Kevin Kiser, Lauren Kiser, and Lauren Kelly couldn’t get enough of being chased by knife-wielding clowns while stumbling through a pitch black maze of cobwebs and monsters on October 29.

The three had braved the tight, dark hallways jampacked with skeletons, mist, creepy lighting, and – of course – masked clowns at the Burgo Basketball Association's annual Halloween Day event multiple times.

“There were two clowns in there that scared me,” Lauren Kiser said, noting that one had a fake knife and another one stuck his hands through an opening in the wall and nearly grabbed her.

“I liked how it was a haunted house and a maze,” said Kelly.

While older kids enjoyed exploring the haunted maze in the dark, the event also ran during the daylight hours — devoid of the scary sounds, motion-based surprises, and costumed staff — for younger kids to enjoy.

The haunted maze itself is the brainchild of volunteer Amir Suarez. He spent the past month and a half carefully planning each corner and crevice of the maze, and used most of his free time building the massive makeshift structure next to a parking lot at the association’s complex.

“I create a maze in my head every year,” Suarez said.

After the structure is put up, Suarez goes to work filling it with horror. Drawing from his own ideas and clips he watches of other mazes online, he comes up with something new every year. This year, he installed a projector at the end of a long hallway filled with fog from a fog machine. The light from the projector displayed spooky images on the mist.

Halloween Day has been a three-year tradition for the youth basketball program, said owner Steve Burgo. In addition to providing family fun, the event also serves as a fundraiser for the organization.

This year, Burgo plans on using the funds to go towards the purchase of a new tract of land, where the association plans on building a new $4 million sports complex.