In the spirit of ghostly ghouls, jack-o-lanterns and black cats, the Ames Jaycees and 107.1 KCCQ are sponsoring a haunted house guaranteed to give you a major case of the willies. The thrills and chills start this Friday and run through Halloween.

The haunted house will spread its doom and gloom from the Cyclone Auto/Truck Stop on Highway 30, just west of the I-35 interchange. The Jaycees hope to make up for last year’s lack of horror with an especially terrifying new house.

“Last year, we got shut out; we couldn’t find a location,” said Dave Jamison, Jaycee project chair and Story County treasurer. “[This year], we’ve got a pretty good-sized haunted house. It’s got about six rooms and quite a few long, dark tunnels and hallways. We have 20 volunteers dressed as monsters, a torture chamber, a blinding room that’s completely silver with a strobe light to disorient people, an electrocution chair. We don’t worry about being politically correct — we just go for it.”

The Jaycees generally agree that the point of the house is not to scare the guests so much that they soil themselves, but rather to give them a few slight frights. “We have some silly scenes,” said Jeff Boman, president of the Jaycees. “Like, there’s the headless dentist’s office, where the dentist is working on his own face. [And] of course, there’s a maze. Startling people is what we wanna do.”

Some major scary figures, who normally make appearances in movies and little kids’ closets, are set to celebrate the Halloween season in Ames. Various mummies, vampires and yes, even Dracula will check out the haunted house. “If you can think of it, we’re gonna have them there,” Jamison said. “We’re trying to get all of the big names.”

And after getting the scare of your life, creative types might want to visit the pumpkin patch, pick out a choice gourd and enter their creations in the Jack-O-Lantern Contest. Entrants can either carve or paint their pumpkins, and the most creative wins a $50 savings bond. Pumpkin Judgment Day is Saturday, Oct. 28.

And as if you needed more reasons to visit the haunted house, the project is helping raise money for the Jaycees’ upcoming charity events. “We’re not a charity, but we work for charities: Alzheimer’s Association, Easter Seals,” Boman explained. “We get start-up capital to fund other projects.”

Jamison added that the organization financially helps a lot of worthy causes, some of which enable the less fortunate to have fabulous holidays throughout the rest of the year. They participate in several Christmas charities that help kids and the elderly, and they also make sure the Ames community has a blast during the summer: the Jaycees buy Fourth of July fireworks and also help out at the Ginkgo Festival.

The Jaycees would also like to acknowledge the many area businesses and organizations that help them in their projects. “The business community in Ames is very Jaycee-friendly, which is good because we come knocking quite a bit,” Jamison said.

Come celebrate Halloween, and help the less fortunate in the process. The haunted house is open from 7 p.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday and Oct. 27-28. It will be closed for “respooking” Sunday through Tuesday and again on Oct. 29. The following week, it’s open from 7-10 p.m. Oct. 25-26 and Oct. 30-31.

Tickets are $5 for adults and $4 for children ages 12 and under, and are available at the door, from any Ames Jaycee or at Blimpie’s.