point of murder. Relief poured off me in a cold sweat. No dead
bodies. But the palpable presence of some twisted imagination was
only a marginal improvement over actual corpses. To make matters
worse, I was now entirely lost in the maze, wanting only to be
somewhere else, most especially picking up my kids from the
school bus. Thinking of them, I gathered my wits and moved as
quietly as possible, wanting to avoid detection by the satanic cultists
I envisioned.
On my search for a way out, I encountered additional rooms
hacked into the reeds: a mocked-up prison cell with an electric
chair, a hospital room with a straitjacketed patient and an ominous
nurse, and, finally, an open grave with a long-nailed occupant
crawling from it. After another long pass through the eerie reeds,
the lane emerged into the parking lot. The light stanchions now cast
long shadows and my car was visible way down at the other end. I
patted for my keys in my pocket. Still there. I could probably make
it. I couldn’t see if the gate was open or closed. I turned for one last
look behind me. Off to the side, a nicely lettered sign was pounded
into the ground:
Solvay Lions Club
Haunted Hayrides
October 24–31
8 pm–midnightI laughed myself silly. But then I had to cry.
The Solvay waste beds: how very fitting a venue for our fears.
What we ought to be afraid of isn’t in the haunts, but under them.
Land buried under sixty feet of industrial waste, trickling toxins into
the sacred waters of the Onondaga and the home of half a million