14Chapter 5: Monster Mania
The Drac pack arrived in Brasov in one of the hotel's hearses a little bit before six pm. Expecting the enormous crowds they had encountered last year and some latent mountain traffic, they had planned ahead and beat most of rush hour though Drac had to bring a large sunhat to shield himself from the setting sun.
"You can let us out here, Porridge-Head," Drac ordered his bellhop before placing his billowing yellow hat on. The zombie let out a low groan, pulled the hearse to an abrupt stop, and dropped off the monster crew. Despite his zombie coworkers being slow walkers, they sure had lead feet.
"Rrrrrruh...?"
"I don't care where you park. Just be sure you can find it later." Then the hearse quickly drove off with a loud, over-dramatic screech before Drac turned to his two zombie assistants that came with him, Frank, and Wayne. He fumbled around underneath his cape before found what he was looking for and pulled out two large stacks of red pamphlets with gold trim seemly from out of nowhere before dumping into their arms. "You two, go pass these flyers out."
Frank watched the two bellhops walk away before turning towards his friend. "I know you want to advertise the hotel, Drac, but did you really need to bring so many pamphlets?"
"Any publicity is good publicity," was the vampire's answer. "Besides we've got a lot of ground to cover and little time to do it in."
"Yeah, but, you're going to try and relax a little, right?" Wayne asked.
"Yes, sure, whatever. Where exactly are we supposed to be right now anyways?" Drac said, wanting to cut to the chase. The golem monster and wolfman shared a look. Things weren't going exactly as they had planned.
"Well, first we're supposed to check in and let the staff know we're here," Frank explained as he pulled out a pamphlet he had stashed away in his coat pocket and unfolded it to a small map of the city. "Then they'll give us the list of panels we need to go to." Drac's eyebrow arched skeptically.
"'Panels?' As in plural?"
Wayne quickly raised up his paws in reassurance. "Don't worry, Drac. You don't have to do them all. Let's just do the big question and answer panel we promised to do. It's where we're supposed to go meet up with Murray and Griffin anyways." Dracula let out a breathe. He was just here for the hotel. He wasn't here for fun. He was just here to help bring in more business, not thinking about his darling Mavis and her boyfriend Johnny being in the most romantic city in the world having fun. He wasn't thinking about them. Not. At. All.
"Sick costume, man. Creatures of the night unite!" A goth dressed teenager with dark hair and black eyeliner cheered before doing a fist pump in the air and ran up to him. "Can I get a picture?"
"Well, I-" Drac began before he felt an arm rudely grab him around his shoulder and tightly pull him in close for a selfie. After snapping the picture, the teen did a motion with his thumb on the phone's glass screen. "Let me see if we need to do another one." Drac frowned. That wasn't likely. He never turned out well in photos. However, looking over the teen's shoulder, he did notice something odd about the picture but the teen pulled his phone away too quickly before he could inspect it further.
"Thanks, man! This is going to look awesome on my blog."
"Let me see that!" Drac exclaimed as he snatched the kid's phone out of his hand and examined the photo more closely. Something strange was going on with the photo. Rather than have the teenager's arm sticking out under a floating sunhat, a middle-aged man with a long chin and a hooked nose stood there instead. It only took Drac a couple of seconds to realize that the handsome stranger he was viewing was himself.
"Hey man, be careful! That's the latest iPhone you're holding!" the boy exclaimed, but he paid him no mind. How was this possible? He wasn't supposed to be seen in photographs- also did he really look that fat? He was going to have a word with his portrait painter. Maybe his camera was cursed. Yes, that had to be it. Strangely enough, the Count also noticed that there was a tall slender man standing behind him in the photo that lacked a face, someone who he didn't remember having the picture taken with. He turned around and sure enough, the mysterious, faceless figure loomed ominously behind them.
