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“ Frank, I have to say I thought you were crazy when you said you had a plan to turn this into a gold mine and then made it so ugly,” Sam said and caught herself.“ Oops.”“ You came out here?” Frank asked.“ Yes, but Eddie wouldn’ t tell me anything,” she said, trying to look coy.“ How hard did you try to get him to talk?” Frank queried.“ I wore my tightest jeans, my sexiest blouse, my matching stiletto heels and got zip,” she said, cutting Eddie with a sharp glance.“ Good job, I’ m proud of you Eddie,” Frank said, very aware of how much she wanted to be let in on the center’ s secret project.
Frank had exhausted his limited resources in the area of costume design. Putting out some feelers as to who might have a lead put Sam in his office. She knew someone locally who had worked on a couple of movie sets creating animated creatures. With her arms folded and her legs crossed, she took a posture that said,“ If you want what I have, I want the information I seek.” Frank had given in because he felt this was exactly what he was looking to find.“ Thanks Frank,” Eddie said.“ Thank you Frank. I promise I won’ t tell anyone,” Samantha said.“ Oh! Christmas is next week and I am having a New Years Eve party. All of you will be getting invitations if they haven’ t already arrived,” she said, looking to see if anyone was going to RSVP her last minute affair.“ I have already made plans and paid for, food, drinks and a room so me and my date won’ t have to drive,” Rodney said, with a shrug.“ Sorry Sam, I made plans also,” Frank said. She looked up at Eddie who was listening from above.“ Tanya and I usually stay home or cross the street. My neighbor always has a party. It’ s an open invitation,” Eddie said. Sam looked upset.“ How about a tour of the haunted house?” he asked, and made his way back to the group. Rodney and Frank said thanks for waiting to light up the web and excused themselves. They had business to attend. Eddie started to show Sam the layout. She waited until she heard the outer doors close before speaking.“ I’ m sorry I haven’ t sent a message but,” she started.“ Life gets in the way,” Eddie finished for her.“ I thought about your family and it was not fair to put you in that situation. I’ m sorry,” Sam said. She was a little put out that he had not sent her a message. She was about to say“ the phone works both ways,” before he interrupted. Eddie was not sure to what situation she was referring, but if she was apologizing, it would certainly be bad manners not to accept.“ No problem,” he said, and continued to show her the whole layout. The partitions and doorways were framed. Wiring had been run and Eddie explained the purpose of the ushers and how the simple system allowed them to move from exhibit to exhibit using tiny red and green LED lights.“ Traffic signals!” Sam said. Eddie nodded and continued the tour.
She asked about the thick glass plates in the floor beneath the very low frame of the padded tunnel. Eddie already found someone who was in the process of breeding hundreds of rodents. The same guy helped to design the area below the glass. Narrow hallways led from one living area to the other and ran beneath the glass.“ You are going to have to crawl over a floor of rats? I hate rats!” Sam got the picture.“ I tried to think of how to scare everyone.”“ How about a guy with a trench coat offering candy,” Sam laughed.“ I thought I was warped,” Eddie smiled.“ Just trying to help,” Sam shrugged.“ You are helping. Some of the ideas came from the most offhanded comments. I tried to think of all the horror movies I watched as a kid. Tanya’ s fear of spiders inspired the web when I saw a Daddy-long-legs picking its way across the muddy floor. I came out here to see how the cleaning crew was coming along.”“ So you had to make that the biggest exhibit of all?” Sam asked, a hint of jealousy rang in her voice.“ I could not have human sized spiders on a tiny web. Some of the shows are walk through or crawl through in the case of the rat tunnel and some are mini-shows lasting about ten seconds. I found out when we took groups