I’m a Vampire…In Charge of Draculacare (3 page)

To his utter humiliation, he was forced to take refuge in a police station…where the cops stood there grumbling and shaking their heads. A couple of them were Undead Officers, too…but they joined their comrades in complaining to him about those Draculacare Web sites and all the trouble they made.

“I spent hours trying to get my wife on the site,” one of the officers told him, as the others nodded in angry agreement. “It was the worst day I have ever spent…or the worst night anyway…since I became an Undead American myself. And then the kids will have to go through it all again, when they reach the age of consent.”

“Things will get better,” Johnson feebly assured them.

But as he soon realized, they were about to get even worse.

“And what about animal rescue?” Ingrid Foha demanded. “Draculacare is all very well…but don’t animals have the right to the government’s protection?”

“I agree with you completely,” replied the First Lady (or, more accurately, the First Witch). “As you probably know, I am the head of the Black Cat Rescue group…just as you are the leader of PUMA. They are both very worthy causes.”

“Yes, and I am very proud to be the director of People United for Mercy to Animals, Mrs. O’Neill. But right now these are both merely private charities, and the government should play its part in supporting them with tax funds.”

“Call me Evelyn, please. And you could say I am trying to do just that, by inviting you here to the tea in the White House green room, so we could decide how to help our four-legged friends. Although, of course, I am well aware that you are two-legged during the day and four-legged at night, since you are a werewolf.”

“A were-Maltese,” Ingrid corrected her. And indeed, the First Lady thought, the girl really did seem likely to turn into a fluffy little Maltese dog at any moment, thanks to her great black eyes and long white-blond tresses, which were the hallmarks of the popular breed.

“I
am
a werewolf, though,” her companion Constantin put in. With his shaggy red hair, his bright brown eyes and his tall, muscular form, the First Lady found that easy to believe.

“Well then,” Evelyn O’Neill responded, seating herself gracefully on the gilt brocade sofa and gesturing to her guests to sit beside her. “What would you like us to do?”

“We want you to recognize us werewolves…and were-Malteses…as citizens, just as the vampires are.”

“You mean, Undead Americans,” the First Lady put in firmly.

“Of course!” the werewolf replied. “You must forgive me, because we name things differently back in Transylvania. So I suppose we should call ourselves Were-Americans.”

“Naturally! And I will be sure to ask our son-in-law, Congressman Zagorsky, to make your position perfectly clear. He should be happy to do it, since he is an Undead American…and leading the fight for Draculacare.”

It never hurt to put in a pitch for the Eternal Care Act, she thought, since everyone knew it had seen better days. Or, in many cases, better nights.

* * * *

If anything, Rep. Zagorsky (D-Calif, of course) was always happy to show the world his undead roots. He did it largely by starting every speech by saying, “Gooood eeeevening,” in his best Bela Lugosi voice.

“Our Were-friends have made it clear to us that they have the same needs and rights as we Undead Americans,” he said. “So we are eager to show our alliance with them, rather than sitting around like mindless zombies and waiting for our mutual enemies to attack us, just as they are attacking Draculacare.”

Hearing his wife’s gasp of shock as she stood on the platform beside him, he knew at once that he had made a dreadful mistake. It was so bad, in fact, that she had to stuff both hands into her mouth to keep her from shrieking “ochone!” in utter misery, like the good Irish-American banshee that she was.

“Not, of course, that zombies are not good citizens,” he added quickly. “In fact, I apologize abjectly to the zombie community for using that term, and I hope they will forgive me. I will apologize again in print, of course, and in the Congressional record as well. Needless to say, I will also make a large contribution to the Zombie Defense Fund.”

Even more desperately, he raced on, “And since my wife is, as you know, a banshee, I am sure she will be proud to keen for the zombies the moment they die, just as she does for our military heroes, high government officials and top campaign donors.”

* * * *

But it was too late. The damage had been done, and the zombies were on the march…even if it seemed more like lurching and staggering, to the untrained eye.

