Dracula, Ergo, Terror!

  Chapter 8

  Ergo hauled himself to the top of a tall pine and surveyed the land ahead, one hand instinctively shielding his eyes, which is what you’re supposed to do when surveying the land, even in the middle of the night. At the farthest distance, he could see a glimmering of lights… a city, perhaps? But as his eyes focused, he realized he was seeing moonlight reflecting on a river. Moving water.

  The tree jolted and shook and, upon looking down, Ergo beheld two vampires grinning maliciously as they ascended the tree, heading directly for him. One reached a skeleton-white hand up toward his foot. Ergo braced himself and jumped to another tree, then to another, then to another, like some sort of frantic red monkey.

  Vampires reached the treetops and they too sprang from tree to tree in wicked pursuit. Suddenly Angst appeared, a puzzling grin on his face, trailing along behind Ergo.

  “I, ah, hope you don’t mind,” (jump, smash through branches, land with sickening jolt) “that I, ah, sort of stretched the facts a little bit,” (jump, smash through branches, land with sickening jolt) “to get you to come here tonight, but…”

  Ergo suddenly forgot his fear and jumped at Angst, grabbing him by the shirt, and the two toppled from the tree. Branches smacked them repeatedly before they crashed to the ground, Angst on bottom.

  “Oof! You know, we could have taken that more slowly…”

  “You told me you were a vampire hunter! You deceived me just to get me to attend this stupid vampire networking presentation! How could you do that?”

  Angst smiled sheepishly. “If I told you the truth, would you have even come here tonight? At the very least, will you listen to this cassette tape that talks more about the vampire business and…”

  Ergo glared, his red face livid. “Of course not! You’re just as crazy as Dracula and the rest of them. And I have no interest at all in becoming a vampire or being part of Dracula’s stupid networking group to recruit people to his silly organization—”

  “Well, I brought you here all the way from California, and I don’t intend to give you a choice!” Angst grabbed Ergo and, like the vampire before, attempted to take a chomp out of the poor red creature’s neck.

  But Ergo, fearing another neck injury, reached for a fallen tree branch and took a swing at the lungeing creature. With a mighty crack, the branch made contact, and Angst toppled backwards in perturbation, tripping clumsily and lodging his head into the hollow of a tree.

  Ergo’s momentary victory was diminished by the appearance of other spectral figures that drifted from the trees and surrounded him. The figures seemed to part like a black cloud and suddenly Dracula was there, looking disappointed, his arms folded, his black cape fluttering in the cold night air, his red eyes deviously locked on Ergo. Ergo shook off his fear and looked beyond his icy terror of the monster before him.