Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN VAN HELSING. Nor do I own any of the other characters in it, like Dracula. Though sometimes I wish I did own them, I do not. sniffles Oh, well. I did, however, come up with this crazy story for you to enjoy. To the people whose bodies and personalities I borrowed to create my characters, many big huggles and Kayt/Dracula style glomps. Oh, and to those of you who don't like this story, I'm open to constructive criticism, but please, no flames. My fragile ego can't take it. Besides, it's not nice to yell at people who don't even know you.
Rika yawned, rubbing her eyes to lessen the pain of staring at a computer screen in a dark room. She sent an IM back to her friend Kayt and clicked on the X button of a window, getting ready to go to bed now that it was four in the morning. Kayt wrote back: So, what's going on tomorrow night? Are we renting a movie or what?
Rika closed down her website, then typed the message: Yeah, we're renting a movie. I thought we'd make it a monster movie marathon and get a whole bunch. You know, all the classics. Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, Werewolf in London... and Van Helsing!
Kayt sent the last IM right before Rika logged off. Cool. I'll see ya tomorrow, then. What time?
About six, I guess. Don't forget to bring Hunter and Soul Caliber for after the movie. Nighty night now.
Rika logged off, shutting down her computer and turning on the small desk lamp so she could see somewhat while she changed for bed. She pulled on a pretty blue camisole top and matching shorts-like panties, then collapsed on the floor, which happened to be her bed. She has a futon mattress. Rika smacked her pillows and rolled over, pulling her comforter up over her shoulder and immediately losing consciousness.
When Rika woke up at noon the next day, she sighed and sat up. She still had to clean the house so it would look somewhat decent when her friends came over. In addition to Kayt, there was Shara and Kyain. Making her way down the hall to the bathroom, she glanced in the mirror on the wall and grimaced. She needed a shower.
Coming out of the shower, Rika wrapped a towel around herself and went back to her room, feeling refreshed and awake now that she was clean. She pulled on a pair of super low tight jeans and a red baby tee with the word 'Grumpy' on the back, and a picture of the Grumpy Dwarf from the Disney version of Snow White on the front, then pulled back her hair in a ponytail. Just then the phone rang, and she lunged for the cordless extension on her desk. "Hey, this is Rika speaking, can I help you?"
A snort came over the line. "Jeez, since when do you answer the phone all proper-like?" Kyain chuckled.
"Well, if you would call more often during the daytime you would find that I answer the phone like this all the time," she teased, smiling and leaning against the doorframe.
"Ouch. That hurt," he teased back, pretending to sniffle.
"Oh, you baby. Suck it up." Rika grinned and started to giggle, biting her lip. God, you make it so obvious that you like him, don't you? Said her inner voice, and she ignored it.
Kyain laughed, and she could hear him moving around. Then the sound of Nickelback came over the phone, and he asked, "So what time is this thing tonight again? I sort of lost the paper I wrote it down on."
Rika laughed. "Translation: I never wrote it down, because I thought I would remember it, but I don't, so what time is it again?" She pushed away from the wall, her head bobbing to the music playing over the line. "It's at six. We're renting the old monster movies and Van Helsing, and Kayt's bringing Hunter and Soul Caliber Two so we have something to do after."
"Okay, cool. I'll see you tonight, then, baby." He hung up, leaving Rika with a warm glow. It always made her feel special when he called her baby. She didn't know why, and she didn't really want to examine it.
She hung up the phone and checked her reflection in her mirror. Same slender, athletic build as always, same dark brown eyes and loosely curly medium brown hair. Same pale complexion and hands that were a little too big and boyish from working and martial arts. She sighed, figuring there was no help for it, and got to work cleaning the house.
At six, Rika heard the doorbell ring and went to answer it. "Hello, cutie," Kyain greeted her, kissing her cheek and stepping inside.
"Hey there," she answered, biting her lip and smiling shyly. Why do you always get like this around him? Asked her inner voice. All shy and quiet-like... It's not like you. She decided she didn't like her inner voice and added, "You can kick off your shoes by the closet and head upstairs to the den. I'll be up in a second, I need to grab some stuff from the kitchen."
"I'll help you," Kyain offered, following Rika through the dining room to the kitchen.
Rika went to the counter and handed Kyain two gigantic bowls of popcorn, and grabbed several bags of cookies and other assorted junk foods. "And I'll have to come back down and get the soda cases," she said.
Kyain raised his eyebrows at her. "Who else is coming? The entire Army?" he teased.
Rika laughed. "No, worse. Two teenage girls." She started back through the dining room to the foyer, and up the staircase.
Kyain followed, feigning horror. "Someone save us! We're about to have the Apocalypse brought down on our heads!"
