Subsequently, I’m more than a little pissed off, not to mention startled, when what appears to be a sunflower seed comes flying through the air and bounces off my nose.
// Oi! // I wail indignantly. // Just what the fuck do you think you’re playing at? //
Standing my ground -- this is *my* damn territory after all-- I sit down and stare in the direction that the seed came from. To my distinct surprise, I encounter the strange sight -- well, it is late and the cemetery *is* closed -- of a tall man and a short woman. Both are wearing trench coats, and the man is leaning on a tombstone, crunching his way through sunflower seeds, while the woman is standing with her arms folded across her chest. She looks mightily pissed off and I’d hazard a guess that there’d be a good one hundred and one places she’d rather be.
"Look Scully," mumbles the man, spitting another bloody seed in my direction, "A familiar."
"She’s just a cat," sighs the woman, "A *pet* cat, Mulder. See the tag hanging from her collar? It’s a fish, not a damn pentagram."
// I’ll have you know that I am *not* ‘just’ a cat. How rude. // I glower contemptuously at the woman.
"See Scully, she understands you and disagrees. Never under estimate the spirituality and intelligence of cats. Throughout time cats have…" Blah, blah, blah, goes the man.
// Put a sock in it, mate. // My head begins to hurt just listening to him.
"You’re right, Mulder. She *can* understand us and *you’re* boring her." Scully -- now there’s an interesting name if ever there was one -- sighs again and rolls her eyes.
// You’re right. Shut him up. // The man could talk underwater. I think he could even bore fish, their next to non-existent attention span and all, to death. I find these two oddly fascinating though. The Goddess alone knows what they are doing out here, as they sure as hell aren’t engaged in what couples *usually* break into the cemetery for (again, to each their own…). Quite frankly, they appear to be none too pleased with each other.
For the want of anything better to do, I decide to watch them for a while. Sitting up straight, I curl my tail around me and fix my gaze on Mulder (another unfortunate name if you ask me). He stares back at me for a while, but eventually my non-blinking gaze gets the better of him and he has to look away.
"I know I’m right about this Scully," he declares adamantly, apropos of nothing.
"Yeah, yeah Mulder. Whatever," replies Scully in a world weary tone that tells me she’s heard the same thing countless times before.
"You’ll believe me when you see one of the walking undead," Mulder states with evident seriousness before launching into a lecture on said creatures. "The first appearance of the modern day vampire seems to have been in the poem "Der Vampir" by August Ossenfelder in 1748," he drones on and on. "Vampyre…" Blah… "Nosferatu…" Blah… "Blood rituals…" Blah, blah… "Bram Stoker…" Blah… "Garlic…" Blah… "Salem’s Lot…" Blah… "Vampire Chronicles…" Blah, blah, blah…
// You could bore for gold, you could. //
Honestly, I’ve never encountered such a boring and obviously delusional man before. On and on he goes. What’s more, it’s evident that he seriously believes in all the guff he’s sharing with the incredibly uninterested looking Scully. I begin to pity her. Imagine being stuck with him as a partner? Sheesh. He should be in a padded cell somewhere.
Scully begins to twitch and then finally snaps. "For God’s sake, Mulder! I’ve heard enough. Not only that, but I’ve heard it all before too!" Spinning on her heels, she twirls her trench coat around in a way that she most likely thinks is melodramatic (it isn’t… She’s far too short to pull it off successfully…) and stalks away from Mulder. "Should the poor deceased Mr Frost awaken from his slumber and attack you, call me and I’ll come running with my trusty stake," she mutters sarcastically over her shoulder.
Mulder looks nonplussed. "You’ll see, Scully. I’ll be right," he mumbles, going back to his sunflower seeds.
// Yeah… Right. In your dreams, oh great loopy one. // Vampires? Whatever next? Mrs Fat Cow being blessed with an IQ higher than five? What a loon. Standing up, I decide to meander away from Mulder before he takes it upon himself to continue talking to me. I just couldn’t handle it. He’s like the ultimate, walking, droning sleeping pill… One rant from him and even an insomniac would be out cold.
Mulder looks vaguely miffed at my departure and his shoulders slump dejectedly. "Christ, I even bore a cat," he whispers to himself, "Maybe Scully is right about me…"
// You’ve got it in one. // Sticking my tail in the air, I wander casually away from him and go in search of Jojo. It doesn’t take me long to find him. He’s sitting on a fresh grave -- go figure, he likes to be cushioned by wreathes… There are times that I worry about him too -- and half heartedly cleaning his paw.
// Hey Princess // he calls, noticing me and plastering a leer on his face, // Watcha doin’ out here at this time of night? //
// Avoiding the Halloween grunting and groaning in my apartment. // I reply, sitting down next to the grave and shrugging dismissively.
