“But I … but I … but I…”
“But you … but you … but you … but shut up! Which finger do you wish to sacrifice?”
Foxxxy held out her hand and looked at the floor. “My pinky, Mother Zombie.”
“Your pinky it shall be.” And then Mother Zombie chopped off Zombie Sister Foxxxy’s entire hand. After Foxxxy stopped moaning some six minutes later, Mother Zombie smiled and said, “Oh, dear me. My aim isn’t what it used to be.”
This was why nobody liked being called to the courtyard.
Presently, Zombie Sisters Brandi and Cinnamon knew better than to dawdle, so they hustled after Mother Zombie as if they were squirrels chasing nuts … that is, if the squirrels happened to be undead squirrels slogging through the Seventh Ring of Hell with Sisyphean rocks strapped to their backs. In other words, Brandi and Cinnamon didn’t move at a great rate of speed, as was the case with all zombies, a point that has now been hammered to death.
Once they caught up with Mother Zombie, Cinnamon curtsied, took a knee, and said, “To what do we owe the honor of a private audience, Mother?”
Brandi also curtsied, then kneeled down beside Cinnamon. “Yes, Mother, it’s always a thrill to be invited to your office, because…”
Without warning—and with surprising quickness—Mother Zombie kicked Cinnamon in the chest, then punched Brandi in the jaw. “Both of you, shut it. Your grating voices and your lies about being pleased to meet with me make my undead soul cry out in pain, and I’ve neither the time nor the patience for this sort of blather. Be honest with me, Zombie Sisters: you’re not honored to be in my presence.”
Brandi and Cinnamon said nothing.
Mother Zombie nodded. “Silence means consent. But this comes as little surprise, as you both despise me. I’m perfectly content with that, though, because I, too, despise you. Let’s finish this discussion so you can get out of my sight, and I, yours.”
In unison, Cinnamon and Brandi said, “Yes, Mother.”
“Silence! Not another word from either of you.” And then, for the sake of symmetry, Mother Zombie punched Cinnamon in the jaw, then kicked Brandi in the chest. “Now. You two are Vampire Sister Maria’s closest, no, only friends on the premises; am I correct?”
Brandi and Cinnamon said nothing.
Mother Zombie gave the Zombie Sisters simultaneous backhands. “Answer me, idiots!”
Near tears, Brandi whispered, “You said you didn’t want another word from either of us, Mother.”
“I say a lot of things, Brandi. You’re intelligent enough to figure out which of the things you should take to heart. You two are intelligent beings. Correct?” (Incorrect. Brandi and Cinnamon were far from intelligent beings. For that matter, Brandi and Cinnamon were subhuman morons who were considered to be among the stupidest Zombies in the Abbey, and being that the Abbey was a haven of idiocy, that’s saying something.) When neither responded, Mother Zombie repeated, “You two are Vampire Sister Maria’s only friends on the premises, correct?” After a moment of silence, Mother Zombie said, “You may answer me now.”
Cinnamon said, “In this instance, friend is a relative term.”
Brandi said, “If you’re being technical, Maria isn’t a friend, so much as a somewhat tolerated associate.”
Cinnamon said, “We’ve tried to be friends for realsies, but she’s proven to be, well, a problem.”
Brandi said, “A big problem.”
Cinnamon said, “You see, Vampire Sister Maria is a bit of a flibbertijibbet.”
Mother Zombie said, “What in the Devil’s name is a flibbertijibbet?”
Brandi explained, “A whore.”
“Ah,” Mother Zombie said. “Flibbertijibbet. Whore. Makes sense to me. I’m not sure how Hammerstein would feel about it, but, you know, fick him.”
“Who’s Hammerstein?” Brandi asked.
Mother Zombie said, “None of your business. Getting back to Maria…”
Cinnamon said, “Now that I think about it, Maria might be more than a bit of a flibbertijibbet.”
Brandi said, “You mean Maria is a huge whore?”
“Yes, Brandi,” Cinnamon said, “I mean Maria is a huge whore.”
Mother Zombie said, “We need this huge whore business confirmed.” She cupped her hands over her mouth and roared, “Zombie Sister Jazzmine! Zombie Sister Diamond! Zombie Sister Bubbles! Join us in the courtyard immediately!” Twenty-seven minutes later, Jazzmine, Diamond, and Bubbles knelt beside Brandi and Cinnamon. Smiling, Mother Zombie said, “You made it in record time. Now tell me, my darlings, how do you feel about Maria?”