Rika cackled some more as she set the junk food out on the mahogany coffee table in front of a cushy leather couch. Upon entering the room, Kyain's eyebrows rose. "Jeez, Rika, what do your parents DO for a living?" he wondered, his gaze traveling over the expensive furniture and the even more expensive entertainment center, complete with huge flat screen TV, DVD player, large DVD library, and other mysterious electronic equipment.
"Mom's a graphic design artist. Dad's an architect. They saved their money and invested it wisely." Rika shrugged. "They work their asses off, though, so maybe that has something to do with it. But haven't you been in my house before?" she asked, frowning a little.
Kyain shook his head. "Nope. We've either been out or at my place before this." Rika thought this was a little odd and opened her mouth to say something about it. Just then the doorbell rang again, and Rika closed her mouth and went to go answer it.
"Make yourself at home," she called over her shoulder, trotting down the stairs and swinging open the door.
"Hey," Shara said, giving Rika a hug and kicking off her shoes. "What's new?"
"Oh, not much. Kyain's already upstairs. I'm just going to go grab the cases of soda and I'll be back. Go ahead and say hi," Rika gave her a push and went back into the kitchen, grabbing the cases and coming back into the foyer just as the door swung open again.
"Hi there!" Kayt called, pulling off her shoes and dropping her jacket in the chair next to the door.
"Hey," Rika smiled, gesturing towards the stairs. "Great, now everyone's here. Let's go up and start the party."
Kayt grinned. "Yay!" was her exclamation before turning and dashing up the stairs. Rika shook her head and followed more slowly, sliding the cases under the coffee table when she reached the den.
"Okay, whoever wants soda, it's under the table," she said, padding over to the DVD player and popping in Dracula. "Classic first, then Van Helsing," she stated grabbing the remote, pushing PLAY, and heading back over to the couch. Kyain grabbed her hand and pulled her down next to him, so she leaned her head on his shoulder and tucked her legs beneath her. Shara and Kayt had found comfy positions on the plush carpet in front of the couch, and they all settled down to watch the first movie.
After much laughter and jokes during the film, Rika finally pushed STOP and wiped her eyes. "Whew. I don't know how long it's been since I laughed that hard," she giggled, going over to put Van Helsing in.
Kyain grinned, and Shara and Kayt laughed, which started them all off again. Ten minutes later, when they'd all finally calmed down, Rika started up the movie, getting comfy again.
Rika was reaching for a cookie when she noticed something odd. She frowned, squinting at the screen as she leaned back against Kyain. He looked down at her and quirked an eyebrow. "Something wrong?" he asked, puzzled.
"Does the screen look a little weird to you?" she asked, scrutinizing it.
Kyain turned and examined the screen. "No, not really. Are you feeling alright?" he asked, feeling her forehead.
Rika poked him and watched the screen closely. It was doing a funny ripple thing. And then all of a sudden, Van Helsing and Dracula came flying through the screen as if catapulted by something. "Ouch," muttered Helsing, sitting up.
Dracula stood and brushed off his clothes, looking around. "What in the seven circles of hell is going on around here?"
The four friends were so stunned by their sudden arrival that it took a full minute before any of them reacted. The first to break the strange silence was Kayt, who squealed loudly and jumped up, running over to Dracula and giving him the biggest glomp ever received by anyone. Dracula was knocked over by this force, and from her new position on the floor Kayt yelled, "ohmygod, ohmygod, OHMYGOD, it's Dracula!" she squeezed him tighter, and he tried unsuccessfully to free himself from the crazy girl's grasp.
Rika blinked and raised her eyebrows, shocked into silence at the sight of what had just happened. She looked over the Kayt-and-Dracula pile on the floor, decided not to bother, and turned to Van Helsing. "Um, what just happened here?" she asked, pressing closer to Kyain.
Van Helsing shrugged, standing and stretching. "How should I know? All I remember is fighting this bastard," he said, gesturing at Dracula, "and then we were here. I'm quite confused about this myself."
Dracula glared at Helsing over the death grip Kayt had on him. "If I could get free right now, you would be in serious trouble," he muttered, looking down at Kayt's thin form.
Kayt smiled happily up at Dracula and cuddled him. "I love you, Dracy," she said dreamily. Dracula was quite disturbed by this, but no matter how hard he struggled he could not break free of Kayt's hold.
Shara, seeing this, giggled. "Wow, are you sure this is Dracula? He can't even break free of skinny little Kayt," she snickered, breaking out in a laugh.
On the couch, Rika sat back a little, beginning to relax slightly. There was only one explanation for this: her and her friends were all insane. Either that or something really, really weird was going on around here. Kyain stood and went to help Dracula pry Kayt off. "So, are you sure neither one of you remembers anything besides the fighting?" he asked, grunting as he tried to pull at Kayt's arm. It wouldn't budge.
