Transylvania!
Author's Note: Ah. I've been waiting for a long, long time.
Asha Ice: What sort of review is that? Hmph! No, he's not. There are only two good guys in this whole story - and believe me, they lose out indefinitely.
Yours Truly: Thanks for the Apple Sweets - again! Well, actually, the songs were already there (from Chicago, you know), and I twisted the storyline around it. Will write soon!
Knnyphph: I think I'm getting the hang of typing your name. You don't know how right you are - but you're mistaken if I'd let Van Helsing tango in Velma Kelly's...costume. I'd probably be stricken dead of horror
Redgirl44: Cardinals are lovely dancers, aren't they?
I own neither Chicago nor Van Helsing, but I own...this!
4. Cell Block Tango
Drip.
Drip.
Anna shifted again in her uncomfortable prison bunk. Her dark tresses were drenched in sweat. She could not go to sleep. Particularly because of the sound coming from the sink in the corner of the room.
Drip.
Drip.
That confounded tap was driving her mad.
Drip-drip.
The leaking tap suddenly increased its rhythm to double-beat.
Drip-drip.
The dripping sounds began to coincide with the thuds of the prison warden's boots as he patrolled the corridors outside the cells.
Thud. Drip-drip.
Thud. Drip-drip.
Anna shifted again, but the curious rhythm was drilling itself into her head.
Thud. Drip-drip.
Thud. Drip-drip.
A new sound again – this time, the ominous resonance of fingernails drumming against the bars of a cell.
Thud. Drip-drip. Tap-tap-tap.
Thud. Drip-drip. Tap-tap-tap.
And slowly, as she felt herself falling into that dreamy stupor that preceded her entrance to the Stage, Anna began to see a quick montage of scenes – and the words that accompanied them.
A match being struck, the brilliant flame illuminating suddenly a curl of vivid gold-brown hair……
"Pop."
The dark profile of a man, a long-haired man – the only light glinting off a gold hoop earring in his ear……
"Six."
A pair of blood-red, lush lips, pulled back to reveal a perfect set of white and viciously pointed teeth……
"Squish."
A straight curtain of sleek, black hair, in a long, glimmering fall to hide the pale face behind it……
"Uh-uh."
The wide brim of a leather hat, sheltering a glowing cigar whose smoke drifted past the speaker's silhouette…….
"Vaseria."
A cadaverous, withered hand, cradling a grisly skull, its bone white and smooth with much handling……
"Coffins!"
Anna heard a whirring, scratching noise and turned over. The cell bars of her prison were retreating, sliding aside. Behind the bars, the Announcer's face appeared momentarily, as she had suspected it would.
"And now……" said he with a grin, "……the six Merry Murderers of the Prison of the Church– and their rendition of – " he paused for effect, " – the Cell Block Tango."
Anna got out of bed and walked over to the empty space where the bars had been. Beyond it lay the boundless Stage, with a spotlight focused on a single chair. Anna reached it, stood for a while staring at it, and then sat down.
The rhythm went on, with the strange voices murmuring.
"Pop."
"Six."
"Squish."
"Uh-uh."
"Vaseria."
"Coffins!"
In the distance, the structure of a cell block row gradually materialized, and six figures emerged one by one from the shadows behind it. Their names came instantly to Anna's mind, though she had not met them before – but then, this was, after all, the Stage.
Then the first of them moved dramatically forward, the rest following.
"Pop!" spat Marishka, baring her fangs.
"Six," enunciated Dracula, grinning seductively.
"Squish," hissed Aleera, gripping the bars in a stranglehold.
"Uh-uh!" protested Verona, clutching the bars desperately.
"Vaseria," growled Van Helsing, blowing a cloud of smoke.
"Coffins!" yelled the Undertaker maniacally.
The music started.
"Pop."
"Six."
"Squish."
"Uh-uh."
"Vaseria."
"Coffins!"
The voices rose in swift consecution, without a pause or interruption to the flow.
"Pop."
"Six."
"Squish."
"Uh-uh."
"Vaseria."
"Coffins!"
Then they all glared straight at Anna – and began to stamp.
"They had it coming
They had it coming
They only had themselves to blame
If you had been there
If you had seen it……"
Van Helsing stuck a hand under the bars and pointed, almost accusingly.
"I betcha you would have done the same!"
Muttering their six-word mantra, they began to shift as the bars slid apart. For a moment, a figure stood silhouetted in the opening, and then she stepped forward into the spotlight.
