Tom had always been fascinated with horror movies, from "Frankenstein" to "An American Werewolf in London." He spent a lot of his online time downloading clips and prowling horror forums and monster story sites. He was considered a geek at high school, along with his friends Brad and Steve, who sometimes tried to arrange monster movie screenings.
Tom was hanging with his friends, watching the BBC "Dracula" on his computer, when he saw an e-mail message from an unfamiliar address, for something called the Maker. "Huh. Oh, it's from some guy named James. I think I met him in a chatroom once." Steve gave his friend an arched eyebrow "Must be a bulk send. Don't open it." "Don't be a wuss, man. Give it a try!" said Brad, ironically the smallest of the three and still struggling to grow a moustache at age 17. When the spyware shields couldn't come up with anything, Tom decided to download it. "Maybe it's a new CG modeling program."
Suddenly, a pop-up appeared. "Welcome to the Maker 3.0. You have been chosen to playtest one of our new themed add-ons. In addition to the standard Maker features, you now have access to Monster Maker Beta."
This really excited the boys. Looking through the template, Tom saw options for all manner of monsters from fiction, movies, and comics, plus custom feature add ons.
"Well," said Tom, "Let's give this program a test run..."