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Nadja and Laszlo sit before the camera in their crypt, a strong glare on both of their faces.
"We have to do this in here," Laszlo explains, gesturing to the cameras on 'this' before motioning to the room at large, "as it's the only room Colin Robinson knows he can't touch for fear of death."
Nadja's eye twitches.
A brief cut reveals the common areas of the vampire residence looking notably spookier. Fake cobwebs hang from banisters. Fake bats of various levels of quality, from glitter-coated felt to rubber replicas, hang from the chandeliers and sconces. A motion-activated ghost toy hangs by the front door, letting loose a melodic plastic wail as it shakes.
Guillermo is on the second level, wearing a puzzled expression as he tries to dust away the cobwebs only to have them tangle in his feather duster.
Back in their crypt, Nadja and Laszlo are still upset.
"The worst part is the costumes, I think," Nadja says. "If it's not their little children running around with a sheet on calling themselves ghosts, or painting themselves green and calling it a witch," she spits at the mention, "then it's these silly scanty little tarts running around with all their asses out like some tempting thing! Ding dong, bad news my dear, whatever thing you are dressing as is more likely to eat you than to fuck you!"
"They're great for a quick nightcap, though, aren't they, darling?" Laszlo interjects.
"This is true. They are always so drunk."
The pair share a glance and a chuckle.
"Remember a few years back, when we caught that pair necking in the garden?"
"Barely! They were more than just drunk, that was a fun night, wasn't it?"
"What were they dressed up as again, my love? It was such a ridiculous coupling, wasn't it, it was..." Laszlo trails off, tapping his fingers and thumb as he thought. Nadja hums for a moment, then sits up with ferocity.
"They were costumed like a vampire and a werewolf!" She gags. "As if! Like a little headband and a mangy clip on tail make you a werewolf, first of all, but still! And don't even get me started on what humans think vampires dress like!"
"No seriously, don't get her started," Laszlo warns. "We'll be here all night."
Colin Robinson sits in the library, pulling apart more fake cobwebs as he speaks.
"Halloween is a great time to be an energy vampire. The others find the costumes and imagery to be offensive and tacky, so you know as soon as October 1st hits, I'm elbows deep in decorations. Hold that thought."
He stands, and the camera follows him to drape the cotton strands across the taxidermy bear, making sure to anchor it around teeth and claws alike. Colin chuckles to himself as he works. "Nandor's gonna hate this." He returns to his seat, making sure to smooth out his sweater vest thoroughly and bumping the microphone as he does. This is intentional.
"Feel free to have some candy, you guys, you know nobody here can eat it," Colin offers behind the camera, motioning to a bowl full of tiny plastic bags of candy corn. Seemingly responding to someone, he pushes: "No really, it's fine. Anything you don't take'll just go to the office, and whatever's left after that comes back next year."
He reaches and takes a bag, holding it close to his chest - and the microphone - to open. "I usually give it a few years before tossing it out and starting a fresh bowl. This batch is probably past due," he holds up the piece of candy corn he'd been fishing for in the bag while he spoke, popping it into his mouth with an audible crunch to the typically soft candy, "but hey! It's still good!" His eyes are glowing.
Nandor sits on the chaise in his crypt, yet more fake cobwebs caught in his hair. He leans towards the camera conspiratorially.
"Don't tell the others," he loudly whispers, "but I don't mind this Hollow Wean. All the costumes and the merrymaking is so fun! Colin Robinson was showing me, they have made candies that look like corns! And they make it in the shape of little pumpkins, have you tried this stuff?" He pauses for an answer, looking earnestly behind the camera. "Is it good?" He waits again. "Not so much, hm? A shame. Well, at least it's cute, maybe that's the important thing..."
Derek stands awkwardly straight in the foyer, with eyes looking everywhere besides the camera, except for the moments he glances directly into the camera only to dart away. He is dressed somewhere between movie vampire and pirate, and there is bright red blood caked into his waistcoat, staining his poofy sleeves. He looks right at home in the over-decorated foyer. It seems he ran into a cobweb from the cotton strands clinging to his hair. He looks expectantly, nervously, behind the camera.
“Oh, should I.. start now?” He angles his face toward the microphone pinned inside his lapel as he speaks. “Sorry, I’m not used to this whole ‘being on camera’ thing, I’m still not really sure what it’s, like, for? I-is this going to be on TV? Am I gonna be on TV? Oh g…” He turns and steps away from the shot. The sound of deep, measured breathing, in for four and out for eight, comes through his microphone for a full minute before he retakes his mark by the stairs and straightens back up.
