The Vampire of The Speakeasy
The vampire of the speakeasy strikes again
It was the 1920s.
Prohibition was in full force in the USA.
And the speakeasy was doing a booming business in cities and towns all over.
Vampire hunter Joseph Van Helsing was sitting in one such speakeasy.
It had come to his attention that in this particular speakeasy there was someone who was drinking more than just alcohol.
As people were coming home from the speakeasy and dying on their doorsteps because their bodies were completely drained of blood.
And the city had seen no recent call from the American Red Cross for blood donations.
So there was something suspicious going on.
Joseph Van Helsing suspected a vampire.
Even though a thoroughly modern modernist Catholic priest in the city had said there were no such things as vampires.
For that matter the thoroughly modern modernist Catholic priest also said there was no God or Devil, Heaven or Hell or angels and demons.
This thoroughly modern modernist Catholic priest later got a job teaching theology at a Jesuit seminary in Argentina for the next 50 years.
But Joseph Van Helsing paid no attention.
He sat drinking a glass of smooth whiskey.
And cast his eyes around the room.
When he saw this:
That appeared to be more than a hickey the man was giving the beautiful brunette woman in the white dress.
“Iago, my violin case,” Joseph Van Helsing called his assistant.
Iago appeared with a violin case.
“What have you got there? A sub-machine gun?” Asked an IRS agent who was looking around for signs of undeclared taxes in the speakeasy.
“No, this,” Van Helsing opened the violin case and pulled out a hawthorn wooden stake.
He rushed up to the man giving the beautiful brunette woman in the white dress a hickey and drove it through his heart.
The man immediately turned into a skeleton and crumbled into dust.
“Whew,” Joseph Van Helsing spoke with relief, “It’s a good thing he did that. Otherwise I might be facing 2nd degree murder or manslaughter charges about now.”
The beautiful brunette woman threw herself into Joseph Van Helsing’s arms and started kissing him passionately.
Joseph Van Helsing went home that night with one heck of a hickey.
-A vampire novel chapter
Written by Christopher
Saturday August 13th
2022.
Cleopatra Queen of Egypt
Cleopatra Queen of Egypt
“What is it you wish, Caesar?” The world’s most beautiful woman asked.
Caesar was silent for a moment.
“I wish to make you Queen of the World,” he finally answered.
“And what do you want me to give you in return?” Cleopatra asked.
A cat, as if reading Caesar’s thoughts, jumped in front of him.
-A short short story
Written by Christopher
Friday August 12th
2022.
Mistress of The Dark
Greek goddess Aphrodite filling in for vintage horror movie TV show hostess Vampira on a summer evening in Los Angeles in 1954
Vampira hosted a vintage horror movie TV show on the Los Angeles ABC TV affiliate KABC-TV from 1954 to 1955.
It was a summer evening in 1954 and Vampira had come down with laryngitis.
How was she to host her show tonight?
It was fortunate for Vampira that her drinking companion that night was the Greek goddess Aphrodite.
Aphrodite volunteered to fill in for her.
The scene now switches to a Los Angeles home where 8-year-old Henry a rather precocious boy used to go downstairs to the living room while his parents were asleep and turn on the family black and white TV on low volume and watch The Vampira Show on late night TV.
Tonight he was doing the same again.
The show’s announcer announced, “Regrettably Vampira is unable to host the show tonight…”
“Awwww…” said Henry.
“However Aphrodite is going to fill in for her and here’s Aphrodite…”
“Yay,” said Henry when he saw her.
Henry didn’t think much of the movie being shown but he did like the scenes where Aphrodite gave commentary.
Having divine sight, the goddess saw the psychopathic clown that had entered Henry’s family home and was holding a knife over Henry as the boy sat on the floor in front of the television.
She grabbed the vampire stake from inside the movie being shown and putting her hand through the TV screen in the living room staked the psychopathc clown to death.
“Wow, cool,” Henry enthused.
His mother was not so enthusiastic when she saw the mess on the living toom floor the next morning.
Henry was unable to sit down comfortably for the next week.
-A short story
and vampire novel chapter
written by Christopher
Thursday June 30th
2022.
