“I just didn’t know what to do; I honestly wasn’t trained for this,” said temp worker Marshall Jordan.
For 56 years, the people of Kewanee, Illinois, have raised money to temporarily convert an unused barn into a house of horrors for visitors to walk through … if they dare.
This year’s scares include a giant spider that drops from a beam and an eerie room full of stuffed scarecrows with some actors hidden among them, Then there’s The Reaper, a farmer who lurks behind a grain bin with a scythe and charges at patrons in an attempt to terrify them.
But Jordan, this year’s Reaper, was baffled when he saw the 9-year-old Blind girl in the parking lot confidently striding toward the entrance.
He and his fellow workers watched in awe as she was unperturbed by the fake cobwebs and jangling chains hanging above the doorway. She navigated each space in silence, only stopping when her cane would hit the occasional fake rat. When it was Jordan’s turn to try to frighten the girl, he made the choice to treat her like any other patron by skulking in the shadows just ahead of her. When his big moment arrived, Jordan yelled and sprinted toward the patron, but he came to a standstill at the last second.
At that point the girl cocked her head and said, “Hi, when am I supposed to be scared?”
When The Squeaky Wheel asked the girl to comment on the situation, her eyes went black. Without moving her mouth, a deep, modulated, otherworldly voice rang out: “There are almost 20 million of us. We are already in your schools and churches. Your neighborhoods and businesses. And we are always looking for new recruits. Happy Halloween.”