Outside the back of the castle, the monsters were enjoying their time around the pool. Tiki lamps were burning around the area and a buffet table filled with strange foods for the guests were being served by zombie waiters or gargoyle chefs.
An aerobics class was in session with the Fly as the instructor, one of the attendees was Wanda. "And pull up, and twist, and bend, and back, and push," the Fly instructed, until he barfed on his hands and rubbed them together, an impulse he couldn't help doing. The students attempted to copy his movements, gagging, hacking, or sticking a skeleton finger down their throats to try and barf up. "No, don't copy that," he ordered, still in a drone voice.
Meanwhile at the buffet, Elisa made her way down the stairs to the pool area after having changed in a beautiful black Hawaiian dress with pink and white flower patterns on it and a single strap over her right shoulder. She was the last to arrive at the pool, looking at her surroundings in amazement. Although she felt disgusted by the sight of the food she noticed. A Gillman stuck his tongue out to eat something off a plate served by a zombie.
Frank approached the buffet table to take his order. "Let me get a bubonic moose nose omelet with coach roach paste and mouse jelly. Oh! And with egg whites."
When Dracula had spotted Elisa move away from the buffet table, his eyes widened at how beautiful she looked in Martha's old dress, completely mesmerized and speechless by the sight of her.
Elisa noticed him approach her and became nervous. "Oh! Uh, hi again. Uh, Mavis asked me to wear her mother's old dress for the pool party. I hope you don't mind."
"No, no. It's alright," Dracula stuttered as he looked away to compose himself, "You look lovely." This was truly an honest answer.
Elisa began to blush a rosy pink. "Thank you."
"Where were you and Mavy, anyway?" he interrogated, evidently still mad from earlier but there was a hint of concern. "I've been looking everywhere for the two of you."
Elisa hesitated for a moment to think of something to say, remembering her promise to keep Mavis's garden secret. Finally she spoke half the truth, "I found Mavis wandering around the hotel and we started talking, so we went for a walk to cool down."
Dracula was suspicious of this as he raised an eyebrow, but decided to overlook it for now as he was glad Mavis and Elisa were fine.
"And would you call telling Mavis scary stories about humans burning her clothes, biting her toes and taking her candy fun like a sick joke to you?" Elisa decided to interrogate him back. "Because I find it ridiculous! I've read bettering rhyming from Dr. Seuss books."
"Dr. who-se books?" Dracula replied, confused as his eyes widened at what Elisa just said.
"Never mind. My point is Mavis told me about her experience in the 'human village.' Remember, the same one where we met? She said she was threatened by humans who would do those things to her and they set themselves on fire. All Johnny and I saw were a bunch of burning zombies, no humans, because if there were I know people would panic at being burned alive, not acting like it was nothing. So explain that, O' Great Hotel Manager!"
Dracula looked terribly surprised by this, but it quickly passed when he had to throw suspicion off himself. "You must have missed the burning humans when they were chased away by my loyal employees, but that doesn't matter. What matters now is you don't do anything careless!"
"You shouldn't make up stories to dissuade your daughter from following her dreams! You're only confusing her!" snapped Elisa.
"Hey, Ellie!" Eunice shouted at a table with Johnny, Mavis, and Wayne, "Come sit with us."
"I'll see you later," Elisa said huffily to Dracula before she made her way to the table to join her new friends.
Dracula only remained where he stood as he watched her go. Hunched over and brooding, he watched the two humans chat with his daughter and his friends like a hawk, trying to listen in on what they were all talking about, just to make sure neither one of them didn't blow their cover. Ever since these two humans showed up, his own daughter had become attracted to Johnny and she had befriended Elisa. It disgusted him that these two humans were more popular than him; he had always been the one to bring the fun around the hotel. And now, this red-haired gorilla and green-eyed vixen had stolen his thunder. Everyone began to believe that he was trying to ruin everything that seemed dangerous and unsafe to his friends when it was truly those humans' fault. And to make matters worse, Mavis clung to them like crazy, always following them like a duckling. But, why did he feel so different around Elisa? Whenever she got so close to him, like back in the lobby and in the auditorium and right now, Dracula could feel his heart beating faster and an overwhelming urge to claim her for himself.
"Bonjour, Monsieur Dracula," Quasimodo greeted his master as he slunked over to the Count. "May I make you an omelet?"
Dracula quickly stood up straight and dignified the second Quasimodo came over. "No, no, no. I'm not hungry," he refused the chef's offer.
Quasimodo frowned in disappointment when the Count turned him down, but Esmeralda began sniffing the air and froze. She leapt onto Quasimodo's nose, squeaking in alarm.
"What? Esmeralda you smell it again?" Quasimodo asked loudly, catching Dracula on to what was happening and he fidgeted his hands, trembling worriedly.
