Great Horror Campout Sacramento 2014

This is my review for the Great Horror Campout which was at it's Sacramento venue during the Summer 2014 Tour.  A group of fellow adventures and I spent the night on Saturday July 19th. Please be warned that I tend to write as I speak and hear things, so that means that this review is filled with the unedited curse words that I heard during my twelve hour adventure. So if profanity is not your bag....enough said I think.

The Challenge -

Survive twelve hours in an interactive horror experience that includes mutants, monsters, kidnappers, people in my bubble, running, kidnappers, scavenging, no sleep and a freaky white van that drives around and wait.....kidnaps you.

The Challengers-

Jen, Chadd and Me

Colleen Douglas: My sister in law and one of the toughest women that I know. She laughs in the face of danger and makes one hell of a rack of ribs. She's also one of my best friends and has become one of my chief troublemakers.

Chadd Klaus: The token gentlemen in our group and one that we include in all our daring adventures. He is the planner who helps keep us organized and on task most of the time. He's also one hell of a board game player. As a rule we generally steal his fedora every time we go out, and this night proved to be no exception. Except that his was stolen by one of our camp counselors, Necklace, and then given to another of our team mates.

Colleen, Jen and Chadd

Jen Darling: Cute, tough and daring. She's also one of the nicest people that I have met. She's a relatively new person in my group but I can already see that she is an amazing person. She was my pick for winning the "Getting Kidnapped the Most Often Throughout the Night" award. She is after all a darling....insert drum beat here.

Me AKA Alexis Stephens: Unfailingly cheerful, polite to a point and cursed with a smart all mouth that sometimes gets the better of me. I giggle at the drop of the hat, and have been refereed to as Dr. Hibbard by people who know me well. I also love logic, puzzles and games. Plus this type of thing inspires my writer side and now I want to write a screenplay based on an attendee to one of these events. But that is a story for another time.

The four challengers and I are part of a group of friends and family that meet about once a month at my house for something that we call Potluck Friday. It's generally a free for all of good food, wine, games and company. On these nights my kitchen counters get filled with various types of food based on a theme we all agree to, usually on the Monday before the event. My back yard also tends to get filled up with a good representation of the many nieces and nephews I have. I used to be something of a lonely hermit type so I value these interactions very highly. Anyone wants in let me know. We're always adding to our group.

Last Saturday while on a business trip, my sister in law Colleen asked me how I felt about going to something called the Great Horror Campout with her. I had never heard of it before but was game as soon as I checked out their website. I'm including the link so you all can see the see what attracted me.

The Great Horror Campout Official Website 

I mean who wouldn't want to camp with a bunch of hillbilly mutants who act as their camp counselors in the middle of a field of monsters? Needless to say that I began planning on attending the moment I read what it entailed.

    Originally it was just going to be her and I against the hordes, since my sister Gen who is usually in the thick of our adventures chickened out. That's right Gen....bock bock.

But before two days had past, we were pleased to add Chadd and Jen to our mix. We began making bets on who was going to be the top victim of the night and it was agreed that Jen was most likely going to win that title. She is after all adorably portable, where I am in possession of a comfortable Mommy body which doesn't make for easy packing.

I'm not picking on myself mind you, I'm just not the tiny person I once was. Colleen gives off the instant assertion of "I am a Bad Ass Don't Mess With Me" and Chadd, well Chadd was my second pick for victim of the night because he was the one guy in our henhouse. That just has come mess with me all over it.

So the root of this experience is something they call the Hell Hunt. It's basically a scavenger hunt for some really really twisted things like skin masks, teeth and used bandages. You know what to look for by familiarizing yourself with the dossier the company sends you the night before. The dossier includes a photographic list of the items you need to find, a map of the area and a list of all the characters and creatures that you are going to be subjected to during the course of the hunt.

You hunt for these items while running around a dark complex, through various trials and onto the paths of an old sunflower field(which have plants that are about as tall as corn stalks for those of you who have never seen them). With the aid of your fellow teammates, strangers, a good flashlight and the sometime benevolence of your mutant counselors you try to find the items listed based on their levels. If at the end of the night you have so many of each level then you win a chance at earning the coveted title of Hellmaster. Which besides being an ego booster also gives you a discount on next years tickets and a few other perks.

Being gamers, and I'm afraid to admit in my case a former LARPer....it was only a few times....don't judge me.....we printed out our dossiers, tried to memorize the riddles that could be used to help us get through the challenges and began to plan our strategy on winning. I admit freely that the first step in our strategy turned out to be a huge mistake but hey, we all make mistakes right? I was looking at this the same way I would if I had been transported into one of my RPG games. I tend to be a "world crawler" where I go everywhere and continuously look at everything hoping to find what I am seeking. Turned out to be a good strategy because I think I found the most items out of the night. We decided at the get go that we were going to pool together our dubious treasures for the betterment of our team.

Last night, our happy quartet arrived at Vierra Farms in West Sacramento, which is a generally charming place with a fruit stand and opportunities to have your picture taken with old time farm and kitchen equipment.  If you live in the Sacramento area but have never been, you should check it out. I'm including their link as well. I know Colleen and I were talking about coming back on a non scary day with the kids.