“Sorry about that.” Derek clears his throat. “Anyway. I’m just here to meet Guillermo, he’s been helping me track down more, uh… ethical food sources? I’m surprised to see the house like this, though, especially after all the shit Her Supremacy Nadja gave me for my outfits. Good surprised! I’m glad to see that getting into the spooky season isn’t another vampire faux pas,” he adds air quotes to the last part. “Halloween is actually great for a vampire, everyone just thinks I’m in makeup, y’know? I was even able to get a job!” He sighs. “I mean, I had to get a job. Just because I don’t need groceries doesn’t mean my other bills disappear, y’know? Anyway –”
“Alright, Derek, I’ve got – Oh, sorry!” Guillermo rounds the corner from his room, then stops in his tracks when he sees the documentary crew set up with Derek. “I’ll come back in a minute, go ahead, sorry –”
“No wait, I actually wanted to tell you this too! I was just telling them about my new job!”
Guillermo audibly scoffs. “A vampire with a job? You’ve gotta be the first.”
“Bills, man! Anyway! I’m acting in a haunted house, you should come check it out! It’s Dracula themed so I was a total shoo-in. Plus, don’t tell my boss but if someone’s harassing the actors and I catch them alone it’s like a free meal on the job.” He laughs awkwardly. “I actually, uh.” He turns to root around in the messenger bag that was hung over a banister. “I brought you a flier for it, it’s all done up, real spooky shit.” Guillermo’s eyes are wide above his grimace as he looks to the camera, shifting quickly into an enthused smile when Derek turns back around, handing him a sheet of paper. “It’d really mean a lot to me if you came by, man. I know, with this whole vampire hunter turned vampire thing you probably thought it was gonna be like A Thing,” Guillermo is shaking his head slightly during this, either to assure Derek or to dissuade the conversation, “but you really are a cool dude, and you saved my life. I want you to see me making the most of it.”
Guillermo takes the flier with a reedy “Wow!” before passing the thumb drive he’d been fidgeting with to Derek. “Speaking of making the most, I’ve got a few catfish accounts in some incel groups for you. They’re all pretty scummy so... Have fun!”
A jump cut. Guillermo is now standing in the foyer where Derek had been. He looks bedraggled.
“I’m not going to that haunted house,” he confides.
There is a cut to a few minutes earlier, where Guillermo is tacking the flier to the wall just inside his room, assuring Derek as he does so: “Yeah if I can find the time! Totally, it sounds awesome, I’m excited for you!”
Back to present Guillermo. “I feel kinda bad, you know? Like, yeah it’s my fault these are the only sorts of jobs really open to him, but really?” He sighs. “Honestly, I’ve just never been a fan of haunted houses. I don’t like jumpscares, and it’s always the same, like, three themes being recycled. I mean, I haven’t seen a specifically vampire-themed one, but… Well, Derek’s excited, sure, but it can’t be a tasteful representation, you know? I’m sure it’s full of fake blood and contortion and people in tacky costumes jumping out all ‘Blehh!’ at you.” The ‘Blehh!’ is in a typical Dracula affectation, and is accompanied by Guillermo’s hands thrown up like grabbing claws.
Nandor interrupts, speeding from his room down the hall. “Guillermo! Did you finish mending my – oh, excuse me,” he offers to the cameras, only just noticing them. Guillermo shakes his head.
“Yeah, I got your cape, it’s on my desk.” He turns. “I’ll grab it, hang on–”
“No, I will get it, I know where your little room is.” Nandor stills his bodyguard with a hand on his shoulder. “You are doing your turn with the cameras.” He gives the cameras one last awkward glance before heading around the corner to Guillermo’s room.
“I mean, I figured we were just about done anyway, but,” he leans forward to whisper conspiratorially: “Far be it from me to stop him doing something himself, right?”
A cry comes from the closet room.
“Guillermo! Guillermo, what is this?”
The bodyguard shoots a concerned look before motioning the crew to follow him to his room. Nandor is holding the haunted house flier - it’s done up like a formal invitation, complete with blood droplets and grainy clip-art of a wax seal.
Nandor reads it out: “‘You have been cordially invited to dinner at Count Dracula’s mansion! Bring your friends, or come alone! It promises to be a scream,’ Guillermo, you cannot go to this! He plans to eat you!” Nandor studies the flier further, brows knit together and a wide grimace on his lips. “I did not know he had a mansion in Staten Island, and here he is trying to snatch my bodyguard out from under me? We can’t reject him, but you can’t go, we must pretend you never received this summons!”