"Oh! Hey, Slendie!" the teen greeted the character, who had somehow managed to impressively sneak up behind a vampire. The figure did a slow gesture and a slight head tilt. "Yeah, I'm all done here. Let's go get some street food from that food stand over there." The teen snatched his phone out of the Count's hand and walked towards one of the festival's many meaty food stands. Drac noticed that his friends were already a couple yards ahead of him dealing with their own sort of paparazzi before he caught up with them. Neither of them had noticed that their friend had been bombarded as well.
"Sooo I think the guy said the stage entrance was somewhere around the back," Frank finally spoke up, looking up from his map as they wandered through the streets of Brasov.
"You mean that back entrance in the alley with the scary looking guy with the earpiece?" Wayne pointed a claw towards the self-same man he described with the words 'crew' emblazoned in white on his black shirt.
"That might be a good place to look."
"Hi. We're here for the Monster Q & A panel," Wayne explained to the guard. He lowered his sunglasses and gave the group a cold look before recrossing his arms.
"Sure you are, just like the other monsters." The stagehand then jabbed his thumb over his shoulder. Behind the bouncer were groups of people standing behind wire rails. They were dressed in an almost similar fashion to the monster celebrities, some wearing make-up with slightly more exaggerated colors while others were wearing masks made of rubber or masks that were fabricated from paper-mache.
"Nice fangs, by the way. Where'd you get them? The party store?" the guy scoffed with deep sarcasm.
"They're real," Drac scowled.
"Sure they are. I bet they're adhesive. How much glue did you have to use to keep them on?"
"Ugh, I don't have time for this," Drac rolled his eyes before he gave the guard a red-eyed glare. Immediately, the guard went rigid and moved robotically to the side.
"Right this way..." he said in a monotone voice. Drac then gave the guard a toothy smile, exposing his fangs.
"Thank you. You have been most accommodating."
His friends followed behind him while the crowd was left dumbfounded, taking a few seconds to process what they had just seen before they all started shouting excitedly, trying to push past the iron gates that held them back before the heavy metal door shut behind them, creating an air of calm and silence. It only lasted for a short while, the background illuminated with red emergency lights and other various theatre lights before it opened up to a more clearly lit open space filled with wires and people with black t-shirts running everywhere with clipboards and carts carrying sound equipment. One of the women workers noticed them and quickly started speaking into her headset.
"Are they here?" a voice spoke over the noise somewhere far ahead of them before a portly man with glasses began walking towards them. He smelled of sweat and had a bit of stubble growing around the edges of his neck-beard. "Hi, I'm Tom, your emcee for tonight." Tom almost immediately reached out and grasped Dracula's long, cold hand before shaking it enthusiastically. "Thank you so much for coming."
"Yes..." Drac gave him a strained smile before discreetly wiping his hand on the part of his tuxedo that remained hidden underneath his cape. Tom went onto shaking the other monsters' hands.
"If there is anything I can get you folks before we get started, please just let me know. We'll get craft services right on it."
"Oooh! Do you have any rat dogs or coffin cakes with scream cheese?" Frank asked eagerly.
"I could go for some rat dogs," Wayne nodded in agreement.
"No but we have hot dogs and coffee cake with regular cream cheese," Tom gave them a nonplussed smile before turning towards Drac. "Anything I can get you, Count?"
"Just a bagel with scream cheese will be fine," Drac ordered, draping his cape over himself so it obscured more of his suit.
"You mean 'cream cheese.'"
"Yeah, sure. Whatever." The stage manager then let out a loud bellow. "John! Wren! Get these monsters some refreshments!"
A scatterbrained young man with greasy unkempt black hair nervously began throwing some food onto a platter, bumping into his calmer counterpart before the latter presenting quickly presented them with an assorted selection of meats, cheeses, crackers, vegetables, fruit, and desserts. It was almost eaten seconds after it had reached them as the entire tray of food slid into Frank's wide mouth and swallowed with a loud, satisfied gulp.