Jazzmine said, “I think I speak for my fellow Sisters when I say that she’s the worst Vampire we have ever met, but we suck it up and deal.”
Bubbles snickered. “Vampire. Suck it up. Nice.”
Mother Zombie screamed, “Shut it, Bubbles!” To Jazzmine, she said, “What’s so awful about her?”
“What isn’t awful about her?” Jazzmine asked. “She ignores every established Abbey rule, she’s unattractive as all get-out, and that hair. I mean, would a little conditioner once in a while kill her?”
Zombie Sister Diamond added, “And can we talk about her behavior in the cafeteria? She puts piles and piles of food on her tray, and never takes a bite. It’s always, ‘I want blood’ this, and ‘I want blood’ that. And yet she never leaves any dessert for the rest of us.”
“So not only is she a whore,” Brandi noted, “but she’s a selfish whore.”
Mother Zombie nodded. “A selfish whore indeed.”
Cinnamon told Mother Zombie, “Though we all agree Maria is a selfish whore, I don’t want you to throw her out onto the street.”
Diamond said, “I concur. Despite her selfishness and her whorishness, we need somebody like that around here. The lot of you are truly disgusting, of course, and a day without true disgustingness is like a day without holding a moonbeam in your hand, but when Maria brings home a bloodied corpse, it’s far from your run-of-the-mill repulsive. It’s … it’s … it’s magically repulsive. Watching her suck those dead bodies dry is foul. Nothing is more vomit inducing than seeing a Vampire have lunch, and a day without throwing up is like…”
Bubbles interrupted, “… a day without holding a moonbeam in your hand. We all agree.”
“Here here,” Jazzmine said, “Quite the will o’ the wisp, Maria is.”
“Goodness, all these new phrases,” Mother Zombie said. “I’m out of the loop. What’s a will o’ the wisp?”
Brandi explained, “A whore.”
Jazzmine said, “No, Brandi, a flibbertijibbet is a whore. A will o’ the wisp is a magical being who elevates everything around them with their mere presence.”
Bubbles asked, “Can a flibbertijibbet be a will o’ the wisp?”
Diamond said, “No, but a will o’ the wisp can be a flibbertijibbet.”
Bubbles reasoned, “But a flibbertijibbet can elevate everything around them with their mere presence … or at least they can elevate one thing around them with their mere presence, if you know what I mean.” (They all knew what she meant. Even Brandi.)
Cinnamon asked, “So is Maria a flibbertijibbet, or a will o’ the wisp, or some sort of combination of the two?”
Jazzmine said, “She might not be either. Maria is as unpredictable as the rain…”
At the same time, Bubbles, Cinnamon, Diamond, Jazzmine, and Brandi said, “She’s a whore!”
“Oftentimes a pain.”
“A whore!”
“No brain. Inane. A bane.”
“A whore, a whore, a whore!”
Mother Zombie held up her hand and nodded. “I think I see what’s happening here. One of the deadly sins has infiltrated our home. Envy.”
Brandi scowled. “What could Maria possibly have that would make us jealous?”
“Like every, how you say, flibbertijibbet,” Mother Zombie said, “Maria possesses the ability to fornicate. And we Zombies, thanks to the frustrating lack of non-
lubricative discharge from our lady-parts, don’t.”
“How do you solve a problem like dead lady-parts?” Diamond asked.
Mother Zombie pouted, “That’s a problem that will never be solved. For Zombies, arousal is impossible, sort of like, well, like holding a moonbeam in your hand.” She gave Diamond, Jazzmine, and Bubbles a disdainful glare. “The three of you, return to your chambers.”
“Mother Zombie,” Bubbles asked, “why would you demand to see us, then send us on our way without really accomplishing much of anything, plot-wise?”
“Because I thought you could lend this scene some tight three-part vocal harmonies…”
“What are tight three-part vocal harmonies?” Diamond asked.
“… but I was obviously mistaken. So be gone. Brandi and Cinnamon, go find that flying flibbertijibbet o’ the wisp and bring her to me.”
Sixty-six-some-odd hours later, Brandi and Cinnamon shuffled dejectedly into Mother Zombie’s office. “Mother Zombie?” Cinnamon asked nervously.
“Yes, Cinnamon?”
