Chapter 4: Wedding Disaster
The night after yesterday's anniversary and chandelier incident was over. Tonight, there was a wedding at the hotel. Zombies Beethoven, Mozart and Bach had been playing soft lovely music for monster guests in the pool's courtyard, waiting for the bride to walk down the aisle.
Dracula noticed that the groom, a spiky monster named Carl, was sweating nervously. The vampire followed Carl's eyes to where the bride, Lucie, should have been. Then Dracula began sweating too.
The Drac Pack and Mavis's friends were among the guests. Luna sat beside Evan while they had to keep their baby brother and sister Diavolo,Gina preoccupied. Wayne brought his newborn wolf pups. He was carrying them in multiple baby carriers, and they were starting to get fussy.
Wayne tried to calm down his pups by hushing them, but it was no use. "When is this thing starting?" he asked, while the pups continued to cry.
"Aw, you made then cry, Wayne," Frank teased. "Oh, except this little one. Coochie, coochie, coochie!" He pointed at the only female baby wolf pup who never cried, she was the smallest and cutest of the bunch.
"That's Sunny, she doesn't cry," said Wayne.
As Frank tickled the girl pup's chin, Sunny bit his finger. "OOOW!" he yelped, prying her off his finger before he reattached his finger back to his hand.
"She bites," Wayne added, a little late.
"So, where is the bride? She was supposed to be here," Danny asked the guys, starting to get a little impatient.
"It's probably wedding jitters," assured Murray and Pedro. "It happens all the time... until the bride changes her mind." That didn't come out right.
"Hey Danny , don't you have a special someone in your life?" Frank asked, trying to change the subject from Wayne's pups.
This caught Danny off guard. "Uh, what brought that up, mate?"
"Well, seeing as your an attractive guy and you came here alone..."
"I don't have any special girls in my life," replied Danny. This was true since he was always the outsider of the human race due to his family's curse. "I did try to get a few girls in my life, but girls never wanted anything to do with me. My..." he hesitated, careful to chose his words, "family can be... overbearing." This was true.
Frank, Murray and Wayne gazed at the crimson-haired man sympathetically. To them, Danny was an incredibly handsome guy, not as handsome as Dracula though, but he was lonely and it seemed like the only cure for his loneliness was... this sparked an idea for the Drac Pack.
Up at the altar where the ceremony was waiting to begin, Dracula spoke to the groom. "This is a very special moment, Carl. Any second your beautiful bride is going to walk right down the aisle."
But as they stared at the empty aisle, waiting for Lucie to show up, but she didn't even show her face.
Carl gulped fearfully. "Oh no, Drac! She's not coming!" he replied, still sweating from nerves and leading up to a broken heart.
However, Dracula remained calm. "Don't worry. Ericka and Mavis are with her, and I'm sure they have everything under control." Dracula turned and discreetly spoke into his headset, whispering, "Mavy, Ericka, is everything under control?"
Upstairs in the bridal suite, Mavis and Ericka were the wedding coordinators. Both of them also wore headsets to speak to Dracula.
"Uhmmmmm… yep. Just a slight case of pre-wedding jitters," Mavis replied nervously to her father.
"A little? I'm afraid it looks serious," added Ericka, through the headset.
Lucie was a spiked monster, like Carl. She was shaking so hard that spikes shot out of her as she cried. One spike cut through Eunice's hair, pulling it off and revealing that Eunice was wearing a wig. Ericka tried not to stare, but Eunice snagged the wig and tried to put it back on neatly. Another spike punctured a can of hair spray that then flew around the room, and another spike destroyed a small picture on the wall.
Dracula heard all of the commotion over his headset, cringing.
"Yep! Everything is fine here..." Mavis told her dad.
"I'll handle this," Ericka said, turning her attention to the bride. "Lucie, please try to relax. Mavis and I have taken care of everything. The wedding is going to be perfect."
"It's not that. It's just... how do I know I'm doing the right thing?" Lucie cried, as she blew her nose into a handkerchief, another spike shot out of her.
"We know just how you feel," Mavis comforted her.
