A couple of men from Canby have a scary story to tell and they plan to share it Halloween night.

Dave Blackwelder and Jeff Grengs created a legend of a murderous eye doctor in Canby and he haunts the floor above the Canby Bakery on Main Street.

A vacant office above the bakery will become "Nightmare On Main Street" Saturday night.

It's not the only place to get scared Saturday. The annual haunted house in Clarkfield returns as well as the dorm haunted house event at Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall.

"Dave Blackwelder and I just kind of discussed it and talked about different things we could do," said Grengs, one of the organizers of the haunted house. "He's actually done most of the work. He had a few of the Halloween things that he had done several years ago at his home."

"The last thing that was up there was an actual doctor's office 50 years ago," Grengs said.

"There's actually an old eye chart that plugs into the wall, and that's kind of where it all comes from."

He said he and Blackwelder will be in costume Saturday night, but they won't be giving away any of the scares.

"There are going to be some pretty unique things there," Grengs said.

Clarkfield's annual haunted house has undergone some changes since moving into the Clarkfield City Hall, said Jeanine Satre, one of the event's organizers. But it's all helped make the house better and scarier.

"We had to come up with a new way to make partitions," Satre said, besides coming up with new rooms in the haunted house. "There are a lot of new rooms this year. We'll have things like 'The Lab' again, but there are a couple really different rooms we've never had before."

A change in the house's setup might increase the scare factor - this year, guests will have to navigate the darkened rooms on their own.

"We're not having tour guides this year," Satre said.

A more kid-friendly experience will be available at Residence HALLoween on the campus of Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall. This year, children in sixth grade and younger can visit 10 different locations in the university's residence halls. The locations are rated, from non-scary to "mildly freaky" and "horrific," said SMSU student Jay Benedict. Six of the locations will be fully lit and will feature fun activities.

"We've been planning for a couple of weeks now," Benedict said. "People just let their imaginations run wild."

Groups of students come up with their own themes for HALLoween stops. Benedict said this year he's been working with a twist on the Harry Potter books called "Scary Potter."

HALLoween is fun for kids, but Benedict said, "It's fun to be an actor in it, too."

The Clarkfield and Canby haunted houses will have something for younger or more squeamish visitors, too, organizers said. Both will start out the night with lighted tours, and the Clarkfield haunted house will be showing free movies in the lower level of city hall.

"I just got 2,000 pieces of candy for the trick-or-treaters," Satre said.

Besides offering a good time, all three events will benefit local food shelves. A food item is part of admission for Residence HALLoween and the Clarkfield Haunted House. Proceeds from Nightmare On Main Street will go toward Canby's local food shelf.