The darkness of the forest nightlife appeared to be lifeless and empty, the kind of forest anyone would expect when someone dares to venture into the Haunted Forest. That is until a black hearse sped through the black forest. The hearse was raven black colored with a golden vampire hood ornament on the front. While the hearse drove through the forest at crazy speed, strange monstrous shadows hopped, crawled, slithered, or ran after it. A secret passageway opened up underground, allowing the hearse to go down a darkened tunnel.

For about fifty seconds, the hearse reached the end of the tunnel and traveled down a stone bridge way, leading it up to its destination none other than Hotel Transylvania. Although instead of its quiet lifeless appearance during the day, at night it was alive with visitors and staff. Gargoyles were coming in by air. The hearse, used for a taxi, pulled up next to the driveway, and the chauffeur, the Headless Horseman using a Jack O'Lantern for a head, walked up to the passenger's door and opened it, allowing his passengers to exit the vehicle.

A huge tidal wave of werewolf puppies poured out. All of them were boys judging by their black skull-faced shirts, except there was only one girl with a pink skull-faced shirt. Wanda, the mother of the humongous litter, pulled herself out of the driver's seat with a grunt, due to being pregnant with another litter.

Wayne the Werewolf, the father of the pups and Wanda's husband, was looking pretty worn out while he paid the pumpkin-headed cabby driver. "Yeah, it's a mess back there," he mumbled, but the driver smiled and tipped his hat in response.

Slumping zombie bellhops surrounded the hearse. Once they made it, the zombies moaned while smashing holes through the glass windows so they could reach in and pull out the wolf family's luggage. Finished, they slunked up the stairs to the entrance.

Passing through the entrance of a revolving door, the lobby was full of visitors and customers. Monsters of all shapes and sizes and species were conversing with one another, sitting down to read a newspaper, or getting a room. There were gill-men, goblins, trolls, witch-faced hag-like women, Cyclops, gremlin people, the humanoid fly, living skeletons, sasquatches, Jekyll and Hyde creature, Bigfoot, the blob monster, a live brain with eyeballs accompanied by a child version of himself, Bigfoot, yetis, the hydraberg, and a lady mummy. Witch maids cleaning up, zombie bellhops carrying baggage or pushing and pulling luggage carts, and some gargoyle waiters carrying trays of tasty yet gross snacks to waiting guests.

The owner of the hotel, Count Dracula, walked down the upper right staircase with a smile on his face. He stopped in the middle of the Main Lobby stairwell as he announced to one and all in a proud voice, "Welcome to Hotel Transylvania!"

The Day of the Dead Mariachi band began to play a lively tune as the Count walked down the red carpet, handing out itineraries to the passing guests. "Human-Free since 1898," Dracula continued. "You're safest destination. Take an itinerary. I have personally designed a spectacular schedule of events, all leading to my daughter's birthday extravaganza tomorrow."

"We always look forward to coming every year, Count," said a smiling gremlin as he held his wife's waist while taking an itinerary. "We enjoy the safety so much."

"Of course." Dracula shrugged with a smile. "That's why we built it." He handed a few more itineraries to a few more guests. "Yes, good evening." A pale Gillman spoke in a strange gibberish language to which only the vampire could understand. "Thank you, Marty. You look pale as well."

Just then, a suit of armor with no body inside but strangely alive came running up to vampire. "Sir! Sir! Sir!" He stopped to stand at attention and reported, "We have an urgent plumbing issue."

"Plumbing? On it." Dracula asked, and then turned serious as he summoned the hotel's plumber, "Mr. Ghouligan!"

A slumping zombie plumber staggered towards his boss.

"There is a clogged toilet in room 348," the armor continued.

Looking up at the occupant of room 348, the giant hulking figure of Bigfoot growls in apology as he shrugged his shoulders.

"It's okay, we all get stomach aches, Mr. Bigfoot," Dracula reassured the resident.

Mr. Ghouligan made a worried groaning noise as he looked at his toilet plunger.

At that time, the pack of werewolf puppies came storming inside and began a rampaging amuck all over the lobby; running over guests, jumping up and down on the organ, and urinating on the furniture.

"Hey kids, reel it in! You're only supposed to make mom and dad miserable." Wayne scolded the pups as he and Wanda came in.

One of the wolf pups was gnawing on the end of Dracula's cape when he was picked up by the Count, his mouth still holding the cape, whilst the vampire calmly scolded him, "Now, now. Is that anyway to behave? This is a hotel not a cemetery."

"Sorry, Uncle Drac," the pup mumbled with the cape still in his jaws before he let go and scampered off with his siblings.

"Drac, how are you?" Wayne greeted the Count as he and wife came over.

