I was thinking about this while working the far end of the gallery. I was hiding against the wall where the first part of it ended and turned abruptly into another corridor. I'd sprung from this spot a dozen times. Mostly, it had been fairly effective. Sometimes, the response had been polite. I was beginning to think that perhaps I'd lost my edge – or that maybe I was dealing with a dead audience, when I heard the sound of distant screaming. I knew Joe was in the Hall of Faces, and the screams couldn't be anything other than a group of teenage girls.

Teenage girls are the victims of choice for nearly all the monsters aboard the Queen Mary. Filled with enthusiasm and charged with energy, they overreact because they assume it's expected. And they do it with panache.

So I crouched a little in my hiding place as I heard their nervous whispers and muffled giggles. It sounded like a group of at least five or them, maybe more. I could see their reflections in the glass of one of the pictures on the wall opposing me. I waited patiently until they were in just the right position, and then I sprang out into the hallway.

The girls heading toward me – there were six in all – stopped in mid-stride and fell back on each other, nearly falling backwards in a group. They inched away from the wall cautiously, flinching every time I moved. I maintained eye contact. Then I rattled the shaker can at them, and they all screamed again.

People will usually only jump, flinch and scream once after I leap out and surprise them. Then they'll just shake their heads and laugh at themselves because they know they've been had. Some people will continue to react after they've seen me since they buy into the whole monster-victim thing. Then there are the people I really like. They totally freak out. These people are really into the fantasy. They don't care if I'm just a guy in a costume. They don't think about it one way or the other. They're the people who generally want to play and have the most fun. I watched the six girls nervously move away from me down the second corridor of the gallery. They kept turning around to see what I was doing. One look into their eyes told me I had one of those groups.

So I lumbered after them, chuckling.

"He's still after us," one of them said, pushing another of them.

They began moving faster. So did I. I accompanied the chuckle by rattling my shaker can.

"Where you goin' girls?" I said in my gravelly Wolfman Jack voice.

They bumped into each other as if trying to urge each other to move faster. We were almost at a run now. "Giiiiiirrrrrrllllls," I called. "Where you goin'? You can't get away!"

One of them, a short blonde girl, turned around. "Oh my God," she screamed. "He's still behind us!"

The others screamed and picked up the pace. I raced after them. Now it was time to unleash my patented ghoul laugh. In a situation like this, the only way to properly use it is to start with a slow chuckle from the back of your throat. Then by degrees as the pace quickens, raise the volume until it becomes booming, maniacal and blood curdling. Freddy Kruger did this to his victims in the original Nightmare on Elm Street. It's just as effective in real life.

We turned the corner out of the gallery and ran down the length of a long, dark stonewall passage lit by phony candles in stanchions. There was a monster in a black robe positioned near the entrance that usually surprised people stumbling out of the gallery. But all he could do was stare numbly as the five screaming girls dashed past him. Then he heard my laugh and turned to see me running after them, waving my arms. He raised his hand to give me a quick high-five as I ran past him.

The girls kept going, turning at the end of the passage into the gloomy, cobweb-covered crypt. They didn't stop to look at any of stacked slabs or the skeletons they contained. They ran into a billow of fog in the center of the room gushing from a fog machine pumping it out from behind one of the walls.

I stopped for a second under the cover of the blanket of fog. I could see them for a second, breathing hard near the exit. Jerry Dyer was standing near them, since the crypt is her spot. At 64, Jerry is the oldest working monster at Shipwreck. Despite her age, her act is creepy and effective. That's probably why they named her MVM for the Factory of Fears in 2000. But even she looked surprised at the agitated state the girls were in.

I waited another heartbeat and then burst out of the fog.

"Hiya girls," I said, laughing. "Miss me?"

"There he is again," one of them screamed, pointing. They turned and ran out of the crypt, bumping and pushing each other out of the way.

The passageway out of the crypt is long, dark narrow and twisting. I didn't follow them into it. Instead, I turned to a door to the side of the entrance. It led into the room outside the set. There, under low workman's lights, the bare beams and wood panels used to construct the maze were shameless exposed. A spiral staircase leading to an upper deck dominated the middle of the room, as the maze had been constructed around it. I tiptoed carefully over a sea of wires and stored cans of paint to door on the opposite side of the staircase which lead back into the maze at the end of the long dark passageway. I grinned to myself as I inched the door open and listened. I heard the distinct sound of screaming coming toward me. Using this "secret passage," I'd beaten the girls to this spot. They were moving slower now, probably feeling secure in the fact that I'd given up the chase. But no such luck for them. Obviously they hadn't seen many Halloween movies. Nobody but the final girl gets away.

When they were right on the other side of the door, I pulled it open and rattled my shaker can.

"Oooh ha ha ha ha haaaaaa!" I laughed fiendishly.

One of the girls fell over trying to back away. Her friend pulled her back up before she could hit the floor.

The chase was on again. Remembering the whole Elm Street thing, I started singing, "One...two…Freddy's coming for yooooooou!"

Up ahead I heard a shrill voice crying "Get away…get away…get away!"

We ran down the length of a hallway frozen every second or so in the flash of a strobe light. This turned into another passage choked in cobwebs that waved in the suddenly breeze caused by all the frenzied running bodies. A cluster of bats hung from the ceiling, but no one stopped to admire them. I was shaking the shaker can so hard now that I feared the eleven pennies inside it would burst through the top.

And still we kept going. We ran past an area surrounded by a chain link fence that contained a really big monster hacking on a huge slab of latex rubber beef with a phony plastic ax. He turned and raised the ax threateningly as the girls ran past him. They were in such a panic now that I doubt they even saw him. He gave me a thumb's up as I ran after them. I turned quickly and cried, "Dead guys rock!" He hit the fence with his ax in response.

We ran past the kitchen, which was the final grisly tableau in the maze. The monster behind the counter stopped serving a platter of body parts and blinked at the running girls. At the end of the kitchen was a narrow metal gang plank that lead out of the maze into a room on the lower deck filled with Coke machines and video games. The girls pushed and shoved each other to see who would go down it first. There were only two of them left at the head of the gangway when I reached it.

"I hate that guy," the taller of the two said as I skidded to a halt inches from her face. Her friend, who was smaller, brunette and wearing a pink halter top and shorts, screamed and pulled at her friend's sleeve as she saw me. The both jumped, screamed and had to catch the handrail to keep from falling over.

They dashed away out of the maze without turning back.

"See you in your dreams, girls!" I called to their backs. "Dead guys rock!"

Monster five, victims zero, I thought with a wide smile as I turned back.

I slowly wandered back to the gallery and Hall of Faces with a stupid smile stamped on my ghoulish face. I was bathed in sweat from the chase, and my costume was clinging to me. But I didn't care. The chase had been like catching a perfect wave. You don't care if you paddle back out or not once it's over, because you know it can't get any better. I'd be telling everyone about this chase for the rest of the run of the show. Better yet, those girls would have a story they'd be telling until they're as old as I am.

And just think: I was getting paid to do this.

Dead guys rock, all right.

Oh, yes they do.