"HUMANS!" Quasimodo shouted.
"I am hungry!" Dracula suddenly interrupted, swatting the rat away and she went flying right into Eunice's hair, none the wiser.
"Oh, Johnny! You've been to the Taj Mahal?" Eunice asked, equally impressed as the others while she swapped a beetle away from her plate.
"C'mon," Murray said as he chowed down on a plate of beetles, "No monster's been to the Taj."
Mavis had been leaning in to listen to Johnny's traveling stories, smiling an excited and dreamy look on her pretty features, "Man, I wish I could go there."
"Me too," Wendy added. "I hear it's supposed to be one of the most beautiful places in the world...and one of the most romantic." She slyly winked at Mavis, nodding over to Johnny.
Alarmed of what idea his daughter's friends tried to put in his daughter's head and overhearing what Mavis just said, especially trying to get rid of the pesky chef, Dracula said to Quasimodo, "You know what? I'll take fifty omelets."
The vampire tossed the hunchback right into the arms of one of the gargoyle waiters, who got very nervous right before Quasimodo order him to make the omelets and started beating up on the poor stone gray creature as he tried to gather some eggs.
As silent as a shadow, Dracula peeked over either a chair or the table with his daughter and his friends while Mavis asked Johnny in confusion, "How did you deal with the mobs?"
"Yeah, it does get pretty crazy in the summer," Johnny casually shrugged, not knowing she meant angry mobs, while he explained, "but you know, you just gotta roll."
"He just rolls," Wayne smiled, looking impressed. "That's cool that he rolls."
Dracula scowled, before swiping a bagel from a passing yeti's plate and purposely came between Johnny and Mavis. "Yes, yes, cool." He then offered Mavis the bagel. "Look, love droppings. I brought you a bagel with your favorite, scream cheese."
The cheese spreading on the bagel leapt up with a tiny monster face, screaming in a high pitched tone.
Mavis accepted the snack gleefully, "Holy rabies! Thanks, Dad." She then offered the bagel to Johnny, much to Dracula's dismay. "Johnny, try some scream cheese, it's awesome."
Johnny stared at the screaming cheese, nervously uncertain, as he did his best to politely refuse the bagel. "Oh, cool. But I'm, uh, scream cheese intolerant. So...polite pass." He handed the bagel back to a slightly disappointed Mavis.
"Oh, okay," Mavis was slightly disappointed, but then she offered the bagel to Elisa. "Elisa, do you want some scream cheese? It's so good."
Elisa looked at the bagel nervously while the cheese spreading continued to scream at her, but she politely turned the offer down. "Uh, no thank you. I, uh, already had my breakfast. I have to, uh, watch my figure." She handed the bagel back to Mavis.
"Yes, of course you are," Dracula nodded, and scooted Johnny away from the table by the shoulders. "Johnny, can we party plan talk for a minute?"
Mavis watched them leave the table in confusion while she took a bite of her scream cheese bagel.
In another open corner of the pool area and a good distance away from the picnic, a glaring Dracula leaned over Johnny as he whispered accusingly, "What are you doing? If they find out you're humans, they'll go bat poop!"
Johnny shook his head, as he calmly whispered, "Relax, no one suspects anything. The only thing that looks weird is how much whispering you're doing."
Dracula's eyes grew wide in realization, as he glanced up to see that he and Johnny were in the middle of a crowd watching them with curiosity and confusion. The Count embarrassingly smiled as he shoved Johnny to another area, passing the same table where Elisa and his friends sat at, just in time to overheard Elisa say this to his friends and his daughter:
"Yeah, my father still tried to decide whom I should date, like this jerk who tried to ask me out back in high school said..."
Dracula placed a firm hold on Elisa's shoulder as he said in that same phony pleasant voice, "Ellie, Johnny and I need to talk to you about party planning." He forcibly dragged her away from the table.
Once they were safely unnoticed, Dracula hissed at the two humans in a harsh whisper, "Just wrap it up, both of you! You will say you are both going in the pool and act excited, and then Johnny, you will say you hurt your back while Ellie says she's ill and not feeling well, and you both have to leave!"
Elisa and Johnny frowned grudgingly, but the Count's glare was worse, so they both had no choice but to do what he ordered. While Elisa and Johnny unenthusiastically slouched towards the pool, Elisa came back to the table where her friends sat, she halted while she started pretending to feel slightly ill.
"Ohhh, I don't feel so good," she moaned. "I need to lie down."
"It's okay, babe!" A muscular yeti said, as he came up to her and wrapped his arm around her in a helpful, almost seductive, way. "I'll help you feel better."
Dracula had seen this and scowled dangerously at the yeti, strangely feeling more jealous than irritation at this sudden backfiring of his plan. His lower jaw clenched shut while his upper lip lifted in a snarl.
