Byford Pledge | HVRTING

Byford Pledge – The Exciting Pain of Brotherhood – A Recollection

This is part of Haunting’s Recollection series – it is a complete account of HVRTING’s show, The Byford Pledge. It contains full spoilers and is intended for readers who have attended or could not attend the show, or are curious about this creator’s work. While there are staff members at Haunting that both direct and act in HVRTING experiences, this recollection was written by someone who is not employed by Haunting and was not influenced by any Haunting or HVRTING staff.

 

“Without my brothers, I am weak; through my brothers I am strong.”

 

I’m standing in the middle of a suspension footbridge that crosses a gorge. Eighty feet below me, a creek meanders lazily. The brothers on either side of me have just lifted my hood to give me a glimpse of this beautiful and precarious view.

 

“You know, a pledge tried diving from here a few years back. It’s too shallow though; he broke his neck and died instantly,” says Tripp, the fraternity president.

 

Byford Pledge | HVRTING

 

I am here because I signed up for The Byford Pledge, the first overnight immersive show by HVRTING. It is at its core a private show for an overseas guest who commissioned it, but I have one of several spots best described as “supporting actor” roles, although I don’t know the plot, or even the theme. Those who were chosen had to pick fake names to use throughout the night; we are told that using or responding to our real names will result in severe punishment. (My nom de guerre for the night is “Connor.”)

 

My premonition that this was going to be a fraternity-based show had been confirmed a few minutes before when I arrived in my required Goodwill dress suit at my destination, some miles out from the already remote town of Fillmore. As I pulled up to a dirt parking lot in the middle of nowhere (“Go ahead and Google it. There’s nothing but forest for miles,” read the last-minute arrival instructions), I saw two figures waiting for me at the near end of the imposing bridge. They proved to be Tripp and Trey, the president and vice president of Lambda Omega Lambda, and were the ones who blindfolded me and led me to the middle of this bridge.

 

Byford Pledge | HVRTING

 

They put the blindfold back on me and march me the rest of the way across the bridge, occasionally amusing themselves by jumping up and down to make the whole bridge sway alarmingly, which also sends me caroming off the guide cables.

 

At the far end, they take my blindfold off to give me my first clear view of the fraternity’s summer home, an enormous, rustic house on 300 acres. Tripp tells me this house has been in brother Brad’s family for generations; in fact, Brad’s great-grandfather was the founder of the fraternity. (This is the sort of trivia that will become very important over the course of the evening.) “Obviously, this isn’t our actual chapter house, but having a place this remote is good for hazing,” Tripp comments. “Not that hazing is legal,” adds Trey.  “Of course not,” Tripp smirks.

 

Byford Pledge | HVRTING

 

The first hour and a half, in late afternoon, is the social time. We are encouraged to stroll the grounds, meet the brothers, explore the house (with the exception of a few conspicuously locked rooms), and feed carrots to Pitstop the mule, beloved fraternity mascot, ensconced in a corral off one of the side yards. The brothers are very friendly: smug Tripp; earnest Trey; flirty Chet; Chaz, who parted ways with his best friend from high school when he chose the fraternity over him; Brody, a true believer in the fraternity’s traditions; and finally Brad, whose family owns the house. Brad eventually rouses from his drunken slumber in the backyard hammock with demands for pledges to bring him more beer. We quickly learn where the beer is kept, and that none of it is for mere pledges.

 

Byford Pledge | HVRTING

 

We meet our fellow pledges, too. The faces are mostly familiar; some are clearly fellow participants, and others look suspiciously like actors I’ve seen in other shows. The names, however, are wholly unfamiliar, since we couldn’t use our own. Zeke, Syd, Dragon, Brady, Connor, Charles, Bryce, and Chad. A small part of my brain crumples in despair, since the narrative demands that we’ll eventually be tested – painfully – on these names, and look at these names – Chet, Chaz, Chad…Brad, Brady, Brody, Bryce… I try to have spontaneous conversations with everyone while frantically memorizing.

 

One conversation stands out. I am standing on a stone wall at the edge of the creek gorge looking down.  Tripp and Trey have their arms on my shoulders in familiar comradeship. Tripp is talking about the joys of belonging and brotherhood and mentions, “One part of the process is that pledges need to learn that when brothers say to jump, you ask how high.” Hmm, yet another mention of jumping…or falling.

 

Byford Pledge | HVRTING

 

Pledge Chad, it turns out, is brother Brad’s younger (actual) brother, and seems to feel he’s entitled to being admitted into the fraternity without going through all the hazing and initiation, by virtue of being born into the founding family, and raised in this very house by the creek.

