Chapter 14: We're Moving!
Inside the suburban house of Johnny's parents, Mike and Linda, Caren and Pandragora, and the Kessel family were having a dance party and the Monster Mash could faintly be heard. Linda had tried to make Mavis feel welcomed and at home, but instead Mavis felt very uncomfortable in how she did it. She and Johnny sat alone on the roof of the Loughrans' house.
"Sorry about all that stuff," Johnny tried to comfort her, understanding how it all made her feel. "I guess they thought you like it."
"Why do I feel so weird here?" Mavis asked, feeling very out of place.
"No, Hon, they're being weird," replied Johnny.
"I think they're just trying to help me," Mavis said, trying to understand. "I mean, I grew up knowing nothing inside that hotel, and you learned about everything growing up in Santa Claus."
"Santa Cruz," Johnny corrected her. "But, uh..."
"Maybe if Dennis grows up away from Transylvania, he won't be so freaky... like me," Mavis sighed, as though reserving herself to a fate of always being seen as a freak.
"Are you nuts? Mavis, you're blast!" Johnny told her in sincerity, turning her towards him and to assure her she was never a freak. "You're so full of life and curious about everything. If Dennis grows up to be just like you, I'll be the luckiest dad in the world."
"Oh, I love you, Johnnystein," Mavis chuckled, feeling better by her husband's reassurances, remembering how she first met him. She embraced him affectionately. "You know, as long as we're all together, we'll be happy anywhere. Even at the hotel."
Out of her view, Johnny whispered, "Yes." Dracula's plan had actually worked. Just then, Johnny heard his phone ringing in a toy car honk and he turned it on.
"What're you doing?" Mavis asked curiously.
"Whoa! Check out this video my friend sent me," Johnny said enthusiastically. "These kids are awesome daredevils!"
On Johnny's phone, a video showed two very familiar looking kids falling from a very high and old wooden tower, and at the last moment the kids were caught by a black vampire bat and he flew them away from the ground.
Then another vampire kid's face came into view, asking excitedly, "Oh, dude! Did you get it?"
Mavis's eyes widened when she recognized those two kids in the video. "Wait, is that Dennis and Martha ... and Luna?!"
Johnny hesitated when he realized this and then tried nervously to play it off like it was nothing, exaggerating, "What?! No, it's... it's just hard to see..." He pressed delete on his phone. "And uh, oops, just deleted it... so it's gone."
But Mavis grunted, not buying Johnny's excuse. She took out her own phone and dialed a number.
In the hotel lounge, Ericka , Gracie, Rosa,Wanda and the female mummy where enjoying some 'girl time' at the spa, until Ericka felt her smartphone buzzing in her white robe pocket and saw that it was Mavis calling.
Ericka turned on the answer button. "Hi, Mavis. How's Santa Cruz?"
"Not now, Mom. Where's Dennisand Martha ? Where's Dad?!" Mavis demanded, her angry face shown clearly on the screen.
Not understanding why her stepdaughter was suddenly irritated about Dracula and the kids, Ericka told them what her husband never told his daughter. "Drac took the kids out to the park. I thought he'd be back by now, but it's almost morning. Don't worry, I'm sure he'll be back soon. What's going on, Mavis? Mavis?" But Mavis had already hung up on her stepmother and dialed her father, leaving a very perplexed Ericka at the other end.
Back at the camp, human firefighters had arrived in time to put out the fire and to prevent it from spreading to the surrounding area, though much of the camp needed to be rebuilt and refurbished.
Dracula heard his phone vibrating, meaning someone was calling him, and he panicked when he saw Mavis' photo. "It's Mavis!" he yelled frightfully. "I'm not answering it."
"C'mon, Drac, you have to," answered a foam covered Frank, and then he started slurping it up like it was whipped cream.
" My husband is right Dracula ".Eunice agreed
"Alright!" Dracula grumbled in defeat, and tried to sound innocent to his oldest daughter when he answered overly sweetly, "Yes, Honeybunch?"
"Dad, where are you?" Mavis demanded on screen.
"Uh, we're outside the hotel... having a little cookout," he lied, but in the background a loud firetruck siren wailed. "It's perfectly safe!"
"What's that noise? Is that a siren?!" Mavis asked suspiciously when she heard background noises behind her father.
