Well folks here we go again. I have something to tell y'all.
Guess what! I don't own Dracula. Or Van Helsing. Or Carl. Or Anna Valerious. Or the Corset. Or the Brothers Grimm. Or a Stutz Bearcat. Or the film rights to West Side Story. Or a jar of Raisins. Or any Military Top Secret Correspondence. Or a Koala named Clancy. I've never been to Australia. I've never met Richard Roxburgh. I have never ripped the skin off a small animal. I have never practiced ventriloquism in a mirror. I have never made bathtub gin…or absinthe. I haven't died more than once. I intend to live forever. And finally, I grovel for reviews.
I do, however know all twenty-seven verses of Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport and can sing the Australian National Anthem in four-part harmony.
Once I owned a hamster.
Other than that I don't own anything, don't do anything, and lead practically the most boring life imaginable…except for being a pathological liar.
ON WITH THE SHOW
Dracula looks up at Anna with a pained expression. "Is thi—"
"Yes it is my silver knife."
"Hel—"
"Hello Dracula."
"I was going to sa—"
"No I don't want to rekindle your heartbeat."
"Would you stop interr—"
"Sure."
"Reall—"
"Not." Anna faces the camera and strikes a VanHelsing© patented heroic pose. "I am Anna Valerous and I would like to comment on some of the ridiculous if just plain improbable things that happen to me in this movie."
Dracula shakes his head, "Over my dead bo—"
"I find," Anna continues, while making the 'whatever W' with her fingers, "That people do not take me seriously in Van Helsing. They think that I'm some kind of movable prop to be rescued and protected."
"Well you're wearing a corset, what are we supposed to thi—"
Anna smacks Dracula in the head, "I am tired of being kidnapped and rescued and being forced to fight the secondary antagonist." She rubs her nose, "And I'm tired of falling out of trees." She looks at Dracula, "You can talk now."
Dracula looks up at the ceiling/author's computer lab, "I demand that you take her off this show immediately. She's nothing but fluff put in the movie to satisfy the sick little minds of fourteen year old males."
Anna takes one look at Dracula and starts to cry. She pulls out a pistol and shoots him in the foot.
Dracula dances around in pain for a while, for no other reason than the author is mad at him for killing h/s/I two chapters ago.
"Will you let me pull the knife out of my leg and heal now?" Dracula says grumpily.
There is a sound like the clicking of a thousand rusty computer keyboards.
Dracula pulls the knife out of his leg and heals.
"Don't forget about me." Anna smushes her nose against her sleeve, "I'm still crying. I need to be comforted by some big strong man who says that everything will be alright."
Dracula looks down at Van Helsing who is busy learning Sign Language…in Portuguese. "Don't expect me to do it. Not after what you said to me at Aleera's Prom."
"You're not paying enough attention to me." Anna bursts into sobs. Then she stops for a moment, "Just a sec, will you help me with this?" She unbuckles one of the six-hundred leather straps that keep her corset closed and tightens it a notch.
Dracula watches in horror.
"Ok. I'm good now." She resumes crying.
"You see!" Dracula waves a hand dramatically at the camera, "You see what she put me through? In the movie you only see when Aleera kidnaps her and then when she's at the prom. Do they show you the seventy five hours when she whined and complained and made me help her tighten her corset and curl her hair? Nooooo."
"I only made you curl my hair that one time."
"And do they show you when we went to the mall to pick out that ball gown?" Dracula shakes his head, "That very expensive designer limited edition ball gown?"
"But it was my color."
Dracula does the 'I'm so angry that my face becomes silly putty' thing and frightens Anna into a corner. "Oh Dracula, do you think this one makes my cellulite too obvious? Oh Dracula, would this dress be a little drafty in a three hundred year old cathedral? I can't wear that dress Dracula, it doesn't go with my shoes."
"But I had already bought the shoes." Anna whimpers.
"And then we had to go to that professional hairdresser to get your hair styled." Dracula starts picking up handy objects of furniture, ie. Van Helsing, and throwing them around the room, "And I got a rash because of all the chemicals, and you had your nails done and then your toenails done and got high off the fumes and then we got home and you didn't like your hair and you made me do it over again?" Dracula is shouting so loudly that a yogurt covered monk/friar/nun wanders onscreen to watch.
"And then!" Dracula says with a dramatic pause just long enough for lighting to crack in the background, "Aleera liked your outfit so much that she made me taker her out to the mall to get a dress too!"
The yogurt covered member of a religious organization licks a popsicle and disappears back offscreen. Some cameramen start arguing whether enough balloons would lift a person into the air.
Dracula collapses into a chair and dramatically buries his head in his hands.
"Well you had to kidnap me in the first place." Anna frowns and comes out of her corner now that Dracula is non-scary, "If you hadn't kidnapped me I would have made Van Helsing take me to the mall."
