There Is A Curse On Our Fingers

In a maze of two by fours, confused by fog, and animated crudely by strobe lights, I really, truly was being hunted. I grabbed at Ben to tell him this wasn’t a gag anymore.
“We need to escape!”
He laughed,
“Yea, that dude scared the fuck out of me too! “
“No, Ben, seriously,” I moved my hand from his shoulder to grab more forcefully at his wrist. A bloody hand print stayed clutching his shoulder. Oh fuck. My stomach did a somersault. I swiveled my head around, finding the silhouette of a chainsaw-wielding Leatherface swelling as he approached to finish his kill.
“He’s for real Ben! He’s going to fucking kill us!”
Ben hooped with a mixture of fright and glee as a picture slid from the wall and a clown groped out at his neck. We were so dead.

Just strobes ago we’d entered the pig farm maze, leaping, running, and then clumping and cowering before the next bend in the path. As we moved, there was a constant struggle for the middle two of four spots. Our friend who’d invited us for a free haunt was taking a break from the register at the door to take me, Ben, and a girl we didn’t know through the house. Our friend was pretending to be scared to make us even more scared, and it was working.

Hopscotching through zombie hands that clutched at our ankles through cracks in the gates, we’d run straight into Leatherface, who, with choreographed lightning at his back, revved his chainsaw at our ankles. A hairpin turn in the path left me the unfortunate last of the pack. The blade swept high, meant to graze over my hair, but being a good head taller than the kid in the mask, I had to duck it, raising my hand to protect my face from getting whacked by, logic calmed me, a chain-less chainsaw. The machine struck the side of my hand, and I thanked myself for not taking it in the forehead. Though free of spinning blades, a heavy piece of industrial machinery could never be a pleasant thing to connect with the skull.

My group was rounding the next corner, and I jogged to catch up with them. Slightly shaken from my collision with the saw, I reminded myself that every boogie man and werewolf was just a high school kid getting paid minimum wage to hold a hatchet painted with red nail polish and grunt unintelligibly. I could still feel where the cold edge of the chainsaw had connected with my hand. My skin’s memory of the touch had turned warm. Damn, maybe I’d have a bruise. I was almost annoyed as I raised my arm, squinting in the dim light to see if it had left a mark. I should complain to my friend that they should be more careful. No, not complain, just say “hey, i don’t mind, but you should know.. You know, for next time. Because not everyone is as easy going as I am. You don’t want lawsuits... This isn’t me complaining. I’m telling you for your own good. You know, just have a talk with your staff... tell them, uh, chainsaws below the waist only. I mean, that’s still totally scary. Other than that though, I totally thought you did a great job. Yea, tell all of the high school kids in masks that they did a great job. Make sure you don’t just reprimand them, because overall, it was totally great. Just chainsaws below the waist, that’s all...”

The strobes burst back into effect, and from my fingertips, a line of red was splitting the distance to my elbow by halves with every flash of light. Fuck.

We were so dead. I had Ben by the wrist and was pulling him as he laughed like an idiot. He tried to twist free of my grip.
“Hold on, look at that guy in the stilts!”
I was saving his goddamned life and he had no clue. The saw’s motor had diminished to a mosquito’s buzz, lost in the bowels of the house, but I couldn’t be sure we were safe until we were back on the street. Who knew how many accomplices the chainsaw guy had in here... What a cover for a real psycho; sneak into a haunted house and amidst the fake gore and masked employees, get away with really hacking up some tourists. The exit in sight, running for dear life, I pushed the clown on stilts aside, Ben protesting in tow.

I highly recommend the Oklahoma State University Medical Center ER. The staff was courteous and professional. When I couldn’t wield the ball-point pen to fill out the necessary paperwork at the front desk, the triage nurse allowed me to squiggle a left-handed mark on the signature line, and while I got my blood pressure checked, she checked boxes for me. I joked that I could sign the contract in blood. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard the joke, but she laughed for me. They gave me a shot of Novocain and three stitches, and before an episode of Seinfeld had elapsed in the waiting room, I was good as pre-chainsaw.

By the time I got back to the venue, Bayside was just loading out their gear.
Everyone wanted to know, “what happened?”
I wanted to know what happened.

Best I can figure is that something inside a chainsaw whips around to spin the blades, and though that thing is not a blade, it is still doing 3600RPM’s and so even if it’s a blade of grass sticking out, it’s gonna make an argument for taking your finger.

Or maybe a real psycho masquerading as Leatherface in Tulsa narrowly let his victim escape to tell the tale.



Happy Halloween.