"That was great! Do you have anymore?" Frank complimented after letting out a loud burp, holding the dumbfounded intern a clean, silver platter. No matter how much he ate, the reanimated corpse could always put away more food. If it had been his event, Drac would have worried on whether craft services would have prepared enough for his friend's monstrous appetite. However, he was not in-charge of this event and tried to remember this fact as he tuned back into the stage-manager's conversation.
"-So while we wait, here's how things are going to go for this panel," Tom explained to the group. "Basically, we'll ask you a few questions, help get the audience livened up for the party, and then we'll hand you over to the audience and answer some of their questions for the rest of the panel-" Drac stiffened. No one had told him they were going to be handed over to a mob of people. "-When we need to get ready, there will be a ten minute warning call and then we'll get ready to go on. We've got a little under thirty minutes before we start, so stick around back here until then and we'll call you up on stage. Any questions?"
"What if-?"
"Good! Alright, well, if you need anything, ask one of our staff and we'll try and accommodate you as best as we can. Your friends Griffin and Murray can fill you in on the other panels you'll need to attend after this." Busy with the set-up, Tom quickly stepped away to take care of something. Drac felt like everything was gradually spinning out of his control, but he tried not to let it show in front of his friends. He just needed to get his thoughts together. He was here for the hotel, he was just here for his hotel...
"Here's your bagel with cream cheese," the jittery stagehand named Wren announced before holding out a small plate underneath the Count's nose." Can I take your hat for you, Mr. Dracula?"
"What? Oh, yes. Thank you," Drac snapped out of his trance, derailing his latest train of thought before handing his sunhat to the intern and trading it for the bagel. He had been so overwhelmed by everything else, he had forgotten to take it off when he went inside.
After giving it a cautious sniff, Drac sunk his fangs into the bagel. It tasted similar to what they had at the hotel, but it just wasn't the same as biting into food that screamed back at you. Honestly, he had ordered it because it was his daughter's favorite, and it probably wasn't likely that they carried his favorite food, blood pudding. His expression twisted into a sour face when he realized his bagel was also covered in poppy-seeds.
"I'm sorry, but could I have mine on a plain bagel?"
"Absolutely! So sorry about that! I'll get right on it straight away!" Wren apologized profusely, though you wouldn't have guessed that he was sorry by the admiration in his eyes.
"I think you've got a fan, Drac," Frank observed with a smile as he downed another coffee cake. Drac wasn't trying to be picky or take advantage of the human. He just preferred things a certain way. Also, poppy-seeds always got stuck in his teeth.
"Here's your plain bagel with cream cheese, hold the garlic," Wren winked. Drac offered him a weak laugh, a little unnerved that so many people knew about his life threatening allergies, taking the plate out of the intern's hand.
"By the way, I'm a huge fan of yours! Dracula was one of my favorite books growing up. I know you guys will just do great!" Wren beamed with an eager shine in his eyes. "Please, if there's anything you need, name it. Blood, coffins, sunscreen-"
"Just the bagel will be fine," Drac interrupted and held a hand up, stopping the guy from going catatonic.
"Fields, get back to work!" Wren's boss shouted towards him.
"Sorry, got to go. Seriously, I am your minion for the day. Just... name it!" With that undying declaration, Wren took off.
"Drac, buddy, is that you?" He turned to see Murray walking up to him before giving him a hug. "How've you been, man? Didn't expect to see you here."
"Yes, well," Drac swept off the excess grains of sand that stuck to his cape. "I thought I would just come down and see what all the fuss was about."
"Don't worry about it," Griffin spoke confidently. "We're pros at this. Just do as the stagehands say, and everything will run smoothly."
After a while, Drac's nerves began to wind down and he began making small talk with his friends. It was like they had never left the hotel, but couldn't last. Soon more people started doing stage checks and then things started to move fast again.