"Wayne, my old friend!" Dracula happily greeted him as he wrapped his arm around the Wolfman's shoulders.

"Couldn't wait for this weekend. Always great to be out of the shadows for a couple of days."

"The family looks beautiful. Let me just clean up their filth." Wayne and Wanda's faces dropped the moment Dracula said this before the vampire shouted in a loud stern voice, "HOUSEKEEPING!"

Just then, a squadron of witches flew out on broomsticks and proceeded to clean up the mess they pups made of the lobby with nonstop speed. One of the witches used a live sponge to soak up one of the pups' puddles of urine.

Meanwhile, the wolf pups knocked over the zombie bellhops causing them to drop one of the three large boxes being carried in. The box opened on impact sending Frankenstein's head bouncing out only to be caught by Dracula.

"Frankie my boy, look at you still traveling by mail, Mr. Cheap-o, huh?" Dracula greeted with a smile at his closest friend.

"It's not a money thing I have a plane phobia," Frank responded fearfully before he confessed, "I mean, at any moment now that engine could catch-"

"Fire! Yeah, yeah." Wayne interrupted before he mocked, "'Fire bad!' We know."

Just then, Dracula glanced over to the bellhops trying to put together the rest of Frank, which is not going very well. The vampire handed over Frank's head to Wayne and Hank's head to Wendy, and then rushed off to the pair of zombies assembling the rest of Frank's body.

"Augustus! Porridge-Head! Come on! Does that look like Frankenstein's head?" Dracula shouted, ignorantly not noticing his cape moving on its own.

Wayne walked forward a couple of steps, "Hey Drac buddy, what's going on with your cape there?"

"What do you mean-AH!" He cried out when he felt someone pinch his rear end and grasped his behind. "Who pinched me?" He exclaimed while turning around to look for the culprit.

"Guilty, you're irresistible," Griffin, the invisible man answered, the only thing noticeable is a pair of floating brown half-rimmed glasses.

"Yes, very amusing, Invisible Man. Hello, great to see you!" Dracula sarcastically joked before he laughed, causing the others to join in the laughter.

"Ahh, never gets old," Griffin took off his glasses, folded them and hid them.

SMACK!

Dracula recovered from getting slapped in the face, chuckled slyly, before he tried to take a swipe at Griffin, who wasn't hit.

"Missed me!" Griffin taunted him before punching the vampire in the stomach. Dracula extended his claws out and tried a few more times to swipe at him, but he missed each time while Griffin taunted him more, "Miss me. Miss me. Miss me!"

Finally, Dracula sighed as he seemed to give up, "Okay, you win, hold this bacon." He slyly pulled out a slice of bacon and handed it to him.

"Wait, why am I holding bacon?" All of a suddenly, the wolf pups pounced on him, creating a visible outline of Griffin, while they gnawed on him for the bacon. "Ahh! Ah-ah! Noo! Get'em off! Ouch!"

The trio laughing hilariously at this scene, but a huge sandy windstorm blew in through the front entrance, gaining their attention. Sand clouds swirled around, forming everywhere and a large sand dune was piling up at the lobby door.

"Here comes the partyyyy!" Murray the mummy shouted in a huge booming voice as he slid down the mountain of sand as if he was on a snowy hillock and sledding downward at a rapid speed.

"Hello Murray," Dracula greeted as Murray glided toward him.

"Drac, what's up buddy?" The mummy tried to hug his vampire friend only to miss.

"The sand, Murray! THE SAND! Always with the sand!" Dracula berated the hefty mummy while rubbing his fingers together, making grains of sand fall from his fingers.

The wolf pups began to play in the mountain of sand, one of them throwing a sand ball at one of his brothers really hard.

Murray rushed over to the werewolf couple, "Wolfie, Wanda, Frank!" And when he grabbed Frank's head, the mummy roared at his face. "AAAAAAH!"

"AAAAAAH!" Frank roared back right in his face, as if it's their usual tradition to do that whilst they both laughed amusingly.

Murray hugged Frank's head. "I love this guy, he's always bringing it full tilt! Your looking skinny too, now that you're just a head."

"Oh-ho-ho, okay, you'll pay for that," Frank warned, and then a zombie placed his head in his arm socket, he looked a little less than pleased. His whole body looked halfway put together, with his right hand on his neck socket.

"So what's up, Drac? The hotel is looking off the hook," Murray said as he walked over to Dracula.

Frank leaned in toward Wayne and Wanda. "Hey guys, watch this," he whispered, then concentrated on his lower half which was currently located at the other side of the lobby and briefly used as a trampoline to two wolf pups before it jumped up and left them. It carefully sneaked over to Murray, who was talking to Dracula.

