Get In Several Really Good Scares Each Night
To a Halloween monster a good scare is positively life-sustaining, an irresistible high that’s the primary reason we put up with all the nonsense that goes with the job.
     I once sent a fat woman running straight into a wall, which she bounced off to careen pinball-like between one wall and another before tripping over a prop plant and falling flat on her ass--which shook the entire maze and scared the people behind her, who thought an earthquake was occurring! I’d call that a good scare. So too the time I chased a squealing man all the way through the remainder of the maze and out the exit.
     A good night was one where I got in at least a dozen such scares.

Make Time for the Haunt Groupies
Haunt Groupies are young ladies who apparently live to grope, rub up against or flash Halloween maze monsters. I was always appreciative of their attention, particularly the gal who led me by the hand to a deserted corner of the maze, where she lifted up her blouse to give me a look at her braless tits! I wish the lighting had been a bit better, but I saw enough.
     A fellow employee had a shiny sticker on his shaker can reading “SHOW YOUR TITS,” which he made sure to flash at every hot chick he saw; it gave me great satisfaction to inform him that I didn’t need a goddamn sticker to get chicks to show me their tits.

Savor Your Break Time
One of the great things about the vampire maze was that it was located directly across from the terraced employee break area. This place contained a balcony that, aside from having a great view of the park’s west end, was located right next to a rollercoaster. We monsters used to enjoy taunting the people on the coaster as it slowly made its way up the first ramp: “YOU’RE ALL GONNA DIE!” was our favored refrain.
     Another thing I recall about the terrace break area was an old Coca-Cola stand located under the balcony (and so out of sight of the public). The “KE” in the Coke logo had been painted over by an unknown wiseass, and replaced with “CK.” I don’t think I need to tell you what that spells.

Grow A Thick Skin
This is true of any job, of course, but especially this one. Halloween maze patrons are among the most hateful, self-righteous and imbecilic people in existence, forever mouthing really stupid jokes (“Why don’cha quit while you’re dead?”) and sayings (that obnoxious “Who Let the Dogs Out?” tune was all the rage at the time, and every other asshole who passed through the maze insisted on shouting its chorus in my face)--at least when they weren’t playing out weird private psychodramas (as when a slut sauntered up to me and made goo-goo eyes, only to have her loser boyfriend run up and threaten to kick my ass for coming on to his girl).
     Then there were the concerned parent types, several of whom came through the maze each night shouting “Don’t scare the children!” Gee, if you’re that concerned about your kids getting scared, people, then maybe you SHOULDN’T bring them to a Halloween maze!
     This brings me to perhaps the stupidest woman I encountered during my time as a monster, a bitch who haughtily entered my room with her young daughter around 11 PM on a weekday. I (as per my job description) jumped out at the girl, only to have her skank mother scream at me that the brat had a heart condition and couldn’t be scared. If the woman heard my response--“So then what the hell is she doing here?”--she gave no indication. I followed the bitch and her brat as they made their way through the rest of the maze, where the woman give each succeeding monster the same spiel about the girl’s heart condition.
     I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about that account.

     Such were the first two years. After that, sadly, the vampire maze was shuttered forevermore. The building where it was housed was torn down and replaced by a rollercoaster (which promptly broke down), forcing myself and my colleagues to find another maze in which to chase morons around.

     I chose a new clown-themed maze, inspired by the flick KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE. The bad news is that in 2000 this maze was an open air walk-through whose slipshod construction failed to do its elaborate and imaginative design justice. The good news is that I got a plumb position near the front of the maze, and perhaps the coolest prop ever: a large rubber mallet.

     I immediately knew what I wanted to do with the mallet, and, after a few days of trial and error, figured out how to accomplish my goal: I’d jump out from behind a corner and swing the mallet directly at the head of the nearest person, stopping it an inch or so before his or her face.

     This was the closest thing I ever had to a can’t-miss scare, a nine-times-out-of-ten score that only went awry on one occasion. It occurred with a big guy who when I swung the mallet at his head grabbed its handle with one hand and with the other punched me in the face. I let the guy go, concluding that even if I got whapped I still succeeded in scaring the fuck out of the lug.

     My second year in the clown maze was 2001, which turned out to be my last as a Halloween monster. Our late-September start date followed September 11 by a couple weeks, a fact that might have had something to do with the insanity that suffused that year.

     Things started off on a sour note the first night, when the management made a boneheaded decision to limit employees’ soda consumption. As most of us relied on caffeine to keep us going throughout the night, this decree caused widespread anger. I witnessed several fellow monsters act out violently in the employee break area, screaming, stomping on the ground and throwing things. No surprise: within a few hours the limited soda decree was overturned.

     Yet the craziness only expanded over the following weeks. The guests were wilder than any I’d encountered during previous years, with punching and shoving incidents spiking dramatically.

     The clown maze this year was held in an indoor venue, and much better constructed than the previous year’s. It was also much darker lighting-wise, and so I didn’t see the twerp who approached me one night, although I definitely noticed when he began frantically rubbing his asshole against my right leg. I kicked him away, figuring he was up to something pervy…until I smelled the nasty fart he’d let and put two and two together. I immediately gave chase to the giggling shithead and his mutant pals but lost ‘em in the darkness.

     The above was among the year’s more benign assaults. Far worse occurred as the weeks went on, culminating with a reported throat slashing in a maze next to ours. As I heard it, the incident involved a guest taking a razor blade and, with a few quick swipes, cutting through a monster’s mask and into the skin of his neck.

     I never learned the reason for the assault (a gang hit was the speculation), nor if the victim survived. Regardless, I made it a point to spend much of the rest of that night in the break area. A co-worker, knowing of my aggressiveness with the mallet, told me “I wouldn’t want to be you tonight!” I didn’t either.

     As it turned out, the only thing worse than the guests that year were my fellow employees. Clowning around on the part of the monsters was normal, and tended to get quite rowdy--we’d been banned from a nearby Denny’s the previous October after a ketchup bottle was thrown during a late night soiree. In previous years I’d happily joined in the silliness, but I sensed early on that this year’s pranks were out of hand. These so-called pranks included a new inter-maze rivalry in which a couple monsters from one maze would tackle a monster from another, and forcibly bind the latter’s arms and legs with duck tape.

     The purpose behind this activity was never made clear to me, but it escalated until the break area became a hive of running and tackling, and culminated on the last night, when a monster in my maze had several ribs broken after being tackled by rivals. There was also a stink bomb tossed into the street monsters’ break area, prompting threats of retaliatory action against all the mazes (i.e. the street monsters put out word that they’d decimate every maze, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out who park management will favor in a fight between the experienced and respected street monsters and us losers in the mazes).

     The threatened retaliation never occurred, but the remainder of the night was quite unpleasant. I was unable to perform my standard final night ritual of surreptitiously changing into civilian clothing and wandering the park--going on the rides, observing the street monsters in action, etc--due to all the security guards who patrolled our maze, closely monitoring our every move.

     When that night finally ended it was a relief, and I took stock of the particulars of my experience as a Halloween monster: the shitty pay, horrendous hours, uncomfortable working conditions and constant verbal and physical abuse, which in my view far outweighed the job’s positive aspects. In short, it was time to put a stop to my employment as a monster, and, ten years ago this week, I did just that.