Welcome to Hotel Transylvania
For as far as the ear can hear, all sounded quiet in the dark forest. There wasn't the sound nor sight of either a bird or a squirrel. That all changed when something sped by fast. It was a black hearse riding through the forest, its front shown having a golden bat hood ornament. As it went by, silhouettes of different creatures soon appeared, though still concealed by the darkness, as if they were following it. They all looked like they had suitcases in their hands.
The hearse's course soon came to a spot where the ground shifted downward, revealing a hidden tunnel. The hearse drove down and followed the passage until it soon reached the exit, where at the end was none other than Hotel Transylvania. The place was more lively at night that it is during the day. As the hearse drove across the stone bridge, stone gargoyles flew down to greet the guests who were arriving.
Coming to a complete stop, the driver of the hearse stepped out, revealed to be the Headless Horseman, now dressed in a chauffeur attire. He placed the pumpkin he used for a head on his shoulders and prepared to open the passenger door, only to jump back when a large number of wolf pups burst out of the hearse, followed by a little girl pup with a pacifier in her mouth; her name was Winnie. The mother, Wanda, came out next. She got out with a grunt due to being pregnant.
The father, Wayne, who had a worn-out look on his face, was the last to get out, and calmly tipped the horseman. "Yeah, it's a mess back there." he told him. The horseman just smiled and tipped his hat as he took the dollar.
Then, a bunch of zombies dressed as bellhops soon surrounded the hearse and smashed through the windows and even the ceiling to grab and pull out the luggage the werewolf family brought with them. The zombies then proceeded to carry them up to the hotel entrance despite the goofy difficulties their zombie nature gave them, such as on trying to pick up two cases, only for his arms to come off and have to follow the rest of him by bouncing the cases.
Passing through a revolving door at the entrance, the lobby was full of visitors and guests. Monsters of all shapes and sizes socialized with one another, sat down to read newspapers, or checked in to get a room. There were yetis, a green blob, gremlins, a pink cyclops, gill-men, a humanoid fly, skeletons, hag women, floating brains, goblins and trolls, Bigfoot and Sasquatch, a hydra, a female mummy and many others. Witch maids used their broomsticks and magic to clean up the place, zombie bellhops carried luggage everywhere, and gargoyle waiters carried plates of monster snacks to guests who ordered them. Count Dracula walked down the stairs at the right end-corner of the room with a smile on his face and shouted with his arms out and his voice full of enthusiasm...
"Welcome to Hotel Transylvania!"
A band of skeletons dressed as a Mariachi band played lively music in the background as the Count gave out itineraries to every monster he passed by. "Human free since 1898. Your 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." a gremlin man said as he walked with his wife and took an itinerary. "We enjoy the safety so much."
"Of course, that's why we built it." Dracula replied politely and turned around to greet more monsters. "Yes, good evening." A white gillman greeted the Count in a language that Dracula could understand. "Thank you, Marty. You look pale as well."
A lime-green colored blob soon came over and greeted the Count, accompanied by a smaller one with pink hair fashioned in a ponytail and pink glasses. The larger blob spoke in a blubbering sound that the Count also understood. "It's nice to see you too, Blobby." he said and bent down to greet the little blob. "And Wendy, too. How nice to see you."
Wendy could only bounce up and down with a squeal of excitement. "I'm so happy for Mavis! You think she'll like the present I picked out for her?" She showed the Count a package that was wrapped in lime-green paper and a pink ribbon.
"I don't see any reason why she wouldn't." Dracula replied in a soft tone. Wendy gave a cute smile before she and her dad slithered away to rent a room.
Not long after, an animated suit of armor, one of the security guards of the hotel, ran over to inform the Count of something. "Sir, we have an urgent pluming issue!"
"Pluming? On it!" Dracula said in a serious tone and called one of the maintenance staff over. "Mr. Ghouligan!"
Mr. Ghouligan, who was a zombie janitor, came over with a groan, as if to say "yes, sir?".
"There is a clogged toilet in room 348." the armor told them, and the view zoomed out to reveal the resident of said room: Bigfoot. The giant beast gave off a shrug with an embarrassed roar.
