It’s the Saturday before Halloween, and in the gloaming the freaks are gathering at Freighthouse Square in Tacoma.

Outside, costumed teens are arriving, waiting for their shifts at the Black Lake Haunted Asylum haunted house to begin.

On the north side of the building, Auburn’s Michael Smith is guiding a hearse as it backs into a space obviously designed for a much narrower car.

“Whoa, whoa,” an onlooker shouts as the car backing in comes perilously close to its neighbor.

Scrutinizing the space available, Smith finally gives up and gets into Rose – his gray 1976 Cadillac hearse conversion made by S&S Coach Company – to make a little room.

After all the hearses are safely parked, imposing noses poking into the street, Smith dons his mortician’s gear – a black full-length trench coat and crumpled top hat – and talks about Rose and his fascination with hearses, Halloween and haunting.

For the past nine years, Smith and Rose have been frightening Puppet Sound haunted house enthusiasts with their show. Featuring a fake graveyard, complete with tombstones and fence set up around Rose, who glows green and emits an eerie fog, the Haunted Hearse show also allows people to get their picture taken, for a fee, in the matching gray coffin that graces Rose’s back compartment.

“I’ve never had another coach before, but I’ve always had a fascination with either coaches, hearses or ambulances,” said Smith, 56. “I’ve been keeping my eyeballs open for years and years and years and never felt that I could get a hold of one.”

Pursuit of the right Caddy

In 2001, Smith said he “came into a little bit of a monetary bonus” and soon he redoubled his efforts to find a car he could afford.

“I found it on (AutoTrader.com), of all places,” he said. “I did a specialty car search and it came up with the coach, a 1976, in Tri-Cities. All the rest of them were in the Midwest or California or Florida. And this one popped up that was within speeding distance of me.”

Smith said he called the owner and chatted for an hour-and-a-half, getting the details about Rose the hearse.

“He was an older gentleman, some 77-plus years old, and he had three cars, of which his lady, his wife, said he had to get rid of two,” Smith said. “He was trying to make sure to find someone who would not modify this car. In other words, he wouldn’t sell it to a bandy or a goth. He didn’t want them to rip up the interior or otherwise mess it up. That was the reason for the hour-and-a-half conversation was why she is so special.”

Special Rose blossoms

Smith said that he soon began to see the unique appeal of Rose.

“The more that I heard about her, the more that I had to have her,” Smith said. “She is one of 50. The 1976 edition of the Sayers Scoville (S&S) coaches were the 100th anniversary of the coach builder. So in celebration of the manufacturer’s 100th year, they made 50 coaches, what they called the ‘Centennials.’ Of the 50, there were 10 ‘Golds’ and the rest were either gray or black. And of that 40, there were 10 that had the extension table.”

That coupled with the fact that only 200 to 400 hearses are manufactured annually, makes Rose an extremely rare machine.

According to Smith, he made a promise to the previous owner not to make any radical modifications.

“(I told him) I wasn’t going to modify the car,” he said. “I’m not going to put side pipes or flames or some of the other fun things people do to the cars.”

Smith said he did make a few unseen modifications, strictly to add to the ambience of his show.

“My whole purpose for having her, other than having fun with her, is because I’m a haunted house and Halloween enthusiast … have been since I can remember,” he said. “So when I got an opportunity and got her, I designed a Halloween show around her. What you don’t see that’s modified on the car is that I’ve put a full set of green undercarriage lights. She’s got about a 2,000-watt stereo system in her. I put a graveyard scene out around her, surrounded by a fence. I shoot fog out from underneath her, and with the green lights you get a creepy green fog that crawls along the ground. And then I play mortician.

All part of the fun for Smith.

“What is it about Halloween? I don’t have a clear answer to that. Maybe it’s because I have too much fun,” he said.

No horror move buff

Although he is a fan of scaring people, Smith’s not a fan of the horror films that usually go hand in hand with his passion.

“I’m a severe bipolar, so when I watch things like that it locks into my subconscious and gives me nightmares and tears me up,” he said. “So you would think, because I can’t watch this genre, that I wouldn’t be interested in that kind of stuff.

“But I’ve been haunting houses since 1968, when I did it for my high school,” Smith continued. “I got hooked. Watching people’s reaction to an unexpected incident or action is just fun. There is no other excuse for it. I’m not trying to make someone pee their pants, necessarily.

“But at the same time it’s something unusual, it’s not costing you anything like the other holidays do. You don’t have to put on false airs. It gives you a chance to act and have some fun at the same time.”

More information on Smith and Rose is available at www.hauntedhearsenw.com