Vladimir's coming! Lisa sang to herself, her bare feet scarcely touching the stairs as she descended. He's coming! He's coming!
Bart, his attention fixed on a dance number, suddenly watched his sister sail by at incredible speed. "Ay caramba," he marveled. "What're you doing, Lis, practicing to be a ghost?"
She zipped past him again, apparently floating on air. "Vladimir's coming!" she gushed. "The love of my life will soon arrive at my doorstep and hold me in his tender arms!"
"Whatever," said Bart lazily. "I don't know what it is about that kid that gets you so excited. We went to his house today, and it was boring as hell. Absolutely nothing happened."
Lisa stopped to perform a few pirouettes on the carpet. "I'm so happy I could die!" she exulted.
"If you do die, let us know," joked Bart, "because you're way beyond the point where we can tell just by looking at you."
Marge stepped into the living room, none too happy from her expression. "Lisa, you should be in bed," she said sternly.
"Bed?" said Lisa in disbelief. "How can I think of going to bed, when Vladimir will be here at any moment?"
Marge's blue haystack wobbled as she shook her head. "Playing with Vladimir is out of the question. You could pass on whatever you have to him."
"For the last time, Mom, I'm not sick," Lisa insisted. Clutching her bosom, she added, "Except with love."
"Enough out of you, missy," said Marge, waving threateningly the ladle in her hand. "Go to bed now, and stay there until Dr. Hibbert arrives."
As the words "Aw, Mom" formed in Lisa's brain, so did an idea. I'm a vampire, right? Why should I let my parents push me around?
Her eyes blazing a trail through the air to her mother's, she said boldly, "Vladimir is coming here, and you don't have a problem with that."
"Don't sass me, Lisa," said Marge, unruffled.
Try harder. "Look into my eyes," she said eerily. "Look deeply into my eyes." Pointing with her hand for emphasis, she went on, "You will let me do whatever I want. You will not scold me or punish me."
This time Marge's eyes lost their focus and glazed over. "I…I…" she mumbled. "I…will not…punish you…"
"Excellent," said Lisa. "When Vladimir comes, you will give him a big hug and lots of cookies and ice cream."
"I…will give him…a big hug," her mother droned.
"And…lots of cookies…and ice cream," said Bart, also entranced.
"Arf arf…arf…arf arf arf," said Santa's Little Helper.
"That's good," said Lisa elatedly. "When I snap my fingers, you will no longer be in my power."
She snapped her fingers loudly. Marge and Bart, rather than awaken, continued to stare mindlessly forward. She snapped them again, but failed to rouse her mother and brother from their stupor.
Okay, maybe hypnotism's not my thing, she thought.
Trapped at the end of an alley, Lisa stood with her back pressed against a lumpy brick wall. A tall, lanky shadow rounded the corner, bringing with it a chilly breeze. She didn't need to ask to whom the shadow belonged…it belonged to the one who would destroy her.
First a determined scowl, then a mop of blond hair, appeared in the gloom ahead of her. One fist was clenched, and the other gripped a wooden stick with a deadly, pointed tip.
"No, Buffy!" she pleaded desperately. "Don't kill me! I'm one of your biggest fans!"
"You've been a very bad vampire," said the TV heroine, her movements agile as she closed in on Lisa.
"I'm not a bad vampire! I'd never drink the blood of the living!"
"Then what do you call that?" said Buffy, gesturing at a nearby pile of gruesome-looking corpses. "Fruit punch?"
"No!" cried Lisa. "I didn't do it! I'm a vegetarian!"
"Oh, really?" Buffy's free hand was now wrapped tightly around her neck. "Here, vegetarian. Have some stake!"
A blast of bitter cold punctured Lisa's chest. She awoke abruptly, and realized that the source of the cold was Dr. Hibbert's stethoscope.
"Heh heh heh," chortled the doctor. "I was afraid you'd never wake up, Lisa."
The blurriness of her vision quickly passed. "Oh, hi," she said flatly. "What's the prognosis, doc?"
"It's like nothing I've seen before," remarked Hibbert, Marge standing worriedly behind his shoulder. "Your temperature is 83 degrees and dropping, but everything else about you is perfectly normal."
"That's good to know," said Lisa. Before she had a chance to engage the physician in small talk, the corner of her eye discovered an alarming fact. Turning her face to the window, she exclaimed, "Omigosh, it's almost dark!"
"Yes, indeed," said Hibbert with a chuckle.
Lisa gaped at the full moon that peeked over Mount Springfield, and felt a strange sympathy with it. "Mom," she asked anxiously, "did Vladimir come?"
"No, honey," her mother replied.
The little vampire girl's heart sank. "He said he would come…"
Hibbert straightened his legs. "She's in no immediate danger, Mrs. Simpson," he stated. "She should sleep at home tonight. If her situation worsens by morning, bring her in."
"Yes, doctor," said Marge, her hands clasped.
Lisa, almost against her will, began to sniff the air. "What's that smell?" she wondered.
"Er, I don't smell anything out of the ordinary," said Hibbert.
"Mom, are you cooking something?" asked Lisa. What a stupid question! That's not food I'm smelling, it's something totally new…
"Well, the fish guts have been sitting in the garbage can for a few days," Marge admitted.
The more Lisa inhaled the strange, sweet scent, the more she felt like a starving, terrified wolf. "It's coming from you, Dr. Hibbert," she said, her eyes widening with panic and hunger. "You, too, Mom. It's…inside of you."
"What's gotten into her?" Marge inquired of the doctor. "Is she hallucinating?"
Omigod, I know what it is, thought Lisa, her body quivering wildly. It's the smell of blood, and it's making me crazy! Vladimir was supposed to save me from this. Where the hell is he?
"Are you…are you sure you didn't see him?" she asked Marge frantically.
"Sorry, Lisa," was her mother's innocent response. "I guess he forgot."
"Omigod," she muttered, struggling from the bed down to the floor. "I've got…I've got to…"
"You've go to eat something, little girl," said Hibbert, bending over with a patronizing smile. "You need some iron in that blood of yours."
"Blood!" The word forced its way out of Lisa's mouth, as if the hunger within her was bellowing orders. "Blood! Blood!"
Unable to stop herself, she lunged, snapping, at Dr. Hibbert's exposed neck…
To be continued