"Oh, uh, those are just some wailing Banshees checking in," he lied with a forced smile. "Quiet, you Banshees, we're trying to have a perfectly safe cookout over here!"
"Mommy! we wanna say hi," exclaimed Dennis and Martha , as they ran over to Dracula.
"Mavy!" Luna got excited and wanted to tell her big sister about all the fun their daddy took her and Dennis and Martha on.
"Mommy, Mommy!" Dennis and Martha yelled. "Papa Drac tried to teach me,Martha and Luna how to fly!"
"We went flying, Mavy, at the greatest camp ever!" Luna yelled.
Dina noticed the little boy and girl's calls for their mother and ran up to them, demanding, "Wait a minute! Is that one of the mothers?"
Dracula found himself surrounded on all sides and reacted on impulse by smashing his phone in Dina's face, cracking the screen and then started to vocalize fake static again, "Oh no, static again... kkkggg... zzzrrg..."
But Mavis wasn't buying it and she yelled into her phone at her father, "I'm coming back to the hotel right now, and you'd better be there, or I swear, Dad, you're going to be very sorry!" She had a very angered expression on her face, almost reminiscing her father's angry expression.
Johnny feigned ignorance, asking, "What's going on?"
"We need to get home right away!" Mavis sternly responded, as she walked down the side of the house.
Johnny meant to follow, but he lost his footing and fell right into the bushes at the side of the house. His head popped out of the bushes. "Okay, I'll go wake up my backpack!"
Back at the ruins of Camp Winnepcaca, Dracula was beginning to panic. Mavis was on her way home and if Ericka knew what was going on, he was gonna be in a lot of trouble. "Guys, we gotta move! We got no car! How are we gonna get out of here?!"
"Don't worry, I made a call," Griffin assured him.
A few seconds later, Blobby appeared riding to them on the hotel scooter. He scolded them with gurgling noises.
"I'm sorry, Blobby," Dracula apologized, while his friends looked sympathetic. "We really meant to call you sooner."
But they had no time to waste. With both kids in his arms, Dracula climbed onto Blobby's scooter, followed by Murray, Wayne, and then Frank and Eunice, while Griffin got into the front basket.
Once everyone was on board, Dracula shouted, "Hit it!"
And the scooter moved forward, but at an extremely slow pace.
At the Santa Cruz airport, a taxi pulled up and its two passengers, Mavis and Johnny, exited the cab. Mavis rushed up to the front terminal, with Johnny quickly catching up and out of breath.
"Transylvania!" was all Mavis said when she reached the terminal.
"You want to go where?" the lady asked in a droned voice.
"Transylvania, as soon as possible!" Mavis said urgently.
"We don't fly direct to Transylvania," the lady replied.
"You don't?!" Mavis was becoming distraught.
"You can go to Bucharest, but you'll have to switch planes in Chicago and then Zurich," the lady told Mavis.
"So when would we get there?" Mavis was getting frustrated.
"Well, the Chicago flights delayed due to bad weather," the lady told her.
Hearing this, Mavis was so agitated she roared frightfully with red glowing eyes and long fangs in a rage, just like her father. But the lady didn't even flinch at Mavis's roar, clearly having experienced plenty of verbal abuse from other dissatisfied passengers. When Mavis ceased her roar, her expression was stone faced.
"So, two seats in coach?" the lady asked.
"No!" Mavis yelled, and took out her new poncho from Linda, a determined frown on her pale face.
"No!" Johnny gasped.
"Yes!" Mavis responded, looking at him in determination.
When the couple rushed out of the terminal, Mavis changed into a bat, grabbed Johnny's backpack and she lifted him off the ground and into the air. They were soon airborne on their way rapidly back to Transylvania.
It was a race to get back to the hotel.
The Drac Pack was driving at a very slow pace through the mountains. Dawn was near and they were losing time.
Mavis flew herself, while carrying Johnny, through a violent storm out in the Atlantic ocean. Johnny cheered, enjoying this flight home while Mavis heroically dodged a lightning bolt.
A short while later on a highway, Blobby blubbered nervously to Dracula, just after a car passed their scooter.
"You have to go now?" an irritated Dracula asked, while gesturing to the road. "When we finally have no traffic. You're killing me, Blobby!" Dracula sighed in frustration as Blobby moaned insistently.
