Hayley Hulin
Staff Writer
The Campus Activities Board hosted Scare Fest Wednesday night on the Lawn from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m.
A small crowd of students gathered for the Halloween event featuring Burnt to a Crisp, a Texas smokehouse food truck, an obstacle course from Boot Camp Challenge and a terror truck from Terror Truck Inc.
“For Scare Fest we got together as a group and compared what we did last year,” Steven Santana, broadcast journalism major and CAB co-chair, said. “We did have the terror trucks, and we did have the food truck, and we kind of weighed our options about what we like best.
We felt that the terror trucks were a huge hit, and I know that the students would love that again.”
Students listened to DJ Santana as they signed a safety waiver and waited up to an hour in line for the terror truck.
Amy Escamilla, sophomore psychology major, and her friend Anthony Alvarez, computer information systems major at DeVry University, were anxious before going through the terror truck.
“I’m very paranoid, so I was already scared,” Escamilla said. “Even at the beginning, everything was so tight.”
The truck attacked four of the five senses – all but taste – upon entering. The tight path had obstacles like hanging vines and skeletons protruding from the walls.
For part of the maze, students squeezed through a compressed tunnel. Smoke and dim lighting enhanced the confined space.
“It smelt like wet paint,” Alvarez said.
“I thought that helped. It made your air go away and panic more. As soon as you went in, the first smell of smoke made the environment.”
Terror truck workers used the confined space to their advantage. They grabbed ankles and shoulders as people walked by.
“The guy grabbed me from behind,” Alvarez said. “When I turned, he grabbed me and shook me. That was my least favorite part. I saw him, and thought it was just the guy who opened the door, but it wasn’t.
“He was in all black, and as soon as you walked out he hugged the wall and you just see his little eyes, and then he attacked me.”
“I noticed the sounds,” Escamilla said. “I heard when we were passing we would hear little animals crawling up and spooky music.”
Carla Quiroz, sophomore biology major, and her friends went through twice.
“The second time, the guy asked who hadn’t been on, and we all had been on, so the guy said, ‘Oh cool,’” Quiroz said.
“I kid you not, it went 10 times harder shaking and I hurt my shoulder. They sprayed water on us, and the girl that was grabbing our legs came to us and started grabbing us.”
Scare Fest also offered barbecue briskets from Burnt to a Crisp food truck.
“We felt it matched because it is like zombies being burnt,” Santana said.
“We chose it because it has a cool ambiance with the black and orange,” Allison Wehner, junior legal studies major and CAB co-chair, said.
Burnt to a Crisp received mixed reviews – several students agreed that the food was “alright.”
CAB also offered Halloween gift baskets filled with assorted candy and gift cards for the students with the top five times on the Boot Camp obstacle course.
“My shoes were wet from the grass, so the last part – climbing up – I kept slipping,” Quiroz said. “I slipped down and literally thought, ‘I don’t think I’m going to get out of this.’”
CAB members working the inflatable obstacle course cheered Quiroz, and others who attempted the course, on.
Although the obstacle course and food truck flopped, the terror truck made Scare Fest successful in the eyes of students.
Hayley Hulin can be reached at hayley.hulin@laverne.edu.
