Be afraid … be very afraid

POST FALLS – Picture this: You’re feeling your way through a pitch-black corridor in a rundown house, bumping into who-knows-what while ghouls, ghosts and worse wait around every corner.

Just remember, if you can manage to make it through 15 terror-filled minutes in Post Falls’ most infamous haunted house, you can do it all over again. However, emergency exits offer a quick reprieve for the utterly squeamish.

Fright fans take note; it’s that time of year again when the Post Falls Lions Club invites the brave-hearted to pass through the rickety Idaho Veneer Co. building on the corner of Fourth and Post streets.

A Halloween-time tradition for about 35 years, the annual haunted house has allowed the Lions Club to become master of the macabre. To that end, it doesn’t hurt to have two professional makeup artists transform an army of high school students into the undead, disemboweled and generally horrific inhabitants that haunt the home’s twisting halls.

“It really is scary,” said Rick Steele, a Lions Club member who was helping put the finishing touches on the haunted house on a recent evening. “We have a lot of people who can’t make it all the way through without turning back.”

The house, Steele added, “is scary enough to be haunted all by itself.”

The annual event is the primary fundraiser for the group, which splits the proceeds with the Post Falls High School band and cheerleading programs, as well as provides funding for their academic scholarships and community projects. Through the years, the more than 50 Post Falls Lions Club members have done a variety of projects, including building a Boy Scouts of America meeting house and community park restrooms. However, most of the money earned from each $6 ticket is used to secure hearing aids and eyeglasses for the less fortunate.

“Sight and hearing conservation is our biggest thing,” said Lions Club president Mike Jarrett. “This is our big one. We earn enough to support all our causes.”

Having earned a reputation as the pre-eminent fright fest in North Idaho – as many as 500 fans wait in line for up to two hours each night to take part – that doesn’t mean those involved in causing the scares rest on their laurels year after year. Inside the house are almost two dozen rooms, each with a different theme and many of them new additions, where video cameras were installed to relay the turn-after-turn scares from inside to monitors seen by those waiting in line outside, and a custom-built ticket booth was constructed away from the entrance to eliminate the bottleneck problem from previous years.

The food and beverage stand is back as well.

Despite the wear-and-tear maintenance to the building from several thousand people passing through, Jarrett said, “We have to make changes every year to keep people coming back. It’s our ‘Field of Dreams.’ ”

A word of caution, though, he said: “I highly recommend that people get here early.” Sometimes they have to close the ticket window two hours before closing down the house to get everyone in the line through.

For Bob Hubof, a dwarf who mans the ticket booth every year, he sees his role as ticket taker as the opening act to the haunted house’s sinister finale. “Everybody screams when they see me, and I don’t even wear makeup,” Hubof laughed, citing his unearthly complexion when seen under the booth’s black lights. “That’s what I like to do is talk to people before they go in. They always ask if it’s scary, and I tell them it is … I would really recommend if you have kids under 7 years old, don’t bring them.”

Though the house is filled with horrors, those behind the scenes are in good spirits.

Every year the event brings in at least several thousand dollars, with a best-ever haul of more than $40,000.

“We’re really glad to see it come, and really glad to see it go,” Steele said with a laugh. “But it’s a lot of fun.”