It all starts at Seminary Park, which during the day is a bright green space just east of the downtown lakeshore.

At night it’s quite dark as one approaches the covered shelter and shadowy figures slowly emerge from the blackness, revealing fellow tour-takers. The perfect setting before stepping off on Lake Geneva’s Ghost Walk.

Guides Rita Moore and Moe Gardner – fittingly adorned in black, head to toe, complete with hoods and dark lipstick – greet the group of about 30 souls. Nervous giggles break the silence. We learn there are two bachelorette parties going on – a group of 10 has shown up wearing pointy witch hats.

Rita is the veteran, with the organization since it began eight years ago. Moe has three years as a guide. Both are theatrical without being performative, bringing the right mix of wonder and history to the tales. “We get to tell you great stories and leave it up to you how you feel about it,” Rita promises the patrons.

Then we’re off and strolling. Altogether the route is, maybe, a mile and a half with frequent stops. It’s not taxing for most but be sure to dress appropriately for the weather. The most important piece of equipment is a pair of comfortable walking shoes.

First stop: Flat Iron Park, where Moe tells the tale of the Hogan family. But first, folks standing at the back of the tour yelp and jump. A visiting mouse has decided to interrupt the tour, scurrying through the group.

“Just remember, ladies and gentlemen,” Moe says without missing a beat, “there are no paid actors or animal actors either. Everything you experience is real.”

The Hogans’ sad story dates to the 1890s, with an excursion on the lake in the steamship Dispatch. It was a busy day. The lake was packed with boats, when a terrible storm – a tornado, felling more than 1,000 trees – slammed the shores. All boats made it safely back to harbor. Except the Dispatch. Searchers found Mrs. Hogan’s body but could not bring it aboard, like it was anchored to the spot. A diver entered the water and discovered another body underneath, that of the family’s 2-year-old son. Since that fateful day people have reported seeing a woman in a long white dress, when storm clouds gather, warning people to stay off the lake. The specter is affectionately known as the Lady of the Lake.

Next stop: The Riviera, and Rita takes over. The topic is what made Lake Geneva famous. Not just the well-known yarn of being the playground for Chicago’s rich and famous, but also as the “Victorian era’s mental health capital of the Midwest. We had more insane asylums here than anywhere else and they were all opened up by Dr. Oscar Augustus King,” who was a classmate of the famed Sigmund Freud when both studied in Vienna, Austria.

King opened several sanitariums in Lake Geneva, changing the way mental patients experienced care, incorporating more humane treatments such as talk therapy. Side note: He was a pioneer in using medical marijuana – ahead of his time – to treat conditions such as anxiety and depression. When he died in 1921 the institutions he opened in Lake Geneva more or less died with him, closing within months. Some were sold and reverted to private residences. But one large brick structure remained vacant and abandoned – downtown, near the present KFC restaurant – from 1921 to 1959.

“The locals started claiming almost immediately that they were hearing strange noises, that it was haunted,” Rita said. “They were hearing screaming and wailing and children crying.” Police would be called and find nothing upon arrival.

Well, not always nothing. Now and then they found a teenager named Gary Gygax inside. Gygax grew up to create the wildly popular Dungeons & Dragons game. Gygax said the monsters of D&D came from his imagination, from a sketchbook he made of things he felt might be chasing him through the abandoned asylum.

Scared yet?

There are several other stops and stories. Library Park and the eerie tale of the Woman in Black. The shop along West Main Street with moving shadows and flickering lights. The lakefront Baker House with its haunted guest suites. The oldest estate in Lake Geneva – the Maxwell Mansion – with the spirit of a little boy, and hauntings associated with the Grant Suite, once occupied by the Civil War hero and America’s 18th president.

No more plot spoilers. Go for yourself. If you dare.

Reservations are required. Find schedules and booking information at americanghostwalks.com and click Lake Geneva.

We couldn’t call it a night without asking the guides if anything wild had happened while they were escorting a tour. Here’s the best story, from Rita.

One Halloween, a psychic medium was invited to join the tour. Rita noticed Sonja Akright, co-director of the Geneva Lake Museum and author of the definitive history on Dr. King’s sanitariums also had signed up and would be on the tour. In such serious company, Rita decided she should be more straightforward with the history and dial back her theatrics. As Rita finished telling the Lady in Black story, the medium spoke up: “She wants to know why you told that story differently,” going on to say the spirit observed, “You normally tell it bigger.”

“No one but me and that ghost would have known,” Rita said.

Suffice to say, we slept with the nightlight on.