Can't Touch This

I hate being scared.   I love the thought of it, though.

Scary movies?  Sign me up!  That is…until I watched the last late night showing of “Silence of the Lambs”  and had to go to the bathroom all by myself in the seemingly deserted theater.   I kept waiting for Anthony Hopkins to kick in the stall door and kill me midstream.  Or the time we rented “Paranormal Activity,” and I stayed up all night sure something was about to drag me from my bed and into the depths of hell.  

It’s gotten so bad that my husband has forbidden me to watch any of the ghost-hunting shows on TV, otherwise I’ll be jumping every time the fridge kicks on or the beams of the house creak.  If I wasn’t such a ‘fraidy cat, I would chafe at being “forbidden” to do something by my husband.  I have free will, dang it.   You can’t tell me what to do, dang it. I am woman; hear me roar.   But dang it…..he’s right.  All I have to do to acknowledge that fact is think back to the first time I ever went to a haunted house.

My poor psyche still bears the scars.

It started out innocently enough. It was Halloween, and a group of people from work were going to some super mega-awesome haunted house.  Because I am a joy to be around, or maybe because I worked with them, they asked me along.  Apparently at this particular haunted house, they rearranged the entire thing every week, so every weekend it seemed like a new haunted house.  In this way, they could take your twenty-five bucks several times over the Halloween “season” and you would still be scared witless every time.  (See what I did there?  Witless??  Scared witless?  Hehehe Love me some word play.)

One of the guys had apparently gone the weekend before and said it was amazing.    I declined the invitation with a “Are you stinking’ kidding me?  I’ll never sleep again.”     My coworkers apparently didn’t understand that my response meant "no" and kept hounding me.

Then one of them said something very intriguing.  “Kristi,” he said.  “You are a weenie.”  

Okay, that wasn’t the intriguing part.   The intriguing part was he also told me that no matter how scared I was, I just needed to remember that they couldn’t touch me.

Man with a chainsaw?  That’s okay.  He can’t touch me.
Rabid werewolf?  Can’t touch this.
Maniac clown?  I cannot touch you.  You cannot touch me.   

So, in a moment of weakness, I relented.  They couldn’t touch me.   How scary could they truly be?

The night came, and everyone was excited.    I remember waiting in line, anxiously.  I still wasn’t sold on the idea of paying all this money to have someone covered in fake blood chase me around with a chainsaw….that’s what nightmares are made of…. but I was determined to have fun with my friends.

I positioned myself firmly in the center of the pack as we entered into a foggy, dimly lit room just in time to hear the shrieks of the previous group.  I didn’t want to be the first one in, since I reasoned the first person would get scared the most.  I didn’t want to be the last one in either. They would be easy prey to be separated from the group.

One of the people in our group was a volunteer firefighter, so he had us following along the wall on the right.  We made our way through room after room, as people in masks and costumes caused us to jump and scream.   I was still not loving it, but it was tolerable. 

Suddenly, we were out of the house and in a large foggy courtyard.   My group slowly separated into little clumps of people as we tried to make it past obstacles to get to the other side.   Off to one side, I heard a chainsaw start up.    I stood frozen in fear as the rest of my group ran across in a frenzy.  I was easy pickings, and the masked man knew it immediately.  He ran towards me with a savage growl.   I looked to the left to run and saw a maniac covered in bloody overalls running towards me with a pitchfork, screaming.  I looked to my right, and there was a wall.

I was trapped.  

Behind the Chainsaw Murderer, I saw my friends. “Run Kristi!” they screamed.

“Hurry!”  

“Come on, Kristi!”

“Kristi!”

And the Chainsaw Murderer heard my name. Pitchfork Larry the Crazy Farmhand heard my name.   And they began to whisper it as they closed in around me.  

“Kristi.” 

My knees failed me, and I fell to the ground.    I curled up in a ball, knees to my chest, head down in a demented yoga pose.   I began to rock.  I also began to whisper, “I cannot touch you. You cannot touch me.  I cannot touch you. You cannot touch me. I cannot touch you….”

Nearer they came, and nearer,  whispering my name.  Faster and faster, I rocked.   Louder and louder,  I spoke.   “I cannot touch you.  You cannot touch me.  I cannot touch you.  You cannot touch me.”    They were going to kill me. I knew it. 

Finally, they were upon me.  The chainsaw revved.   The pitchfork struck the ground.   One of them grunted.  They continue to whisper my name. I began to cry and kept chanting,  "I cannot touch you... You cannot touch me."

Then it happened.  Pitchfork Larry the Crazy Farmhand touched me.   And I exploded. 

I jerked back from his hand and screamed into his bloodied, surprised face.  “I CANNOT TOUCH YOU. YOU CANNOT TOUCH ME.”   In retrospect, the tears streaming down my face, and the fact that I was nearly wetting my pants, probably diffused part of the defiance from that statement.   That and the fact that I was rocking like a demented weeble.  

I buried my head again and continued whispering, sure they were about to kill me. "I cannot touch you. You cannot touch me."  Somehow, I had forgotten this wasn’t reality and that I had paid to be scared into a blubbering mental patient. 

Chainsaw Murderer, realizing that I was quickly losing my grip on my sanity, said in his normal voice, “Hey Kristi, really, go over to your friends. It’s okay.”

I figured it was a ruse and rocked faster. They just wanted me to run, so they could kill me. “I cannot touch you. You cannot touch me.”

“Wow. Seriously, go over there. Geez." And he grabbed  Pitchfork Larry the Crazy Farmhand, and they backed away.

 Backed. Away.

Like you do from a rabid wolf.  Or a hungry bear.  Or a crazed lady rocking and whispering to herself in a haunted house.

I stayed on the ground, unsure of what to do, until several friends ran over to get me.  My friends' faces were shocked.   They handled me with kid gloves, like they didn't know what to do with me.  

The rest of the haunted house was relatively tame.  I guess when you’ve had a mental breakdown as someone is standing over you about to murder you with a pitchfork, watching someone pop out of a coffin is child’s play.  The only thing that really bothered me was that word had apparently spread about my little “episode”.   As we walked down empty corridors or through haunted rooms, the workers left me alone, but they kept whispering my name, “Kristi……. Kristi…..”

I dream about that night.   And if I’ve watched a scary movie, late, late at night…. I can still hear them calling for me, “Kristi…..”