// You mean they’re at it *again*? //
What a stupid question, and not one worthy of a response. I merely look at Jojo blankly and wait for his stupidity to hit him.
It doesn’t take long. // Forget I ever asked that. I don’t know what I was thinking. //
// Exactly… Besides, it’s more interesting out here. //
// Tell me about it. //
// Oh. You’ve seen ‘em too? //
// *Them*? What are you talking about. I’ve only seen one stranger lurking around here tonight, and well dodgy he was too… //
What? More weirdos? What is this? Maybe there *is* some truth to the theory that full moons and Halloween brings all the nutters out to play. // Mmm… *Them*. A him and a her. American by the sounds of them, and both wearing trench coats. He’s as mad as a March hare and kept raving on about vampires… //
Jojo looks puzzled. // Nope. Haven’t seen ‘em. Although the one I saw was wearing a trench coat as well… At first I took him for a flasher, but then I saw that he had jeans on underneath it. But… Well, he’s kinda peculiar, Princess… I don’t know what to make of him, and remember, I’ve seen a lot of strange things in the city… //
// Do tell! // I demand, choosing to ignore his stock standard reference to the *city*… I’ll be surprised if his lurking human is stranger than Mulder. The way I currently see it, Mulder is just about the most peculiar man I have ever met.
// Well, for starters he was carrying a bloody great sword as though he thought he was Sir fucking Lancelot or something pretentious like that, but, weirder still was the fact that I couldn’t smell him. He gave off no scent whatsoever. It… Well… If I hadn’t been looking at him, I wouldn’t have had any idea he was even there. I couldn’t even hear him. I tell you, Princess, he almost freaked me out. //
Remarkably, I have no response to share with Jojo and, lost in contemplation, we both fall silent. Well, that is, I contemplate the peculiar goings on in the cemetery, and Jojo no doubt contemplates where his next meal is going to come from. No scent and carrying a sword? Strange.
I’m still attempting to make sense of all of this when the mound of dirt beneath Jojo starts to rumble.
// What the fuck! // he wails, jumping off the rupturing earth and bounding a small distance away from it. Somewhat terrified by this turn of events, I bolt for Jojo and we watch with increasing disbelief as the ground continues to crumble and… horror of horrors… a cadaverous looking hand claws its way up through it.
I suddenly regret ever leaving the apartment and would like nothing more than to return inside, but my paws won’t obey my command to move and I feel paralysed. Jojo, frozen in place next to me, appears to be inflicted with the same malaise and we stare helplessly at the scene before us. To our infinite horror, the hand is attached to an arm and soon another hand, followed by a head appears from out of the grave.
We’re so transfixed by this that we don’t know that Jojo’s stranger has appeared on the scene until we hear the sound of him unsheathing his sword. Willing my eyes to seek out the source of this noise, I find myself staring up at a tall, palely handsome man, clad in all black, and who, as Jojo said, doesn’t give off any scent. If I didn’t know better, I could convince myself that he was indeed one of the undead.
Sword raised above his head, he stands poised to attack the creature struggling out of the grave. Said creature, however, seeming to sense his presence, gets hit by a burst of something and bounds upright. The walking corpse’s face transforms, his eyes glow and his brow furrows, and he lurches himself at the sword carrying man with incredible speed and strength. "The mighty Angel," the creature growls, "What better way to embrace my new life than to rid the night of you."
Angel… Of *course* this man is called Angel. Nothing surprises me any more. Mulder, Scully and Angel having a picnic in my cemetery. Why ever not.
Angel staggers back as the Dead Guy (for the want of a better name) throws himself at him, but doesn’t fall. He smirks at the Dead Guy. "Seeing as your pitiful existence is going to be so short, it’s kinda nice that you’re going to spend it in a fantasy world," he declares blithely, shoving the Dead Guy back and taking a defensive stance.
"Aaaarrrghh…" howls the Dead Guy and again throws himself at Angel.
// Couldn’t have put it better meself // comments Jojo, his eyes as wide as mine feel.
They start to fight as Mulder, trench coat flapping behind him, arrives on the scene. Tearing my attention away from the fight to the -- the fight to the *what* exactly? *If* they’re both already dead, then the fight to the death doesn’t really work -- whatever, I look over at Mulder and note that the expression on his face clearly reads as though he thinks all his Christmases have come at once. "*Yes*!" he shouts triumphantly, retrieving a mobile phone from his pocket and punching numbers into it. "Scully! Get here now! You won’t believe it… You’ve gotta see it for yourself!" Wisely, he ends the call before Scully can be rude to him and, hopping excitedly from foot to foot, he watches as the Dead Guy and Angel try to beat each other senseless.
