Do You Know Who The Monsters Are?

One could be sitting right next to you wearing a suit

For over 30 years, I worked in government finance. It was as boring as it sounds, but it paid the bills.

Some years ago, a few friends and I decided that we needed to kick the rut we were in by doing something adventurous. We needed a major league change of scenery and wanted to do something that we could tell our grandchildren about. Something really off the wall, that could prove we were at least interesting back in the day.

Since we were all Halloween junkies, we decided to try out for the position of “monster” in The Halloween Haunt at Knott’s Scary Farm, one of the largest horror-themed attractions in the country.

The only requirement for the job was the ability to act like a lunatic. Somehow we pulled it off and got hired. Then we panicked. We wore suits and crunched numbers during the day, for God’s sake. We were not scary people and we certainly weren’t actors. How would we fit in with creatives working in an entertainment environment?

Turns out, we shouldn’t have worried. Everyone there had a deep love of Halloween, and truly embraced their inner weirdness. Getting paid to step away from “normal” and scare the snot out of people was job nirvana.

Who were our fellow monsters? They were lawyers, secretaries, students, one dentist, a college professor, car mechanics, and a postmaster general. Professional actors also worked The Haunt, like the guy that made gobs of money playing Santa Claus. He looked exactly like St. Nick until the makeup artists covered him in fake blood. He had a terrifying evil laugh too. I think he loved not having to be nice all the time.

We took our jobs as monsters quite seriously. We became adept at looking like part of the scenery, hiding in the fake fog until a guest passed us, at which point we’d startle them with a shaker can. We learned to do this from the side so as to protect our bodies, and especially for the men, the twigs and berries. Scared people tend to kick. Hard.

We wore professionally designed costumes and hideous masks over our heads. After twenty minutes it became hot and uncomfortable, so we worked twenty minutes on, then twenty minutes off.

Chatting with each other during our breaks revealed everyone’s hidden quirks and talents. One of the lawyers also sang opera. She proved it by singing an aria in the break area and received a standing ovation.

I also learned that one of the mechanics made sculptures out of junk car parts. He had entered a competition and hoped to have his work displayed in the next few weeks. He showed us pictures of towering skyscrapers and animals, all made out of nuts and bolts.

One of the students mostly sat alone writing while on break. He was an aspiring musician penning lyrics for melodies his band-mate wrote. He stared at me with an intensity that might suggest he stored severed heads in his refrigerator, but his lyrics were sensitive and inspiring.

The Halloween Haunt gave every one of us an excuse to shed our responsible skins and act like kids again. It proved that everyone is interesting, and sometimes in lovely ways, it proved that people are often much more than what they appear to be.

Mild-mannered accountants, lawyers and mechanics by day, monsters at night.