"By the way, you were right about those directions," Murray told him.

"Oh, good. Good." Dracula nodded.

"Yeah. I took the Tigris through the Nile and there was absolutely no traffic."

The lower rear end of Frank appeared behind the mummy and broke wind. A big green cloud of gas appeared behind the mummy. Murray's face dropped to a confused but surprised look, while Dracula looked anything but amused by the outburst of flatulence.

"You're kidding me. Right in my lobby?" Dracula asked in a dry tone.

"Drac, I swear man. I-I don't run like that," Murray stuttered his objection, even though he acted rather embarrassed, while the adults were trying to hold back their laughter.

"Housekeeping!" Dracula hollered.

A witch came zooming out on her broomstick and retrieved the thick, stinky odor with a fire bellow. She hurriedly flew to the fireplace and released it into the fire, causing an eruption of green flames to shoot out of the fireplace.

A female mummy stared at Murray, who tried to plead his innocence, "I was not the cause of that," but she walked away in a huff and Murray sank his head down in embarrassment while everyone, but Dracula, laughed.

A little black spider came down inches from the vampire's face. "We're ready!" the arachnid announced in a small cheery voice.

Dracula and the others looked up to see a beautiful banner saying, 'Happy 118 Birthday Mavis' made entirely out of spider web giving it a silvery finish. Then came a heart-touching chorus of "Awwwww."

"Oh, if only Martha were here to see this," Wanda sighed.

"She's always here, Wanda." Dracula smiled as he patted a fist over his heart.

"She's in all our hearts, Drac," Frank added in friendly support, "But have you ever thought about what it might be like to meet someone new?"

"We all know it hasn't been easy for you to run the hotel and raise Mavis at the same time. You must've gotten pretty lonely." Wayne takes his loving wife Wanda into his arms.

"No offense, but you can't be too picky," Griffin added. "You haven't had a date in a hundred years."

"Look guys, I appreciate your concern," Dracula replied sadly but then he turned firm, "but it's not up to me. You only zing once, and I did. And no, I will never meet anyone else because there will never be anyone else but Martha."

"We all know that," Murray said. "But even you deserve to be happy with someone with a life as long as ours."

"I am happy!" Dracula replied with a hard stubborn edge in his tone. "But no one will ever take Martha's place, that is how it will always be!"

His friends fell silence at the clear tone in Dracula's voice that it was the end of the conversation as they gathered around with the rest of the hotel guests.

"Okay friends," Dracula began his announcement to a large crowd of guests as he stepped up onto a stool made entirely out of frogs. "I am so glad you are here to celebrate, another birthday for my sweet little Mavis... and another successful year of refuge, from THEM!"

The Count's face grew dark and serious as he pointed to the nerd zombie who turned on the slideshow projector. On the screen, everyone gasped to see a slideshow of their most dangerous nemesis: humans. The pictures consisted mostly of human tourists that Dracula displayed of not-so-bad photos of humans doing everyday normal stuff, but Dracula and the monsters completely misunderstood it.

"These are recent human images our surveillance has uncovered. They are getting fatter so as to overpower us, and they are wearing less clothing allowing more movement to strangle us or cut open our heads and put candy in them." The crowd of monsters gasped in terror, and the Headless Horseman fainted. "But they will never find us here. EVIL VILLAIN YOU WILL NEVER WIN!" Dracula shouted the final words out to the slideshow photo of an innocent little boy eating ice cream before he turned to smile at the crowd. "Okie-dokie, fun starts in thirty minutes. Right now, I have to see my little girl," Dracula pleasantly announced as he glided toward the elevator.

"She's not so little anymore!" Frank pointed out.

"YES, SHE IS!" Dracula shouted, and stubbornly roared a ferocious vampire roar, "RAAAWWWR!" Before he returned to his normal happy demeanor again, just before the elevator door closed.

There were a few moments of awkward silence in the crowd of monsters until Eunice the bride of Frankenstein, who was still in her box, brashly spoke up.

"What's going on out there? Are we at the hotel?!" She cut open the box with one of her long fingernails and her head, held up by her arm, and continued to nag for all to hear, "Frank, did you book us for a tandem massage? Did you get us a table at Hunchback's? Did you do anything?"

Griffin closed the box and sat on it, smirking. "You're welcome." Eunice's voice was muffled but everyone could tell she was still cross.

While inside the elevator, Dracula began to think about what his friends had told him. At first, it bothered him. "What do they know?" he grumbled. "I don't want to replace Martha." But his aching heart was torn over what he wanted. "Ugh, who am I kidding? I need to look for a date... I want to meet someone! I'm... lonely."