MECC Haunted Forest Sneak Peak into Madness! {Countdown to Halloween Day 5}

Madness......

It has to be some sort of madness that comes over me this time of year.....A madness that urges me to seek out The Haunted Forest and visit whatever fresh evil has decided to manifest itself there. I also wanted to get a sneak peek into the dread haunt before opening night this Friday. 

It really did not help that it was a full moon when I entered the dusky dark woods. The creatures of the night were already out and about...including much larger things that howled in the moonlight. Still, I pressed on.

The trees of the forest always give off an unnatural glow, but this year it all seemed much brighter....more sinister....more.....maddening. 

This year you will have to pay the Caretaker to gain entrance into the otherworldly Haunted Forest of Mountain Empire. I was told his horse prefers fingers over apples so beware animal lovers. 

I felt very odd as the Caretaker waved me through without me coming to close to his horse drawn hearse....his mount made a strange snickering sound as I entered the forest as if it were laughing at me. 

Along the path I encountered a fortuneteller. Her sign claimed she KNOWS ALL....from the look on her face I believed she knew enough for me not to stop and talk.

I had heard rumours that the small band of clowns had packed up their little side show and left after last year. That is fine by me as I do not particularly like clown of any sort. Imagine my surprise and dread when I came upon this garishly glowing wall in front of a HUGE new big top tent!

The clowns had not packed up and left...they had rebuilt and multiplied in numbers. You could hear the sickly sweet organ music and the awful echoing sound of clown laughter coming from down the path. 

Signs and billboard littered the landscape informing me with great dread of what was to come. 

Apparently there is a freak show under the dread new tent, as if clowns are not bad enough to deal with in a dark and haunted forest. I almost felt relief when I found the main gates of the tent locked securely in place.

Looking closer at the detail on the large and very sturdy iron gates, I was glad I did not have to deal with the horrors within!

 The gates suddenly threw themselves open and I was met with the creepy sounds and sights of a Merry Go Round

The riders of this particular attraction have been long dead so I would call this a Scary Go Round. I really feel I must have some form of madness as I entered the hallway into the Freak Show itself! 

A demonic clown offered me knives to throw at his "friend". Told me not to worry his "friend" didn't move too much anymore...well...not much. 

The Freak Show was crammed with all sorts of medical and mystical oddities. 

The shrunken heads whispered and snickered at me every time I turned my back. 

I was convinced the snake charmer was a mannequin until she slithered over and hissed at me. I quickly moved deeper into the oddly round rooms of the tent.

Rooms full of creepy dolls. all moaning, crying, begging for attention...I hate dolls almost as much as I hate clowns. Speaking of clowns....

If you are afraid of clowns.....here is some nightmare fuel for you. 7 foot of pure evil snickering clown!

Pretty sure I am going to be checking under my bed for a month after dealing with this guy!

That was all I could take for one trip...alone...in the dark...by a full moon. Don't forget, opening night is this Friday night, October 6th! 

MECC Haunted Forest was voted one of the top 10 Must see Haunted Attractions in Virginia by SCAREFACTOR.COM ! 

For more information, visit the Facebook page below:

MOUNTAIN EMPIRE COMMUNITY COLLEGE HAUNTED FOREST FACEBOOK

Here is a sneak peek video of last years Haunted Forest to whet your appetite for fear!

The Legend of the Wicked Woods Cemetery {Countdown to Halloween day 4}

The Legend of the Wicked Woods Cemetery

Back in the early 1900s our little town was just starting out to be a booming coal producer. In those days things were simpler. You were born, you worked hard, and then you died. When you did pass on, they would take you to the little cemetery situated in the center of the town. Back then it was called Whispering Woods Cemetery and it being in the middle of a coal boom….it was an active one at that. Lots of accidents and sickness took the lives of the healthy, wealthy, young, old, strong and infirm. All of them ended up in the same kind of pine box buried 6 foot down.

Back in its earliest days, this was a place of beauty and peace. Tall maple, willow, and locust trees provided shade for the little cemetery and all kinds of flowering shrubs dotted the landscape. It was a peaceful place where one could pay respects to their loved ones who had passed over to the other side.

Things stayed pretty much the same for well over forty years and then it all changed. The town was growing and expanding so fast, it was hard to keep up! Money was to be made and people were coming in from all over to settle in the area and make a life off the coal in the ground. The little cemetery, now full up, was in the middle of some prime property in town and soon enough…greed overcame good and the decision to move the cemetery was made. The town council decided to move the cemetery, and all its tenants, down the road some 13 miles away. They had tasked the monumental task of moving the cemetery to the local caretaker… his name was Malaki Meade.

Old Malaki had been the caretaker of the Whispering Woods Cemetery since the first grave had been dug. He was old, he was tired, and he was not looking forward to moving all them bodies that he had himself had buried over the years…especially for what little bit they were paying him to do it. Malaki sat and pondered his problem late one night when he hatched himself a devious plan. He told the town council he was going to work at night….so as not to disturb the town folk and run off any potential home buyers. He then started the task of moving the head stones at night and leaving the bodies buried right where he left them. Malaki surprised the whole town by completing this terrible task in record time and was commended by the town leadership for working so hard.