Vierra Farm Official Website

For our equipment, we brought a cooler with a few non alcoholic beverages, a bag of snacks, our sleeping bags, pillows, a bag of clothes each, a white tee-shirt, our dossiers and our flashlights which turned out to be the most important tool we used through out the night. We planned at the gate to make sure that we stayed with a buddy at all times and that if we got separated to use the walkie talkies that Chadd brought to find each other. The best laid plans....

Once we finally got through the check in process, which included the sad event of one of our fellow participants fainting at the gate and having an ambulance come to take her away, we began the long walk through the crops to get to the campsite.

Our tents had been provided for us with the cost of our tickets, so there would only be minimal setup once we reached base camp. We were consigned to the green area in tent 118. But getting there is sometimes half the battle. It wasn't long before we began to curse the rolling cooler as we were wheeling over variably sandy soil to sticky wet mud. Colleen and I traded places along the trail so that no one had to battle with the evil thing for too long. It kept trying to flip over onto its back. Needless to say, my little group and I need to get on the waiting list for the Coolist.

 About three quarters of the way up the trail we met our first Counselor, who was eating the seeds out of a sunflower blossom and spitting out witticisms at anyone who crossed his past. May I say that his makeup was excellent and that his character was spot on. For the remainder of this telling I shall refer to him as Sunflower. We were amused by his antics but creeped out all at the same time. Which is exactly the way it should be at these types of events.

Of course this is where my mouth got the better of my brain for the first time in the evening and I found myself grinning at the man and asking him if he didn't intend to share. I knew the moment the words came out of my mouth that I had set myself up, but as a general rule I can't seem to override that part of me that wants to do things like this. My sister Gen would probably call that my "Find My Zipcode" portion of my brain, but that is a story for another day. I saw a flash of delight go over his face before he replied with, 'You want me to share my seed with you baby? I'll come find you in your tent later'. Which of course spawned my mouth to respond with, 'You come and find me anytime darlin', while the polite part of my brain tried to regain control with unnecessary force. He gave an evil little giggle and said he'd do that. I walked away chuckling and creeped out at the same time. I think I can safely make a new word here called "Cruckling". I ended up doing that for most of the night.

Making our way to our tent, we opened it to find our first piece of SCAG or "Stuff Campers All Get". It was also our first bit of revulsion of the night. Truthfully, if Chadd and I had not read our dossier and prepared ourselves we might have been truly and utterly horrified. But since we had, we were ready if not delighted to find what appeared to be a used condom in our tent. Taking a deep breath I reached out and snagged the disgusting little goody and threw it in the red SCAG backpack that they provided us at the gate. One down and a bunch to go. Sadly this was only one half of the a complete SCAG item but we'll get to that later down the line.

The first thing we did was set up our sleeping bags, passed out bottles of water and assigned walkie talkies to Chadd and myself. We figured we might not get the chance again and that it would be safer to get it out of the way early. Then we headed out to Camp Orientation at the behest of our "Head Master" who was also the flashiest of our mutant hosts. Upon exiting the tent it took exactly two seconds for one of the Counselors to walk over to us, get eye level with my breasts and say 'Nice necklace'. I thanked him and he chuckled and said 'She thinks I'm looking at her necklace'. I promptly turned my famous shade of red and did the cruckling thing I developed over the course of the twelve hours, and watched him stride away. That Counselor I have dubbed Necklace for obvious reasons.

One thing to note about me, I have been called a puritan hippy by some of my dearest friends. I'm a woman that believes in loving anyone who lets me and about spreading peace, hope and kindness like it's contagious. I smile all the time, offer help to anyone who needs it, and exercise the golden rule. I also tend to call everyone sweetie, honey, darlin', sugar, bubba, buggy...you catching what I'm throwing down? I'm a grown up innocent. That means I often don't get innuendo. I genuinely get flummoxed when it's used on me because it either goes right over my head or I'm confused why they are using it on me in the first place. I've also been told that although I am very intelligent, that I lack "walking around brains".

What that means in layman's terms is that I find myself chattering cheerfully with strangers, even if they happen to look dangerous and sometimes walking a bit naively into shall we say unwarranted adventures. Ask me sometime to tell you about my adventure with the biker with the "pretty" tattoo. Couple that with my habit of giggling when I get even the faintest trace nervous and I'm identifiable in some crowds. If you are saying to yourself that it sounds like I was walking around with a big fat target on my head at a venue such as this, you would be right on the money.


We parked our fannies on the straw covered ground near a gigantic movie screen and clapped enthusiastically when a man who appeared to be either horrifically burned or deformed walked out onto the stage. He pulled the look off brilliantly with his dapper tux adored with golden sequins. We stopped abruptly however, as he cheerfully told us to 'Shut the fuck up'. The language at this event was colorful at least and mind blowingly vibrant at best.

He gave us the rules, which were no drugs or alcohol, no going out of bounds and most importantly, DO NOT TOUCH THE ACTORS. They can touch us but we can't fight back in the least. Sound like an uh oh moment to you? Certainly set the tone for the rest of the night for me. I'm not a fighter by nature, will in fact try to walk away from a confrontation multiple times, but when push comes to shove I push back. Once he had made sure that we all understood the laws of the realm, he released us to the hunt goaded on by the loving sound of clowns chasing us with chainsaws.

