Chapter 6

This is worse than home. They had been playing for twenty minutes when Ericka felt her eyelids drop. By that old gremlin lady held a rodent skull to her ear.

"N-27."

Ericka stamped her card and looked up. "Is there anything better to do?"

A few of the participants stamped the number they had on their cards. Dracula could only grin as he stamped his card, looking like he was having the time of his life.

"G-61."

This time, Ericka could not find the number on her card. She was about to listen for what was next when she heard Eunice shouting coming from across the room.

"Bingo! BINGO!"

An elderly gremlin lady was about to eat Eunice's card in one bite.

But then her almost husband stepped in front of the elderly, gremlin lady, and told her to not eat her card.

"How dare you! Don't ever try to eat my fiancé's bingo card again?!"

"Ok."

When Ericka glanced down at a sleepy Pascal, she came up with an idea to make the game less boring. Before Dracula knew it, Ericka was getting to her feet and resting Pascal onto the table. They practiced ventriloquism, which straight away got everyone's attention. Even Dracula, who felt his jaw clench.

Most vampires didn't act like that. That was the first thing the monsters considered as they glimpsed at the blonde vampire in the library. The tiny green creature sitting on the table, as she moved its tail with light, gentle movements. She spoke in a way that made it appear that the words were being spoken by her chameleon. Every member of the Drac Pack laughed and tried copying the game.

As they were doing so, Dracula slapped a hand over his face. That did it! He reached out and snatched a terrified Pascal right out of her hands. Ericka reached out and tried to save her friend, but Pascal had already recovered his wits. With sharp, quick movements, he leaned forward and stuck his long tongue up Dracula's nose. The vampire released a high pitched scream and fell onto the floor. He landed on the ground with a stretched her hand out politely and Dracula pulled himself up. She chose to ignore the displeased look on the Count's face.

An hour later, everyone gathered in the gym. The next session consisted of a contest of charades. One group tried to guess what The Fly, who was also the fitness instructor, was doing.

"Circles?"

"Fly?"

"Hands?"

"Film?"

The Fly hacked up spit and rubbed his hands together.

"Vomit."

"The Vomit?"

"The Throw Up."

"No. That wasn't a clue." The Fly said and stopped what he was doing.

Pretty much everybody who was watching mostly dozed off. A bored Ericka could hardly focus on what was happening, and Dracula eagerly watched the competition unfold. Salem looked ready to fall asleep as she curled up in her master's lap.

The next group was trying to guess, mostly the Hydra, the Griffin's clues which mostly looked like a pair of floating glasses moving rapidly.

"Nothing?"

"Emptiness?"

"Glasses?"

"Glasses shaking?"

"Glasses shaking sideways!"

"Through the Looking Glass!"

"Ugh. I stink at this." Griffin sighed and gave up.

Ericka signed in pure boredom. Then her eyes lit up as she got another fun idea. She began riding a penny farthing bike and cycled between the two groups. Every monster suddenly looked at her in awe; others got off their seats and gathered around to watch Ericka perform some tricks.

One-by-one, they waited for their turn to try out the bike. Murray did it first, followed by a hand creature, and a small group of wolf pups. Bigfoot tried, but he fell and landed on the ground with a deep thundering crash, creating a hole in the wall. But this earned him applause from a few monsters.

In the crowd, Sirena and Bianca watched, applauding for their human friend. Salem watched from the bleachers with Pascal, both of them giggling in amusement. But Dracula gasped at what was taking place. One again, this human girl is causing chaos in perfect, well-ordered world.

The gremlin lady grabbed the bicycle and, before anybody knew it, she ate it in one bite. "I didn't do that."

The crowd gave a disappointed groan as Ericka looked on in shock. Seeing that the gremlin lady put a stop to this, Dracula sat up and began to step down from the bleachers, intent on giving her a harsh scolding for ruining the charades contest.

But he suddenly seemed to trip over one of the bleachers. As his large arms flailed about, Dracula fell right on top of Ericka, who let out a brief shriek. Both of their bodies made contact with the hard floor, mostly Ericka due to Dracula being on top of her.

As soon as their eyes met, Ericka found herself lying beneath the vampire as he had accidently pinned her to the floor. Their faces were very close together as Rapunzel gazed into the piercing blue eyes of Count Dracula, as he was staring into her own soft emerald colored eyes, making her blush incredibly red. Before she could say anything else, Ericka let out a quiet gasp as Dracula started to move his face closer to hers. Dracula's pale face began to blush a deeper red as his heart thumped louder in his ears and harder against his chest.

"OH… MY… GOD!" Eunice screamed in a mixture of shock and excitement.

