This Old House

House of Torment will find a new haunted home after a decade at Highland Mall

For a full decade, the House of Torment haunted house has been a fall ritual for Austinites. It has provided screams, laughter and the extension of the best and bloodiest holiday of the year.

Characters such as Aggressive Chainsaw Guy, Killer Clown and Creepy Doll Girl roamed the parking lot of Highland Mall giving unprepared children frights that no bag of candy can undo. However, like in all the best horror movies, the bad guy has to die in order to be reborn in a more epic and larger budgeted sequel.

Similarly, after this Halloween season, House of Torment will no longer call Highland Mall home. Have no fear: the scariest haunted house in Austin will be moving on to an expanded location in 2013.

For now, however, prepare yourself for a Mayan end of days as House of Torment will be this year's apocalyptic attractions that call on the undead of the present, past and future.

From Sep 21 to Nov 3, they’ll be providing all the space zombies, bloodthirsty psychos, undead pirates, monsters, gore and human sacrifice you can (or cannot) handle. In their trademark three-in-one haunted house style, they'll be offering you three ways to get your scare on.

In Cursed: The Howling, your descent into a twisted Mayan temple will leave you traumatized by the bloody ritual sacrifices that give rise to dread Narentine pirates and howling dark wolves. These bitter enemies have been awakened, and the tour leaves you stuck in the aftermath of their timeless struggle.

The Awakening features the utter annihilation of the dark and twisted future by the evil Commander Nemesis. Armies of undead battle against Nemesis' evil minions as portals rip holes in time and space, spilling out dreaded villains from throughout mankind's history.

Finally, The Slaughterhouse: Fresh Meat provides us with a glimpse of what happens when the apocalypse occupies our world as we know it. Devoid of all hope, the remaining humans are rounded up and fed to the "Soul Reapers" that crave human flesh. Focused only on survival, they will do anything to escape this unimaginable fate.

If you’re still hungry after watching live humans being led into the hungry mouths of flesh eating zombies, there will be selections from some of Austin’s favorite food trailers and (sexy?) zombie dancers. Yum.

It's no wonder that they're moving on from the scary-in-itself Highland Mall. Luckily, you're assured that House of Torment’s farewell extravaganza promises to leave us all exhilarated, satiated and diagnosed with PTSD. Make sure to bring a change of pants.

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Tickets are now available for the 2012 House of Torment haunted house at Highland Mall. Dates run from Sep 21 - Nov 3.

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More Foraging

Free 'food forest' in East Austin expands with thousands of new plants

Angelina Alanis at Festival Beach Food Forest

Photo courtesy of KVUE

Angelina Alanis gives a tour of the garden, which is open to anyone.

In East Austin, there is an edible forest garden called Festival Beach Food Forest where anyone can walk around and harvest free produce, nuts, medicinal plant leaves and herbs. And over the summer, it grew to several times its size.

The forest has fig trees, peach trees, grapevines, asparagus and more that's not in season right now. You can grab passionfruit and plants like yaupon holly, with leaves that can make a caffeinated tea, rosemary and lemon balm.

"[Lemon balm] is part of the mint family," said Angelina Alanis, communication and partnership coordinator for Festival Beach Food Forest. "It has a lemony taste but it's good for a nervous stomach. I'm prone to anxiety so I always grab a hunk."

The food forest is located right next to Interstate 35 and Lady Bird Lake on 29 Waller St., near a part of town that's known for being a food desert, lacking grocery stores.

"There's as much as a 20-year life expectancy difference between parts of East and West Austin, and a lot of that comes down to food access, health care access and also access to nature."

Alanis said for the past nine years, the volunteer-based grassroots project been helping with the issue and just recently expanded in the summer from two-thirds of an acre of city parkland to over 3.5 acres.

"We're going to have hundreds of new trees," said Alanis. "We've already planted 150 new trees in the area and then thousands of plants on the ground."

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They also plan to add a community kitchen and a pavilion to do things like cooking classes or informational sessions.

Read the full story at KVUE.com.

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