Vampire

“So what does this friend of yours need?” I asked.

Jim glanced quickly around to make sure we weren’t being observed.

“He’s got a daughter who’s living in New York who’s fallen in with a pretty bizarre crowd.”

“City or State” I asked.

Jim looked puzzled.

“Eh?” he said, then his face brightened. “Oh! City.” 

“What kind of bizarre crowd?”

He looked around again, then answered.

“Vampires.” 

I blinked at him.

“Pardon me,” I said. “I thought you said ‘vampires’.”

He nodded.

“I did.”

“So do I need to stock up on wooden stakes and crosses and garlic?” I asked, a wry grin scowling across my face. Jim chuckled and waved a hand idly in the air.

“No, no,” he said. “This is a group of people, most of them in their twenties or early thirties, who practice vampirism. They dress in black and hang out at night in a townhouse—I’ll give you all the information on the address and floorplans and so on—and they either have their teeth capped to make them like fangs, and they get girls to let them bite their necks and drink their blood.”

“So where do I come in?” I asked.

Late that October night, the station was showing vampire movies, three in a row, starting with the original “Nosferatu” and Max Shrek creeping across the screen in silent, yet comical, horror. Both boys snorted with derision each time he appeared and threw cheese balls at the television set. Finally, the movie was over and the host appeared.

“Good ev-en-ing,” he said, in a voice that could only be described as broadcast Romanian. “Tonight’s second film is ‘Dracula’, the classic motion picture produced in 1931 and starring the one and only Bela Lugosi as the Count himself. Mwa-hah-hah-hah.”

“This is lame,” Danny said, digging deep into a bag of a bag of barbecue potato chips. “Black and white. Again.”

Mike shook his head. “No way, man. This one’s cool. I saw it before. That dude, Lugosi, is the coolest. I mean, they didn’t even have special effects but they made him look awesome creepy. Like there’s this one scene where he’s just standing there, staring, and all they did was shine two little flashlights on his eyes to make them glow. You’ll see.”

Five minutes later, both boys were silent, the only sound the munching of snacks and an occasional belch. They watched the entire film, unconsciously holding their breath as Dracula fed on Mina and was stalked by Harker and Dr. van Helsing. Finally, when the movie finished, the host came back on the screen, dressed in a black cape with streaks of red dripping from each corner of his mouth.