Because of Eunice, Dracula snapped out of it as the forbidding memory of who she really was returned to his mind. He stood up and gripped his forehead in frustration. "What the world was that? Why did I do that?"

Ericka also stood up, yet she continued to gaze at the vampire with really sad eyes as if there was some kind of sad longing, her heart ached with disappointment.

"Thanks for ruining the moment, Eunice," Griffin scowled in her direction.

"There was never a moment of…whatever it was!" Dracula snarled.

"Then why is your face red?" Eunice asked out loud in a teasing voice.

Dracula slouched in anger and embarrassment. To take his mind off that moment, he decided it was time for the last activity…pool aerobics.

Outside at the hotel pool an aerobics class was in session with the Fly as the instructor, among the attendees was Wanda. The Fly gave exercise instructions in his monotone voice, even when he tried to tell his students not to copy his spitting, an impulse he couldn't really help. In the background was a buffet, where Frank ordered some food for later.

Ericka made her way down the stairs to the pool area after having changed in a strapless, two piece black swimsuit with dark blue stripes. She looked at her surroundings in deep awe. When Dracula spotted her coming down the staircase, his pupils grew small and his mouth fell open at how beautiful she looked in his late wife's swimsuit, it complimented her slim figure a great deal. The moonlight's rays fell upon her skin and hair; it made her look like an angel descending from the stairs of heaven. After a moment of mesmerizing, Dracula slapped himself in the face to bring himself back to reality. Why does he feel so different around her? She's a human, the very species who hated and hunted his kind.

Ericka made her way to the speechless vampire. "Hi. How do I look?"

"You look beautiful." Dracula complimented her with honesty.

Ericka couldn't help but blush. "Thank you. But aren't you going to wear a swimsuit, too?"

"No, I'm only here to watch and see that my guests relax…" he continued in a hard tone, "…and not to be bothered by another one of your foolish antics."

"Excuse me!" Her upper lip snarled in offense and anger. "I've been giving these monsters what they always wanted, what they deserve to have!"

"Hey,Ericka," Wayne shouted at a table with Frank, Eunice, and Wanda, "Come sit with us."

"I'm saved." Ericka was glad to hear her friends call her over, so she could get away from the cold-hearted vampire, and she made her way to the table to join her new friends.

Dracula could only remain where he stood as he watched her go. Hunched over and brooding, he watched as the human girl talked with his friends, trying to listen in on what they were all talking about, just to make sure she doesn't blow the elaborate cover he gave her.

A moment later, Quasimodo walked over to Dracula. "Bonjour, Monsieur Dracula, may I make you an omelet?"

"No, no, no, I'm not hungry," Dracula refused.

Esmeralda began sniffing the air and began squeaking in alarm.

"What! Esmeralda you smell it again?" Quasimodo asked loudly, and this made Dracula very nervous.

The rat squeaked again in response.

"HUMAN!" Quasimodo shouted.

"I AM hungry," Dracula quickly said as he swatted Esmeralda away and sent her flying into the unsuspecting Eunice's hair.

"Oh,Ericka, your birthday is in three days?" Eunice sounded intrigued.

"C'mon, that's just a coincidence," Murray said as he sat down with the group with a plate of black beetles. "First, we got a wedding coming up, and now we got a birthday coming up."

"Well, it's only in three days, and what I really want for my birthday is to see the floating lanterns," explained Ericka in a dreamy state. "They ONLY appear on my birthday, and I can't help but feel like they're meant for me."

"You know what, I'll take fifty omelets," an overly concerned Dracula tossed Quasimodo, who was caught by one of the gargoyle waiters.

"You heard the man, make them!" Quasimodo yelled as he hit him with a pan. The gargoyle proceeded to make the order while he was hit over and over on the head.

"So, how old will you be in three days?" asked Wanda.

"In three days, I'll be turning eight…" Ericka didn't have time to finish because Dracula quickly swiped a bagel from someone's tray and got in her face.

"Oh,Ericka, my dear. I thought you might be hungry, so I brought you a bagel with scream-cheese!" He said with mock pleasantry.

The cheese spreading in question actually leapt up with a monster face and giving off a high pitched scream on the bagel.

"Oh. Uh, thank you…" Ericka said nervously as she held the bagel and it continued to scream at her, "…but I'm not hungry."

"Aw, too bad. Anyway, can we party plan for a minute?" Dracula took her by the shoulders and lead her away from the table, leaned over her in a scary position, and whispered to her in an annoyed tone. "What are you doing? If they find out you are human, they'll go bat-poop!"

"Relax, no one suspects anything," Ericka whispered calmly.