"It's okay. We all get stomachaches, Mr. Bigfoot." the Count reassured while Mr. Ghouligan gave a nervous groan as he held out his plunger, sounding like he wasn't looking forward to the task.
It was at this moment when the werewolf pups swarmed through the door and were soon all over the lobby. They caused all sorts of mischief, such as terrorizing the guests, jumping around on the pipe organ, and even urinating on the furniture.
"Hey, kids, reel it in!" Wayne tried to scold, though the pups didn't really listen, as evidenced by the one dragging a Venus flytrap with a chest in its mouth across the floor right past him. "You're only supposed to make Mom and Dad miserable."
One pup was wildly gnawing on Dracula's cape, and the Count picked it up with him still attached to calmly scold him. "Now, now. Is that any way to behave? This is a hotel, not a cemetery."
"Sorry, Uncle Drac."
The Count put the pup down as his parents came over to greet him. "Drac, how are ya?" Wayne happily greeted. He and his wife were old friends of the Lord of Darkness.
"Wayne, my old friend!" Drac said happily with one arm wrapped around the werewolf father's shoulders.
"Couldn't wait for this weekend. Always great to be out of the shadows for a couple of days." Wayne said relieved.
"The family looks beautiful, let me just clean up their filth." Dracula told them before calling out for some of the maids to do said task. "Housekeeping!"
On cue, three witch maids zoomed in on their brooms and quickly used their magic to put everything back to the way it was before the pups' antics, chasing them off in the process, at least for now. One witch came over to a puddle of urine that one pup left at the foot of a chair and used a living sponge to soak up the discarded liquid, the sponge laughing wildly as it did so.
The pups soon returned to their wild antics in an instant and pounced on some zombies that were entering the lobby with three large boxes in hand. Toppling over, the zombies dropped the boxes, one of which opened and revealed its contents to be none other than the parts of Frankenstein's Monster. His head bounced along the red carpet, grunting with every landing, until he was caught by Dracula.
"Frankie, my boy!" Drac happily greeted. "Look at you. Still traveling by mail, Mr. Cheapo, huh?"
"It's not a money thing. I have a plane phobia, okay?" Frank explained with slight embarrassment. "At any moment those engines could catch-"
"Fire." Wayne butted in. "Yeah, yeah. 'Fire bad!' We know." he said, which Frank felt annoyed by. But that was only brief when he looked back at the boxes and noticed one of Wayne's pups raising one of his legs, about to pee on the smaller box.
"Hey! That is not a fire hydrant, it's the box my son is in!"
Dracula quickly came and shooed the pup away before he could do it and used one of his claws to cut up the tape on the box. Opening it and reaching in, he pulled out the disembodied head of Frank's son, Hank-n-Stein, who looked like a spitting image of his dad.
"Hankie, my boy! So glad to see you!" Drac happily said to his honorary nephew.
"Thanks, Uncle Drac." Hank replied. "Man, I gotta say, traveling by mail is so much better than by plane." he said before getting all fearful. "I mean, who knows when those engines are gonna break down and catch-"
"We know, Hank. Me and your dad already went through this." Wayne told him, making Frank give another annoyed look.
Dracula suddenly spotted the zombies trying to assemble Franks body, and doing it poorly on account of having Frank's hand in his neck socket. The Count put Frank's head in Wayne's hands an Hank's in Wanda's and zipped over to criticize his workers. "Augustus, Porridge Head, C'mon! Does that look like Frankenstein's head?!" Unknown to him, his cape suddenly started levitating on its own, which Wayne noticed and pointed out.
"Hey Drac, buddy, what's going on with your cape there?"
"What do you mean?" Dracula asked before feeling something pinch his behind and making him yelp in surprise. "AH! Who pinched me?!" The culprit was none other than Griffin the Invisible Man, who could only be noticed by wearing a pair of dark and light brown striped glasses.
"Guilty. You're irresistible." he said.
"Yes, very amusing, Invisible Man." Dracula said sarcastically. "Hello, great to 'see' you!" he then joked and laughed, Frank and Wayne joining in.
"Ah, never gets old." Griffin took the joke aside and just took off his glasses, folded them up and put them away while the Count continued to laugh for a bit.
