"You're kidding," said Mr. Chin, shaking his head in astonishment.

"No. Really. He screams like a young girl going through a bad frat initiation," I said.

"Wow, I never imagined..."

"Now what?" There was a commotion in back of us. We were standing in line, waiting to get into The Maze, a new addition to Psycho Clan's Nightmare: Ghost Stories, New York City's favorite haunted house attraction.

"Hey, looks like Lawn decked the ghost," said Mr. Chin, chuckling.

A guy wearing a white sheet had been keeping things lively by sneaking up on people waiting in line to give them a quick fright. He was now on the floor, balled-up in a fetal position and moaning horribly, although this time I don't think he was acting. Lawn Gisland, former movie cowboy and rodeo star, had slugged him hard.

"Lordy, sorry, so sorry, buddy," said Lawn, leaning over the prostrate ghost. You oughtn't have snuck up on me like that. It was pure instinct is all." The ghost moaned louder, tightly clutching his white sheet as he rocked back and forth. Two guys wearing wireless headsets came running over and carried him away. They gave Lawn dirty looks.

Going through the new Nightmare: Ghost Stories haunted attraction, Face Your Fear, can be quite a test for your nerves, as Mr. Chin, Lawn, myself and Zombos soon found out.

Mr. Chin insisted on doing The Maze first, but the many screams emanating from it didn't endear me to that idea. Groping around in the dark without Riddick's eyesight, through claustrophobic, tortuous passages filled with disoriented people desperately searching for the exit, and spookers hiding around every corner waiting to scare you is — oddly — not much fun for me.

I let the eager Mr. Chin go first, then pushed Zombos ahead of me. He scowled, but I'm only his valet, not his bloody bodyguard. Lawn followed Zombos. I took a deep breath and plunged into the pitch blackness of terror. Within the first two minutes I realized my strategy of always following the right-side wall, and always turning right at corners, wasn't working well.

"Mr. Chin?" I called out.

"Over here," he said.

I groped in the direction of his voice. "Where's Zombos and Lawn?"

Someone ahead of us screamed like a young girl during a fraternity hazing.