The Train Ride
Charles kissed Rose good-bye as he set out on the train for his job interview in London
As he went to find his compartment aboard the train, he noticed an individual standing and bending over through the door of a compartment.
The individual had, attached to the seat of his pants, a sign that read KICK ME. I’M AN OBNOXIOUS TWIT.
As people went by, they kicked him in the seat of the pants.
The individual then reached into his suitcase where he pulled out a dictionary or a thesaurus and then swore at the people who kicked him using various words that were obscure synonyms for the traditional cuss words.
Charles felt sorry for the individual so he went over and ripped the sign off the seat of his pants and threw it out the window.
It turned out Charles was sharing the train compartment with the same man.
Charles entered.
The man whose name was Ben Memfis spent 4 hours re-arranging the furniture in the compartment to his liking.
When Memfis had finished, Charles was relieved at being able to sit down.
Memfis asked Charles why he was taking the train to London when he could have easily taken a bus, a car, a boat, a bicycle, a horse and wagon or even rented a small biplane such as a Sopwith Camel.
Charles said he enjoyed train travel.
Memfis snarled that he found train travel boring.
Charles then asked Memfis why he was taking the train.
Memfis growled and then flipped through the pages of his Dictionary and Thesaurus where he gave a long winded ostentatious multi-syllabic multi-phonetic answer in response.
Charles woke up again when the man had finally finished.
“What was the idea of falling asleep while I was talking?” Memfis barked, “Are you practicing some sort of adolescent juvenile locker room humour?”.
“No,” Charles shook his head, “It just happens that you’re an extrmely boring individual.”
“Boring?” Memfis almost did an impersonation of Joe Biden in his underwear, “So the honeymoon is over?”.
“Actually Rose and I aren’t on a honeymoon yet,” Charles explained.
“Rose?” Memfis raised one of his singed eyebrows, “Why not a violet or a chrysanthemum?”.
“Rose is the name of the woman I kissed through the train window as the train was leaving the station,” Charles explained, “She’s my fiancee.”
“You kissed a woman?” Memfis’ often fractured jaw dropped.
He decided not to ask Charles what it was like.
“Why are you headed to London?” Memfis asked Charles.
Charles said it was for a job interview.
Memfis started firing off questions.
Why that job?
Why didn’t he apply for a different job?
Memfis pulled out an Encyclopedia of Trades, Skills, Professions and Occupations from his suitcase and started rattling off to Charles all the jobs he could and should apply for.
“What do you do?” Charles inquired of Memfis.
“I’m a Creative Writing Instructor,” Memfis growled, “I often have dreams in my sleep at night where I often tell William Shakespeare, Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Emily Bronte and Fyodor Dostoevsky how they should write their stories but none of them listen to me.”
“That would explain why they became the giants of literature that they did,” Charles noted.
“Is this more juvenile adolescent locker room humour?” Memfis snarled.
Just then a man wearing a large Crucifix entered the train compartment, “So it’s Ben Memfis one of the world’s greatest psychic vampires sucking and feeding off the creative energy of others?”.
“Is this a pop culture mis-attribution?” Memfis started pulling his pants down.
The man with the Crucifix pushed Memfis out the train window just as the train was crossing a very tall railway bridge.
Memfis fell screaming to his death.
Ironically Memfis fell on top of pitchforks being wielded by Finnish trolls at the bottom of the bridge who were doing the famous Finnish troll pitchfork dance.
“How did Finnish trolls get to England?” Were Memfis’ last words and actions as he flipped through the pages of a Geography book before he died.
Memfis the troll was finished.
-A short story
written by Christopher
Wednesday June 15th
2022.
The Reflection In The Glass
“What do you see?” The man asked the gypsy.
“That my glass is half empty,” the gypsy answered,
“Although my shadow self sees the glass as half full.”
“No need to worry,” the man laughed,
“My glass is totally empty.
Both up and down.
I guess I’ve looked at a glass from both sides now.”
“Yes,” the gypsy looked up and smiled, “You’ve drank all the poison.”
“Poison?” The man gulped.
He fell face forward.
Quite dead.
