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Scared Seriously Silly

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A tall carny barker in a shredded satin jacket pulls this group of kids from John Poole Middle School in Poolesville into a tight, confessional huddle.

"For liability reasons," he begins ominously, he must warn them about two guys who, earlier this Friday night, got "100 feet past the entrance," then raced back out -- crying.

"Thank you," Katie tells him sharply. "That makes us feel better."

By the time he steps back to open the gate, Lauren has disappeared. She stands far to the side, arms crossed over her chest. Her imagination has done her in.

"Lauren!" Katie calls. "You have to you go."

"I'm not going."

"You've gotta go!" cry Katie and the others.

"I'm not going ."

People get scared before the walk has even started; they start to scream before they've even closed their car doors in a parking lot that is a just-mowed soybean field in what the Markoffs themselves call "the middle of nowhere." On weeknights, 800 people will come. Each weekend night: thousands.

So the boys and girls enter without Lauren. Diving into the smoke, they argue over who will open the skull's mouth, then stutter-step across the threshold and howl when a skeleton hisses.

"You just get used to screaming," Katie says.

And the screaming feels good. After all, this is the sport that transmutes fear to euphoria.

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