Johnny reached the edge of the pool and hollered in an unenthusiastic way, "Here come good times. Whoo!" He clapped his hands, then acted like he was going to jump in but then acted like he had thrown out his back, "Oh, dude! Oh, my back!"
Suddenly, a much small Gillman leapt out of nowhere and landed on Johnny's shoulders, shouting excitedly, "I'm on your back!"
"No, no!" Dracula called out to try to correct him as he waved his arms, "He said 'Oh, my back!'" as he pointed to his own.
But this turned into another misinterpretation as a pink cyclopsian monster looked over to Mavis and called out, "Get on my back!" as he put his swim goggle on his one eye.
"Let's do it!" Mavis smirked while she eagerly jumped on his robust back.
"Oh, yeah! Here we go!" Johnny yelled excitedly as he stepped into the pool, "Chicken Fight! Push 'em off!"
"CHICKEN FIGHT!" Everybody shouted, and just like that more monsters dove into the pool to participate in this new game called chicken fight. The only one not interested was Dracula, who stood scowling by the pool side.
During their little competition, Mavis challenged Johnny while she struggled to push the small Gillman off his shoulders, "I got you, Johnny. You're going down!"
"Oh yeah? We'll see, Mavy-Wavy!" Johnny taunted, using the nickname her father always uses for her.
Desperately wanting to get involved in the fun, Elisa began to unzip the dress she wore. Realizing what she was doing, Dracula became worried for her dignity or rather freaked out that he didn't want to see her nude as if she were about to unzip herself out of her dress and walk around the pool completely naked like it didn't matter. In a flash, Dracula was by her side and spread his cape around her figure in attempt to cover her body.
"Drac! What are you doing?" Elisa frowned at him.
"That's what I'm asking you. Keep your dress on!" he hissed in a whisper, his face beet red.
"I'm not naked if that's what your thinking," said Elisa, shoving him aside to remove her dress.
But instead of her appearing naked, Dracula realized Elisa was in a bathing suit that had been hidden underneath the dress. Her swimsuit was a blue two-piece with a single strap on the top piece going over her shoulder, showing off her beautiful slender form.
Dracula stared at her body for a long minute. He suddenly felt a bit warmer than usual. Momentarily, he couldn't breathe as he got very hot under the collar. The collar on his cape began to flap rapidly. A goofy smile crept on his lips when he couldn't take his eyes off her. She was so gorgeous.
"What's the matter? You've never seen a 21st century bikini before?" asked Elisa, a sly grin spread across her lips.
But all Dracula could say was, "Edupiteh šūla equpiteh." He started speaking gibberish.
However, Elisa took this the wrong way and believed he was making fun of her. "So you think I look ridiculous, huh?" She felt so irritated that she smacked him on the cheek.
The smack brought Dracula back to his senses as he shook his head, his cold demeanor returned and he hissed furiously, "What are you wearing? Or rather not wearing. You're showing too much skin!"
Elisa rolled her eyes at Dracula. He sounded too much like her own father. "It's just my bikini," she told him, rather annoyingly.
"A what?" Dracula raised a puzzled eyebrow. "You're practically half naked!"
"No I'm not," she sighed.
The same yeti let out a very loud wolf whistle before hoisting her up onto his shoulders and jumping into the pool. This was followed by more louder wolf whistles by various other male monsters when they had caught sight of Elisa in her swimsuit. Elisa smiled slyly at showing off her figure, and amused at Dracula scorning at the other monsters with such jealousy. Elisa began to do the Chicken Fight with Wayne, who was upon Frank's back, and using his clumsiness against him with enough of her own leverage finally knocked him into the pool.
Everyone was having a blast at Chicken Fight, except for Dracula, who tried to get things under order as he yelled at the ruckus crowd, "Okay, calm down with the Fight Chickens! Everyone stop the rough-housing!"
But nobody listened to him or probably ignored him on purpose. Things continued to get wilder as more monsters dove in the pool or got involved in a game of Chicken Fight.
A giant octopus tentacle shot upward out of the pool water, hoisting Frank upward, creating a high dive.
Far below, Eunice shouted at her husband, "Frank, if you hurt yourself..."
"I got it, Honey," Frank called back to reassure his wife from the formidable height, "the Stein Boys are bred for this kind of thing." And then he leapt off, shouting, "GERONIMO!"
As Frank fell, everyone watched him continue to fall for a seemingly long time, until he hit the hard water's surface. His body parts came apart and drifted around the pool.
Meanwhile, Wayne saw a chance to play a trick on Griffin, who was talking to Blobby. With a mischievous chuckle, he pantsed Griffin's swim trunks and the Invisible Man shrieked like a girl.