"Alright, places, everyone. We're on in five!" one of the female stagehands yelled to everyone before leaning down into her headset. "Make sure all the guests are ready to go." They were then lined up behind the curtain, where the group could overhear many humans talking over each other in the background. Suddenly, the bagel started to feel like it coming up again and the Count began to appear paler than usual.
"Nervous, Drac?" Griffin asked, popping up out of nowhere like usual.
"Me? Nervous? Please! Dealing with crowds is one of my specialties," Drac waved off, lying through his teeth, which now made him more aware that bits of poppy-seed were still stuck behind his fangs. He quickly tried to pick them out as Tom stepped onto behind the curtain onstage and began speaking into the microphone.
"Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, monsters of all ages, welcome to the Mon-Con 2013 Monster Q & A panel! You guys having fun?" The audience responded with whoops and hollers. "Well, we've got some excellent guests for you tonight, so please give them a big hand!"
The audience resumed its cheers while Drac tried to regain his composure. This time, one of the stagehands did take notice, a girl with a curly blonde bob.
"Is this your first convention?" the stagehand asked him. At first, he wanted to lie, but then Drac relented and gave her a slight nod. "Don't worry about a thing. Just go on stage when your name is called and sit down at the table. You'll do great."
Easy for you to say. Your entire livelihood doesn't depend on the impression you make tonight, he thought as he gave her a nervous grin. It's not like he was just advertising his hotel completely. He was just generating some interest. That's what he tried to convince himself as he tuned back into Tom's introductions.
"Now you see him, now you don't. Give it up for Griffin the Invisible Man!"
"Wish me luck, not that I need it," Griffin said with his usual flair of confidence before walking onstage. It took a couple moments for the crowd to notice him, but when they did, you sure knew about it. Murmurs of confusion gradually changed into shouts of shock and awe as they lead into impressed cheers when Griffin took his seat that, if you didn't know what you were watching, would have looked like the chair pulled itself out like in a Harry Three-Eye magic show.
"Our oldest monster, aged around twenty five hundred years, is undead as well as an entertainer. Please welcome Murray the Mummy!" A large amount of sand conjured up from thin air and swirled around before the mummy appeared in front of his seat, sand dispersing over the sides of the grandstand from the pile as he sat down.
"Always with the sand..." Drac mumbled under his breath, rolling his eyes at his friend's need for a grand entrance. At least he didn't summon it in his hotel this time. Griffin, having been in the crossfire, had part of his body made visible due to the indents in the small dune formed on his side of the table and amount of sand he had to shake out of his afro.
"He's lean, he's mean, he's got gangrene. Give it up for Frankenstein!"
Some mixed reactions happened when Frank clunked on stage, the discourse aimed mostly at the emcee with corrections of "Frankenstein's monster" and shouts of "poser" and other unpleasant euphemisms. The master of ceremonies, however, was not phased in the slightest and continued on with the introductions.
"He's hairy, scary, and why we howl at the moon. Give it up for our wolfman, Wayne!" A loud outcry of howls bayed from one large section of the crowd covered with fur and claws, causing Wayne to instinctively join in before he caught himself mid-howl and coughed. He gave an embarrassed laugh and sat next to Murray. Tom waited a few minutes before a hush fell over the crowd.
"And finally, but certainly not least, the king of vampires, the Prince of Darkness…"
"That's your cue. Go!" The backstage assistant gave him a light shove towards his back, urging him onstage. Drac didn't know what to expect when he stepped out from behind the curtain, but when that bright spotlight hit him and he saw a crowd of thousands, he froze. At first, he was unsure that his name had been called, having been drowned out by deafening roar of the crowd, but once he moved past the sudden assault on his eardrums, the world began to have sound once more. It was so unusual to have such a large mob of humans screaming in admiration than in fear. It caught him a bit off-guard.
The feedback was more than he had been expecting. Even after having been helped by dozens of Dracula fans at last year's festival, a small group of hundred people or so packed into the Brasov streets, nothing could have prepared him for the loud feedback of thousands he received.
