Thirteen Days of Screams in Westbrook, Connecticut, All for Charity

WESTBROOK - Shop, eat, catch a movie, and get scared; four things that you will soon be able to do this Halloween season at Tanger Outlet Center in Westbrook between October 19 and 31.

This is the third year that the mall has been the site of the Kid's Haunted House and this year, organizers Dan and Jill Coan hope it will be the most successful.

What once had its meager beginnings in the Coan's one-car garage has grown and is being housed this year in the nearly 7,000-square-foot former Springmaid Wamsutta store located in outlet building E, closest to the movie theater, and next to Christa's Café.

Compared to last year, Dan said, everything is bigger and there will be 12 frightening rooms in the haunted house with close to 200 feet of hallways.

An inflatable skeleton on horseback with an inflatable ghost greet visitors in a large corral area where they will wait to enter.

"Probably the busiest is on Friday and Saturday nights were there can be a fifteen to twenty minute wait," Jill said, adding those looking to beat the crowd should come during the week.

Even though the entire attraction is inside and one can be lulled into a false sense of security, visitors will get scared.

"There could be a monster yelling at you," Dan warned, adding that actors behind curtains will be waiting for those who dare to enter.

Between 70 and 80 are expected to assist in the event with about 40 of those being kids.

"Hopefully kids will learn at a young age that doing things for the community is their obligation," Dan said, adding that some are meeting their school's community service requirements.

Dan, who works full-time as a yacht rigger, has setup several attractions, such as the "scaredey cat", for behind-the-scenes actors to activate allowing objects to fall onto a visitor's head and then just as suddenly go back up in the air.

In addition to strobe lights and decorations, the haunted house features motion-activated terror.

Some of the rooms in the haunted house include a library, dining room, jail cell, mad scientist lab, demented daycare, torture chamber, haunted warehouse, and a pirate room.