Guillermo chokes out a laugh he must have been holding back, pulling Nandor’s distraught face from the ‘letter’ to Guillermo. “Sorry! Sorry. It’s not real, Master, it’s just a haunted house.”
“Count Dracula has ghosts? We have dealt with ghosts before.”
“No, not like that! Like. It’s fake, it’s humans putting on a spooky attraction. Count Dracula isn’t actually here, I don’t think, but even if he was he wouldn’t want anything to do with this.”
“But it is signed with his name, look–”
Guillermo comes up next to Nandor to show him the tells of the flier. “First of all, I just got this from Derek when he was here earlier. Second of all, don’t you think the real Count Dracula would use a real wax seal?”
“Derek is delivering missives from Count Dracula now?” Guillermo pushes his glasses up to pinch the bridge of his nose, muttering something towards his chest, where the microphone rests, about someone never fucking listening. “I should have known he was doing well for himself, stomping around covered in blood like he was! So shameless.”
“That was fake blood from his job,” Guillermo says. “He’s working at this haunted house, G–who knows why, but he wanted me to come check it out. It’s nothing, I wasn’t even gonna go.”
Nandor paused for a moment, looking down at the invitation, then at Guillermo, then back to the paper in his hands. “...You said this is a human thing?”
“Yeah, they do costumes and you go through a kind of maze and they have it decorated in some spooky way and they jump out and try to scare you.” He shakes his head to the camera to mark his disdain. Nandor, on the other hand, is staring down at the paper raptly, nodding his head as he listens.
“Have you been to many of these fake haunted homes, Guillermo? You seem to know a lot,” he asks. Guillermo sighs.
“Not really. I mean, I got dragged to a few in high school but I’m not really a fan, to be honest. They’re too…”
“Frightening,” Nandor supplies.
“Tacky,” Guillermo corrects. “Look, I can see if there’s any videos of them on youtube if you want to see what they’re like? I’m warning you, they’re pretty cramped and rely on strobe lights a lot.” He’s already scooching past Nandor to grab his laptop from the desk. “C’mon, I’ll get you set up in the library.”
The next night, Guillermo dons a light jacket over his cardigan on a surprisingly temperate October night, then steps out of his closet room to nearly bump into a waiting, eagerly vibrating Nandor. Rather than address the vampire, Guillermo looks to the camera.
“So, he ended up watching haunted houses on YouTube for a few hours last night, and now we’re going to see Derek at his.”
“I did not see him in any of the videos, so this will be very special,” Nandor grins. “I saw many slaughterhouses, a lot of zombies… I don’t think any of them were actual zombies, though.”
“Do you think you’ll get scared, Master?”
“Of course not! I am a fearless warrior!” Nandor scowls at Guillermo’s barely-contained snort of laughter. “I am! Anyway, what I am most excited about is to see all the humans get startled and grab on each other like it will save them and not just look incredibly silly before they die.”
“Oh yeah, you got stuck on reaction compilations for a good hour there,” Guillermo recalls.
“The faces are the best part.”
“Well, we’ll be behind, so we probably won’t get to see. But that’s ok, we’ll definitely be able to hear the yelling.” He pauses. “Also, nobody’s going to die. I cannot stress enough how much nobody dies at these things.”
“They could if you weren’t spoiling the sport.”
“It’s a good spot to hunt, yes, but I’d like to not ruin this for Derek, alright? He’s really excited about it.” Guillermo reaches over and pulls a cotton cobweb strand from the fur of Nandor’s overcoat. “Anyway, let’s get going before any more of this finds you.”
A camera trains on the front of Guillermo’s SUV. Through the windshield, Guillermo can be seen helping Nandor work the seatbelt. They seem to be having some sort of argument.
“Legally you have to wear the seat belt,” Guillermo insists.
“The laws of this land have no sway over me, they rejected my citizenship.”
Guillermo’s grip on the steering wheel tightens, leather gloves creaking with the force. “I’d say that’s more reason to…” He cuts himself off with a sigh. “Look. My car, my rules. You can always fly along if you don’t like it, nobody said you had to ride with me.”
