When my husband Phil and I were asked to be a part of this year’s haunt, Rain of Terror, thrown by the Forks Police Foundation, we were stoked. After checking out the location there was no way we could refuse. We did our initial walk-through in the abandoned and already very eerie Quillayute Airport with Sgt. Mike Rowley. While doing so we were asked to take over the older side of the building, but we ended up with four more rooms on the newer side.

Phil and I spent a couple days planning room designs, scrounging up material and conning some of our favorite people to be actors. Every day for three weeks, we drove out the hangar to build and put together rooms. We wanted to take away your main senses — sight and hearing were taken over by the dark, loud music, screams and terrifying sounds. And oh yes, the props (weapons) were very real.

Finally it was show time. Everyone’s hard work was about to pay off. Make-up took hours and the anticipation of starting seemed forever!

Two floors, four stairwells, 19 rooms and two very long, dark hallways filled with your worst nightmares. Evil Clowns, Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, The Ring, The Blair Witch, Satan and his demons, hacked up body parts, an insane asylum, a complete blackout room filled with fog; full of the unknown, a crazy bartender with the “boo” factor, a mad man with a hacksaw and various other torture devices, three chainsaw-wielding maniacs, lots of roaming evil creatures and this all starts off with The Purge characters, carrying an AK-47 and a machete hustling guests upstairs.

As hours passed, the actors got more comfortable in their rooms and their performance.

From the first night, the first hour … we had five groups make it through the first hall and run out the fire exit door, crying! We ran for three weekends and it was like that every time.

Out of the estimated 1,000 people who braved through, only 30 percent of the groups that entered didn’t make it to the other side of the building. If they did make it, most were hyperventilating, laughing out of fear, pleading with actors, heads buried in their friends’ backs, screaming, a group of ladies were so scared that they tumbled down the stairs, people wet their pants, dropped to the floor panicking, some ran through makeshift walls and had some had to be carried out. It was incredible.

There were people that didn’t care about it while walking through and that made it hard for the actors, which was a shame. But for the people who were into it and excited to go through, the only emotion they had was pure raw fear. I got the chance to roam a couple of times and check out people in other rooms and watching the guests faces were unforgettable. One woman walked into my room, right away wet her pants and started screaming “You can’t touch me! You can’t touch me! Get me out of here!”

Some of us got punched in the face, kicked, shoulder-checked and cursed at. It was awesome! We all went into this knowing that we would get beat up some. The pictures from the game cams in some of the rooms were very satisfying. A big THANK YOU to the community, local businesses and guests from out of town for supporting such an awesome organization and an even bigger THANK YOU to all the volunteers, even if it was every weekend or just one night, you’re all rockstars!