"The night I married Dracula, I had doubts about us spending our lives together," Ericka assured her, explaining her story.
"Huh?" Dracula cocked an eyebrow, overhearing the conversation.
"But I realized that I was starting a new chapter in my life. It was the start of something special for me," Ericka quickly said, so not to upset her husband.
"And the day I married Johnny was the best day of my life, but I was so nervous," Mavis told her own story.
Dracula was still overhearing the conversation on the headset and spoke up, "Not as nervous as I was."
Mavis blocked out his voice. "And you should've seen my dad. He was a mess!"
"I wouldn't get out of my coffin that night," Dracula agreed.
"I had to threaten you to get you out of there," Ericka teased him.
"But he knew it was meant to be," Mavis added softly. "It doesn't matter where you come from, or how different you are - a zing only happens once in your life, and you have to cherish it."
"But what about your mother? She made your father zing again." Lucie gestured toward Ericka , who seemed taken aback by this response. "What if it doesn't work, and I zing with someone else?"
"That's not gonna happen! Look, sometimes its rare to have a second zing," explained Ericka , gathering her wits together before she spoke soothingly, "but in Drac's case, he lost his wife centuries ago and the night I encountered him in that fake village, we felt a zing the second our eyes met. For me, it was a first time. For Drac, this was his second chance for love." She patted Lucie's hand. "Carl is your one true love, he has been the right guy for you all along. Nobody else will ever come between you, no matter how ugly things get, you will find a way to conquer those obstacles together. When James, Drac's family and my family caused a rift between us, things did get ugly, but we fought together to prove our love is stronger than their hate. Don't let anyone tell you different."
Empowered by Ericka's wise words, Lucie smiled and her eyes were filled with happy tears. All of the women in the room sighed. Mavis was deeply impressed at her stepmother's wisdom. Overhearing this, Dracula sighed as his heart melted at his wife's inspiring advice.
"So it's very simple. When you first met Carl, did you zing?" Mavis asked.
Lucie thought about it before saying, "Yes."
"Then what are you waiting for?" Mavis smiled.
"Go to Carl! Make this a night you will never forget!" Ericka encouraged.
"You're right! Thank you, both of you!" Lucie jumped forward and hugged the mother and daughter.
"Yikes!" Ericka gasped, trying to avoid the spikes.
"Okay, all right," Mavis awkwardly soothed Lucie, while trying to move out of the way of those sharp spikes.
A few minutes later, Lucie and Carl were standing at the altar. Blobby had volunteered to be the minister for the bride and groom. He was leading the ceremony and asked the important question, or rather blubbered the question to Carl.
"I do," Carl said, looking tenderly at his beloved bridge.
Then Blobby turned to blubber the question to Lucie.
"I do," replied Lucie.
Blobby pronounced the couple as husband and wife. The bride and groom shared their first kiss. The guests applauded and cheered for the couple. Suddenly, they heard a loud rumbling noise coming from within the hotel.
"Did you hear that?" Ericka asked her husband and daughter.
"I thought we locked him in his room," Dracula replied, ready to panic.
"We did!" Mavis insisted.
At that moment, Tinkles the giant puppy ran through the wedding ceremony with Dennis and Winnie riding on his back. Guests ran screaming to get out of the way.
"Hi, Mom! Hi, Nana Ericka! Hi, Papa Drac!" Dennis and Martha greeted, as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on.
"DENNIS ,MARTHA!" Mavis, Ericka and Dracula yelled in union.
"Tinkles was crying, so we let him out!" Dennis and Martha tried to explain.
After that, Tinkles barked and shook his head rapidly, throwing dog drool everywhere and on everyone, including Danny .
"Ugh, gross!" Danny groaned.
Then Tinkles sniffed the air, as if something didn't feel right. His nose directed him toward Danny's direction. The unfamiliar scent from this newcomer didn't smell good to Tinkles. The puppy's teeth bared and he started barking violently. He began charging right at the horrified stranger to attack him.
"Get it away from me!" Danny shouted.
"TINKLES, SIT!" Dracula ordered, throwing himself between the dog and his old flame's great-grandkid.