Somehow the Dead Guy manages to get in a particularly nasty blow to Angel’s jaw and this causes Angel to morph. His handsome face disappears and in its place is one eerily similar to the Dead Guys; glowing eyes and deeply furrowed brow. "Now you’ve really made me mad," Angel snarls and, spinning elegantly, kicks the Dead Guy hard in the chest.
The Dead Guy hits the ground and doesn’t get up again. With graceful, fluid movements, Angel lifts his sword and drives it into the Dead Guy’s chest. Dead Guy immediately goes up in a pile of dust. Literally. Within a split second there is no sign that he was ever even there.
"Urgh," grunts Mulder, looking as though he either wants to clap or cry.
A call of, "This had better be good, Mulder," heralds Scully’s arrival and she appears next to him just as Angel shakes his head and his human visage reappears. Quickly hiding his sword in the folds of his coat, Angel stares at Mulder and Scully with a blank, somewhat *vacant* expression on his face. He doesn’t seem fussed by their presence and almost appears to view Mulder with resigned bemusement.
"Scully! It’s Angelus… Or, Angel as he’s now known! He’s the only vampire with a soul and, oh God, he just dusted Mr Frost in front of me…" stammers Mulder.
Scully sighs, and dismisses the admittedly rather human looking Angel with a brief glance. "Yeah Mulder. Right. I can see it. Golly gosh he looks like *such* vampire," she mutters sarcastically. "Don’t you think it’s time you had a holiday and stopped trying to freak out innocent bystanders?"
Both Mulder and Angel are saved from having to reply by the sudden arrival of Sam and Chris.
"Just what the fuck is going on out here?" demands Chris, his eyes flashing and his skin flushed. "Some sort of fucking trench coat convention?" He looks less than impressed at having his plans interrupted. So, for that matter, does Sam. Both look ruffled and neither of them have their shirts done up. I note, with no real surprise, a number of pink marks on Chris’ neck.
Startled by their arrival, Scully goes on the defensive and pulls a gun from her bag. "FBI," she shouts, waving the gun around and looking increasingly hysterical. I decide that Mulder isn’t the only one who needs a holiday. Perhaps they simply deserve each other.
"That’s nice," Sam replies smoothly, before quickly and efficiently removing the gun from her. She looks dumbfounded at how easily he achieved this and stares at him dully. "CI5. Pleased to meet you," he adds calmly, checking that the safety is on before slipping the gun into his pocket.
"Uh," nods Scully, "Of course you are." She has the ‘now, why doesn’t this fucking surprise me’, look about her.
"Great. Now we’ve got that *kinda* sorted out, what are you people doing out here making all this racket?" Chris still looks none too happy. Glaring around him, he then notices that both Mulder and Angel are staring at him with oddly drippy expressions on their faces and, after surreptitiously checking that his fly is done up, inches closer to Sam.
Sam, also noticing the way the two weirdos are all but drooling over Chris, glares at them with pure ice in his gaze.
// Yeah, come on, Mulder. Tell ‘em what you are doing out here before Sam feels compelled to shoot you. // This should be good.
"Um… Ah… Fox Mulder, FBI… And this, I believe to be Angel. He’s a vampire," says Mulder sincerely.
Chris laughs. I don’t know whether he’s laughing at Mulder’s first name, as I feel like doing -- born loser or what? -- or whether it’s the vampire angle that’s amusing him. "Mmm-hmm… He’s a vampire and I’m the tooth fairy… *Fox*," he snickers, effectively telling me that everything’s causing him merriment.
"He is!" Mulder declares agitatedly. "Tell him Scully! You saw how he dusted Mr Frost and then morphed… Didn’t you?" he trails off dejectedly.
"Sorry Mulder, I saw no such thing," Scully replies with a dismissive shrug of her shoulders.
"So, Angel," Chris turns his attention to the so-called vampire, "What’s a nice vampire like you doing in a cemetery like this?" he queries facetiously. "Oh! Hang on! Vampires don’t exist! Silly me! You were just going for an evening stroll, decked up a little like The Crow, when this idiot FBI agent decided to make decidedly stupid allegations about you at a volume loud enough to *upset* my evening!" Chris pauses, mid diatribe, and sighs, "Am I nearly right?"
"Perfectly," Angel replies, speaking for the first time since everyone rocked up. "Vampires, I mean, come on," he snorts, "I know it’s Halloween, but surely the FBI have better things to be doing than staking out cemeteries?"
"That’s what I would have thought," interjects Sam, shooting a filthy look at both Mulder and Scully.
"But…" starts Mulder helplessly.