 

The house itself is crammed with fraternity paraphernalia – including pictures of past members and a plaque honoring the founder. Pride of place on the main table is given to an ornate, locked, leather-bound book; apparently it contains all the arcane lore of the fraternity. Trey whispers that Tripp always carries the key around his neck.

 

Byford Pledge | HVRTING

 

There is one other, more disturbing bit of décor: eight nooses artistically draped around the great room from balconies…

 

“Without my brothers I am lost; through my brothers, I am found.”

 

As the sun sets and the house grows dark, we gather for the announcement of the evening’s next phase – the scavenger hunt – which involves driving into the nearby town. We form three teams, each of which has a long list of possible activities for gaining points. Get slapped on video by a girl you don’t know. Buy a weapon. Get a picture of your entire group crammed into a shopping cart. Steal a donkey (not ours). Get a tattoo. I am the driver for our group, which includes pledges Zeke and Brady – and brother Brad.

 

Byford Pledge | HVRTING

 

We soon learn that Brad is a problem. When we go into a local supermarket, an employee immediately takes note of his drunken belligerence and discreetly picks up a phone. The clock is ticking. Brady, a natural charmer, has no problem convincing an attractive young lady to slap him while we video the process. I hold a plank position on a public bathroom floor. We somehow all manage to fit into a shopping cart.

 

With time running short, we decide to go for broke. Zeke offers to take one for the team and get a tattoo, which would be so many points that we’d be sure to win. Not sure that there would be any tattoo shops at all in this little town, let alone at night, we find one that’s just about to close. Our efforts to get the owner to stay a little late are sabotaged by Brad’s outbursts.

 

Miraculously, we find another tattoo parlor and hatch a plan. Brady will go with Zeke to the second tattoo shop for Zeke’s tattoo, while I take Brad to a sushi bar across the street and ply him with drinks so that he doesn’t sabotage their efforts.

 

Byford Pledge | HVRTING

 

My time with Brad is memorable. He has loud comments for the restaurant at large about what he thinks about different Japanese dishes. He snorts lines from the shaker of red pepper. (“What!” he bellows. “I thought it was cocaine!”) When he isn’t scandalizing the other guests, he has a wealth of information for me, because he says he likes me and wants me to get in. He fills me in on what sorority has the easiest members, the year his great-grandfather founded the fraternity, and how it rankles him that his younger brother got his father’s name.

 

Eventually Zeke’s new ink is done, and we leap back in the car to head back up the dark road to the house.  As we cross the perilous footbridge, we see eerie light coming from all the windows of the house. Upon entering, we find it lit with candles and dim floor lights, and the brothers hooded and grim.

 

Byford Pledge | HVRTING

 

There are more rules now than in the carefree hours just past. All sentences must now end with “Sir.” The first order of business is to tally the points from the scavenger hunt, and we kneel on the hard floor for this long task. At least, thanks mainly to Zeke’s skin sacrifice, our team wins.

 

Then the fun begins in earnest. Fun for the brothers, at least. They’ve each sponsored a task for us all to do. Pasta, to be eaten from plates on the floor, without hands. Fiery hot sauce, to be carried in the mouth without swallowing it or spitting it out, for the duration of a run around the outside of the house. Eggs, dropped on us from the upstairs balcony while we lie under it. Running through a gauntlet of the brothers: the first round leaves the Goodwill-bought suits in tatters as they cut and tear them off; in subsequent rounds, they tickle, slap, or hit us as the mood strikes them.

 

Byford Pledge | HVRTING

 

One task will live on in the minds of all who survived that night. We troop upstairs and kneel around a bed. Brother Brad, sprawling on the bed, pulls out a tube of Ben Gay and has us each hold out our hand. Having suffered this bit of hazing before, I smirk in recognition and am rewarded with a larger handful. Many of the others have not been so unfortunate; when Brad explains where the menthol rub is to go, a few faces go white, and a minute later the room is full of sobbing men.

 

Byford Pledge | HVRTING

 

Back downstairs, we have the long-expected test of all the things we’ve learned. The brothers’ names. The pledges’ names. Various important dates. (Brad’s tutelage at the sushi place proves immensely helpful to me.) The fraternity motto. It probably needs to be said that we are on our hands and knees for this, and a brother with a paddle is grading our answers with a heavy hand. Sometimes a wrong answer means the pledge giving it suffers; other times, it’s everyone but him, and we all thank him.

 

One pledge, who I will not name and shame, has a very rough time with this part. In fact, if memory serves, he gets none of the questions right. This is mainly because his mind is still in faraway lands of pain, thanks to the menthol rub from upstairs. At the end of all the questioning, we are encouraged to have a group hug to comfort our suffering pledge brother.

