It was late October of 1993 and John Matthews
of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina had just scored a date with Sarah, one of the most popular
girls in school, and he had planned the perfect night out for the two of them. A haunted house had just been set up in town,
and he, like many guys before him, figured he could use that as a chance to impress his
date. He'd already been through the attraction,
so he knew exactly when to put his arm around Sarah when one of the costumed actors or animatronics
tried to spook them. If any of them got too close for comfort,
he might even punch them, just to show Sarah how brave he was. That would be a sure-fire way to impress any
girl. However, John had no idea of the real horror
that waited for him and his date through the doors of this seemingly normal fun-house. At first, the haunted house went as normal. John laughed at all the fake cobwebs and plastic
skeletons, making sure Sarah knew how dumb he thought they looked. He shoved away actors dressed as axe murderers
and told them to stay away from his date. It was dark, so they couldn't really see each
other's faces, but John guessed that Sarah was probably really impressed. All in all, the date was going well, until
they got to a room that John hadn't seen the first time he'd been through. It seemed like it had been added overnight,
but at the same time, it didn't mesh with the theme. The theme of the haunted house this year was
“cannibal hotel”, but this room looked more like Dracula's castle, complete with
actors dressed as Frankenstein, the wolf man, and Dracula himself. One of them was even a dead ringer for actor
Vincent Price. John and Sarah watched, confused, as the actors
performed their routine which, just like their surroundings, seemed out of place. It was totally hackneyed, full of lame puns
and very basic scares, though the special effects were undeniably impressive. When John and Sarah walked through the room,
the actor dressed as Dracula stood in front of John and started pretending to hypnotize
him. Up close, he did look a lot like Bela Lugosi
- the actor who’d portrayed The Count during his first big screen appearance. This definitely threw John off a little, but
unfortunately, this Dracula didn't have Lugosi's acting talents. “You are under my control.” Dracula said, waving his fingers at John and
staring at him. John, getting really sick of this, pushed
the guy out of the way to move on to the next room. But when he did, he felt that something was
really, really wrong here. He practically dragged Sarah away from watching
the wolf man transform and ran the rest of the way through the house, all of his bravado
now gone. Sarah asked her date what was wrong, and he
didn't tell her. How could he, without sounding crazy? When he had touched that actor playing Dracula,
something hadn't felt right. Even through his suit and cape, John had been
able to tell that wrong. He was cold, and rigid, not like a human being,
but like a robot, or a wax dummy. This is just one of multiple complaints from
Halloween attractions around the United States that prompted the action of the SCP Foundation. Several witnesses described either seeing
people that resembled classic movie monsters, or living wax models of those monsters, appearing
in various haunted houses, corn mazes, carnivals, and strip malls across the country. The Foundation has designated this troupe
of hammy wax actors SCP-4153. During performances, SCP-4153 use wax to alter
their appearance, produce props - including fake blood and gore - and even manipulate
wax objects from afar. While this results in some uncanny special
effects, the content of the performances tend to be pretty standard, classic haunted house
fare. They mostly do things like reenacting scenes
from classic horror films, and telling “spooky” jokes, with a little fake blood here and there. When the Foundation arrived at the Myrtle
Beach attraction they apprehended the various wax characters, and determined that their
eerie resemblance to the classic horror characters wasn't just makeup. After the horrors some of these Foundation
employees had seen on the job, living wax models of Frankenstein's monster and Dracula
seemed almost cute in comparison, and the troupe of wax actors were taken to Site 9
for questioning and containment. The first member of the troupe to be interviewed
on-site was Dracula, dubbed SCP-4153-017 by the Foundation. He was interviewed by Agent Timothy West,
who was totally unimpressed with Dracula's schtick. He tried to hypnotize Agent West, an act which
he flatly refused to indulge in. Dracula provided the agent with seemingly
no useful information, only responding to questions with clichés like “We were all
dead, the whole time.” and “The log was coming from inside the house.” The next wax figure to be interrogated was
Frankenstein's monster, aka SCP-4153-015, who was interviewed by Agent Samantha Henwick. Much like how SCP-4153-017 stayed fully in
character as Dracula during his interview, SCP-4153-015 seemed to really believe that
he was actor Boris Karloff, who played Frankenstein's monster in the 1930's. The SCP spoke in an exact imitation of Karloff's
voice and speech patterns, and talked to Agent Henwick as if she was another actor on a movie
set. He talked about how honored he was to be part
of “the project” and asked “are we rolling?” when he noticed the conversation was being
recorded. Agent Henwick responded to the SCP's comments
with confusion, a fact which he took to mean that she was “staying in character”. Like a true actor, he took a moment to prepare
himself before pulling his own head off, much to the horror of Agent Henwick. The last and probably most interesting of
the interviews conducted in 1993 was with the wax figure who resembled Vincent Price,
more specifically Vincent Price in his role as Henry Jarrod in 1953's House of Wax - a
movie about a mad sculptor who made wax figures out of the corpses of his victims. This wax figure was designated SCP-4153-036,
and was interviewed by Agent Gerald Penn. Penn started the interview with a simple question-