Here's where we made our first tactical error. We decided that we would attempt our first piece of level 1 SCAG by facing the multi-part race at Mama Pope Licks. We were hoping that we would be able to obtain Mamas mark, which is a sort of X that would be drawn on your cheek in blood. The first part of the race turned out to be a killer for me. It was a centipede race where you had to wrap your legs around the person in front of you, put your hands on the ground on the inside of the legs of those which were wrapped around you, lift your fanny off the ground and then wiggle to the finish line. If your butt hit the ground the leader of the race would send you back to the beginning.

It turns out that having arthritis here is a huge disadvantage. No matter what position in the centipede I took, I could not hold my weight on my wrists or stand the strain on my hips and ankles. When I say sheer agony, I mean that in the most sincere way. Not wanting to be the reason that my team didn't get this important piece of SCAG however, I attempted it several times. Finally the leader took pity on me and let me scoot my way to the finish line, an act of kindness that I could have kissed her for.

Not that it did me any good. The next part of the race entailed me searching through eggs for grubs, racing through a maze and walking through a vat of blood and what appeared to be needle chambers. Once that had been accomplished I had to climb up a net to reach a gigantic spider type creature they called Mama Pope Lick. Once there I would have to milk her to fill up the grub and proceed to slide down a slide.

I got stuck on the eggs. There were no more grubs and I had to wait for one of the team members to reach around the side and hand me one. I was, needless to say, the last in line and although I got my shoes and lower parts of my jeans soaked with gore there were no consolation prizes for the likes of me. I got cheerfully abused by the leader at the top of the platform who snatched the grub out of my hand and shoved me down the slide. It was perversely like a Christmas Story in that regard. HO HO HO.

Colleen and Chadd each received the coveted Mama mark, and while Jen decided that she was going to run the race again, I waited with the pair of them off to the side of the course. There was no way in hell that I was going to put my joints through that nonsense again. No SCAG was worth that.

The first kidnapping of the evening coming in 3, 2, 1....

While we were standing there waiting for Jen one of the Counselors, who I can only call Long Hair due to his long flowing hippie hair, walked over to us and promptly smelled each of us at the neck. He kept caressing and touching his hair like he was a model in a shampoo commercial and it would have been charming if he didn't give you the creeps.

This smelling technique is something that was employed by almost every creature at the Great Horror Campout, and was designed to be the thing that made you feel the most vulnerable. I found myself shrinking away from the characters literally every single time they did it.

Back to what I was saying, Long Hair smelled each of our necks, commenting about how Chadd smelled like Lavender oil, before stopping at my neck and remarking that I smelled unwell. Not having any idea what he was talking about I replied, 'That all things were possible', which apparently gave him leave to wrap his arms around me and began to march me out into the darkness. Giggling helplessly I looked over my shoulder to my teammates and was pleased to see Colleen following me and my abductor. We were trying to stay together after all. Long Hair marched us over to the Doctor, who turned out to be a quack with a huge knife sawing away at a corpse. We were soon joined by two other kidnapped souls. The Doctor had each of us reach into the corpse and pull out a various organ before handing three of us a skin face mask....which I did not receive! The Quack decided to only hand out three, although he smiled at me before dismissing me right off the bat. Colleen got one though, so we decided to find Chadd and Jen and come back to try again for the rest of us.

Returning to Mama Pope Licks, we retrieved the remaining members of our group and headed back to the fields hoping to go back to the Doctors. From there we planned to maybe attempt the Voodoo ritual in the hope of getting one of the bigger pieces of SWAG. Sigh, best laid plans.....

They had a few roving creatures who were called the Moth men hanging around this part of the hunt who would attack you, wrap their arms around you and trap you within their wings. Um, let me just point out that they were wearing very tight body suits and it's a strange situation to find yourself pressed up against a strange man when he is leaving nothing to the imagination. Especially one who shrieks wordlessly at you....or worse whispers creepy things about taking you into the field to make moth babies. The only person who had it worse with the Moth men in our group was Jen, who made a special friend in that regard and had one follow her relentlessly every time we came near the area.

I had one snatch me up, take me away from the group and shove me into one of the tracks in the sunflower field. Alone. Since he was blocking the way out, I began to move through the field looking for a way to reconnect with my lost group. I attempted the walkie talkie but no dice. Not without the experience of reaching a blind hand into my SCAG bag and grabbing that condom however. I did this several times through out the night and never failed to shriek GROSS whenever I mistakenly grabbed it.

