“It’s Big Bad, and some of his friends,” Axel said, almost choking on his words.
“That’s strange,” Loki squinted, making sure he wasn’t imagining what he’d seen. Big Bad wasn’t the only one with the girls.
The other boy next to Big Bad was…
“Donnie Cricketkiller?” Loki said. “What’s he doing here?”
“You know this Cricketkiller?” Axel inquired.
“He’s a ruthless rival vampire hunter,” Loki said. “I wonder how he got to Sorrow, and if someone also paid him to kill the vampire princess.”
Loki’s heart beat slightly faster. He couldn’t imagine that Donnie was going to kill the vampire princess first and deprive him of going back home.
“I guess this means that once they show us the way to cross the swamp, you’ll have to be beat Donnie to the princess if you want to get the job done.”
“I think not. The best he can do is stake. I doubt he knows anything about Dreamhunting,” Loki said. “This just makes no sense, why Big Bad and Cricketkiller?”
“Bad seeds end up in the same basket. What about Tweedledum, you know her?”
“Who’s Tweedledum?”
“She’s one of the girls. I call all pairs of girls Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Dum and Dee for short.”
“Dum and Dee?”
“Just go with it,” Axel insisted. “I have to name things, or I get…confused—I once named my microwave Samantha.”
“Why?”
“You name your car Carmen, and frown at me for naming my microwave Samantha?”
“I mean why Samantha? It’s a microwave.”
“Samantha was sexy; she melted frozen food, because she was hot. Get it? I used it to dry my cat’s hair, too—that was before it exploded in the microwave.”
“And you wonder why animals don’t like you?”
Axel looked like he’d been hit by a speeding train. “OK, OK,” he said, snapping. “So here is how we’ll name them. The redhead is Dee, blonde is Dum,” Axel giggled. “Get it? The blonde is Dum? Funny huh?”
Loki saw Dum pull out a mirror from her purse, to check if the splattering mud had hit her face. Big Bad jumped near her, making silly zombie faces, with stiff hands and legs. He snatched the mirror from Dum’s hand and ran away with it toward the middle of the tombstones.
“Let’s try this,” Big Bad sneered, holding the mirror with one hand and a beer can that was foaming over in the other. He looked tipsy, glaring at the mirror and saying, “Snow White, Snow White, Snow White.“
“It doesn’t work like that,” Dum laughed. “It’s not Snow White. It’s Bloody Mary, you fool. If you say her name three times while alone in the bathroom in the dark, she will come out of the mirror and do bad things to you.”
“No one does bad things to Big Bad,” he said, hugging Dum and tickling her.
“Bloody Mary creeps me out,” Axel whispered to Loki. “When I was a kid—“
“Could you stop commenting on everything as if this is a movie you’ve seen before?” Loki gritted his teeth. “Munch on something.”
“What’s that?” Dum asked Big Bad, pointing at the bag on his back.
“It’s my ghost-hunting-vampire-busting tool bag,” he snorted like King Kong.
Donnie Cricketkiller laughed mockingly at Big Bad, “You don’t need all that; a stake like mine will do.”
“You’re not going to try to kill her, right?” Dum looked worried at the serious Donnie. “We said we’d have fun in the castle and if anything strange happens, we’d call it a night and go home. I have to be back before two or my mom will notice my absence.”
“Donnie is a vampire hunter, baby,” Big Bad told Dum. “And there is a big reward for him if he kills her.”
“If I see that bratty vampire princess, I’ll stake her,” Donnie snorted. “Huzza!” he clicked cans with Dee.
“This group is wicked,” Axel whispered. “The kind you want to die first in horror movies.”
Loki grinned at Axel again.
“B-horror movies?” Axel shrugged his shoulders. Loki was too serious for him sometimes.
Loki didn’t reply, staring at him with intensity.
“Slasher movies?” Axel guessed. “Alright, I’ll zip it.”
“Poor Donnie,” Loki turned back to watch the boys and girls. “He doesn’t know that she can only be killed in her dreams.”
“In her dreams? What’s all this stuff you keep saying about Dreamhunters and dreams?” Axel said then acted like his mouth had a zipper and pretended to zip it shut.
“Hey,” Dum said to Donnie. “We’re just having a little Amityville Horror fun where everyone survives the scary house and returns home alright.”
“Who said killing her wouldn’t be fun?” Donnie smirked.
Big Bad laughed. “You’re right. Killing her would be fun. After all, she has been causing our town problems. I like that,” he gulped his beer. Glock. Glock. Glock. Then he threw it in Axel’s direction. Axel ducked as the can whizzed over his head and landed in an open grave full of other beer cans.