AWA: Academic Writing at Auckland

“Star Hurt in Clown Chainsaw Chase” is the headline that appears in the newspaper the next day. There are three types of people who will read this article. The first type are those people who weren’t there. They will read this article with slight bewilderment, probably offer a soft chuckle, and move on to the next fluff piece. The second type are those people who were there, but not right there. They were most likely in the house, their cries of terror and excitement echoing throughout the large building. Maybe if they weren’t screaming so much themselves, they might have heard the real screams coming from the forest outside. The third type are those people who were there – right there. Right there amidst the chase, running with pounding hearts and facing true horror when they heard the deafening crack and a scream of pain. I am the third type of person.

Meeting famous people is what I do. Those who are obsessed with celebrities and fame are often ridiculed and made out to be crazy lunatics who break into Sandra Bullock’s house while she hides terrified in her own closet. Well, that was one guy. Those people do exist. But I am not one of those people. Famous people are just my thing. I tend to enjoy researching the lives of strangers and investing my time into finding out mundane details about people, whether they are glamorous movie stars or infamous serial killers. And so, when the opportunity arises to meet one of my very favourite famous people, there’s no way that I’m going to pass it up. In October of 2014, I met AJ Buckley, a television star most well-known for his roles as Adam Ross in CSI: New York and Ed Zeddmore, one of the Ghostfacers in Supernatural. AJ is a man who is incredibly kind and can say so many curse words in one sentence, it’s actually impressive.

I was given the opportunity to spend a night with AJ Buckley and two other actors – Travis Wester and DJ Qualls - at New Zealand’s famous haunted attraction Spookers. Along with about twenty other people, I met the boys in a parking lot, hopped on a bus with AJ, Travis, and DJ, and travelled to Spookers to endure a night of terror and fun. AJ, Travis and DJ had no idea what they were getting into. Through some unusual miscommunication, the three men were under the impression that we were going to a house to listen to someone tell us ghostly stories. I think that those men regret getting on that bus.

I have never seen grown men so afraid. Never have I really fully experienced what happens to the human body when it believes that it is in life threatening danger. These grown men who had probably faced many dangers in their long and strenuous lives as actors were trembling like children; their eyes so wide with fright, the curse words emerging from their lips at such an incredible speed. Early in the night, a couple of clowns with smiles painted a sickly red and colourful jumpsuits smeared with blood came up to Travis and DJ and screeched in their faces, pulled on their clothes, and chased them around the grounds. I noticed that AJ was not present. I turned my attention away from the horror show in front of me and saw something that made me quite sad. AJ was hiding behind a tree. He looked so afraid, and the fear in his eyes made me determined to help him. As we were waiting to go into the haunted house, where the real horror show would begin, I walked up to AJ and put my hand on his arm. I said, “Don’t worry. It’s going to be ok. I’ll help you.” AJ looked down at me and smiled. This interaction was the beginning of a friendship that would grow throughout the night.

Emerging from the haunted house forty-five minutes later, I felt as if poor AJ might faint at any second. We were faced with horribly frightening things in that house. I stuck by AJ’s side the entire time, even offering myself as a sacrifice to one of the “monsters”, who dragged me away and left me in an abandoned room. When the lights turned off and we were left in pitch black darkness, walking through hallways where the walls touched both sides of your arms and hands grabbed at your feet as you ran, I held AJ’s hand and guided him to safety.  

We approach the moment now when the fake horror turns into real horror. The moment when what was once fun and thrilling is now alarming and distressing. AJ Buckley is about to break some bones.

It happened in the forest. We were two hours into the night and AJ was at his wits end. His throat is hoarse from screaming and his body is aching from enduring so many frights. We treaded along a dirt path, surrounded by a sea of trees and bush, led through the darkness only by a single torch light. Every cracking twig made us jump and the distant howls of pretend beasts made our skin crawl. I hoped that there would be a great lead up to the climactic moment, but this wasn’t the case. One moment, we were walking through the forest and the next, a clown had jumped out of the bushes beside us, a chainsaw firm in hand and roaring ferociously. That was the breaking point for AJ. He ran and we all ran after him because he had run off into the forest without a torch. He was running out of pure fear, the darkness swallowing him up. The adrenaline coursing through me allowed me to catch up with him. I was not even two metres behind him when it happened. There was an old, wooden bridge lying ahead of us. AJ ran onto the bridge and half way across, one of the planks under his feet broke, his leg falling through the gap. Because of the speed at which he was running, his leg stopped, but the rest of his body didn’t. I heard the loud crack of the plank breaking and then a second loud crack. And then he started screaming. His screams were no longer ones of terror, but ones of pain. I knew something was wrong, and then he yelled “My leg! My leg is broken!” And so it was.

We stood in the middle of a forest in the middle of the night, unknown creatures hiding around every corner and a clown with a chainsaw gaining on us. AJ had frantically pulled his foot out of its wooden prison and in doing so had torn the tendons in his ruined leg. We didn’t know what to do. The clown eventually reached us and began his routine to scare us. “We need help!” I said, and he started to laugh, unaware of the seriousness of the situation. I approached him and stammered, “Seriously, this guy is hurt! You need to go and get help.” The clown stopped. He looked around at us, six worried young girls and AJ, leaning on the railing and grimacing in pain, his leg at an odd angle and already starting to swell. And then the clown left. And he never came back. We waited on the bridge for what felt like hours, but help never came. The clown may not have really been a psycho murderer, but he sure was a bastard. Eventually AJ insisted that he was ok and that he could make it back. He just wanted to get out of the forest and back to safety. We supported AJ the rest of the way back and strangely, nobody else jumped out to scare us.

We made it back and decided that we definitely needed a rest and some food. AJ kindly bought us a pizza and a large plate of kumara chips to share and rested his leg. After having a bite to eat and relaxing in the safety of the restaurant, he started to look much better. He was smiling and laughing, signing autographs and sharing stories with Travis and DJ. He asked me what else we had to do that night, and I told him that we had one more attraction to go through. I told him that we could leave it out but courageous AJ insisted that we carry on. He said he wanted us to have a good time and finish the night. So we left our empty plates with full stomachs, feeling re-energised and ready for more excitement. In the next hour, AJ would emerge with another broken limb. AJ broke his hand, and I honestly cannot say how he did this, but I believe he punched a wall for some unknown reason.

Our night finally came to an end, bringing AJ immense joy. We had good conversation on the ride back, and left each other with a hug and a kiss on the cheek as I went back to my home and he went off to the hospital. There are many things that you can find out about celebrities through the internet and books and magazines, but there are some things that you will only ever discover and experience with others by sharing a moment together in reality. The newspapers tried to capture what had happened in the grounds of the old mental asylum that night, but their words did not do the night justice. Only those who were there will know about the ludicrousness that took place. I saw AJ again the next day. He was in a wheelchair with a large white cast on his broken hand and a moonboot on his leg. He remembered me from the night before and I was very touched.