After regaining his normally cool composure, the Count stood up straight and gave a short, polite wave to the audience, particularly towards the screaming group of women standing near the front of the platform who addressed him so enthusiastically, before taking his seat with the others. His normally pale skin was flushed with tinges of red as a stupidly wide grin stretched across his face, unaccustomed to having so much positive feedback.
"That's quite a welcome," the emcee commented. "So great to have all you legends here with us today."
"Thanks, Tom, we're excited to be here," said Griffin.
"Did you have any problems getting here? I imagine that it wasn't easy getting through all the mountain traffic."
"Oh no, the parking accommodations were fine. You do validate parking hearses, right?" The audience laughed at Griffin's serious question, which confused Drac. People still drove hearses, right? Gratefully, Tom the emcee just smiled and said, "Yes, we do," and continued on with the show. "So Count-" Tom began before the vampire cut him off.
"Please, Tom, call me Dracula." Never had he been addressed so formally, so many times, in over a century. As much as he respected tradition and social formalities, it was starting to get old.
"Now Dracula, I hear you and your friends came by our monster festival last year. Is this true?"
"Yes. My friends and I were driving through town on the way to the airport when we ran into oncoming traffic from your monster festival and had to walk on foot."
"I remember that. If I remember correctly, your friend Frankenstein climbed onto a balloon effigy of himself and roared at the crowd to help clear a path for you, which pegs the question: if you and your friends have been in hiding for so many years, why reveal yourselves now?"
"Ah y-yes. Well, it's a long story-"
"We've got an hour and a half."
"Well, you see, it all started about a year ago..." Dracula began to regale Tom with all the details of what happened last year. Naturally, he tried to leave out the extra details, like the fact that he made anti-human propaganda slideshows or the fact that his own chef had tried to cook Johnny into a 'human potpie,' things that probably wouldn't win over a human audience for his hotel. Occasionally, one of his friends would add their input to the story, but the basic premise wasn't lost on them.
"So let me get this straight...You run a hotel? Dracula... runs a hotel?" Tom turned towards him in surprise. Well, not entirely lost on them.
"Yeah. Drac has been running a hotel for monsters for almost a century now," Murray explained. "It's a place where monsters can unwind without ever having to worry about humans, but now it's more like a vacation destination."
"Basically, it's a place where we can be au natural," the Invisible Man called Griffin spoke into the microphone, sounding like he was making a comedic gesture if he was visible, earning a few chuckles from the audience.
"Why would you do this?"
"Well, originally it was an idea my late wife and I had planned to be a safe haven for our daughter to grow up away from the fear and persecution from humankind," Drac began to reminisce, thinking back on his sweet Martha and the future they had hoped for their daughter. "But eventually it became a place where all monsters could come and relax and be themselves, but as you can see, that didn't turn out exactly as planned."
"And this hotel of yours, is it open to humans or is it exclusively for monsters?"
"Actually, in the near future, we're planning on re-opening the hotel to humans as well as monsters." Murmurs erupted from the crowd. Questions spit out in rapid fire from the crowd, like "are there real monsters," "is it safe?", and "is there a day spa?" and "can I apply for a position there?"
"Wow, that seems like the perfect segue to our Q & A portion of the event, so if any of you in the audience have questions for our monsters, please form an orderly line by the microphone stands by our stage crew."
Almost immediately, people began getting out of their seats as two long lines formed down the isles of seats, taking turns with the other line speaking into the microphone the staff members had set up. A large black wolf walked up to the microphone before he pulled off the bone mask with red outlines and yellow eyes and revealed a young man with black hair.
"My name's Jim, and my question is for Frank. If you're really Frankenstein's monster, then where are your bolts?"
"Oh, I got my bolts removed years ago. They always got caught on my neckties," Frank explained as the line kept moving along. A woman in her early twenties in a sexy devil costume now walked up to the mic.
"My name's Jamie and my question is for the Invisible Man."
