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The Michigan Daily | michigandaily.com | Thursday, October 29, 2015
the b-side
Lights On
Fall had peaked on Saturday as we drove down the winding
road speckled with autumnal hues and overarching amber trees.
Nature’s festive display almost made me forget the reason Hailey
and I were taking a half-hour trek out of Ann Arbor.
Growing up on ghost stories and Halloween, haunted sites and
lore have always intrigued me — at least, from a distance. I was
eager to snag the opportunity to write about walking through a
haunted forest, but it took until the day of our trip to the Terror-
fied Forest for my rational mind to kick into action and my feet
to turn cold. Memories of walking through haunted forests with
my grandma reeled through my head: My grandma, born on Hal-
loween and predestined to enjoy it, had laughed the whole way;
while I, a middle schooler who had just overcome my fear of dogs,
did not.
Around 7 p.m., we followed an arrow sign into a field at the end
of the road. The late-October dusk was just beginning to settle as
we stepped out of Hailey’s Jeep, and we were greeted by a man
dressed in black who spoke with a deep voice. After discovering
we were reporters, not actors for the forest, he led us to meet one
of the owners, Cindy Murphy-Broadbent, at her house not far from
the parking lot. There, we were welcomed by a dozen ghouls gath-
ered around a bonfire, applying their terrifying makeup. A woman
with bloody barbed wire wrapped around her face pressed flesh
wounds to a man’s face; another woman was smearing white paint
over her cheekbones while a third monster airbrushed an actor’s
face.
Murphy-Broadbent came out of the house. She was an older
woman, with cropped white hair and a lifelong passion for Hal-
loween. As she approached, an actress mentioned that the house
was decorated with spooky decor all year long.
“I just always liked Halloween,” Murphy-Broadbent said. “You
can dress up if you want, you don’t have to if you don’t want. You
can give candy if you want, you don’t have to if you don’t want. You
can have a lot of fun with it, or you don’t have to. So, it’s a great
holiday.”
The Terrorfied Forest was first created as a haunted hayride
surprise birthday party. The party was such a hit that Murphy-
Broadbent and her husband, Dean, continued to host it for five
years until friends convinced them to open it to the public. Now it’s
a 30-minute walk for three-quarters of a mile through the woods.
The forest opens for business the second weekend of September
through Halloween night, as well as on the Friday the 13th in No-
vember.
It was inching closer to 8 p.m. when the trail officially opened.
Murphy-Broadbent offered to lead us back to the entrance so she
could open the ticket booth. The man who we had seen being
made-up with fake flesh had now transformed into a monster; he
snuck up behind us as we lingered, growling and barking. Hailey
shrieked. We eagerly left the ghouls.
INTO THE
WOODS:
a trip to the
Terrorfied
Forest
by Emma Kinery and Hailey Middlebrook
Daily Arts Writers
Photo by Virginia Lozano | Cover by Mariah Gardziola
See HAUNTED FOREST, Page 2B