A RIP-ROARING VAMPIRE TALE!
By Igor Sangre Blackpudding
It was the worst of tales, it was the best of tales. No . . . it really was the worst of tales. The old vagrant had come up to the campfire from out of the night, bleary-eyed and bushy-tailed, to beg for a cup of broth. Vlad and his brother Glad gruffly bade the visitor to be seated, then poured him some steaming gzachplach, rich with fish eyeballs and store coupons. The stranger greedily drank it down. Vlad, or maybe it was Glad (I get the two mixed up – even their mother, the Gypsy Queen, can't tell them apart), quietly refilled the old vagrant's bowl, then puffed on his pipe as he eyed the stranger.
"We get very few strangers around here, especially on a night when the full moon casts her sickly pall over the dead landscape" said Glad (or maybe Vlad) melodramatically. Vlad played a chromatic scale on his zither (or was it Glad on his zipper? Oh bother – I'll just call 'em Thing One and Thing Two!)
"What brings you out on an ill-fated night such as this?"
The stranger wiped a hand across his tangled beard. He turned the collar up on his frayed and filthy coat as he moved closer to the fire.
"I have escaped from the Castle!" he croaked. His voice was a cracked tile sliding off the roof of a Mediterranean villa (I have one for rent, if you're interested.)
"Not the . . . the . . . White Castle?"
"The very same. I murdered six men and played tiddlywinks with a dozen more to get out of that unspeakable hellhole!"
Vlad and Glad looked uneasily about them. No one escaped from the Castle without dire consequences to themselves, and anyone who was thought to aid them. With one accord they quickly doused the campfire and stamped its glowing embers until their leather shoes began smoldering. The old vagrant laughed mirthlessly at their antics.
"Fools!" he spat. "Do you think Count Brack and his minions cannot find us if they want? But I have made certain they will not be looking for me!" It was then that Vlad and Glad (who were now joined by their little brother Brad) noticed that the stranger had no ear lobes. The mark of the Secret Santa!
"Pipe down, grandpa – before you blow a gasket" chided little Brad, always a rude brat at times like these.
The old man stood up suddenly; he no longer looked so frail or misbegotten.
"May your days be filled with paprika, you guttersnipe!" he snarled, hurling an entire set of the Encyclopedia Britannica at the little child. Brad dodged nimbly, but was felled by the Index. As Vlad and Glad tended their fallen sibling, the stranger calmly sat down and, uninvited, began to tell his tale:
I was born to a prosperous family of Burghers and Shakers near the Baltic Sea. That was over seventy years ago. My father's money bought me the best education at the finest universities in Europe. I soon began lecturing at schools across the world. In Cairo I was engaged to tutor the Pasha's only daughter, Ptooey. How I curse the day I took that job! She was a bold and beautiful vixen, who was refused nothing by her father. She also worked in the Dark Arts, turning gold into vinegar and chanting the forbidden verses of the Mad Scot, Hairy Langdon. Her eyes burned with desire and cruelty. Her mouth was a pomegranate stained with blood. She spun her web of intrigue around me and soon I found myself hopelessly entrapped by her charms and spells. She made me her bondsman in love . . . and in necromancy.
The old man paused a moment to dislodge a Jolly Rancher from his ancient throat.
She had no real love for me; I was but a means to an end. She wanted her father's position and power, and so we two worked together to bring about his downfall. At the dark of the moon we muttered Byzantine verses from moldering books that had made their evil way from the wreck of Atlantis. Soon the pasha grew pale and weak. He evinced great fear of the nighttime and commanded the shutters to his bedroom never be opened. But that could not stop the thing that battened on him, that we had summoned from the vasty deep. 'Twas an eldritch vampire! The fiend crept upon the unsuspecting pasha in the dead of night and drained his living essence drop by drop.
"Can such a thing be?" cried Vlad, unwisely interrupting the old man's tale. Vlad, Glad, and Brad quickly backed away from him as he hefted a Budapest telephone directory, taking aim at their heads.
"A thousand pardons, sir. Continue!" said Thing Two.
