Ellensburg just got a little scarier with its chilling new attraction, the Haunting Ellensburg haunted house. Haunting Ellensburg takes place at the Kittitas County Fairgrounds every Friday and Saturday, and it opened on Oct. 10.

Kron Events, an educational non-profit organization in Ellensburg, created the haunted house as a way to involve the community.

Director of Haunting Ellensburg, Eric Slyter, has been helping plan this haunted house since last fall.

“It has been so fun coming up with the concept, designing the scares and finding a theme that the audience will be engaged and hopefully frightened by,” Slyter said.

As guests enter the house, they come face-to-face with terrifying zombies and must run for their lives from sinister villagers as they make their way through the old west-themed attraction. The creators of Haunting Ellensburg wanted to avoid the stereotypical haunted house theme.

“We’ve had a lot of volunteers that just want to hide behind a wall and scare people with a mask and a butcher knife,” Slyter said, “and that’s what we’re trying to avoid.”

The goal of Haunting Ellensburg is not to terrorize guests, but to give them goose bumps and leave them feeling spooked.

“Other haunted houses have ‘cheap-startle’ scares, but this one has more of a ‘psychological trauma’ scare,” Ian Storm,  a volunteer, said.

As part of the theme the chilling attraction incorporates local history with help from the Kittitas County Historical Museum, the attraction’s partner.

“We found a creative way for the event to fit the culture of the town and find a theme that’s a little bit out of the ordinary,” Slyter said.

The Haunting Ellensburg website will feature stories from the distant past as well as recent stories from Kittitas County’s own macabre history.

“There’s so much that goes into creating this event,” Slyter said. “There’s a lot of event planning and little things that go into it.”

Thirty volunteers have spent several weeks turning Frontier Village into a terrifying version of an 1800’s village from the old west. The display is complete with elaborate make-up, costumes, sets, lights and other spooky effects.

“We’ve seen a huge amount of interest in the community already, and we’re still getting more volunteers every day,” Slyter said.

“I love getting into character, I’m excited to spook people and see their response.” Laura Genthe, a volunteer who plays an evil headmistress, said.

Volunteers of all ages have been involved with Haunting Ellensburg.

“We have had college students, high-school students, even whole families sign up to participate. Children have come up and asked if they can be zombies,” Genthe said.

Volunteers Stephanie Bury and Brittany Stanley say they are excited to see the reaction of guests.

“We’re trying really hard to make it actually scary, and not just masks and people jumping out at you saying ‘Boo!’” Bury said. “It’s really creepy.”