Chelsea Waller shrieked and hid behind a friend when “The Beast” jumped in front of her as she waited to go through the haunted house in Farmer City.

“When people pop out, that scares me,” the 15-year-old from Ridgeview, Ill., said.

Waller and her friends were just four of the 30 people anxiously waiting in line to enter “Hall of Horrors” on its opening weekend. The haunted house is open for its third year of business.

“Join us this year if you dare,” states a flyer by the entrance.

The house, called the “Scarecrow Building,” is located on Main Street in downtown Farmer City, a town of 2,100 people about 25 miles northwest of Champaign.

For $7, visitors can walk or crawl through more than 28 pitch-black, horror-themed rooms without a tour guide. At least one actor waits in each room, poised and ready to scare visitors. The haunted house, with themes ranging from movies to serial killers, aims to attract mostly high school and college kids.

“As we get closer to Halloween, we get a lot of (University) kids, and that’s what we want,” Executive Director Robert Allen McIlvain said.

Sponsored by Farmer City Merchants Association & Tourism Inc., proceeds from the haunted house provide donations for charities and events, such as an egg hunt held at the South Park in Farmer City every spring.

“We’re a non-profit organization that does different events in town,” McIlvain said. “This is our fundraiser to do that.”

The goals of the organization are to bring out-of-town people to Farmer City, have fun and entertain kids, McIlvain said.

McIlvain is a self-studied interior designer with a business degree in marketing from the University. He said he started working on the haunted house last December and he designed all of the layouts of the rooms.

“I would say the clown room was the scariest,” said Keisha Taylor, a 20-year-old from St. Joseph. “They know people hate them, that is why they put them in there.”

In the clown room, a picture of the psychotic clown from the movie “It” hangs on the wall and three actors wearing clown costumes with large bloody grins jump up at visitors.

The building, built in 1893 by the Pythian Lodge, loomed over the line of people waiting while ominous music played from the entrance. Screams could be heard from within the building.

Matt Steffen, volunteer and manager at the “Hall of Horrors,” dresses as a zombie from the movie “Hocus Pocus” and scares the crowd while they wait.

While not in a zombie costume, 35-year-old Steffen is a director at the Order of St. Francis St. Joseph Medical Center in Bloomington. The house is full of volunteer actors like Steffen.

“The actors range from age 14 to 50,” Steffen said. “I think tonight we’ve got 38 total.”

“We beg and beg to get volunteers. It’s hard,” McIlvain said. “We want the same people to work every weekend because you get better and develop the scares.”

At 9 p.m., all of the actors – still dressed in black clothes and grotesque makeup – stood behind the building, taking a break and eating pizza from the local Casey’s gas station across the street. As incentives for the volunteers, McIlvain said, he supplies them with pizza every Saturday night and takes them out for steak dinners if they have worked frequently.

The volunteers are essential to the success of the haunted house because although the house is a fundraiser for charities, building and remodeling the house comes at a price.

“Total so far over the three years, we’ve spent about $35,000,” McIlvain said. He did not mention the specific amount donated to charity events each year.

Luckily, many of the visitors are willing to spend extra money to go through the house more than once.

Despite the scares “Hall of Horrors” gave Tanner Modglin, an 11-year-old from St. Joseph, and his friends their first time through, they weren’t quite ready to go back home to St. Joseph.

“We’re going back in there,” Modglin said as they walked to the end of the line.

The “Hall of Horrors” in Farmer City is open:

Fri. Oct. 27 7 – 11 p.m.

Sat. Oct 28 7 – Midnight

Mon. Oct. 30 7 – 10 p.m.