"Oh, I'm sorry. He's out of town. Is this something I can help you with?"
"Possibly.I was given one of your business cards, and I have to admit that the name sounds very intriguing. What exactly do you do there?"
"Do you like horror movies?"
"Love `em."
"Then you'll probably like what we do. You know, if you want to stop on by, we'd be more than happy to give you a tour."
"Sure, why not?" I said. "I've got some spare time. When should I be there?"
"We should be hanging around until about five, so any time before that. Do you need directions?"
"Nope.I'll see you soon, then. Thanks!"
After putting on a new watch and assuring Helen about sixty-eight times that we were both feeling fine and that it wasn't necessary for us to stay at home to recuperate, Roger and I drove to the address on the card. Ghoulish Delights looked like somebody's house that had been converted into a business, bearing only a small sign in the same oozing letters as on the card.
After narrowly avoiding a serious crutch mishap, we stepped onto the porch and rang the doorbell. It was answered by a tall, athletically-built, dark-haired woman who wore a t-shirt with the Ghoulish Delights logo.
"Hi, I'm Rachel Mallory," she said, extending her hand. I noticed that she wore black fingernail polish, with a little eyeball drawn on each nail. It was pretty cool.
"Andrew Mayhem. This is my friend Roger."
"Pleased to meet you.Welcome to our lair."
We walked inside. The waiting room had a couch, a couple of chairs, a small table, and a wall that had every square inch covered with horror movie posters. One of the chairs was currently occupied by a skeleton wearing a pair of bunny ears and smoking a cigarette.
"That's our mascot, Calcium," said Rachel. "Have a seat on the couch and I'll introduce the others to you." She went over and poked her head into the adjoining room. "Potential customers are here! Everyone act your weirdest!"
Four other people marched out of the room. "Why don't you all introduce yourselves and tell these nice men what it is you do around here," said Rachel.
The first guy looked about thirty, wore thick glasses, had short blonde hair with a huge cowlick, and a very ruddy complexion with several streaks of acne. "I'm CarlUnderall ," he said, looking to the left of me instead of making eye contact."Cameraman."
Next to him was a small, thin, red-headed, freckle-faced guy in his mid-twenties. He wore a Ghoulish Delights t-shirt like Rachel's, except that this one had a fake hand protruding from the stomach holding...well, a stomach. "I'm FarleySoukup ," he said in a squeaky voice that immediately forced me to hate him."Special effects."
The next guy was also in his mid-twenties. He had a dark complexion and was dressed entirely in black. His straight black hair hung over his shoulders, and he even wore black nail polish and a black dangling spider earring—a Goth boy through and through. It wouldn't have surprised me if he'd been wearing a set of vampire teeth. If I'd been holding a glass, the temptation to fling the contents at him and scream "Holy water!" would have been unbearable. "Dominick Griffin," he said."Sound, story and occasional on-camera predator."
"And I'm Linda Hanson," said the girl next to him, who was obviously his girlfriend, judging from the arm coiled around his waist. She was also dressed entirely in black, but she added bleach-blonde hair and blood-red lipstick to the color palette. She was a little overweight, but her tight-fitting clothing indicated that she was comfortable with her body. She flashed me a cheerful smile. "Set decoration, lighting, and props. Welcome to our happy home."
"Thanks," I said. "So this is a movie studio, huh? Would I have seen any of your films?"
Rachel gave the others a wave to indicate that they could go back to their business, and then sat down on one of the chairs. "So, Michael gave you a card but didn't say anything about what we do here?"
"Actually, it was at a party a while back. I'd had a lot to drink and I don't really remember the conversation, but the name, Ghoulish Delights, sounded pretty intriguing. I've kept meaning to call, but this is the first day off I've had in a while. Some people call me a workaholic."
"Well, hopefully you'll think we're as cool as our name. You say you're a horror movie fan?"
"Sure," I said. "I love all that stuff.The movies, the books, the games, everything. Guess I'm just asicko at heart."
"I can handle them if the characters aren't too stupid," Roger said.
"Let me ask you this," said Rachel. "Have you ever wanted to star in your very own horror flick?"
"Some days I feel like I already am," I told her.
Rachel leaned forward. "What we do here at Ghoulish Delights is create a short, custom-made horror film for you and your family and friends to star in, which we can tape in your very own home or anywhere else you want. We have a large selection of script templates, which are completely customizable to suit whatever strikesyour fancy. If you'd like your family of four to star in their very own mad-slasher-in-the-house flick, we can give you the script, the stage directions, and all the blood and gore you could ever want. You're both too old to belong to a fraternity...no offense...but last week we pretended to kill off sixteen guys in their very own frat house. It's fun!"
"Do you get a lot of business for this sort of thing?" I asked.
Rachel shrugged. "We're doing all right. Our office is located here in Chamber, but very few of our customers come from this area. We head out all overFlorida , toMiami ,Tampa ...and some occasional tourist business inOrlando , for people who want something a little darker than Disney World."
"So you just come to somebody's house and shoot it like a regular movie?"
"Pretty much.You could think of it as a slightly more offbeat version of family portraits. How it works is you would describe the locale you want and the number of actors you have, and then we'd show you our sample scripts. After you found one you liked, we'd revise it to make it a perfect match for your group, and then assign the roles. Don't worry, everyone gets a good part. We'd come over, and our director would work with your people while our guys set everything up, then we'd film until we got it right. It usually takes most of the day, and everyone has a great time. And when we're done you have a ten to fifteen minute video that's yours to keep."
"And there aren't any limits? You get to do whatever you want?"
"Oh, no, obviously we have both safety precautions and technology restraints. We're not going to film your three year-old daughter hanging out of a second floor window, and the only explosives we can get the insurance for are tiny squibs to simulate a gunshot wound."
"Squibs?" asked Roger.
"It's a balloon that's filled with stage blood and hooked up to a small explosive charge. When you set it off, blood sprays and it looks like you were shot. Some effects artists use a condom instead of a balloon, but since we often have kids around we try not to do anything that adds to their sexual confusion."
"That's very thoughtful," I said.
"And we do strictly below-the-neck squibs. So we do have a few restrictions that are simply for safety reasons, because a horror movie stops being fun when people really get hurt. And, like I said, there are things we simply can't do. We have people saying `Why can't you show me transforming into a werewolf?' and it's because we don't have the resources. We do have a large supply of monster masks and costumes, and can do minor monster makeup, but you're not going to get state-of-the-art special effects—it's not feasible for what we're trying to do here. We can't show your son's head rolling down the stairs, because that involves making a cast, but we can certainly use camera tricks and makeup to simulate a decapitation. AndKaro syrup is cheap, so you can have all the blood you want. So, have I frightened you off yet?"