A pile of bloody intestines sat on the railing of the chain-saw
massacre room.
”
Nothing good is going to happen in here,
”
Oscar Garcia said ominously.
Gilroy – A pile of bloody intestines sat on the railing of the chain-saw massacre room.
“Nothing good is going to happen in here,” Oscar Garcia said ominously.
He repeated the warning several times as he wandered through Gilroy’s new maze of terror. Black halls connect the chambers where a lunatic clown, killer gorilla and other freaks and ghouls lie in wait, and there’s really no safe place to hide.
“A lot of people cower in the corners and wait for the monsters to jump out,” Garcia explained. “It’s like an accordion effect, with the biggest to the smallest lined up. We get them there too.”
A family passion for frightening the public will rise from the dead tonight at the old Wal-Mart off Arroyo Circle, where brothers, sisters, cousins and friends will hold the “worlds largest haunted house.”
The claim to fame was coined during the event’s heyday at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds in the ’80s and ’90s, when people often ran screaming into the streets of San Jose.
“We would chase people out across Tully Road,” Matt Salinas recalled. “We’re going to keep a tally in the back this year on how many people throw up, faint, need ambulances.”
Garcia said his great uncle Jesus Garcia started the haunted house in 1981 as a way to keep kids off the streets. It eventually grew into a major event that drew 10,000 people a year. The family and its friends operated the haunted house until its founder died in 1996.
Oscar Garcia, who still has old chairs, masks and other paraphernalia, has been looking for a suitable venue for the event for several years. The relocation of Wal-Mart last year to a larger space off Pacheco Pass offered the perfect chance to start up again. Garcia and about a dozen others have spent the last week working late into the night to set up the haunted house. It occupies about a quarter of the 125,000-square-feet of space and will take 10 to 20 minutes to navigate.
“If you think about it, that’s a long torture,” said Tara Salinas. “Everybody here was at that old haunted house. I was a little girl at the old one and it used to freak me out. I knew I had to do this.”
What can those brave enough to enter the haunted house expect?
“Spooks around every corner,” Salinas said.
Her husband Alex put it more bluntly: “Fear.”
Tickets for the event cost $12 for adults and $8 for kids 12 and younger. A coupon for $1 off can be found on the Web site (www.worldslargesthauntedhouse.com), along with directions to the old Wal-Mart store at 7900 Arroyo Circle.
If you get lost, just follow the screams. …