Now I am not a fool. Everyone knows that when you walk through a haunted field that there are monsters waiting in the stalks to grab you and scare you. Me being me, I shined my light into the stalks as I walked and chattered cheerfully at them, calling them 'nice monsters' and other placating comments in the hope of inducing them to not focus their scare power on me. Yeah, that doesn't work. That doesn't mean that I stopped doing it, but it doesn't work. I finally crossed paths with my buddies and just as we were looking for a trail out, a big bug type of creature leaped out and wrapped me in a net. Let me tell you something about being caught in a net, you really have no choice but to just stand there. The bug guy kindly released me after staring me in the face and shrieking wordlessly at me for a few minutes and then we were free to find our way out of the field. Or at least we were until another Moth Man snatched me up, whispered something inappropriate, threw me back in and blocked the path again. Jerk. Cruckle. It took five minutes and Jen sneaking in to grab my hand, for us to sneak out together and run past him to get back out.

We made our way a safe distance from the Moth men area and were checking our maps looking for a likely place to go when the lone female Counselor, who gave us her name as Gak, walked over to see what we were planning. We told her that we thought we were going to head over to the Homestead. She smiled sweetly and then threw a hood over my head. WTH????? I just got kidnapped like three times in a row. She lead me over to a gigantic cage, pushed me inside and then locked it with padlock. To add insult to injury she took the keys and dropped them just outside of reach. *Facecage.

She then handed me a piece of yarn and said 'There you go. You now have everything you need to get the keys and get out'. The others had followed me over to the cage but they were not allowed to help in any way. There was nothing to do but get down on my hands and knees and search the straw until I found something that I could use with the yarn to try to get the key ring.

I finally found a paperclip and a piece of wire and was able to stretch out far enough to snag the ring and drag it over to myself. However in the last two minutes or so of this, the Head Master called out his warning that it was time for mandatory Bunk Check and that anyone who did not return to the tent would be disqualified. ARG! Finally managing to get the key in the lock the four of us took off for the tent. We arrived just in time for Sunflower to check on us and also to check in our bags to make sure that we only had one of each type of SCAG a piece. Cheating is very much frowned on here. About fifteen minutes or so later, they released us from our tents and we were on our way back to the Homestead to see what we could find.

On our way there, we were waylaid by a Counselor who was playing the violin, rather beautifully. I bet you know what moniker I gave him.....you guessed it Violin. Well I am unable to pass a musician without stopping and listening to his work and if it's beautiful I am going to tell him so. He deserved praise, he was very talented. He made motions for me to dance and my old ballerina days came roaring to the surface and I found myself dancing to his music. As silly as my old mama self must have looked, I must have been doing something right because he got down on his knee and said I had given him joy....whereas he gave me a piece of SCAG in the way of a toe nail guitar pick. Whoo! See? Talking to strangers is not ALWAYS a bad thing.

The girls had continued on their way to the Homestead, but Chadd had stayed with me for my dancing foolery and the two of us hastened to catch up. During that time we also stumbled on to a bloody band aid (SCAG), as well as a Victorian Skeleton Couple who were attempting to rock their Skeleton baby to sleep.

They apparently needed help with that and motioned for me to help sing their baby a song. I have to admit that I am such a monumental dork that I was unable to keep myself from making cooing noises over their little tyke. I sang their baby the lullaby I wrote my girls and they lead me over to a rotting half naked dancer for some reason. Seriously, this scenario does not match.

This was one of the few times during the night that I was rather grossed out by what occurred. It was a legitimate OH MY GOD WHAT IS SHE DOING moment. Confused with what I was supposed to do with this creepy figure, the female skeleton whispered that I needed to get out my condom. Well this can't be good. At it wasn't. The moment I pulled it from my bag....GROSS.....she began to make masturbatory movements and then used her fingers to fill the condom with green slime. Excuse me while I finish retching over here, it still gives me the heebie jeebies. Well thanks for that creepy lady, and after tying the disgusting thing up I ran off to find my team. After throwing the now even more disgusting condom back in the SCAG bag of course.

Finally rejoining my team, our group searched through a dumpster and found a Missing Child Poster, and a tongue, which in any other circumstance would have been strange but for this night only was pure gold.

As we moved towards the entrance of the Homestead we realized that we were going to have to crawl through a broken old car to get in....and past a gigantic bald man with a hook who was standing on top of the car. Eep. The man jumped from the roof, to the hood and then in front of us with a  crash. Looking at Jen he got down and sang in a surprisingly beautiful baritone, the theme from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Remembering our riddles, we realized that we were going to have to sing to him to get past him. Jen sang 'You Are My Sunshine', Colleen sang 'I'm a Little Teapot', Chadd sang 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star', and I busted out with an Italian aria. What can I say? I'm weird like that.

The man let us through and we continued on our way to a creepy and busted up looking RV. Jen and I were the first in and let me just say this, it was one of the worst odors I have every smelled in my entire life. Period. Jen and I literally gagged our way through and out of that RV like our life depended on it. Which is kind of funny considering a clown with a chain saw awaited us near the exit, a damned children's slide that was not meant for my size ten behind.

He got his screams and allowed us to pass into an old truck that was filled with children's toys. Now I don't know about you, but creepy abandoned old truck plus children's toys do not equal happy times to me. Sure enough, Bloody Mary jumped out at us and screeched in our faces. Not sure why Bloody Mary is living in the truck full of toys, but whatever I don't have to get it to like it. I forgot to say Bloody Mary's rhyme, but Chadd and Colleen picked up the slack and accepted the SCAG she had to offer.