Dracula wheezed, and Kayt's hold slackened enough so he could breathe, but not enough to allow either Kyain or Dracula space to pull her off. "I, for one, only remember being on the ceiling, waiting for Helsing to pass beneath me when I was sucked through the portal to here," Dracula answered breathlessly, gulping in air.
Helsing shrugged, rubbing his forehead. "I was looking for Dracula and got pulled here. That's all I know."
Rika lifted an eyebrow and folded her arms over her chest, leaning back into the cushy leather of the couch. "Well, since you're here and we have no idea how or why, you might as well take a seat." She gestured to the two high backed chairs beside her father's reading table. That was when she realized that Dracula couldn't even move, let alone get up and take a seat. "Kayt, will you let the poor, um, vampire go so that he can sit down?"
Kayt reluctantly released her death grip on Dracula so that he could take a seat in the chair, but then she sat next to him and attached herself to his lower leg. Rika rolled her eyes, but ignored it. Dracula looked quite worried as lifted his leg and shook it, trying to free himself again. "I wouldn't bother if I were you, buddy," Rika sighed. "She wouldn't let go of you if we melted her hands off."
Dracula tried one more time to get Kayt to release him, but when it didn't work, he gave up and sat back. Kayt grinned, and a giant red heart appeared over her head and lit up. Helsing, intrigued, leaned over and poked the heart. To his surprise, it wiggled like a piece of Jell-o. Helsing's eyes widened, and he poked it again, to get the same effect. Kyain raised his eyebrows and looked back over at the couch, where Rika was interestedly watching Shara squirm under.
When Shara popped back out, she brought a big black bag with her. "Ooooooh, what's in this?" she murmured, opening the bag and sticking her head inside. After a moment she squealed, "Yay, weapons and other shiny things!"
Rika took the bag from her and peaked inside, grinning. Shara pouted because Rika had taken the shiny things away from her, but was distracted by Kyain handing her a giant chocolate chip cookie.
Rika began pulling out cool instruments of pain and death, such as shuriken, Tojo blades, swords, knives, and miscellaneous pointy objects. When she had pulled everything else out of the bag, she reached in and pulled out... a loaf of French bread. Puzzled, she sniffed it. Not only was it French bread, it was French Garlic bread. Even more confused, she poked it. "Why is there Garlic bread in with all the cool shiny things?" she asked.
Shara looked up from her cookie. "So you can stuff it in his mouth," she said, pointing at Dracula.
Dracula glared at her, and Rika hit her on the back of the head with the Garlic bread loaf. "Now why would I want to do something like that?" she demanded. "That is just... no, Shara. Just no."
Shara rubbed the spot on her head, then stole the loaf from Rika and smacked her back. "Well, it was an explanation!"
Rika stole the loaf back and bopped Shara on the top of the head. "And just where the hell did you get this bag?" she pondered, raising an eyebrow.
Shara glared and rubbed the new spot on her head. By this time, everyone was watching Rika and Shara attack each other with the loaf of Garlic bread. "It was under the couch," Shara replied, grabbing the bread again. But this time Rika didn't let go, and the loaf ripped in half.
The two looked at each other, then silently stood and moved the coffee table out of the way. When they were done, they moved to opposite sides of the room, then ran at each other and tried to beat each other senseless with their respective halves of the Garlic bread.
A/N: evil laughter A slightly cliff-hanger-ish ending. I love to write those, even though most people will probably kill me for it. looks around nervously and backs away towards the door Just remember, if you kill me now, I'll never be able to finish the story. So meh. Muah hahahaha!
Oh, yeah, I should probably describe what everyone looks like, because I just realized that I forgot to and I'm too lazy to go back and rewrite this thing. So, for those of you who are interested:
Shara: about 5'6", slender, dark, relatively strait brown hair that brushes her shoulders, blue/gray eyes. In the story she's wearing a t-shirt with a happy rainbow and a smiley face on it with the words "I hate myself and I want to die", a pair of jeans, and socks with little puppy faces on them.
Kayt: also about 5'6", very skinny, short blonde hair, green eyes. Wearing a black long sleeve t-shirt and black pants with chains on them.
Kyain: author swoons. "To the person whose body I stole for this story, I love you." 6'1", athletic build, military cut blond hair, blue eyes. Tattoo of something on his left bicep. Wearing jeans and a plain gray t-shirt.
Rika: I think I already said what Rika looks like, didn't I? Well good, 'cause I don't feel like writing it again. What can I say? I'm a lazy bum.
Oh, and something else I just realized. At the beginning, the things in bold print are the typed IMs Rika and Kayt sent to each other. And thoughts are in italics.