Chapter
8
~
Emeril Live: The Special Vampire Episode ~
Steve watched, mesmerized, as the
chubby man in the chef's uniform chopped up veggies, dusted them with a mixture
of spices, and let out a mighty cry of "BAM!" before drizzling them
with olive oil and sliding the entire plate into the oven behind him. He turned to face the audience, then reached
underneath the table of his kitchen and pulled out a brown, worn-looking burlap
sack.
"Now I've got a
surprise for all of ya," he said, reaching into the bag with one hand and
grabbing at something.
"I'm givin' everyone
in the audience... a lifetime supply of gaaaahlic!"
Suddenly, everything
changed. The oven behind him roared to
life and belched out flames and smoke, then sprouted wings (which didn't seem
nearly large enough to support its weight) and began flying around the
room. Tentacles with deadly, razor-sharp
chef's knives sprouted out from every drawer of every cabinet, waving back and
forth and chopping anything within reach.
And finally, the chef removed his hand from the bag to reveal a handful
of whole garlic cloves. He crushed them
slightly in his hand, causing the oils within the vegetable to seep out and
filling the air with a powerful garlicky scent.
And then, he swung his arm forward, sending the deadly cloves rocketing
out into the crowd.
The last thing Steve
saw was one especially large clove flying straight at his face, and then
everything went black...
Each of the vampires suddenly jumped
in alarm when Steve sat up in his bed, sweating like crazy and staring straight
ahead with surprisingly wide eyes for someone who had just awakened. Before anyone could even ask him what
happened, he took a look around and then sighed, realizing that whatever had
scared him was nowhere to be seen.
Until, of course,
Rhombus turned on the TV and the familiar chef's voice came blasting out.
"Now, I'm gonna
add some gaaaahlic!"
Steve jumped and
screamed, dragging the bedsheets with him as he ran into the other room and hid
behind the door.
"Steve,"
Elvis said, "Calm down. It's just
the TV. There's not really any
garlic."
For a few seconds,
the young vampire seemed afraid to even peek back into his own room, where
Emeril's voice from the television continued to announce a variety of
ingredients he was adding to some sort of dish.
Finally, however, he seemed to calm down and walked back in.
"Oh... it's...
everything's okay," he mumbled to himself.
He then turned toward the other vampires and spoke up a bit. "I'm okay, guys! Just had a bad dream,
that's all."
Crurotarsi blinked,
then stopped and thought about what she had just seen for a few seconds. She then came over and sat down next to Steve
on the edge of one of the beds.
"You had a
nightmare about Emeril?", she said, looking almost shocked. "The same guy you were going on about
yesterday, with the 'BAM!' and the 'gaaaahlic' and everything?"
"Yeah..."
Orange juice and milk
went flying as nearly all of the vampires cracked up laughing, with only Pugh
managing to hold his drink safely inside his mouth (though that didn't stop him
from grinning and just barely holding back a few snickers.) Zamboni, who had previously been holding a
blood packet in one hand, slapped his knees in a fit of laughter... and caused
blood to splatter all over the wall next to where he was standing, making the
formerly squeaky-clean hotel room look like the scene of a murder. This, of course, just made the group start
laughing harder than ever, with even Steve joining in despite starting out as
the butt of the joke.
Once everything in
the room had finally calmed down, the vampires resumed their breakfast (with
Zamboni deciding to have a low-blood meal and drinking a bit of milk
instead.) Once the eating was over with,
they all took turns taking showers and changing into clothes that wouldn't
stand out too much in a studio audience; Pugh, for once, was not wearing a
cape, and Zamboni had "dressed down" a bit from his usual suit and
tie. Rhombus, Elvis, and Crurotarsi, of
course, didn't have much trouble with that part, as their usual clothes were
more than normal enough already.
Steve, on the other
hand...
"Oh no,"
Crurotarsi said, glancing over at him.
"Please don't tell me you're going to the show dressed up
like some kind of hobo samurai."
"But... I didn't
bring any other clothes!"
The other vampires
groaned.
"Well... could
you at least take off the shoulder-armor?", Elvis asked, tapping the
series of metal plates lightly.
"We're going to a TV studio.
There's not going to be any fighting, so you don't need anything like that."
Steve shrugged and
removed the piece of armor, stuffing it into his black garbage bag. He took a step toward the door, but was
stopped by the other vampires once again.