At a wooded side of the road, Blobby squeezed himself of fluid by a tree while the Drac Pack and the kids watched in either embarrassment or amusement.
Among thick fluffy clouds, Mavis emerged, still carrying Johnny.
With some cloud stuck in his hair, Johnny whooped ecstatically, "Whoo-hoo-hooo! I still have some cloud on me! Gotta take a selfie!" He took out his smartphone to take a picture.
"Johnny! Not now!" Mavis nagged sternly.
"Okay, maybe later," Johnny relented, putting his phone away.
Out in the mountains, the hotel scooter slowed to a stop, having run out of fuel from a long journey and carrying so much weight.
"This scooter thing's out of juice! We're never gonna make it!" Dracula turned to the golem. "Frank, blow!"
Frank pulled at Blobby's mouth, and started to blow big, deep breathes into the blob like he was a balloon. It inflated the green slime monster into a giant blob version of a balloon.
When he was ready, Dracula shouted, "NOW!"
Frank let go, and Blobby started flying wildly, zigzagging in random directions, his jello-like figure emptied of sticks, branches, leaves, and a squirrel as he flew away and made loud flatulent sounds like a comedic deflating balloon.
The Drac Pack held on, but it quickly became so much fun as everyone started yelling, "YAHOO!" and the kids cheered, "Whee!"
They flew through the forest covered mountains, the sky turning into a beautiful pink, violet, and blue mixture with the slow steady rising of the sun. Blobby, with the Drac Pack riding him, then raced a modern electric bullet train to a tunnel, and beat it by inches, emerging rapidly through the other side.
"How fun it this?" Dracula laughed, asking the three children.
Dennis, Martha and Luna responded with cheerful laughter.
"Why are you three laughing? You like that?" Filled with joy, Dracula started to tickle his baby girl and adorable grandkids, making them laugh even harder. "Watch this!" Dracula began tickling Blobby as he let out a gasp of delight. "Oh, coochie, coochie, coo!"
Blobby started to make gurgled laughing noises, which made them all fly uncontrollably through the air. Unfortunately, Murray was unlucky enough to fall from Blobby. Frank quickly grabbed at his friend's bandages and tried to rapidly bring him back up, but the gauze kept unrolled and Murray looked like a skinnier version of himself as he screamed from flying far behind like a water skier, without the skies.
"Now this is flying, children!" Dracula told them joyously.
"Like some vampire!" Dennis and Martha yelled happily.
"Better! Like a super vampire!" Luna squealed, as she and Dennis and Martha held out their arms like wings, causing Dracula to chuckle.
Dracula then held them up in each hand and let them pretend they were really flying, praising them, "That's my bats! Look at you go!"
Luna and Dennis, Martha laughed joyously. They were having so much fun. The flying blob balloon came to a lake full of swimming ducks. Blobby flew too close to them and disturbed the ducks, causing them to flying away in all directions from being startled, but Dracula and the kids didn't mind too much as the ducks seemed like they were part of their flight.
"You're the coolest guy who wears a cape, Papa Drac," Dennis and Martha exclaimed.
"You're the best daddy in the world!" Luna agreed.
Both of their compliments made Dracula's heart melt with such radiance to hear them say that. Murray continued to scream in the wind as he was still flying far behind.
As the sun began to rise and brighten a new day, it would later turn into the worst day of everyone's lives.
Mavis and a sleeping Johnny had finally arrived back at the hotel. Mavis quickly used her clairvoyance ability to look for the kids, first her twins and then her baby sister. It was just at she feared. Neither of them were in their beds, and she grunted in frustration at this.
Blobby and the Drac Pack arrived at the hotel. The blob bounced with a gassy sound while Dracula landed with unmatched grace, while his friends were less graceful. The vampire papa casually but gently placed the kids on the ground and frowned when he noticed Murray's bandages fall all over him.
Then Dracula dialed his phone for Mavis to innocently chat with her, acting like they been at the hotel for hours. "So, hey, when are you going to get here already? We've been waiting..." But then he looked up to see an incredibly furious Mavis scowling at him as she turned off her phone. Dracula gasped, having been caught in another would be lie.
"Give me my twins !" Mavis demanded, pronouncing clearly each word.
"We just went out for some burgers and avocados," Dracula tried to change the subject.
