Roswell stepped aside as the two burly cadets entered. One carried a hammer and wooden stake in his hands, and the other had a big black plastic bag labelled "Coroner" and carried a whisk broom & dustpan.
"Wh-wh-at are you guys planning to do with that stake and hammer?" you ask nervously.
"I thought it would be gagged by now," said the Cadet Officer with the stake in his hand pointing at you with the stake in an accusatory voice as he glared at Roswell.
"Didn't Van Helsing tell you?" asked Roswell, "He wants this one going to the lab intact, so you better go get the cage, and put that stuff away. As for why he's not gagged - I'm still collecting samples. Apparently, he's an amnesiac vampire."
"What!" growled the Cadet Officer angrily, "Amnesiac vampire? You're making that up, Roswell. No one told me that this wasn't a stake and bag operation, and until someone other that a snotty nosed cadet tells me, I'm following orders."
"Well, consider yourself informed that it's not a stake and bag operation," said Van Helsing from the doorway. "Nurse Lanchester and I have been looking for you everywhere Commander Riker, you left your van unattended."
"I came here, doctor, sir, and the vehicle is locked up tight," Riker responded awkwardly concealing the stake behind his back.
"Yes, you did come here, and the vehicle is locked up, but the question is why did you do this when your orders were to wait in your van?"
"Well, we did wait. Then you sent that student to get us, and so we came."
"I sent no student."
Roswell clucked her tongue, and whispered, "The plot thickens. Somebody wants this vamp dusted,and quickly, I wonder why?"
"Indeed," says Van Helsing, "Or else he wanted the van unattended. I radioed HQ they're dispatching an anti-terrorist team. Make sure that so-called student did plant a spell, charm, curse object or even something as mundane as a bomb."
"Uh, Riker didn't say the student was male," piped up Roswell.
"Was the student male or female?" Van Helsing asked.
"What d'ya mean dusted?" you ask being a bit slow on the uptake. This is all too much to process.
Riker looks concerned, he stammers, "I-I'm not exactly s-s-sure. I'm sure there was a student, but I can't remember what the student looked like, whether it was male or female or even if it was black or white. That's so weird. Corporal Wyatt, do you remember?"
"Commander, sir, I was seated in the cab of the van. I saw you talking with someone in the side mirror, but I didn't see anyone. Either they were behind the van or they were invisible. Then you came up and told me to lock up the van, and that they were ready for a dust job."
"Or they didn't cast a reflection in the mirror," added Roswell.
"A vampire?" Riker said, "But surely, I'd remember encountering a vampire."
"Not necessarily. There are reports of mind control exerted by some of the older more formidible vampires, even reports of them strolling around in broad daylight," Van Helsing stated.
"Vlad Tepes' hypnotic stare," you laugh, "I thought you guys were vampire hunters."
"What do you know of Tepes?" Van Helsing asks rushing to your side.
"Who's this tepitch dude?" asks Riker confused as though he's out of the loop again.
"You know Count Dracula - also goes by Alucard sometimes, and hails from a castle in Transylvania," you say, "Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee and Gary Oldman played him in the movies."
"Vlad Tepitch is Count Dracula?" Riker's jaw dropped, "And this guy knows him?"
"Possibly," answered Van Helsing standing over you, "Now tell me what you know about Tepes. Be quick about it."
"Okay, the real Vlad Tepes was a prince in the steppes of Transylvania - Romania when the Ottoman Empire was moving into his territory. I saw an In Search Of show where they toured his castle. He apparented had 1500 people impaled alive on wooden stakes -really posts that lined the roadways of his principality. So he was known as Vlad the Impaler. His brother or somebody related overthrew him. The one in the book that Bram Stoker created, he was larger than life and he was a vampire that sucked blood and referred to his "children of the night" and ran around in a big flowing cape and turned into a wolf or dog or bat or mist at will. And back in the 1800's he traveled to England, and a guy with the same name as you Dr. Van Helsing destroyed him in the Abbey crypt where he had taken up residence. End of vampire, at least until the sequels."
"Sequels?"
"Yeah, the movie was such a hit, they made more of them. Son of Dracula, Daughter of Dracula, Dracula Returns, Abbot & Costello Meet Dracula..."
"Abbot & Costello Meet Dracula? You're kidding right? Nobody ever made a movie like that - it would be sick to make fun of brutual killers. And Costello would've been dead before the end of the first reel," Riker blurted out.
"Shut up, Riker," Van Helsing snapped. "I think that possibly this isn't amnesia, but a slippage in the time-space continuum. Our vampire here has the memories and perhaps soul of this human in a parallel reality. A reality where Dracula met his end a century or more ago, and where vampires exist only in the memory as popular fictions. He can tell us how they defeated this unholy menace then, and perhaps we can finally rid our world of the Vampiric Legions."
"Yeah, but if he's a human from another reality trapped in this vampire's body, where's the vampire?" asked Wyatt.
"Alternate reality?" you ask, "Say like in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. There was this demon Anya- Anyanka- and she had this magic charm and would grant wishes with the worst possible outcome. Roswell! That paper in your bra, that's how you grant wishes."
"Roswell?" Van Helsing says turning to face the female cadet.
She has backed toward the doorway, and says, "Well, doctor, I'd love to stay and chat, but I think I really ought to be going."
She steps backward through the doorway trying to close the door behind her, but Nurse Lanchester is blocking her escape. Lanchester shakes Roswell, and a folded slip of paper drops from below her knee length uniform skirt. The paper wafts to the floor. Everyone lunges for the slip of paper. It's the thing dreams and nightmares are made of -