Ptooey soon gained her coveted power and position; she became de facto ruler of the entire country. When she had an entire population at her beck and call she no longer needed or wanted me. Unbeknownst to me, she commanded our vampire monster to begin stealing my life and will, as well as that of her own father. But I had learned too much, too well, while under her black tutelage. The first night the creature attempted to straddle and drain me, I fought back with potent charms from Cathay. But I did not escape the vampire's efforts totally unscathed. During our silent, deadly struggle the creature's own blood was mingled with mine, entering a nick on my chin from shaving. I felt the effects immediately. In a last, desperate burst of energy I threw the monster from me and commanded it in the language of the Croutons to begone. It spread its foul black wings and flew out into the night sky, howling in rage.
I began to shiver and salivate uncontrollably. My pupils dilated. My teeth rattled like backgammon dice. The Change was taking place. By dawn I had transformed completely – into a blood-lusting vampire! I stayed in my darkened bedroom all that day. When the sun finally set I crept out of my room and visited my former paramour, Ptooey. She feigned concern over my ill appearance. Little did she know!
Vlad, Glad and Brad were now joined by their mother, the Gypsy Queen. The elderly stranger stiffly arose and bowed to her. She curtseyed to him. He gave her the high sign. She gave him the low sign. The caller yelled out "Allemande Left" and the whole kit & caboodle sashayed around the barn . . .
Now where was I? Ah yes. Ptooey little reckoned with my new supernatural powers. I held her in my gaze, like a serpent holds a mouse before devouring it. I had no intention of destroying her, although that had been her corrupt intent with me. No, I was after more than just revenge. Now it would be I that ruled all of Egypt! Through her. My vampire hypnotic powers were strong, but her will to survive was even stronger! While feigning to be under my command, she secretly continued to delve into the forbidden arts until she discovered a cure for dandruff. She was immediately awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry and got an all-expense paid trip to Hawaii, where she escaped my clutches for a time. In the mean while the populace grew restless at my oppressive taxes. You wouldn't believe the dental bills a vampire runs up! The fellahin finally overwhelmed my guards and stormed the Pasha's palace, where they found their beloved leader nothing more than an emaciated zombie. Enraged, they next sought me in my crypt-like bedroom. Fortunately, the sun had just set and my powers were at their zenith. I slashed my way through the riff-raff like a drunkard cutting butter and transformed myself into a giant bat, winging through the cold desert air and spreading terror wherever I alighted. After satisfying my craving for living human blood, I resumed my bat form and found refuge in an ancient tomb amidst the decayed temples at Necropolis. There I met the deadly lycanthrope, Towser. He was dodging a child support bill for a litter of Dalmatian pups over in Albania. He it was who told me that a certain Count Brack, in the fastness of the Carpathian Mountains, could cure me of my vampirism, if I so wished. If I so wished? Have you ever had to pee while sleeping hanging upside down? What a mess! I left the famished lycanthrope with a bag of Gravy Train and headed north towards the fabled Carpathian Mountains, home of dragons, griffins, and hootenannies. In Triste I caught up with my erstwhile colleague in demonism, Ptooey. She had cashed in her Hawaiian cruise for a hot tub concession at the local lazaretto. She was too wily for me to defeat, and I was too strong for her to destroy, so we became lovers again. The sex was incredible, and the tax deductions were none too shabby either.
Here the old man stopped a moment, lost in salacious thought. The Gypsy Queen surreptitiously slipped a Barry Manilow tape into her walkman. Brad, Glad and Vlad were asleep in the ashes of the fire they had stomped out earlier.
"Your story interests me, sir" commented the Gypsy Queen, as she scratched the nose on her wart. "Am I to suppose that your quest finally succeeded and that you no longer feel the need to rip open my withered veins for sustenance?"
"Gag a maggot, lady . . . I mean, your Majesty – I shall finish my tale and be off into the cursed night again before you can say "bob's your uncle" " he replied.
As I was saying . . . we became lovers all over again. But this time as equals, as true partners. My dreams of returning to a mortal existence faded in her captivating arms. Then one night she went too far, summoning a demon from the nether regions to scrub the toilet, after I'd fed off a typhoid victim. The demon proved to be too powerful for her to control; it escaped the illuminated pentagram drawn with horseradish and sank its claws deep into her flesh, dragging her down into the cold blue flames of Hades.
