Sunshine and Rainbows

"So, exactly what happened?"

"It had been a pretty busy day, being the night before Halloween.  Going to a haunted house is the single most popular activity in the month of October.  And after being rained out so many evenings we knew we were going to get slammed.  It's not uncommon for us to get hit with upwards of a thousand people on a night like that so I was just praying to get through the shift without collapsing.  In hindsight I should have known something was wrong, even on crowded nights like that we won't get six SnR's in an hour."

"S N R's?"

"Sunshine and Rainbows- it's our code to tell the other actors to chill.  When someone freaks out, starts losing it, and they don't have somebody with them capable of calming them down the nearest actor is supposed to step in and guide them through.  We call out Sunshine and rainbows so everyone knows to swap out the act for soothing voices and reminders that it's ok, it's not real."

"Did anyone that came through tell you what they saw?"

"Nobody knew what they saw!  Blood, gore- that's all part of the show.  A real body in there isn't going to instantly pop out on your radar with all the special effects.  Strobe lights, fog machines, moving parts, more sounds than WWII- it's sensory overload.  One real body in all that mess?  It's a wonder we found it at all."

"How did you?"

"Well, after we had to call in the medics for the last one that came through- this guy was having a full on panic attack and those look a lot like heart attacks- we had to shut down anyway.  We did walk through from the end backwards and the front on.  We met in the body room and we found him."

"The body room?"

"It's made up to look like a meat locker with bodies covered in plastic hanging from the ceiling that you have to wade through.  Stan had been in the corner popping out at people.  That's where we found him, slumped over with his butcher's costume covered in real blood.  If people hadn't slipped on it they probably wouldn't have even seen him...  There's a reason you're not allowed to touch the actors."