"What? I took it
off!"
Rhombus glanced down,
then back up at Steve's face.
"But you're
still wearing that sword on your belt."
"Yeah,"
Pugh added, "I don't think the security at Emeril's show would take it too
well if somebody walked in carrying a weapon... even if it is just a wooden
sword."
Steve groaned and
removed the sword (along with its sheath) from his belt, stuffing it inside the
trash bag as well. He then tied up the
bag, as if afraid someone was going to steal his stuff while he was gone. With Steve finally looking fairly normal (or
at least as normal as someone can possibly look when wearing a cheap imitation
of a samurai outfit in the middle of a modern-day American city), the vampires
all headed out the door and down the hall toward the elevator.
After a bit of walking, a lot of
subway-riding, and finally a lot more walking, the vampires had arrived at the
TV studio where Emeril Lagasse's show was being filmed. They moved into the crowd of humans swarming
into the building, holding up their tickets as they passed the guards at the
door to confirm that there were indeed six empty seats reserved for them inside
the building. A bit more walking later,
and the entire group had reached the large, auditorium-like room where the set
of Emeril Live was located.
The stage looked more
like a kitchen, with tables and stoves and kitchen sinks set up all across it
and all sorts of food sitting about, just waiting to be chopped up and cooked
in front of a live audience. Not too far
away were several round tables where various famous people (and a few
not-so-famous ones) were sitting, and a few feet back from those tables were
the seats where everyone else had to sit, crammed together in long rows. The vampires checked their seat numbers, then
headed down toward the front rows, eventually ending up sitting as a group in the
third row. Next to the vampires were the
creepy family who had given Pugh their tickets; the wife waved at Pugh and
smiled, causing him to give a half-hearted wave back and then briefly wonder
why the police hadn't arrested her for multiple murders yet. He didn't have too much time to wonder,
however, as his thoughts were soon drowned out by applause from all around when
Emeril himself came onstage.
The vampires sat back
and watched for the next hour as Emeril prepared all sorts of foods that most
of them had never heard of. Of course,
most of the food on this particular episode contained some sort of meat,
something made from grain, garlic, or all three, so the vampires wouldn't have
been able to eat much of it anyway. Pugh
had gone backstage before the show and informed the chef's assistants about the
many different foods that the vampires couldn't eat without getting sick,
however, so being chosen to get a free sample wasn't going to be a problem.
For the first
forty-five minutes, the most unusual thing that happened was Steve standing up
and yelling "BAM!" along with Emeril when he added a certain mix of
spices to one of his recipes. A yank on
the shirt from Rhombus and a glare from Crurotarsi later, however, and Steve
calmed down and stayed in his seat for fear of being punched in the shoulder
(especially now that his shoulder-protecting armor was absent.) Just when Emeril began to bring out the
ingredients for the dessert, however, two scruffy-looking guys from the crowd
got out of their seats and began to head toward the stage.
Pugh blinked a couple
of times as he noticed the two, not quite sure what he was seeing.
"Those two
heading for the stage... are they...?"
On closer inspection,
the entire group could see that the two were indeed vampires. They were not quite as grungy-looking as the
inbred redneck vampires of Alabama, but at the same time they were far removed
from the rest of the vampires that Pugh and company had met in New York so far. Their hair was scruffy and looked unwashed, and
their clothes looked like what you would expect an inner-city teenager to be
wearing: t-shirts smudged with fast-food grease and all sorts of condiments,
and baggy jeans with holes worn through them at the knees.
"What are those
guys doing?", Elvis whispered, glancing back and forth between Pugh
and the two unfamiliar vampires.
It was at this point
that Emeril noticed the vampires climbing up onto the stage. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a
walkie-talkie, holding down the button for just a second as he called for
security. Seconds later, two men in
dark-colored security guard uniforms charged onto the set from backstage,
heading straight toward Emeril's unwanted guests.
One of the security
guards took a swing at the nearest of the two vampires, but missed by a
mile. The other guard charged forward
and attempted to get the other vampire in a headlock, but this was quickly
turned on him--the vampire grabbed the guard's arm, then flipped him over his shoulder
and slammed him back-first against the stage floor.
"Damn," Zamboni grumbled, "This isn't good. Charging the stage and going after Emeril on live television? What the hell are these guys thinking?"
