Editor’s Note: This story is a piece of fiction, meaning that all characters and events are purely from the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

We get to the venue at six in the morning and sit outside in lawn chairs for a chance to get into the house. Doomsday Manor, they call it. And this year, the name feels apt. Odds are, one of the six of us will get in. (This year, we are dressed as the characters from Shrek. I am Donkey). At five, the raffle results come out — and I win. 

Of the house I’d seen its unnerving symmetry, its four huge columns and its blackish smooth exterior. I had never been up close. But now that I am here, I am eager.

To enter Doomsday Manor, you use an old-timey door knocker. I lift up the raven’s head, and the door opens by itself before it can crash back down. A nearly pitch black foyer opens up. The only light comes from an archaic candelabra sitting on a side table with a real flame. I grab it through the cloth hand of my costume and let it light the way.

The floorboards creak underneath my Donkey feet. A door in the hallway sits ajar, so I slip inside. It is a bedroom. I swing my candelabra around to see dolls. Hundreds of them. They are dressed neatly and placed in creepy perfection. The dolls have baby dolls — there is not a childless toy in sight. One catches my eye — blood was oozing from its eyes. And other places, you know, from wherever. 

I can hear a faint voice. What starts as a whisper begins to grow louder. It is mostly unintelligible but occasionally I recognize a single word or phrase. I don’t know if I am meant to hear them or if they are just in my head. Then, I hear my own name.

“Grab her.” 

An arm grabs me by the abdomen and pulls me back. I scream as I lose control. The arm pulls me out the door and into a different room. Flags hang around me, now. Betsy Ross’s version. A giant Q. The Confederate flag. The voice becomes noise — repetitive chants, battle cries. This room has a window, it is smashed from the outside. Men in Viking helmets scale the walls. I know this. I remember this.

The house knows my fears. And I won the contest. It’s here to scare me. It knows that I am actually afraid of the Tuesday after this f—ing holiday. The day that is not a holiday. 

The flags are released from insurrectionist clutches one at a time, and they fall away. In each one’s place, up rises a gravestone and a coffin laid flat. I stand in the middle of the room and the graves surround me. One coffin slams open suddenly. I take a peek. A ghostly white body lays face-down. It begins to roll, hovering slightly above its place. It rolls over slowly at first, but then it speeds up. It starts to make a whirring sound. More coffins slam open and the whirring amasses and gets louder and louder. In no time, the bodies spin themselves upright. I am surrounded by floating ghosts, real ones. Those things I never believed in until I see their faces. 

My eyes dart from white face to white face in a panic. All men. All old men that look a bit — Hold on, I think. I look closer. Is…that guy…? It is Abraham Lincoln. And that one’s Teddy. My head spins around to see Washington. Jefferson. I spin in circles and my brow furrows with aching patriotic vexation. The room starts to spin, too. 

Soon the whole haunted graveyard spins itself away and the room is hollow. A door across the space creaks open and a pale hand grasps the side. It is a man dressed like a scary clown. He wraps his striped leg around the door and reveals himself to be armed, open carry. 

“You speak English?” he asks.

“…Yeah,” I reply. What?

“You a f—in’ citizen? You got a record?” He sneers at me and does the grapevine with his clown feet. “I don’t like your costume,” he says.

“I don’t like yours,” I respond.

His confidence amazes me. He’s just a vigilante who doesn’t realize how stupid he looks. He lets out an evil clownish giggle, his painted smile lines undulating. While laughing, he points his gun in my direction and adrenaline flushes my body. I whip around, panicking for the doorknob behind me. The candles had gone out but I’d adjusted to the darkness, my new normal.

I get out of the shapeshifting room of terrors. Like a babysitter in a horror movie I run up the stairs instead of out the front door. But the clown doesn’t chase me. He was just for show, I know then.

What I find at the top of the stairs is different, though. I see a door that displays a message in blood. Turn back now. It reads, dripping.

“I am not going back,” I laugh. Jesus.

I run ahead, twist another doorknob and find myself in an ovular room. Old-timey curtains cover the large windows and a desk sits at the room’s center. The room is empty, but I feel an air of power. A power that could intoxicate, in the wrong hands. I take off my Donkey ears headband and hold it in my hands. It feels wrong to keep it on in here. The windows open to the air and an autumn breeze brushes my face. I stand up and peer out onto the lawn.

I don’t know why, but I know then that I am ready to get out. I run back down the stairs and out the front door. I run across muddy grass, my costume’s legs soaking. I run until I see my friends in a circle by the corn maze. They see me and start asking about Doomsday Manor. I avoid their questions debate-style and realize how hard my heart is pounding. I am sweating, scared. I rest my hands on my knees and Shrek looks concerned. Lord Farquaad puts her hand on my back. I am able to let out a desperate question.

“Does anyone have…candy?” I have a sudden urge to eat my feelings and donate all my money to a presidential campaign. Shrek hands me a Snickers bar, confused. I inhale it fast and then my stomach hurts but it isn’t the candy.

“Girl, are you okay?” Lord Farquaad asks. I nod slowly.

“You guys all voted yet?” I ask. I look around and see some heads nod, some shake. “Yeah, okay,” I say as my breath regains stability. My voice has stopped shaking, “let’s go early this year.”