Both up and down.
Both sides now.
-A short short story
written by Christopher
Monday June 13th
2022.
Don Quixote’s Roman Holiday
The self-proclaimed knight-errant Don Quixote of La Mancha Spain decided to go on pilgrimage to Rome.
So he set out wearing his old wrecked armour and helmet and bent spear and broken sword on his old broken down and decrepit horse Rocinante and set out for Rome.
When in Rome, he set out to Saint Peter’s Basilica to view that sculpture known as the Pieta.
While approaching the basilica, a dwarf came up to Quixote and asked, “Which of these two men do you choose to be?”.
Quixote looked around.
He saw no one in the immediate vicinity.
Which two men was the dwarf talking about?
He looked down.
The dwarf had gone.
Vanished.
Quixote entered the chapel where he saw the Pieta.
The old knight stood in awe for over an hour in front of the statue.
He soon found himself joined by two men.
“How was this statue created?” Quixote asked the two men.
“Well,” the first man coughed, “This sculpture was originally just a rock. But after eons and eons of erosion caused by wind, rain, intense heat, intense cold and other natural factors it came to resemble the shape it is today.”
“I on the other hand,” the second man explained, “have heard that this sculpture was created by a man named Michelangelo Buonarroti. I choose to believe that Michelangelo Buonarroti created this sculpture.”
The words of the dwarf came back to him, “Which of these two men do you choose to be?”.
Don Quixote rode on the road from Rome back to Spain.
He looked around and saw how beautiful the world was.
The woodlands, the green grass, the multicoloured varieties of trees and their leaves and the beautiful crystal flowing streams.
He stopped when he saw a couple of children crying.
“Children, why do you cry?” He asked.
“Our mom sent us to find wood,” the girl and eldest of the pair answered, “We found the wood but we know not where to cross the stream again to get back to our home.”
“Climb aboard the noble Rocinante,” Quixote pointed to his old decrepit horse, “and hang on to me. And we’ll carry you across the stream.”
The children climbed on to the decrepit old horse and hung on to the old self-proclaimed knight in his old wrecked armour with his broken sword and bent spear.
When the horse emerged on the other side of the stream after having carried the children across the stream, it had turned into a noble and vibrant black steed and Don Quixote saw his armour turn into gold and his broken sword turned into a sword of pure and mighty gold.
If this world had a Creator and saw this scene, He’d have worked the miracle that unfolded.
If all that existed beyond this realm of things was a Void, it would not have cared, would have neither felt empathy or contempt, would not have felt love or hate.
It would not have felt anything.
For it was not alive, it did not have a personality, it did not even exist and it was definitely not Love.
-A short story written by Christopher
Sunday June 12th 2022
Mariposa Noir
The witch Mariposa Noir with her imp Iago in the background
Mariposa Noir had decided that she was going to behead her arch enemy the Sherrif of Tottingham with an axe.
Lord Malcolm Bellamy the Sherrif of Tottingham had burnt too many of her coven sisters at the stake.
She was always having to recruit new women to make the coven number stand at 13.
But Lord Bellamy always managed to subtract the number by raiding their midnight ceremonies and capturing her sisters and then burning them at the stake.
Most of her coven sisters weren’t as advanced in witchcraft as she was.
So they weren’t able to quickly turn themselves into ravens like she was and fly away.
Instead they were captured by Lord Bellamy’s men.
Then tried, found guilty and burnt at the stake.
“This Lord Bellamy shall pay,” Mariposa Noir stated as she picked up the axe, “he shall pay with his head.”
Her imp Iago found this statement so utterly funny for some reason that he started laughing his head off (quite literally).
“Oh, Iago,” Mariposa kicked the head out the door of the inn where they were staying and put his body in the garbage can.
Mariposa went upstairs to her room to work out the final details of her plan to ensnare and behead Lord Malcolm Bellamy the Sheriff of Tottingham.
In the meantime Iago’s head outside the inn was eaten by a brown bear who came out of the woods and his body in the garbage can was taken out and burnt along with the rest of the garbage.
So that was the end of Iago.