SMACK!
Dracula was slapped in the face by an invisible hand. He laughed slyly and took a swipe back at him, but missed. "Missed me." Griffin mocked and punched the Count in the belly this time. Dracula then unsheathed his claws and swung at the air three times to try and hit him. But Griffin just kept taunting him. "Miss me, miss me, miss me!"
"Okay, you win." Dracula said, feigning defeat, and pulled out a strip of bacon. "Hold this bacon." he said with a smile and gave it to him.
"Why am I holding bacon?" Griffin was suddenly swarmed by some of the wolf pups, making a visible outline of him seen. All while Drac just smiled at his cleverness. "Ahh! Ah-ah! Noo! Get 'em off! Ouch!"
Drac, Frank, and Wayne all chuckled at Griffin's expense for a brief moment before being alerted by a gust of wind that blew sand everywhere. Suddenly a small sandstorm appeared at the front door and quickly formed a large pile of sand. At the top burst a large mummy known as Murray, another one of Dracula's old friends.
"Here comes the PARTY!" he cried as he slid down the sand on his belly toward Drac, followed by his son Pedro, who was his son and able to be told apart from him by a red cap he wore. "Whoo-hoo!"
"Hello, Murray!" Dracula greeted excitedly.
Drac! What's up, buddy?" Murray tried to give his old friend a hug, only for the Count to duck and come up behind him with a serious glare.
"The sand! Murray, the sand! Always with the sand!" he scolded the large mummy, getting in his face and rubbing grains of sand through his fingers to make his point.
"Ah, I don't think anyone minds it, man." Pedro defended. His point was made when some of the wolf pups were seen playing in the sand like one does when playing in the snow, such as sliding down the pile or throwing it like snowballs.
Pedro then turned to his friends Hank and Wendy. Hank was shown to be halfway assembled, with his head and arms in their proper places on his torso. "Hey, you guys made it." he said giving the golem kid a high five."
"We got all our presents for Mavis." Wendy told him, Hank pulling out his to prove it, his being a purple package with a black ribbon. "Did you remember to bring yours?"
"Relax, guys, I got it right here." Pedro pulled out his present, which was wrapped up like a mummy and tied in golden ribbons.
"I'm hoping it's not another cursed artifact, like the last present you got from the crypt was." Hank said concerned.
Pedro gave an annoyed sigh at that. "Give a cursed scepter on your birthday to use as a backscratcher one time, and you just can't let it go, can you?" he deadpanned.
Murray happily greeted the werewolf couple with a hug. "Wolfie! Wanda! Frank!" He grabbed the golem's head and playfully roared at him. "AAAAAAH!" Frank roaring back. "AAAAAAH!" The two laughed together soon after.
"I love this guy!" Murray said joyfully hugging Frank's head. "You're always bringing it full tilt. You're looking skinny too, now that you're just a head."
"Oh-ho-ho, okay." Frank laughed off. "You pay for that." he playfully warned, managing to point a finger at the mummy while his hand was being carried by a zombie. Another Zombie took Frank's head and put him back on his body. He looked halfway completed, but had his left hand where his head should go and his head where his right arm is suppose to be. He looked less than pleased with this.
"So what's up, Drac?" Murray asked as he walked by. "The hotel is lookin' off the hook."
Frank hopped over to the Wayne and his wife and the kids to show them something. "Hey guys, watch this." He then concentrated on his lower body, which was being used a a trampoline by two wolf pups on one end of the lobby. The legs got up and started sneaking around the other guests.
"By the way, you were right about those directions." Murray told the Count.
"Oh good, good."
"Yeah, I took the Tigris through the Nile and there was absolutely no traffic." Murray explained, unaware that Frank's lower half crawled up to him without him even noticing. The golem's legs stood up behind the mummy and let out a loud fart. Murray could only give a shocked expression from what happened and how close it sounded, like it was him that did it. Dracula however, looked at the mummy with an annoyed look, actually believing Murray was responsible for it.
"You're kidding me, right in my lobby?"
"Drac, I swear, man. I-I don't run like that." Murray tried to defend himself while Frank and the rest of the group laughed at his little prank on Murray, even Murray's son.
