In this day and age one would think that figments of our imagination wouldn’t exist in our real lives. However, something had happened, not in an instant, but slowly, over years and years of young people being generally miserable, moody and reading strange sagas of various natures. The change happened in a way that seemed natural, in a way. One day these figments of our imagination made their appearance, little by little, making it seem…well…normal. There were a few that saw what was happening and vowed to stop it, but unfortunately they were deemed mad. Bert Nelson was one of these people. Some might have called him crazy, others hyper and some knew that he was off his rocker, but didn’t really care because he was really a good egg, despite the fact that they knew he had been waiting for the zombie apocalypse for a long time.
How Bert saw what was happening was easy to see, for him at least. More and more people died, either by having their blood drained or they were severely ravaged, often torn limb from limb. Bert never understood why anyone would want vampires and werewolves to walk our earth, but to each his own, he supposed.
When it became clean to the public what was going on they became desperate to try to rectify the situation, however, the monsters that hid under the beds of small children didn’t want to leave without a fight. And so there became a market for those who were called mad. Bert took it upon himself to kill as many oddities as he possibly could. Primarily he dealt with vampires, which was a good thing, because vampires, despite what most people think, are easy to kill. All you had to do was to remember the rules.
- Vampires don’t like garlic.
- They don’t like holy water either.
- Silver bullets don’t do shit
- They don’t, under any circumstances, sparkle.
(Unless he stumbled upon an Edward, and boy did he have strange stories to tell. HE actually felt sorry for the vampires held captive by crazy women, known as cougars, and teenaged girls, and some boys, who had sprinkled sparkly things on them. The numbers of those poor souls were going up.)
- They don’t do daylight.
- They are super strong and fast
- 7. They can only be killed by driving a stake through their hearts and have their heads cut off.
If you remembered all of these rules, the job would be easy. But, not everything went according to plan all of the time. And Bert had the scars to prove it.
And now he had a job to do. He had been summoned to a place called Collinwood where a vampire had been harassing the residents. Apparently one of them had been bitten and there was a sense of urgency. Bert wasn’t worries. He knew that the hierarchy of vampirism worked. If a vampire bit a normal person, that person would be under the vampires spell for as long as the vampire was alive. Breaking that chain and all the links would be free.
Bert arrived at Collinwood with Angelica Stark, his sidekick. They were greeted at the door by a very frazzled looking Victoria Winters, the governess. She showed Bert and Angelica into the lounge and asked them to be seated before leaving the room to fetch the owner of the house.
-“What a charming place,” Angelica uttered in a tone seeping with sarcasm.
-“It is places like this that makes the imagination wander, Angie. I can feel there’s something wrong here, and not just this one vampire. It’s a very strong feeling,” Bert muttered as he saw down and placed his fedora hat on his lap. After a few minutes the double doors into the lounge opened and a man and a woman walked into the room followed by Victoria. The man looked peeved; he had white hair and made a b-line for the booze. Victoria introduced them as Roger Collins and Elizabeth Collins Stoddard. Mrs. Stoddard looked every bit as peeved as the other one, but the only difference was that she had a large helmet of dark hair. It was revealed that Mrs. Stoddard was the owner of the large mansion and that her mother, Roger, was staying there with his son, David. Bert soon found out why they were both looking so peeved. Victoria had, against her employer’s wishes, contacted Bert after one of the friends of the Collins’ had been bitten.
-“It is nonsense, utter nonsense. There are no such things as vampires!” Roger growled, sipping greedily at his drink.
-“I can assure, you, Mr. Collins, that vampires are quite real. Some are poor tormented souls, others are a true menace,” Bert started.
-“But it’s absurd!” Elizabeth interrupted.
-“Please, hear him out,” Victoria pleaded.
-“What do you plan to do, anyway?” Roger asked over the edge of his glass of bourbon.
-“First I need to find out where this being is keeping itself. Once I’ve figured that out, the rest should be easy,” Bert said and smiled.
-“I think it’s in the crypt,” Victoria said and waved her hand absentmindedly at the wall.
-“Well, that was easy,” Angelica laughed.
-“Maybe not, but we’ll find out soon,” Bert responded and got up. “If you would be so kind as to take to the crypt?” he added and looked at Victoria. She simply smiled and nodded.
-“Well, there’s no time like the present,” Angelica said and moved towards the door.
-“Do you mean that you don’t have to wait for dawn or dusk?” Robert asked.
-“That’s a common misunderstanding. Naturally, at night, the vampire will be out of its coffin, so no need to go looking then. But between sun-up and sun-down they are free game.” Bert said as he placed his hat on his head and touched the brim, bidding the Collins’ farewell.