It was then that Malaki heard that the new plans to build a manor house in place of the old cemetery included a huge basement. He instantly panicked thinking about the town workers finding all those bodies he had left lying in the ground. To save himself, Old Malaki Meade went to the town and pleaded that he himself could dig the basement and the footers for the town at a fraction of the price they would have had to pay a full team of workers to do it. He even offered to only work at night so as not to disturb the beauty of the surrounding homes. Seeing how he had done such a fine job “moving” the cemetery to begin with, they agreed and Malaki found himself in the middle of another big job but safe from persecution of a very vile act.

As soon as the sun set, Malaki would grab his shovel and his wheelbarrow and start working till the sun came up. Malaki dug the footers and the large basement area per plan. During his excavation he would uncover all manner of bodies, some still fleshy, others barely powdery bone. When he would find a body, he would promptly bury it back under just a few feet of ground off to the side where digging would not be going on. No coffin, no ceremony and no care. Sometimes he would bury three or four at a time in the same shallow hole and if they did not fit, well, he would make them. He was not bothered one bit about the grisly crimes he was committing. He would just laugh that he was being paid by the town to do half the work they expected of him. That must have been some sight…watching Old Malaki Meade with a wheelbarrow full of bones laughing as he buried them in a shallow hole in the moonlight.

Pretty soon, he had completed his terrible task but when it came time to be paid….Malaki never showed up to collect his ill-gotten gains. It was as if he had just vanished! The authorities looked for him but not hide nor hair was ever found of him. Some of the town folks reported to hearing screaming one night coming from the general area of where Malaki was working, but the authorities never found anything and just chalked it up to the old man stumbling off drunk in the woods and meeting his end to a bear or worse.

Soon after, the town completed building the manor house and it moved in new owner in no time. None of them knowing that they were surrounded by the hidden remains of the dead. After a few years, nobody would have ever guessed that a cemetery had once been there where the little manor house now stood.

As the years wore on, the property has had several owners…many owners…..lots of owners. Nobody ever stayed in the manor house for very long. Nothing strange about that….except the time of year they moved. Almost every owner of the manor left during the month of October. During the spring and summer months, the property was beautiful with well-groomed grass, flowers, and the old ancient Maple tree in the front yard, but come fall of the year….things would turn a bit… sinister.

In October, the barrier between the world of the living and the world of the dead get mighty thin. The closer to All Hallows Eve the thinner it got and the more things wanted through…the easier they found it. In the weeks leading up to Halloween, people would report seeing strange blue and green lights on the grounds. They would report seeing wispy ghosts dancing in the moonlight under the old maple, and bleached white skeletons climbing the balcony of the manor house.

 The most disturbing thing town folks reported seeing was Old Malaki Meade still hard at work late at night. They would swear they could see him carrying his old shovel or pushing a squeaky wheelbarrow full of dirt and bones around the property. Some even said they could hear him laughing as he dug graves in the middle of the night……others would report seeing the bodies of the dead clawing and scratching at him as they drug him under the earth with him, all the while him screaming like a banshee.

Maybe that is why Meade Manor has had so many owners over the years… who knows. All I can say for sure is during the darkest nights of October, you can drive by the Old Meade Manor and if you are lucky, or unlucky, enough, you can see Old Malaki Meade digging his shallow graves while the restless dead crawl around the grounds cackling, and moaning for eternal peace that will never come. Some even report seeing the old cemetery sign hanging from the cemetery gates that once stood so long ago except that it no longer reads “Whispering Woods Cemetery”. Somebody or something has scratched at the sign till it now reads, “Wicked Woods Cemetery”.

Creepy things slowly appearing in Meade Manor {Countdown to Halloween Day 3}

The inside decorations seem to be taking much longer than the outdoor ones. Still, things are getting more sinister day by day.

Death in Daylight {Countdown to Halloween Day 2}

Some day shots of the Cemetery. It is complete as it gets till Halloween night when we put out all the animatronic things. We have already had a TON of people walk and drive by to see it. We run the lights at night but the special effects only on weekends. I took a few shots last night but without my tripod (too tired to fool with it) and they were not great. I will get some good ones tonight for sure.

Is he making more skeletons through some foul sorcery or is he cooking a fellow skeleton down into broth... I have had people ask about both.

Bad hair day.

Careful not to fall up there.

The skeles are the reason we can't have nice things. They are running amok!

Nice day to rot in the sun.

She needs sunscreen ASAP!

Minion one

Minion two!

That witch watches my every move.

Clawing and scratching!

Always trying to get out...never happy where they lay.

Not even a little bit

Such a nice day for a dreary little sign.

Cheesy wind ghost smile