Tinkles stopped, puzzled at why his master would defend this suspicious stranger.
"You three, get off! Right now!" Ericka ordered, glaring at the three children sitting on the puppy's back.
A saddened Dennis and Winnie slid off the dog's back while Dracula clipped a leash onto Tinkles' collar.
"I apologize for that," Dracula told Daniel sincerely, before he lead the giant puppy away. "Come on, Tinkles. A wedding is no place for a doggie."
"Poor Tinkles," Winne sighed.
Dracula groaned irately. "Ugh. Who's idea was it to let Dennis and Martha have a puppy?" he asked over the headset.
"Yours!" Mavis and Ericka replied in union.
Embarrassed, Dracula knew they were right. After all, he was the grandpapa, and the kind of grandparent who wanted to give his grandkids everything they wanted. "Right," he chuckled.
"Come on, let's get you cleaned up and find you a change of clothes." Ericka offered a towel to Danny, who wiped the drool off his face, and then lead him away to help him find extra clothes.
"Sure," Danny replied dryly.
"Dennis, Martha !" Dennis, Martha and Winnie were alerted when an angry Mavis is beside them, however Mavis's face softened. "Look,dears, I know you love Tinkles, but we're not allowed to have dogs..." The second Mavis said that particular word, Winnie gasped since she was half dog due to wolves being part of the canine family. Mavis quickly corrected herself so not to offend Winnie, "Uh, I mean our pets anywhere, okay?"
Dennis and Martha hung their heads sadly. "Okay."
Later at the wedding reception, Johnny was the DJ and everyone was dancing in the ballroom, mostly the song in the background was I'm in Love with a Monster by Fifth Harmony.
"DJ Jazzy Johnny is in the house! It's time to welcome the happy couple, Mr. and Mrs. Prickles!" Johnny announced.
Lucie and Carl entered to the applause. Johnny began to play a slow romantic song. Carl and Lucie took the floor for the bride and groom to dance.
"The bride and groom invite everyone to join them on the dance floor," Johnny added.
The monster couples all joined in. Luna playfully shoved Evan out on the dance floor, eager to dance with him. The two smiled bashfully as they held hands and started swaying jokingly from side to side. Dennis and Winnie, Willie and Martha despite the fiasco with Tinkles, began dancing with the other kids.
Meanwhile, Dracula looked at all the couples dancing, and sighed solemnly, saddened that he had no one to dance with. The vampire desperately checked his phone, waiting for Ericka to call back, but he felt disappointed, feeling like he had been let down.
Just then, a graceful hand tapped him on the shoulder and a smooth feminine voice asked, "Care to dance?"
Dracula turned around to find a beautiful ginger-red haired green-eyed Frankenstein woman standing there in an elegant sparkling red dress and a gorgeous hourglass figure. The vampire was awestruck by her beauty, but his heart still belonged to Ericka , yet he decided not to appear rude so he agreed to dance with her.
But the vampire didn't realize what his friends were up to; they had been trying to find a perfect soulmate for Danny, but it seems like their plan had backfired. Frank, Murray and Griffin were hiding behind Bigfoot's giant ankle, watching to see what Dracula would do. They were shocked that their friend had agreed to dance with the lady they intended to set up with Danny.
"Is that her?" Griffin asked.
"Oooo! Watch out, now! She got stitches in all the right places," Murray gawked, staring.
Griffin studied the woman's appearance and then back at Frank. "Okay, there's no way that is related to you, Frank," said the invisible man.
"Well, she's my right arm's cousin, FrankenGinger," Frank replied.
They watched as Dracula held out his hand politely and Ginger took it with a huge, strong, manly arm, and then dipped poor Dracula backward.
"Ah! I see it now," Griffin said, looking at Frank's arm to Ginger's arm noticing the similarity.
It was clear that Dracula was uncomfortable, letting Ginger ensnare him in her grasp. "Uh... hehe... Are you here for the bride or groom?" he asked.
Ginger gave the vampire a hard look, then smiled. "I'm here for you."