It was then that Ericka came outside, having heard a loud deflating flatulent sound. "Mavis... Johnny..." she gasped in surprise. "What're you doing here back so soon?" She noticed the Drac Pack and the two children. "Oh! Hi, everyone. How was the park?"
"Mommy, we flew!" Dennis, Martha and Luna exclaimed ecstatically in union to their mothers, still invigorated from their ride on Blobby.
"I saw." Mavis irately held up her phone, and a YouTube video called Dracula Remix began playing. The clips intercut Luna and Dennis, Martha falling from the tower with rapid edits of Dracula arguing with Dina. The video had a rocking rhythmic soundtrack.
"The mother's already nutsy cuckoo. Nutsy cuckoo. Nutsynutsynutsy cuckoo."
Dracula watched the video, shocked and humiliated. Remaining frozen at being caught on the internet. Blobby danced humorously to the video's music, completely oblivious to Dracula's predicament. The Drac Pack watched Blobby's dancing with blank expressions. Dennis, Martha were also oblivious to his grandpa's predicament as they watched the blob's silly dance moves. Luna as smart enough to know what was going as she glanced up at her daddy, frowning worriedly.
"Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Oh d-d-dear, oh my devil. I have to follow protocol."
"That ain't happening, that ain't happening. Mothers already nusty-coo-coo, nutsy-nusty-coo-coo!"
Photoshoots Dracula rapping like a cuckoo bird as his head popped up and down to the rhythm, images of Gene Wilder from Young Frankenstein and the 60s Joker made cameos in the video.
The video ended with a final "Coo-coo" and Mavis still fumed in silence at her father for almost killing her twins and her little sister. When Ericka had watched the video, her mouth open to gape at what she witnessed. Then she turned on Dracula, her expression matching Mavis's fury completely. Busted, Dracula lowered his head in shamed defeat. The kids ran up to their mothers and their mothers embraced them, relieved they weren't hurt.
Ericka glowered at her vampire husband, seething, "HOW COULD YOU?! What were you thinking?! You could've killed your own daughter and your own grandkids! And you say Mavis and I are crazy!" She then glowered murder at the others, accusingly, "And the rest of you?! How could you let this happen?!"
"Whoa, hold on, Ericka !" Frank stammered, not liking being on the receiving end of a mother's rage, no matter whose wife she was supposed to be. "We really tried to tell him not to do it, but his mind was made up..." Ericka held up her hand to silence him, thinking he was making up an excuse.
"I was worried Dennis and Martha wasn't safe around other monsters," Mavis said, looking at her father, feeling betrayed. "Now I don't even feel like they're safe around you."
"But, I was just..." Dracula tried to explain to his eldest daughter.
"What was it you said?" Mavis interrupted. "Human, monster, unicorn, that it didn't matter?" She repeated the words her father had said on her and Johnny's wedding.
"But, I just know their lives will..." Dracula tried to explain again, but Mavis was hearing none of it.
"We'll have their birthday party here on Wednesday. Then we're moving," Mavis announced, having made up her mind right away.
"Please, Mavy," Dracula pleaded to her. "Don't leave."
"Maybe you've let humans into your hotel, Dad," Mavis said disappointedly. "But I don't think you've let them into your heart."
Mavis picked up Dennis and Martha while Ericka picked up Luna and they all walked back inside the hotel. Johnny eventually followed, before he gave a distraught Dracula one last saddened expression, knowing there was nothing he could do now. Dracula could only watch his family leave him and he sighed, feeling more ashamed and more of a failure than ever in his long immortal life.
A short time later, Andrei was shocked and outraged by the Dracula Remix video Mavis recently showed them, followed by his bellowing, "THAT'S IT! I knew it was a mistake for you to marry that monster! He's nothing but a maniac if he's willing to go that far to almost killing my grandkid! You and Luna are moving to Paris with us right now!"
Andrei, Monica, Nick , Marylin and James begun packing many of Ericka's possessions she had in hers and Dracula's chambers, while Levon and Harper were set to packing Luna's things in her bedroom, without her permission.
"Brother, Monica, stop! Don't do this!" Ericka protested, but her brother and sister didn't seem to care and she never addressed Monica as her stepmother. "This is not your decision to make!" Ericka was outraged. "I'm a grown woman now! I have responsibilities here, to my husband, and to this hotel!"
