BY PHIL FEROLITO

WHITE SWAN -- Boo!

Are you scared? Not really?

Well, that was my knee-jerk reaction when my 14-year-old son, Anthony, told me about a haunted house in White Swan that made one of his high school teachers jump several times.

I couldn’t imagine being that scared by something I know isn’t real. With that, my wife, Anndrea, and I decide to take Anthony and his friend Trey to the thrilling extravaganza Wednesday night.

As we embark on the half-hour drive from Toppenish to White Swan, Anthony tells of the scary things he heard of at the haunted house, such as being chased by a guy with a chainsaw, ghouls jumping out to scare you, girls screaming and some even crying as they come out. An apprehensive look fills Trey’s face.

After parking in a large, dark field, we walk through a lodge-pole gate that opens to the old, three-story brick home nestled deep in the dark country.

The large field swept by a crisp breeze and the old dark home off in the distance are creepy enough. But being greeted by two guys draped in black cloaks and skeleton masks proves too much for Trey. He immediately stops and turns back for the gate.

“I don’t want to go inside,” he says quietly, leaning against the gate’s post. And all the convincing in the world doesn’t matter as Trey elects to sit in the car while we go inside.

After paying $10 each to go inside, the three of us file halfway up a narrow wooden stairway that leads to an upstairs door.

I must admit, an apprehensive feeling does fall over me as I hear the noise of a chainsaw and screams echo.

A young couple in front of us heads in first. About 20 minutes later, we are told it’s our turn.

Anthony is supposed to go first, but changes his mind at the last minute. So I take the lead, with Anndrea and Anthony following close behind.

The tattered wooden door opens into a dark, narrow hallway only lit by a purple strip of lights spaced out on the floor.
Anndrea grips my waist as we slowly walk single-file down the hall.

“Ahhh, something grabbed my foot,” Anthony yells. “Someone’s behind me.”

Anndrea’s grip tightens. As we go through, various ghouls embedded in the walls pop out at us. Some wear glow-in-the-dark masks while others light their faces with flashlights.

Ghouls lurch around every corner.

“Someone’s still following me,” Anthony says.

Then the noise of a chainsaw fires up behind us. The smell of two-stroke oil and fuel hang in the air. “Let’s go, let’s get out of here, come on Dad,” Anthony screams.

I even find myself moving a little quicker. There’s just something about someone coming after you with a running chainsaw that evokes a sense of urgency.

As we continue, the path gets narrower with little sign of which way to go. Then someone pops out, startling us, before pointing into a dark room where four doors marked Exit stood. Only one has a door handle.

It leads to a lit stairwell, where we find the young couple who had entered long before us hunkered down. We think we are at the end, but learn we are only about half way through.

They are afraid to go on, and ask if we’d go in front of them.

Now there are five of us, and we continue through a meandering corridor where ghouls lurch around corners and pop out of walls. It leads to a room where a bloodied body lies on a gurney. A stocky guy wearing a hockey mask shuffles from side to side as if he were planning to attack.

Taking the lead, I begin to cut through the room when all of sudden he violently pounds on a nearby counter and confronts me with a knife.

The thriller series "Friday the 13th" immediately popps into my mind, and partly into reality.
For a split second, I think, what if this isn’t a joke and things get out of hand? After nearly scaring us out of our shoes, he let us pass without incident.

We continue to follow the winding corridor packed with more startling ghouls and scary figures, finally coming into the home stretch. We can see the basement doors ahead. It has to lead to the outside.

But to the left we suddenly hear another chainsaw. A guy who looks much like the killer in “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” turns around and revs up the saw. Anthony and Anndrea scream. So does the other couple.

“He’s coming, he’s coming, let’s go,” Anthony urges. I can feel him repeatedly bump against me and Anndrea in his effort to dart out.

More screams from my wife and the couple.

But in keeping with the Halloween spirit, I grab both rails at the bottom of the stairwell tight, not allowing anyone to pass.
About 10 seconds go by, and the chainsaw killer is on our heels. The suspense gets to be too much. I let go, and we all bolt upstairs and through the old wooden doors.

Finally, we are outside.

If you go
Directions: Head west on Fort Road, turn left on Signal Peak Road in White Swan, then turn left again on Mission Road. Haunted house is  about half-way down the road on the left.
Tonight: 5 to 11 p.m.
Halloween: 5 to 11 p.m.
Saturday: 5 to 9 p.m.