Haunted House a creepy way to help pets

BONNERS FERRY – The gate opens with a mournful groan as Second Chance Thrift Store manager Ruth Dana guides her visitor onto the grounds of the adjoining animal shelter.

“We’re still embellishing the graveyard,” she says, as if stumbling upon rows of tombstones near the entrance was nothing out of the ordinary.

Starting tonight and running through this Saturday evening, this graveyard will be the welcome mat for those who are brave – or is that foolish? – enough to take a tour of the Second Chance Haunted House.

For three terrifying nights, the shelter will be transformed into a place where spooks abide and the living visit only at their peril. Passing the graves, you encounter a row of cornstalks where ghosts peek out and beckon you deeper into the night.

The first door is the least frightening – a Kid’s Room with games, prizes and storytelling.

“More than likely, the wee ones will be in here,” said Dana, turning to lead the way into the part of the haunted house that’s meant for older patrons with stronger constitutions.

It’s dim behind this doorway, even in broad daylight. And this is where your tour of terror really begins.

“This is the Haunted Mansion Room,” our guide proclaims, swearing us to secrecy about the exact contents. Suffice it to say that this first step into the adjoining chambers linked by inky black pathways is populated by otherworldly hosts who feel quite at home amid the tightly woven cobwebs and the creepy, crawly creatures of the night that hide here.

“Now we’re going to move into the laboratory,” our human host commands. And so we do – crossing another threshold into a place of such unbridled evil that even the thought of sharing what goes on there seems an abomination. The senses are overwhelmed by the things that lie, hang, huddle and lurk in the corners of this dungeon-like place. It feels good to have made it out alive.

Feels good, that is, until you realize that you’ve stepped into a setting that might be, if possible, even scarier than the laboratory itself.

“Next we have to go through the swamp,” Dana explains, leading the way past countless eyes that peep out from the jungle that crowds in on all sides as fog slithers along the ground and grasps at our ankles and feet.

Turning a corner, safely back into the light of day, we encounter shelter manager Josh Blazdik, who is all smiles in a long-sleeved, black shirt emblazoned with the words, “Horror Hound.”

“This is the first haunted house being offered in Bonners Ferry in several years,” he said. “We’ve been working on it for about two months, along with the help of about a dozen volunteers. It was built by the community, for the community.”

Dana, Blazdik and assorted volunteer helpers began a few months ago by sketching out some rough ideas on how best to convert a row of shelter buildings into a truly haunted space. As the work got underway, however, unseen advisors and spectral supervision took the project in a direction of its own.

“It just morphed as it went along,” Dana said, pointing out that the haunted house would not have been possible without volunteer labor and an enormous amount of community support.

“And it turned out a bit different than our original ideas of what it was going to be,” Blazdik added.

How different? That is an answer you will have to come and find for yourself.

The Second Chance Haunted House opens tonight and runs through this Friday and Saturday, with hours from 5-8 p.m. all three nights next door to the thrift store location at 6651 Lincoln Street, behind Panhandle State Bank.

Children under 12 must be accompanied by an adult and all proceeds go to the care and feeding of shelter animals.

Admission to the haunted house is by donation.

“Because the best nation,” Blazdik said, “is the donation.”