Walking down the ramp at the end of the truck we found ourselves in another bit of the disjointed world that makes up the Homestead. The Meth lab, which also includes baby fetuses floating in embalming fluid for some reason. Chadd pulled a vile out of his pocket and we were able to take a sample with us to add to our growing list of finds. There was only one last thing to do and we could get the hell out Dodge. We just had to walk through the Meth lab and make our way to the exit. Too bad a pair of mean gals with a matching pair of aluminum baseball bats blocked the way. They insisted we get down on our knees and degrade ourselves before they would let us pass. I appeased them by telling them that I was lower than dirt and beneath a slug and they gave me a human tongue. Yeah! Once outside their little shop of sunshine I also found a human nose. My guess is that the last person who smelled the RV cut it off and threw it out.

Now that we had mastered this area, we moved on to the Labyrinth, a world where Chupacabras would stalk you if you moved. Perversely, it is also a world where Statues moved while expecting you to sit still. All while they stared into your face and tried to catch you moving. Finally there is a threesome of strange priests waiting for you near the end of the maze. The priests wanted you to kneel before them so they could paint words on your forehead. On our way through we found skin webbing (more SCAG) and at the end left the Labyrinth behind with the word Agony emblazoned on our foreheads in bright red paint. It took several baby wipes to remove those letters this morning and my skin is still looking a bit rosy hued even despite that. So thanks for that my friendly priest.

After making our way through a long tunnel of blowing black latex, the Head Master came back over the loudspeaker and announced that it was time for the Green section to report for Blood tag. Jen and Colleen had already escaped, so Chadd and I had to run back on our own to our tent. We needed to retrieve the white tee shirts we had brought with us as they were a requirement of playing the game.

As were approached our tent, I met the character who would become a rather prominent mainstay in the rest of our journey. A creature they called Thirst who resembled something like a very tall skinny bat dressed in a beautiful black coat. My internal Hey Come Mess With Me Sign was glowing bright and he made his way over to us as Chadd dashed in to grab our shirts. Thirst promptly did the neck smelling thing that hits that internal cower button inside of me and spent the neck five minutes crowding my personal space, smelling my neck, shrieking in my face and chasing me around Chadd who I unsuccessfully used as a human shield. All while I giggled helplessly, complemented him on his coat and his height and tried not to let him knock me into the tent. I think the phrase I used with him, is 'Yes you are quite scary' later to be altered to, 'Yes you are still quite scary'. I must have amused him because he sought me out for the rest of the night. That being said, on the chance that the actor who played Thirst is reading this, 'Yes you are still quite scary, and you do have a lovely coat'.

After finally escaping my new buddy, Chadd and I found Jen and Colleen and proceeded inside to play a game of blood tag. Which I hated instantly. Mainly due to the fact that the leader there stood behind me and shrieked with a bull horn about the rules of the game directly into my ears. I have exceedingly sensitive hearing, and it was enough to almost push me into yanking the dang thing out of her hands.  Once she was finally done wrecking havoc with my ears, she released us into the play area where we were supposed to find a gun, fill it with a bucket of blood and shoot people. If you got shot, you were out. If you didn't have a gun, you were out. I had neither a gun nor a clean shirt when it was over and I was shuffled to the waiting zone. The game was played in three levels and I had to wait for Colleen, Chad and Jen while they played level two, and then while Colleen acted as a Body Shield for Jen who made it to round three. We didn't win but they both scored the black blood that came with Level 3 on their shirts which was necessary to qualify for Hellmaster.

That left only a few places left on the map that we had left unsearched, but first it was back to our tent for a quick change out of our of white shirts and for a refill on water and snacks. And of course for a revisit from my buddy Thirst who popped up out of nowhere to say hi, and to you know, sniff my neck and shriek in my face. He also got introduced to Jen, who I pointed out was a much younger prettier prey....which worked for like five minutes. Long enough for the Cannibal Clowns to find us, and Thirst to get bored and come back to make me cruckle for a while. From there we went to the next mandatory event which turned out to be skits done by our fellow campers to the tune of choice scenes from famous horror movies. We got to see bits from the Birds, Alien, Carrie and my most favorite horror movie, Psycho. The young man who played Janet Leigh's character was hysterical.

Fresh from the skits, and nearing the time when the hunt would end, we were desperate to find a few more pieces of the level 1 SCAG. The only two places we hadn't checked were the Dumpsters, which were infested with Goat Monsters and the pool which was the only place to find leeches. We decided to hit the Dumpsters first and were immediately set upon by the Goat Monsters, who played the favorite trick of all the creatures and got up to hold me from behind and sniff my neck. I smelled a kidnapping coming on so I first tried my usual trick of chattering and complementing his scariness. When that didn't work I pointed to Jen who was digging in the trash and tried to point out that she was very pretty and much more portable that I was. Plus younger so she was obviously the better pick for his kidnapping needs. Instead of taking my bait he rasped out 'You. Pretty.' My first reaction was 'Aw that's so sweet' and then 'Aw, damn it.' Just as I felt his arms tightening up in what I had learned is the signal to being dragged off, Jen popped up out of the Dumpster with a bit of SCAG which promptly caused him to let me go and run over to snatch it from her. Luckily she had another one attached to the bottom of her shoe so she got to keep it.