Mariposa Noir had one advantage when it came to ensnaring the Sheriff of Tottingham.
The Sheriff did not know what she looked like for she was able to turn herself into a raven quite quickly when Tottingham’s men arrived on the scene of her coven’s midnight ritual.
And Mariposa Noir was a beautiful woman.
. . .
Lord Malcolm Bellamy was enjoying his glass of ale when he arrived at the inn.
He instructed the innkeeper to carve himself a large piece of roast wild boar off the spit in the fireplace.
Food and drink, the Sheriff of Tottingham smiled, all that was needed to complete his evening was a beautiful woman…
The cup Bellamy had in his hands about to touch his lips froze when he saw the vision of Mariposa Noir descending the stairs.
“Oh, my God,” the Sheriff exclaimed.
“Good evening, your Lordship,” Mariposa approached.
“You’ve heard of me?” Tottingham was pleased.
“You’ve rid the county of so many witches,” Mariposa answered, “Who hasn’t heard of you?”.
The Sheriff had to agree.
“I’m afraid not much can be done with your axe whose head broke earlier this evening,” the innkeeper said as he walked through the door, “The blacksmith says you’ll probably need a new axe.”
“Very well,” Mariposa shrugged.
“What did you need an axe for?” Tottingham asked.
“To cut off the heads of some chickens,” Mariposa replied.
“That is a useful purpose for an axe,” Tottingham crowed as he nodded his head.
“Perhaps you’d care to lay your head against my bosom,” Mariposa suggested.
“An excellent idea,” Lord Malcolm Bellamy did just that, “My, what long red painted fingernails you have.”
“The better to rip your head off, my dear,” Mariposa smiled as she did just that.
-A short story written by Christopher
Wednesday May 25th 2022.
The Lounge Singer
Cantolina Aguirre the lounge singer
It was May 1949.
And Carson Cody Albion was sitting in a high class cocktail lounge in Los Angeles.
The name of the lounge was The Purple Canary.
Albion wasn’t sure whether there was such a thing as a purple canary.
He thought most canaries were yellow.
But then again up until 1697, most Europeans thought all swans were white.
Then came 1697.
And Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh discovered black swans in Australia.
So maybe there are purple canaries.
Perhaps someday one will be found on the moon.
What made him think of the moon just now?
His eyes and ears returned to the singer and the song.
Cantolina Aguirre was singing the song Blue Moon.
When the song was over, Cantolina Aguirre came and sat at Albion’s table.
“Nice of you to sit here,” Albion smiled.
“I’m your contact,” Cantolina explained.
“Contact?” Albion looked puzzled.
“Didn’t Soong Mei-ling hire you to escort weapons from the Aladdin Tea Company Warehouse to the ship Blue Tiger down at the docks?” Cantolina inquired.
Soong Mei-ling was Madame Chiang Kai-shek the First Lady of the Republic of China.
She was the wife of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek the President of China.
The Kuomintang Chinese Nationalist government was currently in trouble and there was the possibility that China could fall to Mao Tse-tung’s Communists.
Concerned people across the U.S. were sending arms to Chiang’s government worried that the U.S. government wasn’t doing enough.
“She did,” Carson nodded, “but I was expecting my contact to be Chinese.”
“I was born in Shanghai,” Cantolina answered, “My father worked at the Spanish Consulate in the city.”
“Wow, don’t I have egg on my face,” Albion remarked after a waiter accidentally spilled Egg Foo Yung all over him.
Cantolina gave him the passwords he was to use at both the warehouse and the loading docks for the ship Blue Tiger.
Albion stood up to go on his mission.
“I’ll be working here until 2 AM, ” she said as she got up to return to the stage.
“Do you ever make love to any of your contacts?” Albion asked before leaving.
Cantolina grabbed a napkin and wrote on it with her red lipstick.
She then folded the napkin.
“Here’s the answer,” she said as she handed him the folded napkin, “Don’t open it until you walk through that door again.”
Later after Albion had completed the mission, he returned to The Purple Canary and walked through the door.
He opened and unfolded the napkin to read her red lipstick answer to his question.
ONCE IN A BLUE MOON.