"And you cannot tell them your true age because it will give you away!" Dracula continued. "Vampires live for centuries, so you need to change your age to fool them. How old are you?"

"I'll be turning eighteen in three days."

"Okay, you will be known as a 118 year old vampire."

"And how old are you?"

Dracula raised an eyebrow at her curious question, but he told her his age. "I'm 226."

"Really?" Ericka's eyes widened. He looked centuries younger judging by his appearance. "You look like you could be twenty six, by my standards."

"Look, the thing is I don't want you messing things up for my friend's wedding!" Dracula warned her in a harsh tone. "Otherwise my friends will know something weird is going on!"

"Well...the only thing that looks weird is how much whispering we're doing."

Dracula suddenly noticed everyone nearby was watching them with curiosity and confusion. The Count gave an awkward smile as he pushed Ericka to another area. "Just wrap it up! You will say you're going in the pool and act excited, and then you'll say you hurt your back and you have to leave."

Growling, Ericka slouched over toward the pool and half-enthusiastically hollered, "Here Come Good Times! Wheeeee! Oh no. Oh, my back."

Suddenly an amphibious monster jumped right on his back. "I'm on your back!"

Dracula frantically waved his arms and tried to correct what Ericka meant to say, "No, no! She said 'oh my back!'"

"Get on my back!" A monster shouted and placed Bianca on his shoulders.

"Let's do it!" Bianca cheered.

"Aw, yeah! Here we go," Ericka shouted excitedly as she stepped in the pool. "Chicken Fight! Push 'em off!"

Everybody cheered and jumped into the pool all at once, except for a slouching, angry Dracula.

"I got you, Bianca, you're going down," Ericka challenged.

"Oh yeah, we'll see, Blondie," Bianca teased.

Soon everyone was in on the game and tried to push each other off the other monsters' back, laughing hysterically and enthusiastically.

"Okay, calm down with the fight chickens, everyone stop the rough-housing!" Dracula yelled, but obviously, nobody was listening.

Bianca and the amphibious monster, who was on Ericka's back, knocked each other off. Sirena jumped in with a big splash, just a few feet away from Ericka and Sirena. Her legs transforming into a sparkling, scaly tail with fins. She rose up to the surface and gasped when Bianca splashed water in her face. With a sly smirk, Sirena created a huge wave to engulf and crash upon Ericka and Bianca, but most of the water splashed right on Dracula, still standing at the pool's edge, and frowned in growing frustration at this humiliation as several monsters pointed and laughed at him.

Gustav, the giant octopus, raised one tentacle high in the air with Frank on top.

"Frank, please don't hurt yourself!" Eunice yelled from below.

"I got it,Sweetheart . The Stein boy's a bread for this kind of thing. Geronimo!" Frank said before he jumped, slowly fell on the way down, landed in the pool's surface,and his fiancé Eunice was impressed.

Wayne tip-toed over to Griffin, who wore his usual glasses and a pair of plaid swim trunks, he chuckled slyly and pulled down his trunks causing Griffin to scream like a girl. Wayne just casually stood close by while his kids and everyone else around them laughed.

"Kids, why'd you do that?" Wayne smirked.

Griffin quickly pulled up his trunks. "Oh, I was just in the pool, the waters cold. Don't judge me!" He ran off.

Dracula walked around the pool to try and find Ericka , but when he found her, the vampire started to panic as he noticed something wrong. "Ericka , your make-up. Your make-up!" Dracula placed his hands on his head worriedly. He reached over and grabbed Ericka's wrist. "Climb out now...OHH!"

Suddenly Dracula was pulled forcibly into the pool when a monster lifted Ericka up onto his shoulders.

"Oh dear, I guess the Count wanted to go for a swim to cool off that hot head of his," Rapunzel said jokingly, causing everybody around her to laugh.

Under water, Dracula begin to spaz out screaming his head off, letting out bubbles from his mouth for Ericka's insult, or so he thought it sounded like an insult. He swam down towards the plunger and pulled the plug for the water to drain out.

But at the moment, Gustav lifted up Ericka high into the air.

"Wahoo! Cannonball!" Ericka took a big leap from the giant tentacle.

The water below was starting to go down the drain as everyone started to notice it happening.

"Uh-oh." Bianca looked up at her human friend in deep worry. "Ericka , look out!"

Hearing her name, Ericka looked down and began screaming in terror.

Dracula took notice of the falling girl and let out an annoyed sigh. He froze the human girl in place, walked away as his shoes made a clanking sound, he came back as he placed Blobby in the spot where Ericka will land, and unfroze her.

Ericka landed safely inside looking like a piece of fruit jello, she mouthed the words 'I'm okay,' but Dracula frowned, clearly not happy with the outcome.