Dracula begins mumbling in…Yiddish.
"No I don't." Dracula hefts one of the few remaining chairs at the author.
"And you kissed me." Anna says accusingly.
"No I didn't."
"Yes you did." Anna grabs Van Helsing and throws him back across the room at Dracula. "I wake up all of the sudden and there you are sucking on my face."
"You were like, stoned on nail polish," Dracula dodges the impromptu missile, "I was worried. First I gave you the Heimlich and then I started CPR. That's when you woke up."
Van Helsing makes a kind of gurgling noise, but he can't say anything because he's used up his word-count. He does make a rude gesture in Portuguese though.
"Oh yeah, well how do you explain all that 'not all I can do with your skin' stuff?" Anna runs across the room and grabs Van Helsing and throws him at Dracula again.
"Did I ever tell you I was a Mary-Kay beauty consultant for several years."
"Oh, so that's how he got his hair." The cameramen say in Portuguese around sticky mouthfuls of yogurt.
Anna smiles warmly, "You were?"
"Oh yeah, I even had the pink car." Dracula says, preening, "Still do, as a matter of fact. People always assume that vampires just fly around to where they want to go. Trust me, it's not very practical in the winter."
"I thought you liked the cold." Anna stares at him blankly, "In all those vampire books, like, Lestat is all 'I can't feel cold' and 'I don't care if I'm trapped in an iceberg'." Anna pantomimes being stuck in an iceberg because hey, she's that kind of girl
Dracula shakes his head, "I'm a southern-hemisphere-have-a-picnic-Christmas-Dinner-on-the-beach type of guy." He pulls out his cell phone again, "Igor, make a note. Oi'm gunta pop off an' see That Rice Sheila some blue an' figure out where she why she came in dirty on vampires. Nah. She's jake. Orright, see ya mate."
Anna blinks several times.
"Destroyed by fire indeed." Dracula says in a miffed voice. "You saw that time that Frankenstein's son Monster tossed me in the fireplace."
Anna shakes her head.
"You just regenerate, it's the easiest thing this side of the black stump. Like this." Dracula faces the camera and takes a deep breath and concentrates. His cheeks puff out. He turns funny colors. His pores shrink or something.
Anna is still looking shell-shocked.
"What? You don't think it makes me look better?"
Anna's voice is all squeaky. "I didn't know you were Australian."
"Dude, in this movie everyone's Australian."
"But I'm allergic to Australians. I break out in unnecessary drama when they kiss me." Anna looks from side to side, "Do you know that when I was born someone made a prophecy that I would be killed in this movie by an Australian."
"Well there's Carl, and Gabriel and me, and there's pretty good chance that one of us will get annoyed with you by the end." Dracula kicks Van Helsing in the head, "Right Gabe-ey boy?"
Van Helsing looks hurt, but he can't speak…..that is, until he looks out the Magically Heretofore Unnoticed Window with the Panoramic View of a Giant Clock. The clock…..strikes twelve. You couldn't guess that, could you?
"FREE AT LAST!" Van Helsing yells while ripping his shirt off.
"Whoa man, I like you and all but that's a little um…" Anna runs and hides behind Dracula.
"I LIVE ANOTHER DAY!"
"Gabriel was always one for the dramatic stripper act." Comments Dracula.
"He frightens me make him go away."
"He killed you in the movie. You must have done something to him in a past life."
"LOOK OUT WORLD HERE I COME!"
"He what? He couldn't have. How come I'm here on this TV show. We made the movie six months ago."
"Anna darling, we didn't spend all of those seventy-five hours shopping."
"HAH!" Van Helsing does an acrobatic-ly-ness-looking thing and stands up. "Anna he has you under his hypnotic spell don't move and I will rescue you!"
"Put your shirt back on first." Anna says, just to prove that she is a worthy complement to a hero and not just interested in his highly worked out physique.
Van Helsing looks at the shredded remains of his shirt, "You want me to turn into a werewolf? My pants fall off then."
Dracula uses one of his 'one size fits all, one use only, no refunds' superpowers and Van Helsing is magically sewed into his costume. Sorta like Spiderman. Several cameramen stop watching the broadcast and go back to inhaling helium and discussing morality.
"Hey, I was having fun, bub." Van Helsing tries unsuccessfully to shed his clothing.
Dracula proceeds to ignore him, "Anna dear, he was practically unmanageable during filming. Every time Mr. Sommers was looking the other way he'd want to change into a werewolf." Dracula smiles his smile-of-doom, "Me I'm more of a cat person."
"That's funny because the only thing that can kill me is an Australian werewolf." Anna says over Dracula's shoulder.
"No … you too? Bizarre, isn't it?"
"Velkan couldn't kill you," Anna says proudly, "Because he wasn't Australian."