"Kids, why'd you do that?" Wayne asked casually while he leaned against the lifeguard chair, his nearby pups, Blobby and anyone else nearby started laughing hysterically.
"Oh! Uh, I was just in the pool. The water's cold," Griffin chuckled in embarrassment as he pulled his trunks back up, and then ran off yelling, "Don't judge me!"
Elisa had been pushed off the yeti's shoulders during Chicken Fight, and the next thing she knew, she found herself rising into the air by the giant tentacle. It took a second for her to get her barrings, but when she looked down at how far up she was getting she became completely paralyzed with fear and began to hyperventilate.
Brief images of misty mountains and a dark bottomless abyss from which she hung from a craggy unforgiving cliff flashed in her mind. She heard somewhere in the distance the cries of a frightened little girl screaming for help, and she knew she was that little girl. The memory overwhelmed her too much, so she fainted and fell from the giant tentacle.
The crowd watched her fall in anticipation and awe, but Dracula had sensed something was wrong with Elisa. His protective instincts took over as he let out a small gasp. Leaping into the air heroically, Dracula caught the unconscious young woman in his arms and wrapped his black cape protectively around her body, landing with amazing graceful precision on the other side, ignoring the groans of disappointment from the crowd, obviously unaware something was wrong.
The Count gently cradled her in his arms as he waited for her to wake up, and gradually she began to stir and open her eyes. When she awoke at last, human and vampire stared into each other's eyes for a long time.
Elisa slid her arms around his neck as the shock passed. Finally she asked in a confused voice, "What happened?"
"That's what I want to know," Dracula said with a hint of concern in his voice. "You didn't exactly look like you jumped. You fainted. What happened?"
Elisa's eyes momentarily widened while she stood up and pulled away from Dracula's embrace as she stammered quickly, "Oh, uh...it was nothing, really. I guess it was the shock of being up so high. I'm fine, really."
Dracula raised an eyebrow at this excuse. Elisa continued smiling awkwardly as if nothing happened. Rolling his eyes, he decided enough was enough. "Alright, that's it. It's for your own good you both leave, right now!" he sharply told her, before going off to find Johnny in all the chaos.
Elisa humped in irritation, before a hand grabbed her ankle and yanked her into the pool. She emerged from the water's surface, startled at who would do that, until she came face-to-face with the smirking culprits; Mavis and Wendy. The young vampiress and the little blob monster started playfully splashing in her face, so Elisa began splashing back at them.
Dracula was fuming silently as he searched around the pool area for Johnny. It irked him that his peaceful party had become a wild house, instead of an orderly party. However, his anger turned to fear when he found Johnny, but he realized the blue makeup was slowly coming off of Johnny.
He whispered loudly through his teeth to get his attention, "Johnny! Your makeup. Your makeup! Climb out now." Dracula reached out to grab Johnny's wrist until, "OH!"
Suddenly, Dracula had been pulled into the pool when Johnny was thrust up onto the shoulders of the pink cyclopsian creature, and disappeared beneath the green water. Mavis and Elisa had swam over the second it happened. Wanda looked briefly concerned while Murray chortled amusingly.
"Oh, man!" Johnny smiled humorously, "I guess the Count wanted to for a swim!"
"Maybe he wanted to cool off his hot head!" Elisa joked out loud.
This earned them a chorus of laughter from everyone at their jokes, but not beneath the water. Beneath the surface, Dracula silently fumed until he began to throw a fit while he screamed. The water drowned out his screams, which sounded muffled. He had enough. Swimming rapidly to the bottom of the pool, Dracula reached out to a cork buried in the pool floor and unplugged it, causing all of the water to drain.
At the same time, Johnny was put on the high dive octopus tentacle into the air and, hollering in contagious enthusiasm, leapt off to make a huge splash.
"Cannonball!" he shouted.
But no sooner he did this, the water had been drained out, leaving the bottom of the pool dried up, much to the surprise of the guests, mostly Mavis and Elisa, the Stein couple, and the wolf pups.
"Johnny, look out!" Hank shouted in alarm.
Johnny took notice of this by now, and began to scream and panic. The draining water revealed a perturbed and soaking Dracula, arms folding. He looked up to see the boy falling. He sighed, knowing full well he couldn't let the boy get hurt. So he pointed his finger at Johnny, using his powers to freeze him in place.
Then he walked away for a moment, his shoes created a clanking sound as he did. He came back later carrying Blobby and placed him in the right spot for the boy to land in safely. The vampire pointed his finger again, causing Johnny to unfreeze and fall into the blob's jello-like body.
Inside the blob, Johnny looked at the vampire and muffled while he gave him a thumbs up in thanks and that he was okay. But all Dracula did was frown in annoyance. He couldn't care less and knew this had to end right now.