Dracula didn't understand this. How could some other woman come after him when he was already taken? "Excuse me?"
"Frank wanted me to meet some dumb human, but I can see you're pretty lonely. We're arm cousins twice removed." Ginger stroked Dracula's face with her stitched-up hand, twirled him, and then dipped him again.
Dracula's eyes widened in horror. "Of course. Eh, I'd recognize that bicep anywhere."
"He thought since we're both single, we might hit it off. Maybe go on a date," Ginger suggested in a seductive manner.
This got Dracula very nervous. "A date?!" He was already married to his precious Elisa and he could never betray her like this. Laughing awkwardly, he used his powers to zap Johnny's DJ booth and change the music to something fast-paced to get him out of the non-romantic moment, much to Johnny's chagrin.
"I love this song!" Ginger started dancing wildly on the dance floor. "Don't you, Dracula?" When she turned around, she realized the vampire was gone. "Oh, where'd he go? Dracula!" She ran off to look for him.
Meanwhile, Dracula was hiding behind Bigfoot's giant ankle. He sighed in relief, glad to be out of there.
"He's right over here!" Danny pointed to the vampire, knowing why he was hiding yet did it out of amusement, and returning with a new red suite to wear.
"DANNY !" Dracula hissed, but it was too late.
"Oh, there you are!" Ginger caught the vampire by the arm with her huge bicep arm and hauled him back onto the dance floor.
Dracula knew he had to get out of there the hard way, by telling her the truth. "Uhh, look, you seem really nice, Miss Ginger, but I'm already happily married, so can you please let me go." He explained to her while struggling to get out of her grip.
Ginger chuckled sadistically, "What does she have that I can't give you, and I don't see her anywhere."
"TURN AROUND!"
Then Ginger did turn around still holding poor Dracula to see who said that to her. And who she saw was a very angry Ericka , not happy at seeing this woman all over Dracula.
"Now you see her!" Ericka snarled in a scorned tone, giving her the mother of all death glares.
"Well I don't see much," Ginger snickered.
"Look lady, I'd appreciate it if you'd let go of my husband now!" Ericka demanded.
Then Ginger did let go of Dracula, who fell to the floor gasping for air. Ginger looked her up and down, rudely commenting, "When he told me that he was married I didn't expect that you'd be a human!"
This got Ericka even more angry. "Is that a problem?"
"Not to everyone but it might be a problem for you!"
While they were arguing the monsters at the party, including Carl and Lucie, began to glance in their direction to see what was happening. Luna and Evan halted in their steps, staring at the scene before them. Mavis's head peeked over the crowd, shocked and worried over what was happening, while she held Diavolo in her arms. Johnny, trying to change the tune, paused when he overheard the two women locked in a heated argument.
"What's going on?" Eunice with Gina in her arms asked them.
"It looks like there's going to be a chick fight!" Murray whispered, secretly getting excited about this.
"Should we stop this?" Griffin was worried.
Don't worry, if things start to get out of hand, Drac will stop it," Frank assured him.
Back with Ericka and Ginger, things were just starting to get heated up.
"What do you mean?" Ericka questioned.
"Wake up sweetie, do you really think your relationship with Dracula is going to last!" Ginger sneered with a smirk.
Ericka looked like she was about to punch Ginger in her face so Dracula decided to try and calm his wife down. "Wormbun, let's end this," he pleaded to her. "So let's just walk away and..." but he was immediately cut off by Ericka .
"Stay out of this, Drac!" Ericka shouted while holding her hand out to prevent Dracula from stopping this. "You have no right to comment on my marriage, tramp!"
Ginger scowled dangerously at that last part.
"Oooooo!" The crowd gasped when the Countess said that.
But then Ginger sneered coldly, "Oh sweetheart, don't you know? Dracula is a vampire which means he's immortal. And since he's immortal and you're not, he's going to outlive you. Plus, do you honestly think he's going to stick with you when he can have someone better!"
That earned another "Ooooo!" from the crowd when she sassed Ericka like that.
