CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Trick-or-treating and other Halloween fun may be on-hold this year for most children because of COVID-19, but there are alternatives, including a haunted trail that’s COVID-safe in Elgin.
"Terror in the Timbers" opens this weekend at the Big Timbers Boy Scout Camp. Investor Dan Barrie said you stay in your car with windows rolled up the entire time, as you move along a nearly mile and a half torch-lit trail that has 14 scary vignettes inspired by the HH Holmes serial killer character portrayed in the book "Devil in the White City."
"He hid some things somewhere and we think he probably hid some things out in Elgin, Illinois, and there might be some spirits and souls in Elgin that have been awakened," Barrie said.
Barrie said live actors provide most of the scares on the sides and back of your car and other sounds come from your car's radio.
He said his brother, Andy, had been at the camp a few months ago with a Boy Scout leader who was lamenting that, because of COVID-19, scouts would not be able to put on their annual haunted trail through the camp. Thus, was born, the idea of having people safely experience a haunted trail from their cars.
"At the end of that particular scare, you’re going to get another green light and proceed to the next vignette," Dan Barrie said.
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Tickets are $65 per vehicle and need to be purchased online. There are also four afternoons in October for trick-or-treating with treats coming into cars via plexiglass tubes. Family fun trick-or-treating tickets cost $20.
Barrie said Terror in the Timbers can handle 900 to 1,000 cars an evening. The event runs from 6 p.m. to midnight. Cars will be started through the trail every 20 seconds.