Seattlest vs. KUBE Haunted House: Terrified For My Life, In a Good Way

Editor's note: Seattlest writer Alex Hudson braved one local haunted house and lives to tell the tale.

Don't lie, you listen to KUBE. Maybe not like, all the time, but chances are you've rocked out to Rihanna during more than one traffic jam. We all do and all should. Hence you probably know that every year KUBE 93.3 puts on a haunted house. I'm totally from here, yet somehow I've never actually been. In a tribute to the deepest longings of my 8th grade self I decided this year was going to be the year.

Let's start with the fact that I am what is known as a yellow-bellied coward. Scary movies? No way no how. Haunted houses? Not once in my life. I don't even like to talk about the things that scare me, let alone deliberately encounter them. I thought all of this through, but decided that I owed it to 13-year old me to persevere. Plus, I had made a blind friend-date to go. There was no backing out.

Fast forward to the man at the front door pulling back the curtain; I'm running through every possible way to back out. Knowing it's too late now, I bolster my courage, step in, clutch the jacket of the person in front of me for dear life and say to myself, "Just keep moving."

This is going to be a long ten minutes.

Needless to say I and my fellow scaredy cat comrades were terrified as we scuttled through the twisting and turning labyrinth of scenes featuring every possible scary thing in existence including zombies, insane asylums, demented surgeons, mirror halls, clowns (both with and without chainsaws), electricity, catacombs, strobe lights and my own personal nightmare, a grated walkway over skeleton-filled water.

A list of phrases oft-repeated as we navigated our way through: "Please let this be over." "I can't feel my legs." "Walk faster." "I'm not cool with this." "This is totally unnecessary." "Hold my hand." And finally, as the exit was in sight and whilst blocked by aforementioned chainsaw-wielding clown, "Please please move."

The clown steps aside and we're bursting out of the building into the cold night like, well, bats out of hell. Someone's crying softly and we are all flapping about trying to shake it off and we're hot and feeling each other's pulses and so unbelievably relieved. Because it's over; we made it and we're a group now. We've bonded over our shared trauma and the night's conversation flows as we relive our terror. There's nothing quite like surviving something terrible and commiserating over beers to make new friends. My 8th grade self would be proud.

My fingers were tingling from adrenaline for a solid hour afterwards, and if I do say so myself, it's a pretty good story. So would I ever go to it again? Not in a million years. Am I really glad I went? Absolutely.

Now through Oct. 31 // 5000 E Marginal Way S // Tickets $15