We got lots of free publicity from the logos.”

This is the second year for the Ames maze. The Dennisons hire a designer from Utah and create a scaled grid to cut the field, which is planted in two directions to accommodate for better maze structure.

The maze is only open until Nov. 1, since the corn is generally too beaten up by then to hold its shape. To celebrate Halloween and the last weekend, part of the maze will be haunted at night.

“We have props out there and then we have spooks out in the field,” Dennison says. “People have a designated route, with spooks strategically located.”

There are no lights in the maze except glowsticks and flashlights. In the dark, with cornstalks surrounding visitors, the maze is more intimidating than it is during the day.

The second part of the maze, which is not spooked, remains fully open at night, begging brave explorers to get through without getting lost.

Making it through the maze in the dark without getting lost is an impossible challenge, but clue sheets and posts offer help. Clue sheets ask simple questions and offer answers with different directions, the correct answer having the correct direction to go.

“Recite ‘This Little Piggy’ and see how many words are in the whole rhyme,” the clue sheet reads. “A. 36 turn right, B. 34 turn left, C. 32 turn left.”

These clues help when in front of one of the five poles scattered throughout the second part of the maze, but when between posts, each group is on its own. Groups can spend hours trapped in rows of corn stalks, which can be both fun and frustrating.

“We’re family-friendly,” Dennison says. “Maybe the college-aged want more action, but they seem to enjoy it.”