“Maria is gone.”
Brandi said, “Perhaps we should have put a cowbell in between her legs.” She paused, then added, “But the whore would probably enjoy that.”
Mother Zombie asked, “Have you looked by the lake? You know how much she adores the Swamp Monsters.”
“We searched everywhere,” Cinnamon said, “even in some, um, er, unusual places.”
Mother Zombie perked up. “Unusual? Details, child.”
Cinnamon said, “We looked at Chez Cristin, and Coco NR1, and Donau Dreams, and Erotikbörse, and the Funpalast, and Helga’s Kabinsex, and the Kontakof, and Prinse Eugen Stasse, and Zucker Puppen, and…”
“Stop, Cinnamon,” Mother Zombie said. “I know not of any of these establishments. Are they Vampire meeting places?”
“Possibly.”
“What do you mean, possibly?”
“Well, Vampires could meet there.”
Brandi said, “But flibbertijibbets definitely meet there.”
Mother Zombie lifted her desk above her head and threw it across the room, where it hit the wall, cracked into several dozen pieces, and fell onto a pile of previously thrown desks. “You mean to tell me that you spent almost four days going in and out of brothels?!” she roared.
In unison, Brandi and Cinnamon said, “Yes, Mother Zombie.”
“You two do realize that Maria isn’t literally a prostitute. When we call her a whore, we mean that she’s of ill repute, not that she has intercourse in exchange for money.”
“As far as you know,” Cinnamon pointed out.
Nodding, Mother Zombie said, “I’ll grant you that, Cinnamon—as far as we know, Vampire Sister Maria doesn’t fornicate for pay…”
From a ways away, the three Zombies heard a door slam shut, followed in quick succession by a vase breaking, a bell ringing, a cat yowling, a Zombie moaning, a chair crumbling, a tympani boinging, and a Vampire cursing.
With her black cat suit in tatters—in the last revolting days of the thirties, cat suits were the favored uniform of Austrian Vampires—and her alabaster skin glowing in the dark, and crusted blood dotting her face, Maria stood in the doorway of Mother Zombie’s office and grinned. What little light there was in the room was drawn to her fangs, which shimmered like pearls.
“Good eeeeeevening, ladies,” she said, then clapped her hands together once and asked, “So what’d I miss?”
Mother Zombie shook her head sadly. “Maria. Maria. Maria. Say it loud, and there’s music playing. Say it soft, and it’s almost like praying.”
Brandi said, “Wrong musical, whore.”
Without breaking eye contact with Brandi, Mother Zombie reached behind her, picked up the nearest piece of office equipment—which happened to be a dot matrix printer—lifted it above her head, and said, “Brandi, Cinnamon, I’m sick of the sight of you. Be gone.”
Ducking to avoid being clocked by Mother Zombie’s printer, Brandi and Cinnamon said, “Yes, Mother,” then left. On their way out of the office, Brandi and Cinnamon both accidentally-on-purpose elbowed Maria on either side of her head. Unfazed, Maria than purposely-on-purpose kicked them across the hallway, sending the Zombie Sisters into the wall at a speed of 42.618 kilometers per hour.
After Cinnamon stood up and readjusted her head, she told Maria, “You repulse me, darling.”
Maria curtsied. “That’s the kindest thing you have ever said to me, dear Cinnamon.” She nodded at Brandi. “Do I repulse you, sweetie?”
Brandi projectile vomited up seven of the nine brains she’d eaten that afternoon right onto the front of Maria’s cat suit. The regurgitate was brown, and loaded with living, wiggling worms.
Maria took a deep inhale, absorbed the scent, grinned, and said, “Oh, Brandi, I love you most of all!”
From her chamber, Mother Zombie roared, “Enough dilly-dallying, ladies! Brandi, Cinnamon, be gone! Maria, come closer.”
The striking, hurl-covered Vampire approached the desk, dropped to her knees, and licked Mother Zombie’s hand. Mother Zombie gagged, then backhanded Maria, first on the left cheek, and then on the right; it sounded as if she had hit a stone. Maria, who didn’t flinch, said, “Thank you, Mother Zombie. May I have another?”
“No. Two slaps is even too good for the likes of you.” Mother Zombie gestured to the chair in front of where her desk used to be and said, “Sit.”
