Imagine being alone, trapped in a pitch black abandoned house. Your hands feel to your left and gingerly slide across a wooden wall. The floor boards creek underneath each discreet step when suddenly a deranged laugh fills the air of the room, stealing your breath. Heart beat rising, blood pressure boiling, you turn around impulsively and slam face first into something. Looking up, a disfigured face wickedly smiles down at you, drool dripping from its fangs… or is that blood?

One trendy tradition of the autumn season is haunted attractions. Whether it’s at a house, hayride, corn maze, or forest, these hot spots hook eager customers with the promise of a good scare.

An allure notorious for its ability to satisfy people is Erebus haunted house, the world’s largest walk through attrition. With four stories, each with it’s own theme, Erebus lives up to it’s meaning. Erebus is the god of darkness, son of chaos, and brother of night as well as the gate to the underworld, where the dead must pass before they return to Hades.

Located in Pontiac, Michigan in a seemingly abandoned building, Erebus is open nearly every night in October, and the first 200 people who arrive each hour receive a free t-shirt.

I am not easily frightened; I love a good scare, but Erebus truly terrified me. I went with a group of four girls, and halfway through it, a “demon” stopped us. Not saying a word, he grabbed me and extended his finger down a long corridor. I was confused and breaking a sweat. “Go,” he uttered. Before I knew it I was pushed down that hallway while my friends were forced to leave me. It was brilliant, to separate one from the group to ensure absolute horror. I traveled the other two floors, one of which was a swampland. Vines coated the walls and ceiling, and a faint green light shone through the fog, really selling the theme. Dumfounded by the extent of the decorations, I pushed on. The fog was so thick and high off the ground; I could not see my bottom half. Tentatively tip toeing through the marsh, something unexpectedly grabbed hold of my foot. Doing what any brave soldier would do, I screamed and ran.

My favorite event in Erebus was being buried alive. My friends and I stepped into a tight hallway, approximately ten feet long, five feet wide. Smacked against each other in complete darkness, I felt something hit me head. The ceiling had opened and plastic rocks were falling on us. We were in a hole, looking up at mourners (anyone with claustrophobia beware). Who else can say they experienced being buried at their own funeral? The rocks filled to our necks. Suddenly a voice told us to shuffle our feet. We did so and the rocks disappeared. To this day I don’t know how they managed that.