why do you try to frighten people? SCP-4153-036 had an equally simple answer-
“Why does anyone try to frighten? It's fun to be frightened. Almost as much fun as it is to do the frightening.” Penn was skeptical, pointing out that the
wax figures' act wasn't especially frightening. The SCP laughed dismissively, telling Penn
to “have some respect for the classics.” Penn was still not having any of it. He'd been with the SCP foundation for 20 years
at this point, and he'd seen enough real horror that the so-called 'classics' had no effect
on him whatsoever. He pressured Price for answers. But Instead of responding with a straight
answer, Price launched into a speech about his feelings on monsters. He said “You'll call any oaf with a steak-knife
hunting gaggles of teens a monster, these days. There's no wit, no humor, no charm. Where's the passion? The artisanship? Where's the sense of theater? Would you like to know something peculiar? I've almost never played a monster. Oh, I've played villains, most certainly! But not monsters. Only men, besieged by fate, driven to revenge. Still — I've always had a fondness for them. Even as a child, I sympathized more with the
monster than the hero.” Agent Penn, who, at this point, was really
getting tired of all the theatrics started to interject, but when he opened his mouth
to speak he was only able to get a few words out before his tongue went numb and rigid
in his mouth. He could no longer move it. Agent Penn tried to speak, but his tongue
was too solid and heavy to do anything more than knock uselessly against his bottom teeth. He felt something dislodge inside his mouth,
and hoped maybe that it was the feeling of his tongue being freed from whatever spell
the SCP had put it under. But then he started to feel a tearing, and
a sticky heaviness in his bottom jaw. Agent Penn reached up and felt around inside
his mouth. He started to scream indistinctly when he
realized, to his horror, that his tongue had ripped off. He pulled it out of his mouth, and when he
held it in his hand, his fears were confirmed - somehow, it had become nothing more than
a lump of pink wax. Now completely tongueless, Agent Penn continued
to babble frantically, no doubt trying to curse at the wax creature sitting in front
of him. SCP-4153-036 finally paid attention to his
interviewer's distress at this point. He turned to Agent Penn with a look of disapproval
and disappointment and said,“Oh dear. Your tongue seems to have gotten away from
you, there. Here — allow me.” The SCP leaned towards Agent Penn, and though
the agent wanted to resist, he found that he could no longer move his arms. In fact, his whole body had gone numb and
rigid, just like the wax tongue. The only movement he was capable of was opening
his mouth as the wax facsimile of Vincent Price started molding his tongue back to the
proper shape, and reattached it inside of Agent Penn's mouth. Agent Penn whimpered, unable to do anything
while the SCP's hands were in his mouth. The creature said, “Hush, now. I warned you about this — I told you that
you mustn't disturb the wax before it hardens. That is a crucial part of the process. It needs to solidify. Otherwise, you risk disturbing the performance.” By the time his tongue was reattached and
resealed, Agent Penn was on the verge of tears. He gurgled, gasping for air, wiggling his
tongue around in his mouth to make sure that it worked. The SCP returned to his seat, pleased with
his own handiwork. “Splendid, splendid. Good as new.... Now, let's take it from the top, shall we?” Agent Penn took a deep breath, steadying himself,
as SCP-4153-036 whispered the word “action.” Penn resumed the interview with the same simple
question - why do you try to frighten people? SCP-4153-036 gave the same simple answer-
“Why does anyone try to frighten? It's fun to be frightened. Almost as much fun as it is to do the frightening.” The interview continued for only a few minutes
longer, with both parties repeating only things they'd said earlier in the recording. The log ends with SCP-4153-036 once again
saying “Have some respect for the classics.” Not long after that interview concluded, Foundation
management completely lost contact with Site 9. A Mobile Task Force was sent in to investigate
the cause of this loss of contact, and upon arrival they found a catastrophic containment
breach. Not a single member of on-site personnel was
found alive, and strangely, all of their bodies seemed to be coated in wax. Further examination revealed that this initial
observation wasn’t the case at all. They weren’t just coated in wax. No, every member of the site 9 team had had
all of their major organs, including their skin, surgically extracted and replaced with
sculpted wax. Of course this was assumed to be the doing
of SCP-4153, but oddly, all of the autopsies suggested that the removal of organs had happened
weeks before the apprehension of SCP-4153, even though all of the site personnel had
seemed alive and well right up until the containment breach. Outside of being replaced by wax, no damage
was done to the bodies - it seemed that everyone had just dropped dead at the same time. There was one body that was different though
- that of Agent Gerald Penn. Agent Penn’s decapitated body was found
in the same containment cell that had been used for SCP-4153-036. Next to the body was a photograph showing
SCP-4153-036 holding up Agent Penn's screaming head and on the back, a single sentence was
written - From one horror aficionado to another: Always Stay A-Head! All of the SCP-4153 instances remain unaccounted
for, and MTF Iota-10, also known as the “Damn Feds” continue to monitor for new sightings
and reports of activity that may be linked to the wax troupe. Hopefully one day they’ll be taken into
Foundation and contained, and maybe all it will take is for them to meet someone with
a sufficient appreciation for “the classics.” Now for something from the more terrifying
archives of the SCP Foundation Check out “SCP – 096 - The Shy Guy” or “SCP-106 - The
Old Man”
