Bry Weltz
Citizen Intern
Working at the Worlds of Fun Halloween Haunt is so bloody exciting that I can’t wait to come back every single year. It isn’t the money, the discounts or the free admission to the park that brings me back every year. What brings me back is the community and getting to scare the “yell” out of people.
Weltz with the ‘haunted house of the night’ trophy.
Starting my day, I clock in and run to the locker rooms, my mind set on putting on my cowboy costume so that I can join my co-workers in the makeup line. With my layers of thermal undershirts and pants, I finished off my basic costume with black flannel and black jeans. It gets super cold outside, especially in late October, so I dress as warm as possible. My black vest was followed with a belt and some steel toed boots. The finishing touch was my lucky cowboy hat, fitted over my red bandana.
For an hour to two hours, I got to stand and hangout with my friends in the makeup line before we got lathered in liquid latex, airbrush, and fake blood. My personal favorite looks include a black eye, a bloody nose, and a card thrown in the head. After the artists work their magic and I get bloodied and dirtied up, my hair is done into pigtail braids.
My appearance of an undead cowgirl could be enough to scare a person walking by the Wild West zone of Worlds of Fun. But with just a little bit of equipment strapped to my coworkers and I, we become one of the scariest zones.
I strap on my knee pads, the kind skateboarders wear, and then put an extra hard plastic shield on top of them. Then I duct tape the knee pads on just to secure them. Next is my gloves, work gloves from the nearest hardware store. Metal washers and pipe parts are glued onto the palms and fingers and sticks of flint cover the rest. To slide, you run and drop onto your kneepads and drag your hands along the ground. The steel toed boots come in handy to help you slide and not blow through your shoes to your socks.
My favorite part is the metal sheet pan I carry, long past its days of baking cookies. It’s now almost torn in half from the repetitive motion of sliding and hitting it on the concrete.
The sight of someone sliding at your feet, making sparks with their gloves, and being loud is sure to scare just about anyone. Especially with the mass amounts of fog covering us.
Once the Halloween Haunt begins at 6 pm, all the scare actors participate in a parade around the park, and then it is off to our scare zones or houses. From around 8 p.m. to 12 a.m., my co-workers and I are out there completing the physically demanding job of sliding, just to get the satisfaction of hearing someone scream or jump. You may be wondering, why would I want to scare someone?
It’s fun! You get a rush of excitement after your first scare and after that, you just want to keep going. And the guests you’re scaring are paying to be there to get scared. It’s a good time for every single person involved. The guests there also love to take photos with me and introduce me to the people they brought with them. I have formed friendships with recurring guests, and sometimes they even remember me from last year.
There are the rare occasions when guests get mad, whether it’s because they don’t want to be scared or they think we got too close to them. My coworkers and I have been swung at, pushed, and yelled at countless times. But once one of us spots a negative situation brewing, we all begin to rush to defend each other. The teamwork and dedication shared by every Outlaw is not only a safety net, but a force to be reckoned with. We are all very close and care deeply about each other.
By the end of the season, I start to feel sad when I realize it’ll be another year before I get to come back and scare guests again. I always make sure to stay connected with the other cowboys and keep them updated on the next October. We hold a potluck to celebrate the hard work we did throughout the Halloween season.
Thankfully, I will get to be an undead cowgirl again next year.