Nandor looks distinctly away from the conversation. He lets the possibility of flying hang in the air before making exasperated eye contact with the camera through the windshield before turning to Guillermo to reveal what’s really on his mind:
“I don’t want to get burned. This is supposed to be a fun thing we are doing, but here you are trying to hold me in with silver again and it makes me nervous,” he admits, fidgeting with his hands as an outlet for the anxiety quieting his voice. Realization slackens Guillermo’s face for a moment before guilt settles on his pinched brow.
“I forgot that’s the last time you were in here,” he murmurs. “Still sorry about that.”
“I know.”
“I did take the silver out in the front seat, though. Look.” Guillermo turns and reaches over his passenger, pulling the seat belt but not fastening it, just holding it. Nandor makes no move to check, eyeing the strip of fabric warily. Guillermo rolls his eyes and grabs the vampire’s hand, bringing it to the silver-free belt himself. “See? It’s fine.”
“...So it is.” He lingers in Guillermo’s grasp a moment before reaching for the buckle himself and clicking it home.
Guillermo turns on the radio and changes the channel, filling the air with top 40 hits, and pulls onto the road.
There are a few different attractions joined together to form Dracula’s Haunted Mansion: the mansion itself, a haunted hedge maze, and haunted catacombs. Guillermo and Nandor are in line to get into the mansion, struggling to stay together and keep their spot as cast and visitors alike bustle between the three zones. A throng of teenagers nearly sweeps Nandor away with them as they push through the line to their destination, but Guillermo grabs his hand to keep him in place. Neither of them let go until they reach the front of the line.
An actor at the entrance to the mansion cackles as she loudly and explicitly welcomes them inside. “We’re so excited to have you for dinner,” she teases as they cross the threshold.
It’s hard to see the faded and scratched vintage wallpaper lining the narrow pathways moving them forward with the dim light and fog machine working overtime. Shrieks directly ahead promise something that has Nandor turning to flash excited glances at the camera as the pair shuffles ahead.
The corridor opens into a square mock-up of a foyer, decorated not unlike the vampire residence currently is, down to the fake cobwebs, but fake blood splatters add a decidedly gruesome touch. Guillermo is taking a closer look at a set of (electric) candles on a side table when the subject of a portrait above him screams and lunges for him.
Nandor cries out and disappears, the fog thickening where he once stood.
A second scream permeates the room as Guillermo pulls the actor from the wall by their shoulders, slamming them onto the ground with an arm pressed to their throat.
“What the fuck, man?” they wheeze.
“Shit! Shitshitshit!” Guillermo stands up and backs into the furthest wall, hands in the air. “I’m sorry!” He’s pale as a ghost. His eyes dart all around, looking for the nearest exit as thick fog swirls around him.
The camera has to jump out of the way as Guillermo decides the quickest way out is the way he just came, calling for Nandor as he runs.
Another cut. Nandor and Guillermo are standing behind the SUV. Nandor’s hair is wild, eyes wide and bright, grinning. Guillermo is typing furiously on his phone, flushed and breathing hard.
“So, uh.” Guillermo pockets his phone once he’s done and stands up straight for the camera.” You know how, for the last, like, two years, I’ve been attacking basically anything that jumped out at me?” He offers a nervous smile.
Nandor leans forward, eyes shining.
“We were kicked out,” he boasts, grinning widely. “We defeated the haunting!”
“Sure, yeah!” Guillermo laughs manically. “More like I knocked the wind out of some poor actor while someone got so scared he turned into a vapor.” He elbows Nandor.
“I did no such thing.”
“I wasn’t naming names,” Guillermo teases. “Anyway, I texted Derek and let him know what happened, and that it’s probably best if we don’t come back.”
“Speak for yourself. Now that I know where it is, I am bringing Nadja and Laszlo and we will make a night of it without any murderous bodyguards around!”
“Then what’s the point of making me your bodyguard?” Guillermo huffes.
Nandor taps his chin in mock thought. “You make a good point. We will have to work on your jump scares, then.” He then lunges toward Guillermo, hands raised like claws, but shrinks back when Guillermo doesn’t flinch. “See, that was really good! Do that inside next time.”
“It’s different when I’m expecting it! The point of a jump scare is to surprise –” Nandor lunges again “– is to surprise you. You’re not gonna get me tonight, Master.”
Nandor shakes his head, looking exasperated for the camera except for the smile that won’t leave his lips. He claps his bodyguard firmly on the shoulder, either pretending to or genuinely not noticing the small jump this earns.
“Take us home so we can plan our next attack on the hauntings!” he orders.
Guillermo shakes his head and climbs into the driver’s seat.
“Alright. Let’s go home, Master.”