What happens when a childhood Halloween adventure becomes a real-life nightmare?
In fifth grade, Aaron Calafato couldn't wait to experience his elementary school's legendary haunted house. But once inside, the excitement turned to terror, leaving him trapped in the darkness and desperate to escape.
What happened next became a moment Aaron would never forget.
📬 Be a part of the newsletter
*Dive deeper and connect with Aaron on...
The Team:
Story Created & Performed by: Aaron Calafato
Senior Audio Engineer: Ken Wendt
Additional Vocals: Cori Calafato
Original Theme Music: thomas j. duke
Follow & Binge The 7MS Catalog
TRANSCRIPT
As a fifth grader at Sidney Fenn Elementary School, there was a really cool event that would happen every Halloween.
It wasn't my classroom. I think her name was Mrs. Stennett, and her class would create a haunted house.
I mean, they transformed this classroom into a theatrical event.
Smoke, mirrors, sound, blinking lights, characters performing as monsters and terrors and ghouls and stuff.
And the best part was, you could buy tickets. And you could buy as many tickets as you wanted.
So technically, you could almost miss the whole day because they would run this show, and you could go into this classroom and run through it a bunch of times.
I remember asking several of my friends, "Hey, did you guys get your tickets?"
They're like, "Yeah, we got a couple."
I was like, "A couple? I broke the piggy bank on this one!"
I didn't want to go to school that day.
As I'm standing in line, it was a long line. It was a big draw. I felt like I was at Cedar Point, anticipating my turn to go in.
I started hearing the music getting louder and louder, and then the sounds and the screams of the soundtrack they were playing.
And then the sounds of my friends going into this haunted house.
They were coming out different people.
They were really scared, some of them.
And as I got closer to that door, Mrs. Stennett's classroom wasn't Mrs. Stennett's classroom anymore.
It was a pathway to hell.
And I didn't want to chicken out.
So I gave my first ticket over, and I started walking into the darkness.
And I've got to be honest, right away, I knew this wasn't going to be good.
It got darker and darker, and there was a jump scare here and a jump scare there.
And someone reached out and grabbed my arm, and I was like, "Ah! Get away!"
And then you would have to go into this crawl space. They made it almost like a maze.
And I noticed that when I was going through the maze-like odyssey, I was starting to feel really weird.
And as I started crawling through one portion of it, I don't know what happened.
I started freaking out.
Now, I know what this is, 30 years later.
It was a panic attack.
I didn't know what it was then, and we really weren't using that kind of language.
I couldn't breathe.
I knew in my mind that this wasn't real, but the transformation of this room and all the elements and being stuck, I think that's what it was.
I felt like I couldn't get out because there were people behind me, and there were people in front of me.
And I didn't want to cry, and I didn't know what to do.
I was paralyzed.
And I literally fell onto the ground in this darkness.
I could smell the sulfur from the dry ice or whatever that stuff is.
That's what I remember the most.
And I started crying and shaking.
And all of a sudden, I felt this hand grab my wrist.
And I was about to swing and punch whoever it was.
But something told me to open my eyes.
And I could see they had, like, a monster suit on, but they had taken their mask off.
And it was this pleasant face, a friendly face, of my friend Mike.
And he was looking at me, and he said, "Are you okay?"
And I looked at him, and I just shook my head no.
Couldn't even say the words.
And he reached his hand out.
And he walked me through.
I was cowering in embarrassment.
He walked me back through the entire haunted house and back out to the hallway.
And I told him, "Thank you."
That's all I could mutter.
And he went back in to do his job because he had to scare people.
But I will never forget Mike's act of kindness to me.
So I learned that haunted houses might be right for you, but they are not right for me.
It's just not my thing.
And I haven't, and will not, go to a haunted house since that day.
Sometimes stuff like this is a metaphor for darkness.
And you can go through things where you feel like it's endless and that you're trapped, or it's so dark you just want to wither away.
But I was glad that I took an opportunity to open my eyes one time.
And sometimes, if you do that, even in the darkness, a gleam of light will always find a way to shine through.
And you just have to take that hand and follow it back home.