Down to the wire we decided that we'd better try some of the places that we had visited already to find those last bits of SCAG. One of those places on the list was the Witches Circle so we headed back towards the fields and the Moth men. They immediately saw Jen and spent a few hysterical moments chasing her down so they could wrap her up in their creepy embrace. It was nice not to be the focus of anyone kidnapping needs.

Once that was accomplished, we headed over to the Witches Circle and discovered that we had to pay a piece of the low level SCAG we had already collected to gain entrance.What they wanted was a tiny piece of SCAG in the shape of a Pentacle, which they were referring to as a Devils Coin. Eye roll, judge them not my friends as they do not know. They were also insisting on calling it a Pentagram, another eye roll. The point of the star was going up not creating horns people. If we're going to be using paraphernalia from the Occult, then let's use it properly. But back to the story at hand, the coin was tiny and I knew it was somewhere in the bottom of my bag and I was going to have to search for it. The other three paid their way in while I continued to search my bag....damn it the condom.....no that's the face....damn it the condom again! And that's when he found me. This is the action part of my story.

He is the person I am going to have to refer to as Leather Face for the rest of this tale, because he was wearing a black leather mask. Facile, c'est vrai? You know one of those scary ones that zip across the mouth? He was also wearing the quintessential kidnapping gear of dark jeans and a black leather jacket. I was shining my light in my bag by this point and didn't realize that he was standing right next to me. He made a kind of growl to let me know he was standing in my space and I reacted the way I often do in these situations. I looked up blinked, gave him one of my goofy grins and said, 'Oh hi. I didn't see you there. That's a scary mask you're wearing'. He then went around to my back and did the prerequisite smelling of my neck. He informed me that I smelled like sunflowers, and I couldn't help but point out that we were standing next to the sunflower field. After all I was pretty sure I smelled like the stage blood that I had been getting into all night.

He asked me what I was doing and I said that I was trying to get to my friends. That's when he showed me how deeply committed he was to his character of kidnapper. After all, he couldn't stand next to a woman standing on her own and NOT kidnap her. That would be crazy. Anyways, He wrapped his arms around me and began to frog march me toward the....wait for it.....scary white van.

I've spend a lifetime not walking near nor parking next to these white vans. In my first novel, Speak of the Devil, I even wrote about some of my characters getting pulled into a van like this to die in customarily horrific death scene. Game or not, a white van just screams rape and murder at you. That being said there was no way that I was going over there like a lamb to slaughter.

While he was marching me, and I was slowly but surely digging my feet into the ground, he was whispering in my ear, 'I am your only friend now. You need to do exactly what I say and if you can do that I'll go easy on you'. Well, I decided that this is only an act and I know far he can actually take this. It's not as though he is actually going to hurt me or something.

Never mind that I could feel just how much he was enjoying this role....yes that is exactly what I mean and no unless he was wearing something to fake it I don't think I am mistaken. He took me to the back of the van and pointed to a cage near us and asked me if I wanted to go into the cage. Remembering my earlier experience with the cage I said, 'I would not'. He said then get in the van. I turned around and faced him and said, 'How about we just forget out this and I go find my friends?'. He looked thoughtful for a moment and then screamed, 'Turn around!'. I cocked my head at him and remarked, 'I don't want to get separated from them, surely you can understood that?'. Again he thoughtfully listened before screaming, 'Turn the fuck around!'

Deciding I would humor him, I turned around and promptly got hooded again. Balls. And into the van I go. He told me to scoot in further and give him room and since he wasn't being rude I decided again to humor him. Like I said, I know how far he is going to take this. It's all a game. Balls. Balls. Balls.

He got in behind me and sat with his legs on either side of me and then asked me, 'Are you a virgin?'. My response is like any other red blooded woman in this country, which is to give him a heated, 'I beg your pardon!'. He leans in so that he's talking directly into my ear and snaps, 'Has someone touched your hymen?'.

I am now in full fledged smart ass mode. I'm all about politeness and this question is in my "None of Your Fucking Business" section of my personal handbook. My friends and family might talk about such things but I'm not having a rejoinder on this topic with a creep in a leather mask. I reach up to yank the darn hood off my head and snap back, 'I'm the mother of two children so what do you think?'. He kept me from taking it off and said, 'Don't touch the fucking headdress or I'll make it bad for you'.
   
He was still in my personal bubble and I am more than aware that my bubble is shrinking as he squeezes his legs around me. There really is nothing to make you feel more vulnerable than being between a strangers legs. He tells me, 'By the time we're done here, I'll be the father of your third'. Just as I'm getting ready to tell him to buzz off, the van stops and he jumps out and shuts the door. I yank off the hood and glare at the driver because as far as I am concerned he's in league with this tool bag and he heard what Leather Face said to me. I looked around the interior of the van looking for SCAG because, as I had to remind myself, I am not actually being threatened. This is still just a game and I have things I am looking for. Although to be truthful, there was something about this man that just hit my "This Is A Predator" indicator, and I don't ignore that. I heard him coming back and the driver coughed and looked pointedly at the hood. I sighed and put it back on. In for a penny, in for a pound. It's not his fault, right? He's here to play a character, and that character is apparently the driver for a kidnapping rapist.

