Annual haunted house is a scream

POST FALLS – Parents: It’s 10 p.m. Do you know where your teenage werewolf is?

They might be pulling a night shift at the coolest haunted house around. The intentionally decrepit Idaho Veneer Co. building is at Fourth and Post streets in Post Falls.

The Post Falls Lion’s Club annually fills its crannies with 42 screaming teens turned into Freddy Krueger, Medusa, Dracula, psycho clowns and every other ghoul imaginable.

It’s the primary fundraiser for the Lion’s Club, which uses the money for academic scholarships and other community projects. They’ll also share their estimated $8,000 take with the Post Falls High School band and cheerleading group whose members annually haunt the house.

The house opens Friday evening for its October run.

Every evening, up to 500 fans will flock in to be frightened out of their gourds, said Skip Hissong, Lion’s Club vice president.

“It’s really cool being a ghoul,” said 17-year-old Brittany Schorzman, a flutist in the high school band who in past years has been Medusa, Dracula’s bride, a werewolf and a spinning head.

Makeup artist Katie Edwards drives from Priest Lake to give the ghouls a professional look.

“Trauma makeup is the most challenging,” Edwards, also creator of some of the house’s sets and most of its props, wrote in an e-mail.

She’ll spend about five hours every evening applying makeup.

But ghouling can be grueling, said band member Ashley Bertsch, 16, who enjoys being Medusa best.

The first night she worked, she said, she screamed until she lost her voice.

Thankfully, when things get slow, Lion’s Club members come around and pass out cough drops.

“It’s kind of nice the way they have it set up,” she said. “You work in two-hour blocks so you know you’ll be getting a break pretty soon.”

Mickel Buffaloe, a baritone sax and tuba player, said besides scaring people he likes the food from the concession stand.

After all, even a teenage werewolf’s got to eat.