"And I have a responsibility to Rosette," Andrei argued back. "I promised her I would always keep you safe. I always knew James would've been a perfect husband for you." He placed an arm around a smug James's shoulders. "I want you to sign divorce papers as soon as possible."
"Monsters are dangerously unpredictable, especially that Dracula!" Nick agreed with him.
Before Ericka could think up a retort, a somber Dracula entered the room. He gaped at all the boxes in his room and whom they belonged to. His grief turned to betrayal as he turned on his human wife.
"HOW COULD YOU DO THIS?!" Her own words thrown back at her. "You promised you'd never leave me! But you go and betray me by breaking that promise!"
"Drac, it's not what you think," Ericka tried to explain while still angry. "And I'm not the one who threw a couple of kids off a tower just to force them to fly! I'm not the one who lied! You didn't just lie to me, Drac. You lied to Mavis, too. I thought you'd moved past that!"
But Dracula refused to listen to her. "You DID lie to me! I heard you and your new boyfriend talking about moving to Paris and taking Luna away from me because I'm too dangerous to be around! Me, her other brother!" Ericka was shocked. She narrowed her eyes to say something, but a hurt Dracula continued screaming at her, "I gave you my love. I accepted you for who you are for that love. I gave Mavis the mother she always wanted. I gave you the friends and family who love you for who you are. I respected our marriage vows and stayed faithful. But if this is how you thank me for all these years gone to waste... THEN GET OUT OF MY HOTEL, AND MY BROKEN HEART FOREVER! HOW COULD I HAVE EVER THOUGHT YOU COULD BE LIKE MARTHA?!"
Every harsh word he threw at her, Ericka began to breakdown in tears. "I don't know why I ever married you!" she sobbed. She looked back at her father, saying, "THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!" and she ran out of the room as she began to cry hysterically.
It was then Molly walked in to see what all the fighting was about. When she noticed Ericka rush past her crying and the others' infuriated expressions, she felt a pang of guilt in her heart. Scowling at everyone in the room, Molly told them off bitterly, "You're all terrible people!" Turning away, she found Ericka and placed an arm around her for comfort. "C'mon, Ericka . You can stay with me if you want."
Dracula's face fell as he watched Molly walk away with Ericka . Andrei aimed a darkened scowl at Dracula, but the vampire ordered him and the others, "GET OUT OF MY CHAMBERS OR I'LL CALL SECURITY!"
As everyone was forcibly escorted out of the rooms by guards, James paused and turned to sneer at the vampire, "You know, I really must applaud you for your actions, Count. You say you love your family, but all you ever do is lie to them and go behind their backs. Your wife was trying to make things perfect, but you go and blow it up in her face, just like that. When I used to date her, I loved her enough to let her know that I would never go behind her back. Her dad has made that point clear the minute he found out about your marriage. Your kind will always disgust many humans, not just the bloodthirsty type, but the selfish and deceitful side of you." After James left, he chuckled insignificantly.
Each word that wretched human threw at him, Dracula let it ring in his head as he slowly wandered down the hall, alone with his thoughts. He wanted to go after Ericka or Mavis. He wanted to talk to his eldest daughter, but her locked door and the shrunken head stated clearly she had no intent of speaking to him. He wanted to tell Ericka he didn't mean half of what he recently said and he didn't mean to hurt feelings, but he knew she needed time to heal, just as he needed time to calm down. It was all coming apart so fast. Perhaps Mavis had been right. Did he really fear so much being related to humans in some way that he never really let them into his heart and what James said was true? Tolerated, yes, even liked some, but really let into his heart that might be something else entirely. It dawned on him, so to speak, that he had at least let one human into his heart; Ericka . And he was going to lose her and the rest of his family if he didn't fix this soon. Perhaps it didn't matter if Melantha got her fangs or not, but she was his little girl just as much as Mavis is. If Mavis, James and Andrei were so determined to get Ericka and the children away from monsters just because they hated monsters and wanted them safe, then the only way to keep them here was for Denisovich, Martha and Luna to get their fangs. He was out of options, and there was only one way to do it left to him. As he made his way through the hotel halls, he figured it out sooner than expected, someone he knew he would need help from.
"It's time to see Vlad," Frank said quietly.
Dracula gave a reluctant nod.