"From the look
of them," Crurotarsi said, "I'd say... not much."
The guard who had
been slammed to the stage attempted to get up, but was soon bowled over by the
other guard, who staggered backward after taking a punch to the face from one
of the vampire delinquents. They stopped
to laugh at the guards for a second, then turned and continued their advance
toward the star of the show.
Steve glanced over at
his shoulder, then down at his belt, and groaned.
"Aww,
man!", he said. "You guys told
me there wasn't going to be any fighting! I could be up there saving Emeril from
those guys right now if I had my sword!"
"That's not all
that bad of an idea," Pugh said, cracking his knuckles and slowly standing
up from his seat. "Okay,
everyone... you guys think you can fight off those two without wrecking the
set?"
The rest of the group
nodded. They were about to stand up and
go after the two vampires when, suddenly, something they hadn't counted on
happened.
"So, you guys
wanna mess with my show, eh?"
Emeril fought back.
The two vampires
charged at the chef, but he was surprisingly quick for a man of his age and
size; he ducked behind the kitchen counter as they swung at him, causing their
blows to harmlessly swish past the top of his head. He then stood up, now wielding a chef's knife
in one hand and a large clove of garlic in the other. The two paused for a moment, then snarled and
resumed their attack, one of them knocking the knife out of Emeril's hand and
sending it flying off into the air.
Undeterred, Emeril took a swing of his own and clocked one of the two
vampires right in the face with a strong right hook, sending him wobbling
backward. When the other vampire charged
again, the chef got into a fighting stance and then lunged forward, cutting his
attacker's move short with a knee to the groin.
"Oooof!"
Needless to say, the
vampire fell backward, squirming around on the floor and clutching his crotch
in pain. His buddy recovered from
Emeril's punch and went after him again, but found himself on the recieving end
of a headbutt that completely threw off his balance. As the dazed vampire struggled to keep
himself on his feet, Emeril raised up the clove of garlic in his hand and
smiled.
"You guys look
hungry," he said, tossing the clove into the air and catching it. "How d'ya like the sound of some gaaaahlic?"
Before he could
respond, the chef rushed forward and smashed the clove into the vampire's
mouth.
"BAM!"
The defeated vampire
stagged backward a bit, then promptly fell back off the edge of the stage and
crashed into an empty chair, sending it toppling over. The clove of garlic fell out of his mouth and
rolled across the floor, where it was quickly scooped up as a souvenier by a
member of the audience.
Seeing his friend
lying on the ground unconscious with a bad case of garlic rash around his mouth
gave the one remaining vampire enough resolve to push back the pain in his
groin, and he slowly stood back up and turned to face Emeril once again.
"Now," the
chef said, opening up a cabinet and taking out a rather large cast-iron frying
pan, "Whaddya say we kick things up a notch?"
The vampire, being
unfamiliar with Emeril's famous quotes, foolishly stepped forward and wound up
for another punch. Before he even knew
what hit him, Emeril swung the frying pan, smashing into the vampire with such
great force that he literally went flying off the stage, clearing the
first two rows of the audience before coming in for a landing right in Steve's
lap.
"Huh!? Euuugh!
Get offa me!"
Steve quickly shoved
the nearly-unconscious vampire over to the next seat, where the creepy
kid-drowning woman was sitting. He
gurgled and coughed for a second, then puked right in her lap before passing
out and slipping to the floor. Of
course, her first reaction was to scream at the top of her lungs.
"Eeeeewww!"
She stood up so
suddenly that most of the vampire vomit slid down off of her dress and
splattered all over the one who made it in the first place, then hurried out of
the audience and rushed off to the bathroom.
It was only a matter of seconds before her clueless husband and
brainwashed children got up and went after her, leaving the rest of the row
open for more security guards to come and drag away the defeated vampire. After clearing out both of them (as well as
what was left of the barf), the guards gave the "all-clear" to Emeril
and headed back off of the stage.
The rest of the show
went on without a hitch, with Emeril finishing his various dishes just in time
for the show to fit into its timeslot... though he did need to send one of his
assistants to get another clove of garlic, as he didn't really want to use the
one that had been shoved into the mouth of a vampire. Despite the relative peace of their
surroundings, however, the vampires in the audience were now a bit nervous.
"Pssst,"
Steve whispered to Rhombus, "You think anyone else noticed those guys were
vampires?"