Grief-stricken, I slowly made my way to Count Brack's castle. I hardly knew where I was, or what I was doing. Initially the Count was the acme of graciousness. He bade me rest in his wine cellar as he prepared to perform the mystic rituals that would release me from my vampiric bondage. But in his malignant heart he harbored a devilishly different agenda for me. His own studies in the occult had convinced him that if one bathed in the blood of a vampire, one could avoid the attendant calamities of the year 2012 – long foretold by the extinct race of Aztecs in the New World to be a time of universal upheaval and destruction – like unto the misrule of the dreaded Palin-McCain cabal. Once he had immobilized me he would drain me for my blood's protection. I slumbered soundly in his wine cellar, unaware of his ferocious duplicity, until the sun had set. I found the Count in his library, poring over his pristine collection of Green Stamps. He offered me a glass of Wyler's Lemonade. I declined, telling him in stilted tones that I never drank . . . slop. Just then his daughter entered. She was an enchanting child, all of seventeen, completely innocent of the worldly cynicism and evil intent of her father. We fell in love immediately. I yearned to be a mere mortal again, so I could live my life with her in a sane and hallowed manner, a manner blessed by Mother Church and Mother Nature. The Count could sense our budding romance, which displeased him. He took pains to hide his displeasure and continued to cozen me with his courtly etiquette until it was time to begin the transformation from vampire to human. I was strapped to a mahogany table, made to endure chains woven from garlic, surrounded by mirrors, and given a dose of cod liver oil that would choke a goat. The Count leaned over me, poised with a long, hollow needle, ready to send me to a black oblivion, never to return, when his daughter burst into the laboratory. She had overheard one of the servants explain the imminent perfidy to a scullery maid. She pleaded with her father to honor his promise to me, to restore my humanity. But he spurned her pleas and finally slapped her face to quiet her sobs. My rage at his caddish behavior towards his own daughter redoubled my vampiric strength. I easily burst the bonds that held me and tossed aside the wreaths of garlic. My hands curled around his throat. I bared my fangs. He would die, slowly and unpleasantly. His daughter, that sweet child, dropped to her knees and begged me to spare his miserable life for her sake. What could I do? I loved the lass with all my heart. I let my arms drop limply to my side. The Count collapsed in a heap onto the floor. Slowly he crawled over to a cabinet, opened the cabinet door, and removed a crystal vial with amber-colored liquid inside. Drink this, he said huskily. It will remove the vampire taint completely. As soon as the blessed liquid touched my lips I felt the tingle of mortality throughout my body. In a minute I was whole again, a part of the human race! His daughter and I embraced, but even as we pressed our lips together in a chaste kiss, the Count called loudly for his guards. They entered and separated us roughly. I no longer had any supernatural skills with which to oppose them. Count Brack had me thrown into a dungeon so deep I could smell Chinese cooking through the floor. He had his daughter wrapped in a copy of the Sunday New York Times and taken to a nunnery. For the past fifteen years I have wasted away in that accursed black hole. Tonight . . . tonight, I finally escaped. Now, I intend to find that nunnery and reclaim my one true love! The Count will not be concerned about it. I ran into my old friend, Towser, as I stumbled towards your camp. He had intended to make a meal of you all. But I persuaded him that Count Brack, being all dark meat, would be much tastier. He agreed with me. I expect he is at the castle now, feasting on that devil's innards!
Seemingly relieved of some inner burden, the old magician and ex-vampire looked about him with a smile. But there was no one to share his relief. Brad, Vlad and Glad lay still asleep in the ashes, and the Gypsy Queen had slipped into a welcome coma as well. With a tolerant shrug of the shoulders, the old man stood, went through their pockets for silver and trinkets, then turned and headed into the moonlit mist, muttering: "The things I do for a handout!"
Four thousand miles away Osiris rose from her bed of rotten papyrus, thinking the time was now ripe for her appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.
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