"Fire away," said Griffin. The girl looked like she was trying not to laugh as she shyly spoke into the microphone.
"Mr. Griffin, I was wondering: are you naked?" The girl let out an embarrassed giggle as a couple of 'oooohs' and wolf whistles were heard from the crowd.
"Don't be embarrassed," Griffin spoke with a smile. "No, I actually get that question a lot. I used to wear regular clothes that could be seen all the time, but that got me spotted almost immediately, especially during swimsuit weather, so now I wear clothes made specially by the Inviso-Clothes line of fashion, since what they make refracts light. I wouldn't recommend buying from it though, not unless you want to run around naked. It's only for invisible people, and the fabric is absolutely horrible on my washer and dryer."
"Then why do you wear glasses that are visible?"
"Because I have really bad eyesight and my prescription sometimes changes, so I regularly have to keep getting new ones, though," he lowered his glasses and spoke with a low, seductive voice. "I don't need them to see how gorgeous you are." The girl let out another embarrassed laugh before walking back to her seat, flying high from Griffin's compliment.
"Really? You had to flirt with her?" Drac arched an eyebrow as Griffin seat tilted back casually.
"Come on, Drac, loosen up. You're not nearly this stiff around monsters at the hotel," Griffin covered his mic and whispered to Drac while Frank answered another question. "Just roll with the punches. It's all about having fun with it." As much as he hated to admit it, Griffin was right. He just had to learn to roll with it.
"...And that's why I'm afraid of fire," Frank finished. The crowd did a lot of murmurs and nods before the next person stepped up, a stout, middle-aged man with russet hair and a lab coat who clearly didn't get out of his parent's basement all that much.
"I'm Chris and my question is for the mummy," he said with strong Russian-esque accent. "If the process of mummification involve having tools pull out the brain through the nose and store it in a container, then how can you function right now without a brain?"
This time everyone at the table shared a look at before looking at Murray, who seemed just as perplexed as everyone else. "Uh... I don't know, man. I'm a comedian, not a scientist," Murray slowly shrugged and let out an awkward chuckle before scratching the back of his head. "I've honestly never thought about it, but then again how can I when my brains have already been scooped out?" This earned a couple laughs from the audience as they moved onto a girl with curly... was that pink hair?
"Hi!~ I'm Megumi-" the girl with long pink pigtails said with a saccharine voice. "-and my question is for Count Dracula: is it true about vampires being unable to enter houses if they're not invited in?"
Drac's brow furrowed as he leaned forward towards the microphone. "Personally, I think it would be considered rude to enter someone's house uninvited, but no. We can enter houses uninvited the same way you can." How did people come up with this stuff? Where did people get all these strange superstitions? Were they getting false information from some sort of outside source? He couldn't dwell on it too long because now a boy dressed as a dapper skeleton stepped up towards the microphone, though the Mon-Con staff had to lower the stand a few notches before the boy could talk into it.
"My name's Jack and this question goes to both Wayne and Dracula. In a fight between a vampire or a werewolf, who would win?"
"Vampire," the duo answered in unison.
"What?" Griffin asked, unsure of the question before he tuned back in. "Oh! Yeah. Vampire, hands down."
"Why? Don't you have claws and teeth that could rip him apart?"
"So does he," Wayne added. "Besides just because I have teeth and claws doesn't mean a werewolf could take down a vampire, at least not all by themselves. We're pack hunters. We take down large prey in numbers. Frank would be a better competitor than me."
"Yeah. I've beaten him at arm wrestling," Frank agreed, jabbing a thumb towards the Count.
"I think we'd all like to see that," Tom offered and the crowd started to chant. Frank and Drac turned towards each other and shrugged before they stood at opposite sides of the table and clasped hands.
"You're going down," the golem challenged.
"In your nightmares, Frank," Drac smirked. Finally, a moment to show off his power. Tom stood over them as referee and counted them down. Three... two... one... go! The monster rivals clenched fists and pushed forcefully against the other. The table began to cry out in protest as the hinges underneath began to whine and creak to the point where no one knew who was going to give out first, the table or the contestants?
