Son of Dracula? page 2

Monster Kid #3

Countess Dracula: Anyway . . . after Zaleska ran off, her daughter completely went off the deep end. Started prancing around the castle calling herself The Countess. Always trying to boss us around. Of course after we received word that Vlad had been killed she bolted out of here and headed off to England with this manservant she had taken up with. Caused quite a stir over there I'm told. Well, we had tried to warn her about this Sandor fellow but she refused to hear a thing we said. He killed her right here in the castle. Fortunately we were out that night, eh. . . baby-sitting. Tragic, although I never really liked the girl. She seemed a bit funny, if you know what I mean.

Monster Kid: All right, lets move on. Tell us. Did Dracula have a son?

CD: Oh sure. Which one would you like to know about?

MK: Dracula had more than one son?

CD: Of course. There was my son, Anthony. And then he had the triplets with Greta, his blonde haired wife.

MK: Tell us about the triplets.

CD: They were nice boys, but awfully skinny. I used to tell them ,"Eat. Eat. You're too thin," but they would never bite more than one or two peasants a month. Unfortunately none of those boys were very bright. Always chasing the ladies when they should have been planning ahead. One of the boys, Janos, got careless trying to make off with a young virgin and was trapped by some villagers. Got a stake right through the heart. Then a fellow named Lampini stole the skeleton and made him part of his traveling chamber of Horrors. Janos was quite a ham though so he probably didn't mind. I don't know what happened to him after that. If he was ever released he probably went after the first girl he saw and got right back in trouble again.

Another one of the three, Vlanos, used to travel a lot. On one trip he started putting the moves on a pretty nurse he met. When she went to work at Dr. Edelman's clinic in Vasaria he showed up the next week pretending he wanted treatments. Moved in like he owned the place. I hear that ended badly too. He generously gave Dr. Edelman some of his blood in a transfusion but the doctor didn't appreciate it. Then he was caught trying to put the bite on the Doc's nurse right before sunup. The dummy had nowhere to run except the coffin he had hidden right in the doc's basement. The sun came up, the Doc opened the lid and that was the end of Vlanos Dracula. I always meant to buy that boy a watch.

Two of the triplets born to Dracula's second wife, Greta.

The third brother, Llanos, left the old country sometime in the 1880s and migrated to America. The last word we received was that he was somewhere out west. I hope he fared better than the others but he never got the hang of some of the skills a vampire needs to stay healthy and undead. He could de-solidify his body just fine when some mortal attacked him with a pitchfork or a gun, but he had a habit of leaving his head solid so he could laugh and sneer better. I hope he remembered to duck if someone ever tried to bop him in the head with something. Like I said, none of the brothers was too bright.

MK: I guess we should get to the most important question. Was the Dracula who is referred to as the "Son of Dracula" the original Count or was it his son?

CD: Well isn't it obvious? Does it look like Vlad? That's my son Anthony! He always was a hefty boy. Big boned like his mother. With Vlad gone, he inherited the title of Count and later went to America in search of fresh blood. He thought about trying England again like his father had done, but he never felt very comfortable in polite society. Having been raised by me, he thought he would fit in better in this country.

MK: But why didn't he do more to make it clear that he was Dracula's son instead of letting some people go on believing that he was THE Count Dracula.

CD: When you grow up in the shadow of a famous father and are in the same line of work, there's always going to be competition and unfair comparisons. Some people began referring to him as Dracula, Jr. which he hated. He was proud of the name Dracula but didn't just want to be known as somebody's son. He wanted to be known simply as Count Dracula, which is who he was. When people assumed he was the original Dracula, he didn't go out of his way to correct them. For all I know, that girl who tricked him into marrying her thought that he was the original Count and passed the misinformation along to others.

Left: Proud Papa Dracula drinks a toast (you can bet it's not wine) to his son Anthony on his 16th birthday. For the occasion, the Son of Dracula received his first cape. Now he won't have to borrow Dad's when he goes out flying with the gang at night. His moody young half-sister Marya doesn't seem to be enjoying herself much.

MK: Anything else you can tell us about Dracula's sons?

CD: I always tried to tell those boys that chasing after women would be the death of them. You know that old saying, "Unlucky in love like a High Priest of Karnak"? Anthony took up with that American woman and wouldn't you know it, he got burned. His plan was to send for me when he got settled but that conniving Caldwell girl double-crossed my poor little Tony and ruined everything. At least she got hers too that same night. Good riddance. Folks like that give vampires a bad name.

MK: Okay. Can you tell us a little bit about what life was like after your husband died?

CD: Oh, Vlad wasn't dead after all. He eventually traveled to America himself. For a while he was somewhere in Florida hatching some scheme involving Frankenstein's Monster.

MK: But wasn't his body burned by his daughter?

CD: Oh no. That wasn't his body in the pyre.

MK: Then who . . .

CD: I'm real sorry honey, but I have to get off this phone. The sun is coming up and a girl has got to get her beauty sleep.

MK: But can't you . . .

CD: I'm sorry. Bye now....

MK: Countess Dracula? Hello? Hello?

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There are certain things that come with having children that no father likes to deal with, whether he's the guy next door or the King of the Vampires... like disposing of Junior's dirty diapers. They're worse than garlic.

Shortly following this interview Countess Dracula's phone number was changed to an unlisted number. Unfortunately, the tape of my conversation along with my notes and the documents I had gathered about the Countess mysteriously disappeared from my office during a late night break-in. I no longer have any way to confirm many of the revelations from this extraordinary conversation. I leave it to the readers' discretion to draw their own conclusions.

----- Grave Digger

Monster Kid #3

3-D Monsters