Spookers Page #4

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he would've been my other son for real

because I don't look at him

any differently from my own.

He's been calling me mum since not

long after he started working

and we've just always got on.

I love him so much.

I love him like he's my own.

JAKE:
It was on Halloween two years ago,

whoever wanted to volunteer

to donate blood.

I've never donated blood, ever,

so I thought,

'Oh, I'll go along and

donate blood as well.'

And we all got ready at

Spookers, early morning...

it was just like a normal

day... and donated blood.

Everything was cool.

My phone was going off

quite a lot over the weekend.

There was a person from the blood lab.

The doctor told me to sit down in this room

and my blood results said come

back and I had HIV positive.

JUNEEN:
I was at work on the

day that he found out the news.

And I got this phone call saying

that he needed to talk to me.

I got outside and he was just devastated.

It broke my heart because...

just seeing the type of person that he is

and then for him to get that bad news,

your heart just breaks.

(GROWLING)

(EERIE MUSIC)

(CRASHING LOUD NOISE)

(CRASHING LOUD NOISE)

JAKE:
My fear was dying.

And how others would react to it.

My own mum and dad and

my brothers and sisters,

I was... They had to find out through

social media, I didn't tell them.

It actually took a month and

a half after I was diagnosed

that my own father came and found me.

And the state that I was

in, it wasn't a good state.

Yeah.

HUIA:
We all supported him.

Yeah, it didn't change anything.

Just treated him the same way we would.

You know.

So, yeah...

It doesn't change him as a person.

He's still the exact same

person we met, you know,

when he first started working there.

So, yeah...

(CRASHING, SCREAMING AND GROWLING)

(GROWLING)

(SCREAMING)

SPEAKER:
Get away from my baby!

SPEAKER:
My hands! My hands!

(MUSIC AND SCREAMING)

SPEAKER:
Chainsaw!

(CHAINSAW NOISE, SCREAMING)

(RADIO CRACKLE)

BETH:
OK, go again.

BETH:
Copy, (INAUDIBLE), thank

you. I'll get it done now.

Oh, so, what's happened

is we've had some customer

who's got a really bad fright

and crapped their pants.

ANDY:
People certainly have a

fascination with fear and, you know,

sometimes people will

be absolutely terrified

and in the extreme they might

wet themselves and so on.

(SCREAMING)

And you think, 'Why are

these people doing this?'

And maybe it's testing themselves,

maybe it's peer pressure often as well.

But ultimately they're there to have fun

and we train the actors so that

they understand the boundaries

of when it's moved beyond fun.

So sometimes we have to Shh

for some customers because

you know they're right

on their personal limits.

BETH:
It's so sad when

that happens and, I mean,

we try really hard to look after

them because, you know, I mean,

if they are traumatised, that actually,

it's real, it's absolutely real.

And it's so important that we keep

all the actors away from them

and make sure that they feel safe.

We had one girl who came back and she said,

"I was so sure I could do it this time,

this is the fifth time."

And I've talked to myself and I've told

myself that it was all just make-believe

and everything was going

to be OK. But it's not."

So I don't know if she's going

to come back for a sixth try.

- ANDY:
Yeah.

- BETH:
Yeah.

(SOPRANO SINGS ARIA)

(MUSIC CONTINUES)

(MUSIC CONTINUES)

INTERVIEWER:
And why do you think people

want to go to this maze to get scared?

That's why they come... to get scared.

DEBORAH:
I have no idea. I don't know.

I've never understood horror.

I've never understood horror stories,

probably because I've spent the

bulk of my life being so anxious

and living in fear.

The idea of doing that

purposely to yourself...

which essentially is what I did...

it doesn't sit with me or

resonate with me at all.

I've got no understanding of that.

I get my thrills from

doing very ordinary things

because ordinary things

are extraordinary for me.

Going out, being able to get

in the car and drive somewhere,

that's extraordinary.

For someone who's been incarcerated

for 18 years, that's extraordinary.

Being able to get up when you want to,

admittedly I have to go to work

and do things like that...

but I get to drive there.

INTERVIEWER:
And what do you do now?

DEBORAH:
I work at the university

but I also work clinically,

working with people

who hear voices as well.

I got married and I had children,

I did all those supposedly

very ordinary things.

All of those things are a source

of amazement and wonderment to me.

They give me a huge thrill.

I don't need to come to mazes,

I spent over 20 years of

my life living in a maze.

VOICEOVER FROM ELECTRIC CITY BY MUSIC

INSTRUCTOR:
Already many of the

mutants disguised as human beings

are walking the streets of earth's cities.

SPEAKER:
Come buy a sausage.

SPEAKER:
(INAUDIBLE)

SPEAKER:
Only two dollars.

SPEAKER:
Only two dollars.

Come buy a sausage.

Sausages are beautiful.

Sausages are beautiful.

Sausages are beautiful.

Especially with bread and sauce.

Sausages are beautiful.

Sausages...

Na-Na-Na-nah

JUNEEN:
I pretty much fell

into the insurance field.

Nobody really plans for that kind of

career so, yeah, fell into that one.

And it is very stressful,

especially when you have either a major

disaster like the

Christchurch earthquakes or,

you know, just something big that happens.

Or even arguing about the value of a car,

everybody thinks that what

they've purchased a car for

is exactly what they're going

to get when it gets written off,

but that's not the case.

So, you know, it got pretty stressful,

it really, really affected me.

The stress now, I can't deal with.

I go into a complete panic and shut down.

(EVIL BABY NOISES)

(INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC)

(BABY CRYING)

(ELECTRONIC MUSIC)

INTERVIEWER:
And what do

you think your dream meant?

JUNEEN:
Me as a mummy and then

as a child under the table

is pretty much how you feel

when you're just overcome

with so much emotion on

so many different levels.

Dealing with depression and

anxiety is kind of like that.

It's kind of like you're bound with all

these emotions and you can't get free.

This time last year I was in hospital.

This time last year I didn't have any

hope and I tried to kill myself.

But this time, this

year, it's so much better.

Make-up's going to run now.

(SINGING)

(SINGING)

BETH:
1999 we started.

ANDY:
Yeah. A long time now, isn't it?

The first year we did the wool shed

we had a problem in our community,

we had a couple of suicides

so it was really tragic.

So we went to, you know, people

that were our friends and we said

you can have one area in the wool shed

to make your own haunted house.

It was sort of 1000 or

$2000 was the prize...

BETH:
No, it was $1000

was the prize for the...

- ANDY:
Best room, yeah.

- BETH:
For the best room, yeah.

ANDY:
And people could

vote on the best room

and they would get that money

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