When I was little I was afraid of the dark. Whenever it was time for me to go to bed I would hesitate to turn the lights off afraid of what would be waiting for me in the dark. As soon as I turned the lights off I would run to my bed as if it was a safe zone and no monsters could harm me. As I lay in my bed in terror I could feel my heart racing and my blood rushing.

I know I can’t be the only one who had this experience. But as we grow up we learn to like the feeling, and when the dark no longer scared us we started looking for something that would. That's when people started looking for a good scare by watching horror movies or going to haunted houses. Why do we like to be scared? When we get scared, our bodies automatically triggers the "fight or flight" response--our heart rates increase, we breathe faster, our muscles tense and our attention focuses on quick and effective responses to threats. It's nature's way of protecting us. If the brain knows there is no risk of really being harmed, it experiences this adrenaline rush as enjoyable.

It’s October with Halloween coming up, so this is the time of year people seek fear with haunted houses everywhere. I grew up in Bradenton, Florida so in 2011 when a haunted house, Twisted Woods popped up in our town it was a big deal.

Twisted Woods was located on a farm in East Manatee County in Myakka. Luckily for me, it was less than 10 minutes away from my house. It was out in the middle of the woods which made it a lot scarier. It started from dusk until midnight. It was $13 dollars to walk through it. The trail took a half-hour to go through and was a third-mile hike which went through a series of mazes filled with lasers, fog machines, diesel-fuel tank, a couple of live hogs and more than three dozen actors dressed in professional costumes and masks. Twisted Woods involved a barnyard of homicidal hillbillies, an abandoned toxic military base and a forgotten circus of nasty clowns.

I was actually a scare actor for Twisted Woods. I found out through a friend about Twisted Woods. We drove over to Myakka where Twisted Woods was located and they hired us on the spot. I was so excited that I got a job with my closest friends and my sister. The only thing we needed was a signed waiver. There was a meeting/training the day before Twisted Woods was to open. The creator flew a professional actor from California to teach us how to scare. A few of the rules we learned from him were "Do not touch the visitors," "If you’re not scary at least be entertaining," and, number one, "Never say Boo!"

Now that I was a professional scare actor it was showtime. We had to show up an hour before we opened to put on our costumes and get our makeup done. I was put into the military base and was given a paintball gun, no paintballs of course just air. I also had my face painted with airbrush. I am not even 5 feet tall you can imagine I wasn’t that scary so I had to rely a lot on my hiding spot and my paintball gun.

Sadly Twisted Woods only lasted for that one season. It was very successful, it made more than the creators thought it would, but the rumor was that the guy that owned the property that Twisted Woods was on sued the creators because they refused to give him more money after their success. In 2012, the company found a new place to do their haunted house in a sketchy mall. Because it was no longer in the woods they changed the name from Twisted Woods to Twisted Terror. I decided to not work that year but would visit several times to see my friends and brother and sister that were working it.

Because of Twisted Terror’s decision to move to a sketchy mall they had to hire a lot of security. The trade out was they got to go bigger--with 10,000 square feet of space they made two haunted houses: Twisted Terror and Quarantine. Twisted Terror kept some of Twisted Wood's qualities, such as the clowns and military base, but also added new materials such as a child’s playroom and a spinning vortex. The Quarantine trail took you through a mental institution for the criminally insane.

Unfortunately, they had days where they were slow and hardly had any business. Obviously when it comes to businesses its always about location and that is where they failed. Luckily, my brother and sister were working Twisted Terror and were laid off after three days of working there.

Now, why is that lucky? The Haunted houses did so bad none of the actors got paid their full amount, except for my siblings. The actors got paid $25 dollars a night. My siblings got $75 dollars for their three days of working there and the other actors, some of whom had been there almost every day, got the same amount: $75 dollars. They all received an “I owe you.” They still have never received money for their work.

Looking back at my time working at Twisted Woods I felt like it had a huge impact on my life. I learned that there are unique jobs out there, you just have to find them. I really enjoyed the acting part of the job and decided to pursue a job in entertainment. Even though there were definitely some downfalls to the job I am very grateful to have shared that experience with my friends and family.