“We are called the walking dead but how does that make us any different from the undead vampires like our own president?” The female spokes-zombie spoke into the microphone, in a perfectly toneless tone that made her sound like a, well, zombie.

“And they call us mindless zombies but I happen to be a member of Mensa or was, before a fellow zombie ate my brains,” she went on. “Also they say we eat human and animal flesh but how is that any worse than what almost all mortals do except for some of our vegetarian werewolf friends. And once again I will say that when they call us The Walking Dead they forget that our friends the vampires could be described in just the same way.”

“Maybe neither one of you is really human,” Mr. Bill retorted, with his most disgusted sneer. “You are both among the walking dead.”

When she spread her lips in order to protest (or whatever part of her lips had not fallen off already), he went quickly on, “But I don’t care about all that vampire-versus-werewolf-versus-zombie thing. All of you creep me out!” And he made his most theatrical shudder.

As usual, he drowned out her obvious objections by saying, “But you can all live and be well…if you call it living. The real problem is Draculacare, which is hurting us all…even people like you, if
people
is the word for it. The next thing you know, we’ll have werewolf care and zombie care, and who will pay for it all? Taxes paid by normal human beings, that’s who…and we’re all getting tired of it.”

Actually, he had not gotten tired of the topic at all, since he went on attacking Draculacare each and every night, thus attracting higher and higher ratings. But the zombie managed to answer, “Well we are pretty tired of you people too always stalking and hunting and persecuting us when we are just trying to stay alive…or undead anyway.”

“But I thought you people…if that’s the name…were working against each other, like our vampire Democratic Congressman George Zagorsky, who accused some people of acting like, excuse the expression, zombies.

“I know he apologized all over the place, the way people seem to do nowadays if anyone says anything that might possibly offend anyone else…but you came on our show to tell the world how much you resented that insult, and now you are defending the vampires instead.”

“Well maybe I was wrong,” she answered. “Maybe we undead minorities really do have to stand together against the really cruel creatures like you human beings although you often seem pretty inhuman to me.”

“Then we normal human beings had better stand together against you, hadn’t we?” he demanded, with his most withering sneer.

And this time she had no answer.

* * * *

“We certainly
must
stand together!” the Republican Speaker of the House told the television set in his living room, leaning towards it eagerly. “Our motto could be ‘We’re the Human Majority…or even better, ‘We’re Alive and We Vote!’”

I will soon have the public waving pitchforks, he thought, with a happy smile. Sure, I remember how some people were practically waving them during the government shutdown due to Obamacare…but that was just a figure of speech…and this time it will be the real thing.

Once again, the villagers and other protesters rallied in front of the White House, waving pitchforks, crosses and garlic cloves. They were only too ready to march against the vampires, werewolves, witches, zombies, banshees and other undead minorities. Above the pitchforks, the banners read, “We’re Alive and We Vote.”

It reached the point where Yvlenia Vyrdelek, the First Lady’s bodyguard, was on constant alert in the White House, for an attack on the President’s wife. She was one of the few vampires who could endure a garlic attack, having already suffered through one by standing bravely in the line of garlic, to protect Mrs. O’Neill.

As for the First Lady herself, her witchcraft had transformed several of her most ferocious black cats into Secret Service agents. They surrounded her husband constantly, while also guarding other high-profile vampires like Count Victor Vyrdelek, his wife Tiffany Golden, and, of course, Count Dracula himself, with his Countess Ellen Reinecke.

And as for Jimmy Sanford, the undead movie star, he already had a ring of human bodyguards, surrounding himself and his bride Simona. In their sheer desperation, he and his young fellow celebrities had been going out on speaking tours, urging their fans to support Draculacare despite all its problems. But they had usually been booed off the stages…and, in some cases, driven off by pitchforks, not to mention garlic and crosses hurled at them as they fled.

Needless to say, the vampires were not at all happy about their current crisis, which was the worst they had faced since Bram Stoker had written his dreadful libel
Dracula.

