Photo by Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times

A mermaid from Dr. Pains Haunted Asylum stands Thursday in the Roanoke River to create interest in an upcoming freak-show carnival.

The Twisted Carnival

Dr. Pains Haunted Asylum

17 17th St., Salem

• June 7-9
• June 14-16
• June 21-23

7 p.m. each day, Admission $5

She's a freak, an aquatic freak, and she's turning heads in Salem.

People strained to check out a green mermaid in the middle of the Roanoke River near Apperson Drive on Friday morning.

Troy Faries, the owner of Dr. Pains Haunted Asylum, placed her in the river to generate interest in the Twisted Carnival, an upcoming event he described as part fun house, part freak show.

Faries worked with Tara Cumella to create the mermaid. Faries shaped her out of chicken wire and then laid fiberglass over the wire. After the fiberglass hardened, he placed resin on top. "She's pretty strong," Faries said. "I just grabbed her by the fin."

Cumella then added clay to create detail and painted her. The mermaid cost $250 in materials and took almost 80 hours of work to complete.

"Seeing that we're 200 miles inland, I thought that we would go for more of the swamp thing," said Cumella, who gave the mermaid scaly skin and a finlike hand that modestly covers her chest.

It's definitely a head-turner. Cumella said a driver almost hit her car Friday while trying to sneak a peek at her creation.

A traveling artist who has loved monsters since she was a child, Cumella recently partnered with Faries and said she feels very happy at Dr. Pains Haunted Asylum. "It takes a certain person to feel at home in a haunted house," she said.

Chrystal Allison works at a shop connected to the haunted house. She said Cumella has "added that artistic element that we really, really need."

Faries grew up in Roanoke and described how he was often bored and mischievous as a teenager.

He decided to start a haunted house in Roanoke in September 2003. He had just moved back from Raleigh, N.C., and was working as a waiter. He wanted a job that was fun and different every day. He opened a haunted house in Roanoke and later moved it to Salem.

"I wanted to give something back," he added.

The Twisted Carnival will be held June 7 to 9, June 14 to 16 and June 21 to 23 at Dr. Pains Haunted Asylum on Seventh Street in Salem.

After her dip in the river, the mermaid will return to her fellow freaks.

Faries said that octopi and sharks will also appear in the river. Zombies may show up, but they will probably appear on Main Street in Salem.

"Zombies hate water," Cumella said.