"Okay, I'll admit, that was funny." Pedro told Hank. "Your dad has officially won my respect."
"Housekeeping!" Dracula ordered, wanting to take care of this before it stank up the whole lobby. A witch maid flew over and used a fireplace bellows to suck up the stink, while Murray kept feeling embarrassed by the whole ordeal. She quickly flew over the the nearby fireplace and blew it into the open fire, which caused an eruption of green flames to blast out.
Both Murray and the female Mummette watched the whole thing and she looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "I was not the cause of that." Murray told her, but she just huffed in disgust and walked away as he sank his head in continued embarrassment.
Dracula continued to glare until a spider lowered itself down to tell the Count, "We're ready." She pulled herself back up to show every monster the web they designed to have the words "Happy 118th Birthday, Mavis" weaved on it. Everyone could only awe with joy, happy that Mavis is practically ready to become a grown-up.
"If only Martha were here to see this." Wanda sighed happily.
"She's always here, Wanda." Dracula said lightly patting a fist over his heart.
"You know, just because Martha has a place for you there, it doesn't mean you shouldn't open it for someone else." Frank told the Count, all his other friends mumbled in agreement. They always wanted Drac to be happy for his wife's sake and suggested he try and find another special girl to fill the gap left in his heart from her passing.
"After all, it's gotta be hard for you to run the hotel and raise Mavis at the same time." Wayne added, comparing it to his current lifestyle as a father to hundreds.
"And no offense, but you can't be too picky." Griffin said. "You haven't had a date in a hundred years."
"Look, guys, I appreciate the suggestion, but it's not really up to me." Dracula calmly declined. "You only zing once, and I did. I doubt I'll ever find anyone as lovely as Martha." With that done, the Count walked away to speak to all the guests while standing on a stool that was made out of toads (practically a toad-stool). "Okay friends, I am so glad you are here to celebrate, another birthday for my sweet little Mavis, and another successful year of refuge...FROM THEM!"
One of the zombies turned on a slideshow projector that displayed photos of humans in modern-day attire and going on with their daily lives, though Dracula and the monsters misinterpreted their lifestyles as new means to threaten them.
"These are recent human images our surveillance has uncovered." Drac began telling. "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." All the monsters gasped in shock with every pic they saw. "But they will never find us here." Dracula said before shouting defiantly at the last pic of a little boy enjoying an ice-cream cone. "EVIL VILLAIN, YOU WILL NEVER WIN!" He then smiled back to the crowd as the projector was turned off. "Okie-dokie, fun starts in thirty minutes. Right now I have to see my little girl." he said gliding to the elevator.
"She's not so little anymore!" Frank pointed out.
"Yes she is!" Dracula shot back and gave a bloodcurdling roar to silence anyone's protests. "RRROOOAAARRR!" He instantly changed back to a calm demeanor with a smile as the elevator doors closed, leaving everyone taken aback by his outburst.
"Something tells me he still wants to treat Mavis like a little kid." Wendy said to Hank and Pedro, feeling concerned for her vampire friend.
"Yeah, he's probably planning to celebrate her birthday like he tried to celebrate her Fangceanera." Hank replied, remembering how that turned out before Mavis decided to do the real tradition herself.
Their conversation ended when a new voice caught everyone's attention. "What's going on? Are we at the hotel?" It was coming from the third big box that came with Frank and his son, and a woman's finger poked out to cut the tape and open it. The box then popped open to reveal Eunice, Frank's wife and Hank's mother. She had her head held in one of her hands as she nagged at her husband. "Frank, did you book us for a tandem massage? did you get us a table ad Hunchback? Did you do anything?"
Her nagging was stopped when Griffin closed the box and sat on it. "You're welcome." Everyone could still hear Eunice inside and tell she was still cross. "What's going on?"
Meanwhile, in the elevator, Dracula couldn't help but think about what his friends said about finding a new girl. Sure it's been hard to raise Mavis and run the hotel all at once, which having a wife would make easier. But he just felt like he couldn't do that. It was like he said, you only zing once on your life.
"Who an I kidding." he mumbled to himself. "Even if you could zing more than once, I'm never going to find anyone like Martha."