Maria followed her order, then said, “Oh, Mother Zombie, I’m so sorry for departing from the Abbey without permission, but when my muse muses, I have to follow it. The front entrance was open, and the hills were beckoning, and my fangs needed release, and the scent of fresh kill was so overpowering and seductive that before I knew it…” She again reached for Mother Zombie’s hand; Mother Zombie pulled it away, then, for good measure, punched Maria in the chest. Again, it was like she had hit stone, and again, Maria didn’t flinch. “Oh, please, Mother, might I beg for mercy?”
“Fine, Maria. Go ahead and beg. Beg like you have never begged. Beg like you’re a dog. Which you are.”
“Mother Zombie, I beg your mercy.”
“You can’t have it. Even though you have brought me five-score fresh kills over the past month, you shall not be forgiven for your transgressions, and your blatant disregard for Zombie Law.”
“Then why did you allow me to ask you for mercy?”
Mother Zombie shrugged. “Who am I to refuse a request?”
“But I just requested your mercy, and you refused that request”
“I can refuse a request when I choose to refuse a request.”
“But you just said, ‘Who am I to refuse a request?’” Maria pointed out. “Thus, I refuse your refusal.”
“This is my Abbey, and I make the decisions, so I refuse your refusal of my refusal.”
“Then I refuse your refusal of my refusal of your refusal.”
“And I refuse your … wait, what were we talking about again?”
Maria scratched her head. “I haven’t the foggiest.”
“Nor do I.” She stood up, elbowed Maria in the temple, then said, “Just tell me why you left the Abbey without permission.”
Utterly unaffected by the punch, Maria rose and smiled dreamily. “You see, Mother Zombie, the summer sky was so seductive, and the air smelled of both life and death, and my cortex was so engorged with singing white cells and dancing red cells that I just had to be a part of it. Also, the pressure in my head was great, and had I not let my blood flow onto the mountain grass, my brain might well have exploded.”
Mother Zombie mumbled, “I wish.”
Maria cupped her ear. “Excuse me?”
“Nothing. Continue.”
“Very well. The Untersberg was calling for me … no, yelling for me … no, screaming for me! And when the Untersberg talks, people listen.”
Mother Zombie squinched up her face. “The Untersberg? What’s the Untersberg?”
“The Untersberg is a mountain massif of t
he Berchtesgaten Alps that straddles the borders of Berchtesgaten, Germany, and our very own town of Salzburg. The Berchtesgaten Alps are popular with tourists and Austrian Vampires alike because they’re a mere sixteen kilometers to Salzburg. The first recorded ascent of the Berchtesgaten Alps was in the first half of the twelfth Century by Eberwein, a member of the Augustinian Hydra Monastery at Berchtesgaten. As you may recall, the mountain lent its name to an 1829 opera by Johann Nepomuk, Baron of Poissl.”
Mother Zombie stared at Maria. “Could you have not just said the Alps?” she asked.
“No. Like all female Vampires, I’m quite precise.”
Mother Zombie mumbled, “Like all female Vampires, you’re quite a know-it-all bitch.”
Maria cupped her ear. “Excuse me?”
“Nothing. Continue.”
“The point is, that’s my land. I was transformed with an eternal bite on it. I was brought up on it. I’ve killed on it. I’ve feasted on it. I’ve bled upon it.” She paused, inched her hand slowly toward her waist, then said, “I’ve fornicated on it.”
Mother Zombie took a ruler from under her cloak—a ruler fashioned from the corpses of ten King Brown snakes—and slapped Maria’s hand just before it moved below her beltline. “Do that on your own time, please.”
Maria gave her lady-parts a rueful flick, then said, “That’s what compelled me to come to the Abbey, Mother Zombie.”
Rolling her eyes, Mother Zombie said, “For the love of all that’s evil in the world, do I have to listen to this story again? How many times must you…”
Maria launched into her tale. “The year was 1331. I was a young woman just getting in touch with her sensuality…”
“For the love of Jesus Christ burning in Hölle, yes, I know…”
“… and I’d come down from the mountain and fly to the top of a building and look over into your courtyard. I’d see the Zombie Sisters eating their luscious brains, and I’d hear their mournful moans as they made their way to vespers…”
“You have mentioned this several hundred…”
“… then one afternoon, while skipping gaily atop the Berchtesgaten, I was attacked by a bat. A beautiful, beautiful bat…”
My Favorite Fangs: The Story of the Von Trapp Family Vampires Page 2