Alvin Patterson would like to welcome you to his nightmare.
The Hawarden resident has reformed the abandoned Hawarden School located at the end of Main Street into a house of horrors featuring an asylum theme of maniacs, ghouls and devils. The free haunted house exhibit will be open to those not of the faint of heart Oct. 27 and 28 coinciding with the Hawarden Fall Supper held in the Hawarden Hall on the first night.
“Everyone does Christmas,” said Patterson about why he decided to build Halloween High. “The first couple years (doing this) was just sitting by my (house) letting my Rottweiler out chasing the kids. That got to be fun, (but) my Rottweiler got old. The last couple times I’ve gotten so big the people are anxious to see what I’m coming up with next. I love seeing their smiles, but the screams are better.”
Patterson said construction on his carnival of the damned began in July and he has been spending about 22 hours a week building it. He said once completed the exhibit would feature three rooms of terror and he doesn’t recommend the very young walking through it.
“I’ve actually never had any children (at my exhibits),” he said. “It’s always been adults. Three years ago some friends of ours came with their kids and this one kid wouldn’t even go (in) there. One kid disappeared. We were talking and this older couple was coming up to the fog machine. I have no idea how, but (the kid) just stood right up in front of them. I actually had to escort those two out. They were just yelling and screaming.”
It was that scare in his yard three years ago that gave Patterson the bug to take his patrons hysteria to the next level. He spends around $400 to $500 a year on Halloween props and also includes volunteers from the community into his exhibits, so they can dish out some frights too.
“Last year I had one fellow who was completely in black and people would come into the haunted house and they’d see him there (and say) ‘oh, that’s pretty realistic’,” said Patterson. “Then they’d go to the back of the tent, look at everything and they’d come out (and say) ‘where did that go’ and he was on their other side. Then their daughter was a werewolf and she was the one being hanged. People would go by her and she’d just jump out.”
Patterson said his love of sitting in his workshop creating the next monstrosity is the reason behind his dedication to frightening people and it’s paying off with more brave souls coming by each year. He said the audience has grown from 30 people getting the “crap scared out of them” three years ago to 65 receiving chills last Halloween and with the horror show falling on the same weekend as the Hawarden Fall Supper this year he expects up to 100 victims this time.
“I only open up the weekend before Halloween and it just turns out that the Fall Supper, which is a great thing for the community, (is that weekend),” he said. “I can actually open up at 1 p.m. and they can go through and then go for the supper. I think there is a gospel concert after, so they can do all three in one day. Go get scared, get fed and then repent.”