Count Victor was determined to face it like a man…or an undead male, anyway. “I have been fighting off peasants through all of my lifetimes!” Count Victor exclaimed to his countess. “I need no protection from them now!”

“You shouldn’t call them peasants,” Tiffany objected, like the good left-winger than she still was. “They are decent citizens who have been misled by right-wing rabble-rousers.”

“Whatever you call them! The only reason so many of them are ready to riot against us, is that they are angry because Draculacare has failed so badly that they are not able to join us undead themselves!”

Tiffany sighed, realizing all too well that it was all too true. Their archenemy, the Speaker of the House, was openly launching the attack against them.

“They called it the Eternal Care Act,” Rep. Lee shouted at his rallies, while pitchforks and banners waved above him. “But that was only a trick, to make you accept these evil undead creatures…and their werewolf and zombie and banshee and wicked witch friends, along with them. Although I should not be calling them friends…when they are
fiends
!” As always, he was greeted by a mighty roar.

He had counted on all the right-wing TV and radio commentators to support him, and was surprised when people like Mr. Bill refused to do so.

“I have attacked them constantly and very sincerely, as you know,” the talk-show host explained, when they met privately together. “But I would not want them dead! For one thing, I am not about to call for murder…and for another, attacking those blood drinkers is my bread and butter. If they were gone, I would have to find another target. Of course, if you wanted to rally at the White House in a protest march, then I would be happy to cover it.”

“I have thought of that already,” the Speaker responded. “But I have thought of an even more drastic action, which you would certainly support. We all remember the Government Shutdown over Obamacare…”

“Yes,” Mr. Bill replied, wincing. “We certainly do. The public practically
was
waving pitchforks…against the conservative Congressmen who had caused it.”

“Yes, well,” the Speaker retorted. “I agree that that did not work out just the way we had planned.”

More loudly, he proclaimed, “But this time, we will have a Sunset Shutdown…meaning that no government employees will work after dark. And that includes poll watchers, counting votes, and that means no elections, especially for the undead candidates and their supporters.”

For once, Mr. Bill was at a loss for words. “You mean…you mean…” he finally managed to gasp.

“Exactly! It means that we will have no more undead voters running our government, but only fine, decent, living human beings. Just to start with, we will shut down all the public electrical power services, including street lights and traffic lights as well. Let’s see how well those creatures of darkness will be able to get along when it’s really pitch dark.”

* * * *

Fortunately for the undead, the speaker had made one big mistake. The Sunset Shutdown had deprived the undead of their power and influence, true…but it harmed a lot of living people along the way.

Thanks largely to the Eternal Care Act, there were now a lot more undead citizens around than anyone had expected. The
un
-undead realized, too late, that they themselves had been relying on them.

For example, undead Realtors like Crina Vyrdelek no longer had any way of showing properties to prospective homebuyers, since she could no longer show anything to anyone at night. That meant, of course, that the home sellers were left in the lurch.

Crina’s former sister wife and current bodyguard Yvlenia faced the same dilemma, since she had to stay at home…or, more accurately, in her coffin…while the First Lady kept haunting the animal shelters without her protection, desperately looking for more black cats to transform into Secret Service guards. Naturally, all those newly hired agents caused a drain on the federal budget.

And, of course, many open-all-night businesses of all kinds were no longer open at all, without their undead night staffs.

Under these circumstances, Congressman George Zakorsky (D-Calif) would have been glad to lead his undead brothers and sisters in an all-out effort at shutting down the shutdown, and many of the un-undead would have joined them. But thanks to the Sunset Shutdown, it was very hard for him to lead anyone else anywhere at all.

He would have been shouted down if he had tried to address the public…which, he knew, he could not have done anyway, because the Sunset Shutdown was keeping him in his grave all night. He suggested holding rallies by candlelight…but that, as the Speaker soon responded, would have definitely been against the fire safety laws.