"No idea."
"Emeril
apparently did," Crurotarsi added. "Why else would he use garlic
as a weapon?"
"Yeah,"
Zamboni said, leaning over a bit so he could talk to Steve and the others
without raising his voice too much.
"Seems like the chef actually knows his stuff. It's everybody else in the crowd that might
be a problem..."
At this point, they
noticed a few people in crowd giving them odd looks for all the whispering back
and forth, so the vampires quieted down and just watched as Emeril put the
finishing touches on the last part of the main meal and then moved on to the
dessert. It wasn't an overly complicated
dessert, so he was done in just a few minutes and proceeded to hand out samples
to the people sitting at the tables (and
even a few to the first rows of the audience.)
Once the show was all
over with and the audience had begun to get up and leave, Pugh and his friends
attempted to blend in with the crowd and headed outside as quickly as
possible. Nobody in the crowd seemed to
have noticed that the group shared the same pointy ears, pale skin, and sharp teeth
as the two thugs who had briefly interrupted the show, but the vampires didn't
want to hang around too long and risk someone making the connection and
freaking out.
A few minutes later,
they had left the television studio's building and headed off down the
sidewalk. A few rides on the subway (and
a bit more walking) later, they were back at the hotel.
"Who wants to
bet those guys end up on the ten o'clock news?", Zamboni said, turning
toward the rest of the group as they approached the door.
"Depends,"
Elvis said. "If the government
realizes they're vampires right away, the whole thing'll probably get covered
up and never even make it onto the news."
He stopped for a
second, and his eyes widened slightly.
"Except...
Emeril's show is a live broadcast, so... the whole fight's already been on TV
by now."
"Which means
they're probably going to fall back on one of the old standbys," Zamboni
said. "You know... blame it on the
drunks, or biker gangs on PCP, or maybe some escapees from the local insane
asylum."
"Uh...
well," Steve spoke up, "The guy who landed on me sure smelled
like a drunk..."
"And they both
acted like they belong in an insane asylum," Crurotarsi added. "Probably no PCP, though, unless
Emeril's secretly some kind of superhero."
Rhombus nodded.
"Yeah... they'll
probably just pass them off as drunk, crazy humans."
"What about the
ears, though?", Elvis asked.
Immediately, the other vampires started cracking up. "How will they explain the pointy
ears?"
"Heh... yeah,
right," Zamboni said, snickering.
"Humans, notice pointy ears on a vampire? It'll never happen."
"Yeah,"
Steve said, "And if they do notice 'em, they'll just think they
were wearing fake ears. Y'know, like the
Vulcans on Star Trek or something."
Agreeing that the
vampire incident probably wouldn't cause that much of a fuss on the news (or,
at least, that it would be blamed on drug-addled humans if it did), the group
headed into the hotel and took the stairs up to their rooms on the third floor,
bypassing the elevator for once just because they had been sitting so long
already and didn't feel like doing much standing in place. Before too long, they were back in their
rooms safely, and of course Steve immediately flipped on his room's TV.
"Hey,
look," he said, pointing to the screen.
"We're just in time for the news!"
The others in his
room gathered around, sitting at the nearby table or on their beds, while the
other half of the group watched from their own TV in the other room. They all collectively groaned when they saw
the very first news story of the night.
"Vampires attack
on the set of Emeril Live," Elvis said, reading the headline right
off of the screen.
"Well, that's
just great," Crurotarsi said.
"The one time that drunk, crazy gang members on PCP really would
make sense as a cover story, and they don't use it?"
"Hold on a
minute," Pugh said. "They
could just be claiming that they were part of some kind of vampire-wannabe
subculture. Let's not panic just
yet."
A few seconds later,
the newsroom scene switched over to one of a hospital, where one of the two
security guards injured in the battle was lying in one of the beds. The first words out of his mouth, of course,
were confirming that what attacked him was not just a human with fake
fangs and pasty white makeup.
Apparently, the guys who run the government cover-ups for these kinds of
things just weren't paying too much attention today.
All around the room,
there was the sound of several vampires' jaws dropping. Well, there would have been if that actually
made much of a sound, anyway. It was
really more of a sudden, awkward silence, with the sound of the TV blabbering
on in the background.
"Okay,"
Steve said, turning back toward Pugh.
"Can we panic now?"
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