Gold bangles jingling, Marishka licked her lips and tucked a curl behind her ear. Her yellow skirts trailed behind her as she walked up to a shadow of a man that emerged from the ground and leaned on it.
"You know, how some people have these little habits that just get you down?" Her singsong voice was mocking. "Like……Bernie. Bernie liked to chew gum." She reflected on that, and corrected it. "No, not chew. Pop." She described a circle on the ground with her foot. "So this one night, I come home, and I'm really irritated. And all I'm looking for is a little bit of sympathy." Her voice's singsong quality now became dangerously slow and deadly. "And there's Bernie, lying on the couch, drinking a beer – and chewing. No, not chewing." She spat the word like a dirty curse. "POPPING. So I said to him, I said: 'You pop that gum one more time.'" She sighed theatrically. "And – he did. So I went over and popped him – "
The music paused drastically. Marishka was so close to the figure that their noses were almost touching. To Anna's horror, the vampire's fangs extended, and she bit down, pulling away with a red scarf clenched in her hand.
" – in – the – head."
She grinned with satisfaction. Then she seized her shadow partner in a deathgrip and began to tango viciously with him across the Stage, while the others chorused grimly in the background:
"He had it coming
He had it coming
He only had himself to blame
If you had been there
If you had heard it
I betcha you would have done the same!"
Marishka faded into the shadows as the bars slid apart again, and there appeared – Dracula.
The earring in his ear was glinting again, against the black of his ponytail. His smile was decidedly unnerving. He stepped up beside an anonymous female silhouette, who automatically leaned on his arm.
"I met Ezekiela Yamen from Budapest about two years ago – and I told her I was single." He pronounced was as 'vas'. "Well, we hit it off right away. So we started living together. I'd go out at night, I'd come home in the morning, she'd fix me a drink, we'd have breakfast." He twirled the figure in a delicate underarm turn. "And then one day, she found out." He dipped her over his arm. "Single I told her. Single my bloody fangs. Not only was I married, oh no. I had six wives."
Oh, how shocking, thought Anna.
"So that morning, she fixed me my drink, as usual." Again the music rolled to a dramatic stop.
"I don't take kindly to arsenic," went on Dracula serenely, with his victim still curved over his arm. "Not at all. So I drank her dry." He bent till they were face to face, and kissed her on the mouth. Anna watched with bated breath as he drew back, the red scarf clenched between his teeth. "Like I'd done the other six."
He yanked the scarf from between his fangs and flung the shadow upon the ground.
"They had it coming
They had it coming
They tried to take us in our prime
And then they used us
And they abused us
It was a murder, but not a crime!"
Dracula and Marishka wheeled and spun their shadows mercilessly across the stage, in a violent, deadly dance.
It was now Aleera's turn. The other two made way for the Titian-tressed vampire, her pink gown trailing across the stage behind her. She struck a pose, her gleaming eyes intent on the figure circling her.
"Now I'm standing in the kitchen, carving up the chicken for dinner," she stepped forward, slowly, deliberately, mirroring the actions of the figure opposite, "minding my own business. In storms my husband in a jealous rage. 'You've been screwing the milkman', he says," she imitated his tone in her own high-pitched mocking one, "he was crazy, and he kept on screaming, 'You've been screwing the milkman!'"
Anna wondered idly if she really had been.
Aleera's voice was absolutely nonchalant as she related the next turn of events. "And then he ran into my fangs. He ran into my fangs ten times."
With the accompanying drumroll, she leapt out across the circle to the figure, and then pattered back, drawing the red scarf out of his midriff after her. The shadow fell to its knees.
"If you had been there
If you had seen it
I betcha you would have done the same……"
The fierce beat of the tango gave way to an arpeggio of sweeter-sounding harpstrings, and the spotlight turned to the dark-haired, pale-featured dancer, who pirouetted gracefully into the spotlight, hand-in-hand with her shadow partner – Verona.
Her black curtain of hair shielded her expression as she danced and spoke in Romanian-accented Italian.
"What am I doing here? They say I chopped off my husband's head and hung it from the gate. Did I? I do not know. I cannot remember. I am amnesic, I think. I don't care. But now they want to kill me. I plead, but Transylvania will not listen. I think I am going to die."