Bert, Angelica and Victoria stepped out of the room and walked up the stairs to the second floor to see how the bite victim was holding up. The victim, Dr. Julia Hoffman, was lying on her bed, all pale and dramatic, with a shawl wrapped around her neck. Her red hair made her look even paler than she was. Bert leaned over her, pulled the shawl down revealing two puncture wounds on her neck.
-“She’s been bitten, alright,” Bert said and sucked his teeth.
-“Did you doubt it?” Angelica asked.
-“Of course not, but it’s nice to have things confirmed,” Bert said and started for the door. “Shall we?” he asked, holding it up.
They reached the crypt and were left there by Victoria who didn’t want to stick around. Bert and Angelica looked at each other, shrugged and stepped into the crypt. It was a typical crypt; dark, dank and dusty.
It didn’t take them long to find the coffin and not long to get started. Bert opened the lid of the coffin and revealed a resting vampire.
-“Stake,” Bert said and held out his hand. Angelica picked one out of her backpack and put it in his hand with an audible slap.
-“Mallet,” he added and held out the hand out again after having switched the stake to the other hand. Again Angelica rummaged through her backpack and pulled out a large mallet, and again she put it in his hand with an audible slap.
-“Thank you,” he mumbled and placed the stake over the vampire’s heart and with a heavy blow drive it into its chest. The vampire opened its eyes and looked shocked. Shrieking it started to flail, trying to get away from the pain. One final blow ended it suffering and it fell silent.
-“Such a shame. He was cute,” Angelica said and sighed.
-“Yeah, well, he’s dead now,” Bert said and wiped the blood of his hands.
-“Let’s go back to the house and see how the lady is going,” Angelica said and pulled out a large machete and cut the vampires head off.
-“Ugh, you always steal the best part of the job,” Bert moaned and started for the crypt door.
They went back to the mansion and stepped into the lounge where the brother and sister were still waiting, and they had been joined by a very lovely creature, Bert thought. Her name was Carolyn Stoddard, Elizabeth’s daughter.
-“Have no fear, fair maiden. The monster that haunts the nights has been killed,” Bert said and grinned a very silly grin, making Angelica cringe.
-“Sorry about that,” she said apologetically to everyone in the room.
-“I should think so,” Roger said dryly, sounding a bit intoxicated.
-Has anyone been up to check on Dr. Hoffman?” Bert asked, pulling himself together.
-“Mrs. Stoddard was just up there, and it seems the curse has been lifted. She needed rest, so she’s relaxing nicely now. She didn’t even want a doctor to have a look at her,” Victoria said and looked worried.
-“They rarely do,” Bert said and petted her arm.
Dusk had fallen upon the house before the duo finally made their way to the door to leave. But before they managed that, there was a knock at the front door. Victoria opened it and outside stood a tall, dark and mysterious looking man with a cane.
-“Barnabas, what are you doing here?” Elizabeth asked.
-“I heard that vampire hunters had arrived to help Julia. How did it go?” the man answered and looked at the vampire hunters.
-“Oh, Barnabas, I’m sorry. This is Bert Nelson and Angelica Stark. Mr. Nelson, Miss. Stark, this is Barnabas Collins. He came here recently from London. They all greeted each other and shook hands.
-“Please, how is Julia doing?” Barnabas asked.
-“The vampire is dead so the curse should be lifted,” Bert said reassuringly.
-“Is that a fact? I’d like to see that for myself,” Barnabas said and walked towards the stairs.
-“Well, we’d better get going anyway. There are some giant problems in California we need to tend to,” Bert said and put his hat on.
-“What giant problem?” Roger asked.
-“like I said. Problems with giants,” Bert replied and grinned.
As they walked back to the car Bert turned to the large house and sighed.
-“What’s up, Bert? Did the lovely Miss. Stoddard capture your heart?” Angelica asked and giggled.
-“No, well yeah, but that’s not the issue. I’m afraid we’ll be back here sooner or later. That Barnabas guy is a vampire. Either the family knows it and don’t care or they don’t know and when they find out they most likely want him dead,” Bert said thoughtfully.
-“How can they not know?” Angelica uttered.
-“He struck me as a very smart man, Angie. As long as he doesn’t let anyone else know he’ll be able to live there forever. And as long as they don’t specifically ask me to kill him, I won’t press the subject,” Bert said as he got in the car. Angelica got into the car too and buckled her seatbelt.
-“But now we’d better get going. A giant awaits us,” Bert said and smiled as he started the car.
