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By Jessica Marghella, Chalee Apessos, Andrew DiGirolamo and Kelly DudenhaverThere’s nothing like a good Halloween ghost story to get an actor’s imaginative juices flowing before a night of scaring customers at a fright farm. In the haunted mansion at RICH’S FRIGHT FARM, make-up scatters the countertops in the back room where head make-up artist, Carrie Jay, tells about her recent brushes with the mansion’s “real” ghosts. “We have all heard the stories, but these past two months have been the scariest,” Jay said. Actors and actresses pack the room, listening to the eerie tale while getting their faces painted and dressing in horror costumes.“My theory is that the spirits died young,” Jay said as she painted an actor’s face white and sketched black scars down his cheeks. “I think that the ghost might want to play with my kids.”Emily Rich, niece of owner, seems to believe the stories. Her family’s haunted house, is, in fact, haunted, she said.“My dad grew up in the house and he seen the ghosts,” Rich said.A cold wind blew through the back door of the heat-filled dressing room. The walking zombies and dead brides sat in the dressing-room chairs, leaning in closer to hear the creepy details. Jay said her children are forbidden to roam around the house alone because of the dangerous objects, but she has heard small footsteps upstairs nonetheless. Once, a stroller rolled across a room at midnight and a child’s laugh echoed in the halls.Others have heard a stomping noise.“One time I was sitting in the house and heard someone running,” said Rich Geisinger, a staff member. “I went to yell at the kids and they were asleep.”As drafts blew through the room, Jay picked up a make-up brush covered in white paint explained how the haunted rooms deserve the names they were given. There is a funeral room, a bug hallway, a serial killer chamber, a harem space, a Dracula passage and a dark basement. “The farm dogs, Abby and Duke, won’t even go under the haunted part of the house,” Grisinger said. The supposedly haunted section of the mansion consists of the six original rooms where the Rich family used to live. After 22 years of business, the house is now three times its original size. The original section rests in between the two relatively new towers that make the Smithfield mansion the largest haunted attraction in western Pennsylvania.When the ghost stories are over and the costumes and makeup are ready, the actors are ready to play the roles of the dead and scare hundreds of guests. “Tonight I’m the flasher in the dark room. How’s this jacket?” said actor Cameron Chisler.“Looks good,” Jay said. ................
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