Be warned, if you turn off Route 220 and pass through Pennsdale after dark, shocking and grotesque creatures await in the night.
For the fourth year, the Pennsdale Fire Co. is raising life-saving funds supplying frights on its property at 261 Village Road.
Proceeds from the fire company's haunted barn, hayride and corn maze go into improving the property and the company's firefighting equipment.
This Halloween season marks the second year that the fire company's barn has been infested with ghouls and goblins, and many volunteer hours went into turning the barn into a spook haven.
The barn was damaged during a summer storm, and Dawn Palmatier, of Pennsdale, who co-coordinated the event with fellow Ladies' Auxiliary member Janine Alpaugh, said the barn roof got patched just in time for the event to open.
"We want to raise enough to replace the whole roof," she said.
On a recent night, a line of people waited inside the barn in the first room to enter the haunting.
Scrolling messages projected on the wall told participants what they were going to get themselves into when they stepped inside - "Intense audio, lighting, a physically demanding environment, extremely low visibility, strobe lights and fog."
A witch with blue and green streaked hair works the door.
"I'm the good witch I tell people - because of the hair," the witch, otherwise known as Denise Artley, of Pennsdale. explained
"Sometimes the ghouls do get hungry," she told those about to enter.
The barn holds plenty of surprises, and lots of live actors. The Montgomery Drama Club and the Muncy Cheerleaders are volunteer ghouls, and whoever is behind the many masks this night make convincing noise.
There are surprising items, too, such as butcher hooks - left over from a past life of the barn, Palmatier said - a compact car, and a black-lit room that might be a Superfund site.
"Put the word out and you'll be surprised what people come up with for you," Palmatier said.
There are more surprises, but no more of the barn's dark secrets need to be ruined here.
If visitors make it back outside the barn, they can hop on the haunted hayride, which takes riders down to Mount Equity and back while avoiding the ghouls who have meandered further into the Pennsdale night.
Or they can take their chances in the corn maze., which was designed in-house.
"We cut the stalks when they got knee high," said Nick Palmatier, a Muncy freshman, who was dressed like a lineman from Hades in his winter work outerwear, walkie-talkie and face paint.
Muncy Township Police Chief Christopher McKibben laid the maze out and deserves a lot of credit, Palmatier said.
Painted ghouls rush through the stalks on their own ghostly paths. An axe man stares at those climbing onto the hayride.
Some people laugh, and others look like they're getting their pants scared off to their satisfaction.
The Pennsdale Fire Co. Haunted Barn, Corn Maze and Hayride is open from 6-11 p.m. Friday and Saturday. A fee is charged.
There will be a parade at 5 p.m. Saturday.
More information is at pennsdalefireco.com.
