As screams cut through Ramona on Halloween night, rumors began to circulate of a local haunted house “too terrifying” to finish.  Wild stories spilled out from young and old alike about a chainsaw-wielding madman, corpses and real bones scattered about dismembered bodies.  
   In Ramona?  Yes, Ramona.  The kicker is the location.  
   This frightfest of special effects is sponsored by the Freeman family and held at a daycare center on Rancho Bullard Lane, off H Street.
   People all over the country seek out “the ultimate scare,” year after year.  Haunted houses pop up each year in a kind of “Shocktoberfest” in hopes of eliciting screams from thrill-seekers brave (or foolish?) enough to walk through the creepy backdrops and macabre sets.  For the past three years, Freeman family members Peggy, George and son John have been creating horrific scenes for friends and family.
   John began the yearly ritual while talking with friend and special effects artist Travis Weikel.  
   “I just wanted to decorate a room for Halloween to make it fun for the kids and my mom,” said John.  “She liked what I did so much that she bought a few more decorations for the next year and I had to make it into two rooms.  Then, she kept buying more and I had to keep adding rooms!”  
   With a sheepish grin, Peggy said, “Well, the more he got excited, the more I wanted to provide to give him what he was thinking.  It was fun!   Christmas was always my thing. They do it for me because I like it.  I gave this for him to enjoy.”
   “What started it for mom was she got the butler,” said John, “so I put up some spider webs on the porch for her kids, blocked off just the patio with a simple scene. She really liked it. Then we went to the graveyard.”
   The scenes kept growing.  This family of frightmasters has developed 14 different scare zones to push the limits of the unsuspecting public.  
   The beginning of the scream zone happens in a somewhat not-so-scary maze set up for “normal” parents visiting with their little trick-or-treaters.  The twists and turns through spiders, witches and creepy-crawlies come to an end as one enters a cemetery complete with ghosts and skeletons.  
   The “normal” trick-or-treaters are invited to look around and then exit calmly through the left into a pleasant area of blow-up decorations of various sizes and excitement.  The thrill-seekers and “tough guys” are shown the entrance to where the real excitement begins.  Tough guys?  Well, the same young men were seen minutes later, running faster than a quarterback and screaming as if their very lives depended on the pitch of the sound coming out of them.
   The ghoul-ing setup began at Peggy’s Daycare, according to John, the first week in September. George and Peggy operate the daycare while John sets up the frightful scenery when he’s not working as a salesman for Ramona’s C.E.D.  
   John’s daughter Haley, 10, helped set up some of the display.  
   “I think it’s cool!” she exclaimed. “I can’t wait to scare the poop out of people!”  
   John tells of the first year when one of the parents of the daycare came through.  
   “I jumped out and scared her and she just started beating on me!  I had bruises everywhere!”  
   From that day forward, according to John, there is always a prop between John and the ‘victim.’
Each room has a specific theme of its own and is carefully designed and put together in a twist of reality-bending that only a lover of mayhem and horror could possibly conceive—or a special effects artist. There is a maze, a pirate room, spider room, snake room, wedding chapel, asylum, dark maze, gypsy room, vampire room, graveyard and a meat room.  
   Without going into specific details, suffice it to say the rooms are undeniably realistic.  So realistic  that it was not possible to obtain opinions from anyone leaving the scene: The visitors were all running!  
“I try to save the scariest parts until they are out of the maze itself, but people still break through the barrier tape trying to get away,” said John.  
   The Freemans begin the holiday haunt with friends and daycare families going through the maze during parties held before Halloween.  
   “We knew we had a good one this year,” said Peggy “when Pooh Bear went running down the street!”
   The attraction gathered a record crowd this year.  
“This is the biggest year we ever had,” said George.  “A few people wouldn’t even go through it (this writer thinks perhaps it had something to do with the creepy butler or disemboweled zombie). Some turn around after the first room!  Grownups run. It has been so much fun!”  
   When the scare zone morphed into several different rooms, originally John was doing all the running around.  In a crazy race of costume changing and wall banging, it was an exhausting evening for the solo frightmaster.  
   This year, actors came in as extras interspersed throughout the rooms.  
   “With real characters now, you don’t know who is real or not,” said John.  
   With a laugh, Peggy talked about the previous year.  “It was so funny because there weren’t a lot of people helping John,” she said. “He was jumping over bushes, trying to get from room to room to scare people. It was so great.  He had a good time, but you should have seen how tired he was.”
   During the 2007 fires, the family suffered a loss of about $10,000 to all the props because of heavy winds and ash. Skipping the party that year allowed the Freemans a bit of time to plan for the next.  
   With the exception of new props purchased each year, the fog juice is among the most expensive items. It has to be split up and tested every night because the fog is changed by wind, moisture, etc.  
   But the party goes on. With talent and determination winning out, John constructs coffins, pirates are placed and spider webs spun.  
   As Peggy cooks a party meal fit for the ghoulish cast members, it is clear the Freeman fright style has oozed into the kitchen.  Hanging skeletons are made out of milk jugs with the traced hands and feet of the children who attend the daycare. Eyeball eggs, monster cakes, watermelon “brains” and spiders await consumption.
   A mix of fun, talent and imagination comes to life in the eyes of each member of the Freeman family.  As a tongue-in-cheek argument ensues over who is really the instigator of the event, it is clear the evening is looked forward to by each one of them.
   For seekers of the macabre and grotesque, one needs only to seek out the ghoulish abode on Rancho Bullard Lane next year.  No need to travel beyond the boundaries of a quiet country town.  
   Just a thought to anyone looking forward to next year’s madness: Make sure you can run faster than the person you are with and remember to wear tennis shoes. Heels don’t work when running from the Ripper.