"But *nothing*! Come on Mulder, we’re leaving before anything else can go wrong," Scully states, holding out her hand to Sam in order to get her gun back. He gives it to her without comment and she slips it immediately back into her bag. "Thanks," she says, starting to walk in the direction of the carpark.
Mulder hesitates over what to do and I actually begin to feel sorry for him. Yes, he’s a bore, but it suddenly strikes me that he’s a misunderstood bore. I also get the impression that he’s usually right about all the things he raves on about, but no-one other than himself ever gets to see the proof of his convictions. "But…" he tries again.
"*Mulder*! Car. Now! Before I have to use the gun on you," screeches Scully over her shoulder.
"Ah…" Mulder sighs and capitulates. "Sorry for interrupting your evening," he apologises to Chris, his eyes lingering a little too long Chris’ body for Sam’s liking as Sam takes a protective step in front of his partner and narrows his eyes at Mulder.
Mulder, with evident self-preservation, drags his gaze away from Chris and glances at Angel. Angel winks at him and smirks. Mulder looks as though he wants to say something else but, deciding against it, wanders slowly after Scully.
"I take it that you too will be departing the cemetery?" Sam asks Angel mildly.
"Certainly. My work here is done," Angel replies cryptically, before bowing slightly and adding, "It’s been a pleasure meeting you. Who knows we might some day meet again…" With that he turns around and walks in the opposite direction to Mulder.
// I think Sam could quite happily live his entire life without seeing him again // comments Jojo softly.
// Hmm… // Not knowing where I exactly stand in relation to this prospect -- well, he (whatever he was) was somewhat attractive and that always works for me -- I don’t offer anything else by way of reply.
// You know, I now think I have honestly seen everything. //
Now, that I *can* answer. // Oh yeah. Me too… Even the sight of the Obese Bovines, sunbaking in the nude, pales in comparison to that performance. //
// Princess… He… ah… Angel *was* a vampire, wasn’t he? And that… ah… other guy *was* dead, wasn’t he? //
// You saw exactly what I saw… Draw your own conclusions // I reply off handedly, not really wanting to admit to the phantasmagorical. Life is peculiar enough without the prospect of other worldly influences impacting on it.
Chris and Sam look at each other blankly. "Do you have any idea what really happened then?" mutters Chris.
"Nope. Not a clue," Sam responds quickly. "I do, however, remember what *was* happening before they interrupted us and would be more than happy to remind you back inside."
"Mmm…" Chris grins. "Would you believe that I appear to have been struck by sudden amnesia and will need to be reminded in thorough detail…"
"Amnesia, huh? I’ll just have to cure you then," Sam replies, a silly looking grin taking up residence on his face.
Jojo and I look at each other and roll our eyes. // Some things just never change // I mutter.
My humans start to walk slowly towards home, but then Chris suddenly bolts back and picks me up. "Come on, Mishy. I don’t want you out here with all these loons lurking around." I cling contentedly to his shoulder and purr in his ear, // What about Jojo? // If I’m going to be stuck inside with them playing their games then I at least want someone to talk to…
Chris pauses and calls out to Sam, "Hey Sam, pick him up will you and bring him inside with us. I’m not too keen on leaving him out here tonight." Sam, after sighing heavily, wanders back to us and picks up Jojo.
Jojo, no doubt thinking of his stomach and what he’ll find to stuff it with inside, doesn’t fight this and purrs his thanks to all of us. // Happy Halloween // he says to me.
// Yeah. Happy Halloween // I reply, peering over Chris’ shoulder and not seeing any sign of Angel. It’s almost as though he’s completely disappeared.
Once we’re inside, we’re both placed on the floor in the kitchen and instantaneously forgotten about. "Now, where were we?" Sam murmurs directly into Chris’ left ear. He punctuates his query by lapping at Chris’ ear lobe until Chris starts to squirm and laugh.
"I think we were treat-ing," he giggles, grabbing Sam’s hand and dragging him into the living room.
Jojo watches them stumble out of the kitchen before turning his attention to me. // Treat-ing? //
// Think about it. //
// Oh. Silly me. Now, what’s to eat? //
// Whatever is in the bowl. Knock yourself out. // I don’t want it. I didn’t want it when it appeared, so I sure as hell don’t want it now.
The noises I’d hoped to avoid -- for at least *one* night -- start to come from the living room but, after the fun and games in the cemetery, I’m relieved to hear them. Jumping up onto the kitchen bench, I turn my back on the window and settle down to nap. If this is what Halloween is all about, I think I’m glad it only comes once a year.
Vampires, ha! Loopy FBI agents, ha! Give me the Fat Cows any day. I know where I stand with them.
… And that’s victorious… |