Leather Face got back in the van with a new victim who sounded as disgruntled as I was feeling. I thought it was Colleen he had grabbed up and I instantly felt relieved. She's a bad ass. He'll behave himself with her in the van surely. Plus, he too is playing a role. Even if he is enjoying it with unseemly joy. I hear him telling her, 'See what happens when you try to run from me?' And then he's behind me again, and whispering in my ear, 'Don't do anything stupid or I'll rape you right here'. All I can think about at this moment is that if we were in the real world I would pop this guy right in his googly bits. Instead I mutter, 'What the hell ever' and wait for the van to stop.

I try to talk to Colleen and he yells at me 'Shut the fuck up!' and I imagine turning around driving two fingers into the keyhole of his throat to hear him gag. Actor. He's an actor I tell myself. I can understand method acting. For those of you who have never done it, it's when you completely immerse yourself in a role. You literally become the role you are playing. The acting is better and it's usually a more enjoyable experience to watch. I mean, the last role I ever played, I was a college student framing my college professor for rape. I'm not that evil, surely this guy isn't either. Leather Face was certainly not reading from a David Mamet script, but hey give him a break. Right?

As we pull to a stop he goes back into I'm Your Buddy Mode and gently tell me to scoot toward his voice and then helps me out of the van by offering me his arm. Man needs therapy. When he removes the hood we're standing in front of another cage. Seriously? I got in the van and drove with your creepy self just to go back to another cage?

I contemplate making a break for it, but he takes me by the arm and shoves me into the cage with his new victim. Who is not Colleen. Darn it! Ok fine. I've done this before. Ignore him, find the wire in the straw, get the keys and get away from Mr. I'm So Scary. That's when he says it. He stands in front of me, chuckles and says, 'Well Mother of Two, shall we get down to making you the mother of three?" and rubs his crotch. Common sense gives a hiccup and dies.

He's turning his back on me when I say, 'You couldn't handle me sweetheart. I need a man'. Leather Face, the Driver, and a random Counselor who truthfully I didn't pay much attention to because I was so deep in smartassey, freeze and say at the same time, 'What did you say?'. That's when the game stops being so friendly and begins for the next few minutes to feel completely and utterly real. He marches back up to cage and demands that they open the door and let him in. I have a brief moment of 'Whoops maybe I shouldn't have said that', before he's in the cage and the door is being locked behind him. The girl in there with me gives me a panicked look and then all there is him and me.

He marched over and pushed me against the corner of the cage and pressed his body completely into mine. The only way I kept myself my pushing back was by grabbing the cage with both hands, otherwise I think I would have been thrown out. He put his face right in mine and said, 'Did you just say I couldn't handle you because I'm not a man? You want a man sweetheart? I'll give you a man. I'll fuck you until you can't breath and can't remember your name. You think there are rules in this cage? There are no rules in this cage!'.

He then proceeded to climb the cage so his crotch was in my face and then unzipped his pants and showed me his junk. Well at least he would have if I didn't stubbornly close my eyes the moment I knew what he was going to do. He yelled down to me, 'Open your mouth I dare you'. I think that's when his common sense button flashed because he jumped down, zipped up and put a little breathing room between us. That's the moment I realized I needed to get the hell out of there before I decided that I actually needed to defend myself. Or at the very least treat him like one of my guy friends who needs his ass kicked as a sanity check. Ignoring him completely I began to look around the straw on the floor, looking for the wire that had been in the other cage.

While I was looking, the other girl in the cage began to look on her hands and knees and he commanded her to, 'Oink for her Daddy'. She followed his command and he looked over at me and said, 'Get down on your knees and look'. I just gave him the evil eye and continued looking while on my feet. Moving faster than I would have liked, he pushed me up again the side of the cage again and said, 'Do as Daddy says'. I swear by the stars that I had to bite my tongue to keep from telling him that my Daddy told me that if a man ever treated me like that to unman him permanently. Only reason I didn't, is I had a feeling that if I pushed him any farther we might end up testing the no rules theory and then I would definitely have been kicked out.

Regardless of my feelings I needed to find the way out so I got down, found the wire, formed a hook and grabbed that blasted key ring. As I stood up to unlock the door he demanded that I give him the ring and snatched at my hand. As luck would have it all he grabbed was the wire and I couldn't help but chortle and inform him that he had grabbed the wrong thing. Smartassery is also the necessary component for stating the obvious. He pushed me up again the same evil corner trying to force me to give him the key ring. Another thing to note about me is that I am one of the most stubborn women alive. I don't do ANYTHING I don't want to do.

