Unger and the last four monsters had beaten us up to the break room, so we were the last to arrive. Lord, how the rumors had grown since we left. Now the stalker wasn't just a killer with a butcher knife, but a masked executioner who had hacked up a couple of people with an ax. Worse yet, Diana and I were two of his victims.

Funny. I felt pretty spry for a chopped up corpse.

Unger announced that the event was over, and that we would all be paid for the rest of the night. Then he told us to leave, adding that he would explain at the cast party a week later. Of course, since it was supposed to be a secret, everybody knew what was going on even if the story was growing more outrageous by the second.

As everyone was shuffling out, I saw a girl named Kathy who had been working in the theater before everyone had been pulled out of the maze. She'd left in such a hurry that she'd forgotten her bag, and now she was too scared to go back down and get it. Since I'd just been there, I took her down. Aside from the ghoul on stage, the seats had been peppered with life-size ghoul dummies, the idea being that a live monster could sit amongst them and then pop up and surprise passing guests. As Kathy reached for her bag, she said, "I wonder if all these are really just dummies?"

She stopped. We looked at each other and then starred back at the seats.

"Let's get out of here before one of them gets up," I said, and once again, we ran for the stairs.

Outside, before leaving for my car, I remember looking back at the ship and smiling. I'd wanted a dramatic finish to Halloween night. I guessed I'd gotten my wish.

The cast party was held a week later on board the ship. We learned that we had entertained crowds of over 60,000 people, that our attendance and popularity was second only to Knott's Berry Farm's venerable Halloween Haunt, and that ours was considered the scariest Halloween event of the season.

But it was the subject of the stalker that was on everybody's lips. Even though he had only threatened two monsters in the Factory of Fears and had only been glimpsed by someone in the Neighboring "Hall of Illusions" maze, everyone had heard the story. No one wanted to believe that he was just some skinny kid with a pocket knife since it was much more fun to tell of a hulking figure who now wielded a double edged broadsword. But I had a chance to speak with the head of Queen Mary security, who told me that no trace of the stalker was found by either his people or the Long Beach police. "He probably wiped off his make up and slipped out with the crowds," he said.

Perhaps. But others think he may not have been a Shipwreck guest at all. Some believe he might have been one of the permanent residents of the Queen Mary, one who continues to haunt the halls and staterooms.

Who can say? Such is the stuff of legends. Such is the fabric of Halloween.