Drac gave Frank an overly dramatic yawn as the vampire's arm remained immobile against his friend's desperate struggles. Finally, the monster's bicep bulged too much for his sutures to handle as threads began popping and coming undone. Finally, after much protest, Drac slammed Frank's arm down into the table as it detached from the latter's shoulder, cracking the table in half and causing the legs to bend awkwardly at the bolt-heads.
"Whoo! Yeah!" Drac hooted raising his arms up in triumph as the crowd addressed their victor, chanting his name over and over. "Say my name!"
"Can we get a new table, please?" the emcee asked over the crowd's roar, the Mon-Con staff trying to calm the crowds down into less of a frenzy. After a few minutes, a new but much smaller table was supplied for Frank, Wayne, and Drac's side of the table as Griffin and Murray awkwardly shifted down the table and squished together.
More questions after that debacle continued while Frank reconnected his arm, some about monster myths being debunked, others more personal like their favorite food or pastime. A few were even about the hotel, asking questions along the lines of "where is your hotel located" and "is it in a castle" and "when will the grand reopening take place for humans." Of course, Drac couldn't give them any clear answers. There were some other matters he had to attend to before making any major plans. It was a big deal, revealing his monster hotel to the human public. Instead, he just mentioned that it was an ongoing project with no real finalized date yet and that they were conducting surveys to generate interest in human audiences and how to make it better for the future. One hotel related question did leave him a bit stumped.
"The hotel you run is a family business, right?" asked an African man clad in black leather and sunglasses. "Assuming your daughter marries Johnny, the hotel will become theirs to run after you retire, right?"
"That won't happen!" Drac snapped suddenly. "Err- I mean, they're still dating. It will probably be a long time before anything like that happens. Next question!" His heart began to ache again at the thought of the warm light his daughter gave him as the room grew colder with each passing second. Before Drac could recover, another girl stepped up to the microphone.
"How is your daughter, Dracula?"
"She's good. She's uh... she's currently in Paris with her boyfriend," Drac answered slowly into the microphone.
"And you still think she's not going to get engaged?" chimed in another person from the other microphone line, a fully dressed tree ogre wearing a black shogun kabuto made from black painted tree branches and fiery eyebrows.
"I'm not talking about this! Next question!" he snarled angrily, trying to keep himself from going full-out beast mode on this unsuspecting human population. He needed to keep it under control. He couldn't scare the crowd, he shouldn't scare the crowd. Human paranoia and fear was more dangerous than any poison or weapon that could be used to kill a monster.
"I think Drac is having a mental breakdown," Frank whispered out of range from the microphone to his friends. Gratefully, the emcee was eager to step in, sensing a fast growing crisis.
"Okay, guys. No more questions for Dracula. Do we have any more questions for the rest of our monsters?"
Part of the crowd groaned as about half the line broke apart, but new humans almost immediately began to replace the old ones that had left. The panel went on as planned and the fans kept their word. No more questions were asked for Dracula.
Author's Note: Okay, so there are many references here. Wren Fields is a pun on the name Renfield, the crazy guy from Bram Stoker's Dracula who was obsessed with the titular character. I wasn't sure where I was going to put him in this story, but I'm glad I finally did. Subservient fan-boy stagehand intern seemed like an appropriate place for him. Slender Man is also there, for those who got that, along with some Beowulf grimm from RWBY. The girl that asked about vampires entering houses uninvited is from the anime Shiki, and Blade from Marvel comics is also in this, along with Aku from Samurai Jack, Dexter from Dexter's Labratory (a reference to Genndy's earlier work, along with the name 'Chris,' Dexter's voice actress), and Him from The Powerpuff Girls (though it was an actual girl dressed as Him, rather than a guy in drag), a major project that Genndy worked on with the creator, Craig McCracken.