Finally the other girl showed some spunk and reached between us and grabbed the key. Just as she made her way toward the door he tried to grab them from her and she threw them back to me. We spent the next couple of moments playing Keep Away From the Leather Faced Lout. Just when I was sure she was going to get the door unlocked she did something crazy. One of the other Counselors shoved his hand in and said, 'Quick give me the key and I'll let you out!'. And she did. Zoot alors! Sure as the sun rises in the east he opened the door and let our captor out, locked it again and then dropped the keys on the ground. All I could do at this moment was clap my hands over my eyes and concentrate on my breathing as the group outside the cage began to laugh at us. I looked over at her, she mouthed sorry at me. To her credit she picked up the wire and promptly worked on getting the key ring again. Once she had it she stood up and unlocked the door and we should have been free but....noooooo. They released her and Leather Face pointed at me and said, 'She doesn't go free'.

Really???? For the third time in the half an hour I had been trapped with this man, he dropped the keys on the ground. To add salt to my wounds he got down on the ground as I tried to fish them toward me and said, 'You have never seen a man like me. I always get what I want'. My smart mouth responded with, 'Sure I have. I was in law enforcement for ten years. I saw scum bags like you every day'. He laughed at me and started calling me Law Enforcement as well as Mother of Two. Finally I grabbed the key and managed to get the lock undone. As the door opened he offered me a piece of candy....SCAG....to remember my Daddy. I swear I could have kicked him in the knee but I just took it from him smiled as evily as I am capable and said, 'See you around precious'.

Then I ran to find my friends before he shoved me back in the cage. It says Agony on my forehead, not idiot.

Just as I got to my group....and apparently I had missed a mandatory activity during my match with Leather Face, a familiar soul literally jumped out of the darkness to snuffle my neck and make me jump. And giggle, which I whole heartedly needed after that ordeal. God bless you Thirst.

After all the fervor, we realized that we had about ten minutes left and still needed the last two pieces of level 1 SCAG. We split up, with Colleen and Jen running towards the pool to look for a leach and Chadd and I heading off to the Voodoo ritual to see if we could get a head, a heart or something else we hadn't found. Chadd and I struck out, but Jen and Colleen managed to find a leech at the pool. One more piece. That's all we needed and one of us could be Hellmaster.

We were just about to give up when Gak appeared out of nowhere to be the answer to our prayers. She brought the four of us back to the Doctor who had given Colleen the skin mask, and we each reached once again into the corpse to pull out an organ. Chadd was the last to go and he was directed to reach into the crotch of the dummy. He was given a series of small shocks for the entire time his hand was in that hole. To his credit he endured it, pulled out the last organ, and the Doc gave us....a heart! The last piece of level 1 SCAG!

We ran back to the SCAG trading post where we could turn in all our collectables. We volunteered Colleen to be this years Hellmaster on behalf of our group since she was the one who brought us there in the first place. The rest of us took the remainder of our haul and turned in our bags to be given a coveted Great Horror Campout tee shirt. Once we were done, we waited with baited breath as Colleen's loot was counted out and her status as presumptive Hellmaster was confirmed. We did it!

Only one more step was needed. She needed to pass the Horror Movie Trivia Round first thing in the morning. It was now a little after three and we were all tired, dirty and stinky. We made for one fragrant tent let me tell you. I think the funniest part of this whole experience was when Sunflower came by the tent and gave Colleen a foot massage. Service with a smile.

The ladies in our group took a few minutes to change into our jammies and then we all retired. Well to be accurate we dozed and waited for the mayhem we knew was going to happen a little later. We'd all read enough reviews to know that at sometime in the night the creatures were going to invade our tent. As luck would have it right about four in the morning, when I woke up and made my way over to the bathroom, they were set to strike. As I was walking back, I watched the entire cast of characters go to each tent and begin to harass the entire population of campers. I made it back to our tent just in time to see the Cannibal Clowns drag Jen completely out of the tent in her sleeping bag and Colleen partially out. I couldn't help but feel a bit of squee that I missed out on that.

Finally we all went to sleep for a couple of hours and woke up at six thirty in the morning to head over to the closing ceremonies, which included the Trivia Contest that would crown the new Hellmasters.

It was a bit of a close call on a couple of answers, I mean who knows off the top of their head the name of the make up artist for the original Dawn of the Dead, but....Colleen won! They gave her a sash
with the patch for this years Great Horror Campout and gave her a stole of intestines.

The whole journey had not been in vain and our little group couldn't help but preen in pride. As we drove home, each of us with the remains of the word Agony emblazoned on our skulls, we made plans for the next year. We were exhausted, in need of a shower, but none the less pleased with our adventure. Even with Leather Face, the actor who enjoyed his role of kidnapping rapist WAY too much, I had more fun than I can think of in ages. Truthfully maybe even that can be counted as fun since I felt like I gave as good as I got.

I write this account sore as all get out but still glowing from the experience. I caught a couple of hours of sleep this afternoon, threw everything in the wash (including my gore stained tennis shoes) and sat down to type all the notes I would need to recount this story properly. I find myself grinning from ear to ear as I recount the madness, because on the whole it was the most exciting thing that has happened to me in years. So next year be ready. We won't be satisfied until at least half of our intrepid adventurous gain a sash.

As for Thirst, if you do find yourself reading this happy account, feel free to reach out to us. We could always set another plate for Potluck Friday. If your name is Leather Face however, feel free to contact me if you want to see how our little battle would happen in the real world. I'm always open for a rematch.

On to the next adventure!