That last part set Ericka off. She was furious and clenching her fists, looking like she was about to blow. But then she took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. Then she pointed at Ginger's manly arm, "Oh, you have a loose stitch."
"Really, where?" Ginger said while looking around her strong arm for the loose stitch.
"HERE!" Ericka yelled as she punched Ginger right in the face, the impact knocking her backward to the floor, and then she tackled her.
The crowd was cheering at the fight. Murray was secretly recording it on his phone while the Drac Pack chanted for Ericka to win. But Dracula was panicking, he was trying to stop the fight before Ericka got seriously hurt, but he couldn't get near them.
Ericka was winning the fight though, she was letting out all her anger and fury on Ginger, whose dress was slightly torn, her hair mussed up, her left leg literally ripped apart from her body, that it was hard for her to fight back. She even pinned her down on her stomach and bend her strong arm the wrong way, making the awful red-headed stein lady beg for mercy.
"Alright, alright! You win!" Ginger pleaded.
"Guards!" Ericka hollered, summoning two knights to come over. "Take out the garbage!" she pointed at Ginger, who was picked up by the arms and they dragged her away to throw her out of the hotel for good.
Danny was in shock at what just happened. "Remind me to never get on her bad side," he whispered in a scared tone.
The Drac Pack slowly nodded and agreed with him.
"Alright, nothing to see here! Carry on!" Dracula announced to the crowd, gesturing them to get back in the groove.
As Ericka stormed back over to confront Dracula and the Pack, thinking that they had something to do with that stein girl throwing herself at her husband. "Okay! Which one of you invited that trash here?" she interrogated them. "And why were you dancing with her?" she narrowed her eyes at the scared vampire.
"I was waiting for you, Blood Jewel," Dracula tried to explain. "I didn't expect some one-muscled arm lady to come all over me."
"I was helping Dereck pick out new clothes since that fiasco with Tinkles!"
"Obviously," Dracula grunted, realizing Danny was to blame for his wife's absence despite finding him a new suite.
Frank, Murray, and Griffin looked at each other and knew they had to tell them why Ginger was here.
"Ericka , don't be mad," Frank said. "She's my right-arm's cousin and I invited her to come here because we thought we could set her up with Danny ."
Danny couldn't believe his ears. This was clearly the first time someone had tried to pair him up with a girl, only for the girl to reject him for someone else. "What, why?" he asked. "You know she's not my type." Thinking back, Ginger didn't really seem like his type after all despite their matching colors.
"Cause we know how lonely you were so we thought we could find you a girl," Murray said.
"We totally didn't think she would go and flirt with Drac, we swear!" Griffin told them.
Hearing this, Dracula and Ericka felt sorry for Daniel upon learning he was feeling lonely and never had a special person in his life.
"Look mates, I appreciate your concerns but I'm fine," Danny sighed. "Plus, I'm not really into monster girls."
Then Ericka went to comfort him, confidently placing a hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry, you'll find your zing someday."
"Zing? What's a zing?" Danny was baffled by such a word.
"Well, it's a monster thing, its like love at first sight; when someone meets his or her soulmate, that someone will spend eternity with their soulmate forever." Dracula told him. "It happened for me and Elisa, it happened to Mavis and Johnny, and I'm sure it will happen for you."
"I'm not sure about that," Daniel replied, not confident that he'll ever find love.
"Times have changed, buddy. You can even find someone to zing with on your phone now, You should totally show him how to do it, Drac," Griffin suggested.
"Not interested," Danny refused.
However, the news made Dracula perk up. He was desperate to help his new friend find a zing, so in a way he would make it up to Mina's family for all that had happened between them. "What? Really? No, no. I'm far too busy. I have Ericka and Mavis and the kids and the hotel and blah, blah, blah." He pulled out his phone, looked at it to find a website, then put it away as he placed an arm around a stunned Danny's shoulders to drag him out of the party.
"Um, did you guys hear that?" Frank asked. "He actually said 'blah, blah, blah!'"
"I don't say blah, blah, blah!" Dracula angrily insisted, but no one believed it, and he left.
"Sure you don't," Ericka giggled.