Dracula looks into the camera completely deadpan, "Now all of my questions are answered."
"Except the stuff with the Jell-O mirror and all," Anna says. "Was the movie intentionally ripping off Through the Looking Glass? I mean, ripping off like, Frankenstein was ok, but a children's book?"
Dracula hears the word 'children' and bursts into tears. "I used to read them the story of Peter Cottontail every night. And I sang them lullabies like 'Waltzing Matilda' and 'Botany Bay' and 'It's All For Me Grog.'" He sniffles a little and Anna gives him a hug.
"That one's my favorite." Van Helsing says, joining in the tearful sniffling. "Me mum used to sing it every night."
"Yours too?"
Dracula and Van Helsing sorta lean on each other and sob carefully manly tears in reminiscence of their mothers. Van Helsing blows his nose on Dracula's cape.
"I hate to interrupt you guys," Anna pulls another knife randomly out of her corset and sticks it back in another place. "But Dracula, why is it again that you don't reflect in a mirror?"
"The Computer Graphics Department got paid that week."
"Oh." Anna looks disappointed, "I was hoping you could answer that or something. Mr. Sommers said that you knew the answer."
Dracula looks up, realizes that he is leaning on Van Helsing, screeches and backs away. Then he realizes that there is booger all over his cloak so he dramatically does the collar-pulling thing and takes it off.
Anna, being female, swoons.
But luckily, a yogurt covered blob reaches in from offscreen and catches her before she hits the ground.
"You are so lucky." Van Helsing observes.
The yogurt blob disappears. For all anyone knows, it was actually the world-famous Surviving Cow of Van Helsing.
"I can't help it, I'm a Modern Heroine."
Dracula assumes his rant pose, "See, she wears insanely decorative clothes designed to constrict movement and enhance certain anatomical properties…all of which is unhelpful to say the least in a fight, and she is put in the most dangerous situation possible…. But does she die of apoplexy because she can't breathe? Does she stab her lycra covered butt with the sword that she is wearing without a sheath? Does she lose her balance on those high heels and tumble off the side of the castle to her death? Noooo. Random things save her."
"You are so lucky." Van Helsing says again.
Anna shrugs. "What can I say? The camera loves me."
"And why do you ask?" Dracula makes an unobtrusive hand motion and the camera zooms in for a closeup. "Because screenwriters are hopeless losers who haven't had a date in thirty years! The only horror movies they watch are from the fifty's!" Dracula sneers attractively, "Real people don't act like that."
"Hey, I'm real." Anna looks up from tightening one of her thigh-straps.
"Why do you keep doing that."
"It's my new weight loss program."
Dracula rolls his eyes, "I think I'm about ready to wrap this up, ladies and gentlemen. I think I have proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the entire cast of Van Helsing, saving myself, should be shot, staked, or disposed of in their own special way. I think it is about time for me to call in our executioner…"
"HEY."
Dracula looks offscreen briefly, "You're messing me up."
"But the author wants this rant to keep going."
Dracula looks like he's thinking of a really nasty thing to call the author and he steps offscreen for a moment. "Who said that?"
Van Helsing looks at Anna. "Guess it's just you and me."
Anna nods. "You thinking what I'm thinking?"
They move closer together and lean in… and set up a chess board.
"But I wanted to be white." Van Helsing whines. "And you promised me that I could drink absinthe."
Dracula reappears holding a soggy white blob by the ear. "And I think we should execute the author too."
"Myyyyyyyy precciousssssssss." The author hisses, "It buuuuuuuurnssss ussss it doesssssss."
Holding onto the author's ankle is another large white blob. "No come back. Tell me more about the herbal colloidals in vitamin K!"
"What are you?" Dracula asks.
The yogurty thing stands up. It's ten feet tall and has rather long fingernails. "Ummm." It says.
Dracula does the angry face thing, "Answer me or I'll kill you!"
The yogurty thing jumps out of its skin. Literally.
"Geez you always do that!" Velkan howls, jumping around and wringing his hands, "And I think you made me break a nail!" He stands up and looks sleek, "Hey Anna you should hear what I sound like when I breathe helium."
Meanwhile the author is dragged offscreen by a mysterious yougurty blob in a frock. Several other figures tie a mass of balloons to h/s/I's back and begin chanting. The author wafts back up to the ceiling. There are wild cheers of 'Success!' and 'It's alive!'
The author wafts higher, and higher, and then h/s/I leans over to h/s/I's computer and ….ends the chapter.
Who will win the chess game? Why is Dracula so mysteriously uninterested in Anna? Why is Van Helsing so mysteriously uninterested in Anna?
Find out next time in…. The Romanian Family Valerious or
Oh Oh The Wells Fargo Wagon Is A' Comin' Down The Street!