Cantolina noticed his entrance and his unfolding of the napkin.
She immediately began singing the song Blue Moon.
-A Carson Cody Albion Short Story
Written by Christopher
Monday May 2nd 2022.
The Mexican Cantina
Rosa the singer inside the Mexican cantina
The year was 1959.
Richard M. Nixon was preparing to succeed Dwight Eisenhower as President the next year.
John F. Kennedy was on the phone to Marilyn Monroe asking if she’d drop by his place on New Year’s Eve and personally sing Auld Lang Syne to him.
Jackie Kennedy was shopping for rolling pins.
And the Greek god Zeus was in the office of Los Angeles Private Eye Carson Cody Albion asking him to locate Ganymede the cup-bearer to the Olympian gods.
Ganymede had apparently gone missing and was rumoured to be working inside a Mexican cantina.
Zeus wanted Albion to find him and bring him back to Olympus.
. . .
“I’m tired of you Olympians always whining about your wine all the time,” was Ganymede’s good-bye note.
Zeus wept.
He enjoyed the immortal youth bringing him wine.
And now he was gone.
He went to his Rolodex and found the business card for Carson Cody Albion.
He then summoned an eagle to fly him to Los Angeles.
The eagle was happy.
It was tired of eating liver all the time.
The titan Prometheus was happy as well.
. . .
In the Mexican cantina called Pedro’s, Rosa was singing up a storm.
When she had finished, she went and stood next to the piano.
Behind her stood the Greek god Ganymede disguised as a statue.
Carson Cody Albion had received a grape rather than an olive in his martini as he watched the show.
The grape contained a fortune cookie saying sized message that read I DON’T WANT TO GO BACK TO OLYMPUS.
It was signed Ganymede.
Albion wrote Zeus a note saying that Ganymede had joined a militia of anti-Castro Cubans being put together by U.S. Vice-President Richard M. Nixon and couldn’t be located.
Cody then went to Rosa’s dressing room and knocked on her door.
Rosa opened the door.
Albion entered.
Rosa closed the door.
In the dining area Ganymede sat wearing an I LIKE IKE button and dark sunglasses and got his palm read by a blind fortune teller.
Mistaking Ganymede for Fidel Castro, the blind fortune teller told him that he’d one day have an idiot son who would become Prime Minister of Canada.
And inside the dressing room, Rosa personally sang Auld Lang Syne to Carson Cody Albion.
-A Carson Cody Albion
Private Eye Short Story
written by Christopher
Tuesday December 28th
2021.
The Dog Days of August
It was on this date (August 19th) back in 14 AD that the Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus kicked the bucket (having successfully crossed off Become Ruler of the Known World on his bucket list).
Rumours abounded at the time that he had been poisoned by his wife the Empress Livia.
. . .
“What is this?” Caesar Augustus asked his wife Livia.
“Your favourite,” Livia smiled as she handed him the plate, “Roasted mushrooms.”
“Where are the food tasters?” Augustus looked around.
“I gave them the night off,” Livia poured herself a goblet of wine.
“Gave them the night off?” Augustus’ face turned ashen white (If a Marxist Critical Race Theory professor of Classics and Ancient History had been there, he or she or it (if they belonged to the category of gender confused in the Alphabet Soup community) would have called Caesar Augustus out as the supreme example of white privilege).
Caesar Augustus ate the mushrooms.
“I don’t feel so well,” Caesar Augustus wiped his brow.
“I brought you some nice looking grapes,” Livia put a bowl of delicious looking grapes down in front of Augustus.
“They do look good,” Augustus noted.
He had one.
And another.
And then another…
Until he had finished them all.
“I think I’m dying,” Caesar Augustus stated.
“I’m not surprised,” Livia answered, “I put enough poison in those mushrooms and grapes to kill a horse.”
At that moment a horse neighed loudly from the stables before finally biting the dust.
Both Augustus and horse passed into the midsts of Sheol.
And the dog star Sirius continued on its merry way.
Livia when she was younger before she became Roman Empress and a terrible cook.
-A short story
written by Christopher
Thursday August 19th
2021.
Dracul Van Helsing 
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