"Che cosa sto facendo qui? Dicono che ho tagliato fuori della testa del mio marito ed appeso esso dal cancello." Her white arms curved elegantly above her hed. "Lo ho fatto? Non so. Non posso ricordarsi di. Sono amnesic, io penso," she added thoughtfully. "Non mi preoccupo. Ma ora desiderano ucciderli." She spread out her arms, and spun in a fouette. "Supplico, ma Transylvania non ascolterà. Penso che stia andando morire." The figure knelt slowly, and Verona, balancing on one foot, lifted the other above her head into an almost air-split.
Anna, who was intrigued by the perfect spectacle, could not resist asking the question that escaped from her lips.
"Yeah, but……did you do it?"
Something in the air seemed to snap. Verona swayed, and crumpled into the shadow's arms. She turned impassive, stone eyes to Anna.
"Uh-uh," she breathed, "not guilty!"
Then she turned her head away as her scarf came fluttering out. In the dimness it was hard to see if it was red – or guiltless white.
The spotlight shifted – to Gabriel Van Helsing as he emerged from behind the bars.
"My brother Abraham and I had this double act – and my wife, she travelled round with us." Two shadows appeared, one male, one female, on either side of Van Helsing. "For the last number in our act, we did these twenty acrobatic tricks in a row – one, two, three, splits, flip-flops, spreadeagles, backflips. And now this one night, we were down at the inn in Vaseria……" his voice grew dangerously slow, "……the three of us, boozing…having a few laughs…and we ran out of ice. So I go out to get some." The hat hid his expression. "I came back, opened the door – and there's Abraham and my wife – doing No. 17 – the Spreadeagle."
Anna could not hide the involuntary gasp. Both shadows disappeared, and Van Helsing lifted his head. The expression on his face was terrible. "Well. I was in such a state of shock, I completely blacked out. I can't remember a thing. It wasn't until later, when I was washing the blood off my hands – that I even knew they were dead."
The two red scarves came rippling out of his hands, and he flung them aside in wrath.
"They had it coming!
They had it coming!
They had it coming all along
I didn't do it
But if I'd done it
How could you tell me that I was wrong!"
Surrounded by the other four, they went on moving into formation after formation in this forbidding dance.
"They had it coming
They had it coming
They only had themselves to blame
If you had been there
If you had seen it
I betcha you would have done the same!"
Then they split apart, as from amidst them arose the Undertaker. His long stringy white hair hung around his sallow jaw, which was fixed in a psychotic grin. Idly he juggled a couple of skulls.
"As you know, I'm an undertaker. I make coffins. Well, there was this one coffin that I loved more than I can possibly say. It was a real artistic coffin. Sensitive. Painted. But I was always trying to find an owner for it. I'd go out every night, looking for one. And on the way, I met Ruth. Gladys. Rosemary. And Irving. But none of them wanted to buy it. I guess you could say we fell out because of artistic differences. They saw themselves alive – and I saw them dead!"
He strangled both skulls with a red scarf and hurled them into the wings.
Marishka was the first to advance. "The filthy scum!" she screamed.
"Scum!" roared Dracula.
"Scum!" shrieked Aleera.
"Scum!" keened Verona.
"Scum!" snarled Van Helsing.
Red light filled the Stage, as a thousand shadows detached themselves from the retreating darkness and stalked after them. Their voices rose in a crescendo.
"The filthy scum!"
"Scum!"
"Scum!"
"Scum!"
"Scum!"
The six murderers advanced inexorably, kicking, stamping, clawing at the air.
"They had it coming!"
Stamp, stamp.
They had it coming!"
Stamp, stamp.
They had it coming all along!
We didn't do it
But if we'd done it
How could you tell us that we were wrong?"
"They had it coming!"
They had it coming!"
They only had themselves to blame
If you had been there
If you had seen it
I betcha you would have done the same……"
And suddenly, it all faded away. Just the cell bars again, and the shifting forms behind them……Their whispers came to Anna's ears as they faded into the darkness……
"You pop that gum one more time……"
"Single my bloody fangs……"
"Ten times……"
"Nonlo uccida prego……"
"No. 17, the Spreadeagle……"
"Artistic differences……"
Back in her dank, dirty prison cell, Anna Valerious curled into a ball against the cold and listened to the sounds of the Cell Block.
"Pop."
"Six."
"Squish."
"Uh-uh."
"Vaseria."
"Coffins!"
End of ChapterNext chapter coming…Washing and Drying
In which much of the title action takes place.