 

Byford Pledge | HVRTING

 

There is also outdoor jello wrestling. Fun fact: There is special jello sold for this purpose. (It’s not edible, but a polymer gel.) Less fun fact: It’s also very wet and cold when it clings to you afterward on a cold night, when you’re in your boxers.

 

At some point after the wrestling, we notice that we are down three pledges. The brothers explain that those three have decided they are not up to continuing, and so five remain for the final test.

 

Byford Pledge | HVRTING

 

“Without my brothers I will be forgotten; through my brothers I will live forever.”

 

We are corralled in a dark room and told to remain quiet, while one of us at a time is led away. Fortunately, I am taken first, so I don’t have to wait long. As I am hooded and led down the stairs by several brothers, they tell me I have done well, and that they now trust me. The one remaining question – do I trust them? Brotherhood cuts both ways.

 

Byford Pledge | HVRTING

 

They guide me to what I realize is a wooden chair, and help me to stand on it. I feel several hands position what is obviously a noose around my neck. A voice in my ear (Tripp’s) says, “All you have to do now is make a leap of faith.”

 

It is surprisingly hard to make my feet obey my will, but eventually I do jump from the chair. As my brain expected, but my body refused to believe, the other end of the noose falls freely from the upstairs balcony. The brothers cheer, and have me sit on the floor nearby. As the first to do this, I have a ringside seat as my pledge brothers all successfully do the same. Soon, there are five jubilant pledges sitting in a semi-circle.

 

Byford Pledge | HVRTING

 

Clearly this is the culmination of our testing, and we are ready to take our solemn vows of brotherhood.  However, Tripp comes stomping into the room, his face grim. “OK, which of you took the sacred book?”

 

We are soon hooded again, standing dejectedly, as Tripp grills each of us in turn. “I thought I could trust you, Connor!” he yells in my face. When no one cracks, he changes tack. “Fine. I will be taking you away one at a time to interrogate you. We have a very good place for that. Do not move or talk.”

 

Byford Pledge | HVRTING

 

There is near complete silence for a long time. I’d been lucky to be selected early for the noose, but am less lucky this round. I don’t hear people taking my pledge brothers away, but the room feels progressively emptier. My legs are starting to cramp from standing motionless for so long when someone finally comes for me.

 

Outside, the night is even colder now, and I’ve been in just my boxers for a long time. My bare feet seem to find every sharp pebble as I am led onto the stone wall that runs along the gorge. “Walk very carefully. If you fall, you will die. I repeat. You. Will. Die.” It seems like a very long walk, and we are clearly descending.

 

Eventually, we stop, and my guide takes my hood off. We are standing in front of a rough, stone under-story of the house, and there’s a Gothic-style door of hewn planks in front of me. No Hollywood set designer could make a clearer statement that this is a dungeon. My guide opens the door and shoves me through.

 

Byford Pledge | HVRTING

 

There is a lot to take in. This stone basement has the feel of medieval catacombs and extends far into the dark. But standing on a raised part of the floor just inside is Tripp, holding a bowl, or is it a skull? I dimly note that my pledge brothers are all gathered behind him.

 

“We know that you did not take the book, Connor. We just have one more question for you. Would you ever dick a brother?”

 

There is a great disturbance in the Force, as millions of double entendres cry out in my head and are suddenly silenced. I answer the question as intended, and solemnly: “No.”

 

“Then welcome to Lambda Omega Lambda.” Tripp daubs my face in blood.

 

Byford Pledge | HVRTING

 

Epilogue: During the ensuing partying, I learn that the three missing pledges hadn’t simply depledged, nor had they slipped and fallen into the gorge. Instead, it turns out that Chad and Bryce were actually members of a rival fraternity, and had dragged Charles into their nefarious plan to steal Lambda Omega Lambda’s ritual book. The first step was stealing Tripp’s key during the jello wrestling. Charles, we learned, had quite a harrowing evening with them – his own private show, in fact. But will Lambda Omega Lambda ever get back their ritual book? Will Charles ever be properly punished for his treachery? These questions remain to be answered…

 

To attend an extreme HVRTING show, you must email The Director to make sure the experience is a good fit. Find more information on upcoming shows and out-of-show, personal experiences on HVRTING’s websiteFacebook page, and Instagram. Check out our Event Guide for more extreme horror events throughout the year.

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About The Author

Carl Webb
Carl came to immersive theater by way of ARGs, but discovered his tribe when he joined the search in Have You Seen Jake in 2016. He toils in the data mines at an undisclosed location in Orange County, having left a PhD program after deciding there was no future in something called “social networks.”

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