The following is an October, 2001 recollection by a dude who was employed as a monster in a couple Halloween mazes from 1998 to 2001. As to who this guy is, there’s a good chance it may be the same one who writes everything else on this site—which is to say me—or not. For now, though, he and his place of business will remain anonymous.
To be honest, I don’t recall what inspired me to accompany a friend to apply for a job at a So Cal amusement park one day in September of ‘98. Peer pressure? Boredom? Lack of money? All of the above, most likely.
We were there to sign up to work as “Talent” in the park’s annual Halloween festival. During the month of October the park is decked out with skulls, cobwebs and all sorts of horror ephemera, and around a thousand people are hired to work as talent on the park streets (street monsters) and in the various mazes—actually rides refashioned into haunted houses for patrons to walk though and get scared.
My friend and I chose the biggest and most popular of the park’s mazes, a vampire themed funhouse. Before getting started, however, we had to endure the incredibly boring application process that for some reason took around three hours. A few weeks later we returned to the park for costume fittings, during which my friend got food poisoning and spent much of the day puking into trash cans and generally acting like one of the walking dead. Perhaps I should have taken that as an omen.
More waiting was in store during a late September orientation in which the park’s higher-ups gave us a lecture, the particulars of which boiled down to one hard-and-fast rule: NEVER TOUCH OR STRIKE A GUEST. I took that rule to heart upon starting work the second week of October (having been on standby the previous week).
The Vampire Maze: 1998-99
There was more waiting around on that first night, as there was every evening after. I reported to work as
scheduled at 5:30 PM, and stood in line to get a pass which I then gave to the lady in the costume warehouse, who relinquished my costume. There followed an hour or so of down time until the park officially opened at 7 PM.
That first night was rough. I was punched and put in a headlock by a couple of asshole guests, and utterly exhausted after an hour or two of jumping out at people and chasing ‘em around my room. I also had to inhale the (probably toxic) mist that was constantly pumped into my room, put up with a suffocating rubber mask and wear a costume that by midnight was a sweaty, reeking mess. Worst of all, I was subjected to the maze’s theme song, Dead Can Dance’s “Host of Seraphim,” played over and over and over. I once liked that haunting tune (it’s played near the end of THE MIST), but not after hearing it blasted on a continuous loop!
My room was located near the end of the maze. I got to know this room, with its portrait of Vlad the Impaler and partially opened coffin, intimately over the succeeding weeks, and again the following October. During that time I got a strong education in all things scare-related, and learned some valuable lessons about survival in a Halloween maze, such as…
Never Touch or Strike A Guest…Unless They Ask for It!
An example of this would be the twerp who, apparently bitter that I’d scared him and made him look like a bitch in 
front of his friends, followed me around a corner and shoved me from behind, nearly knocking me over. Official protocol insists that you inform a “Blackout” person (black shirted people stationed throughout the maze) about troublemakers, but in this case I felt a more direct approach was necessary.
One thing us monsters have in our favor is that we know the layout of the mazes in a way the guests never will. I used this knowledge to my advantage that night, exiting through a black curtained (and so hidden) door that took me outside the maze; I then ran around to another hidden door that led back inside, where I lay in wait for the twerp behind a painted tree. When he appeared I snuck up behind him and shoved him just as he’d shoved me, albeit a little harder, as he wound up stumbling and falling flat on his ugly face. Picking himself up, the asswipe flashed what might have been gang slang in my direction (which didn’t concern me much, seeing as he was white) and then, as I expected, turned and scuttled away like the wimp he was.
The only problem was the presence of a blackout woman stationed nearby. I quickly informed her “You didn’t see that!” She agreed.
Truthfully, I can’t think of many more examples of guest-bashing on my part, outside the numerous shaker can “accidents.” This is to say that I made good use of the obnoxious tin cans with marbles in ‘em we were issued as scare props when I “accidentally” brought my can down on several unruly peoples’ heads!
Keep Moving
Scaring people, I found, was a bit like a dance in the way I learned to always stay in motion.
People, particularly women, have a tendency to involuntarily lash out when scared. I witnessed just such a display when a fellow monster wandered into my part of the maze and scared a girl—who reflexively kicked him in the nuts, causing him to fall down and wail like a banshee.
I never got kicked in the nuts myself. In fact, while working in the vampire maze I didn’t get whapped all that much, period (aside from the shoving incident described above). Thus, at the end of most nights, when my co-workers were bitching about all the abuse they suffered (“I got hit so many times tonight!” was a familiar complaint), I was secure in the knowledge that most of the time I hadn’t gotten hit once…because I kept moving!
Be Aggressive
The above is not to suggest that timidity in scaring people is any way advisable. Far from it: I learned early on that the best and only way to scare is to be as aggressive as possible, and not to hesitate in going after the biggest, most intimidating guests. Aside from being the most satisfying scares you can perpetrate, going after the big guys serves as a deterrent to any would-be tough guys in the crowd—another reason I got hit less than my colleagues, far too many of whom tended to lavish their attention on easier targets.
Mind you, I’m not saying women and children shouldn’t be scared, just that all Halloween maze patrons, big and small, deserve a good shaking up.
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 chest! (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 practically every female 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 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.
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.
The Clown Maze: 2000-01
In 2000 chose a new venue, this one a clown-themed maze inspired by the flick KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE. The bad news is that it was an open air structure 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 concluded that even if I got whapped I still succeeded in scaring the fuck out of him.
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. Off duty clowning around on the part of the monsters was normal, and tended to get quite rowdy—we’d actually gotten 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 duct 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.