Read by Oliver Yellop
Dracula Lord of Darkness, scourge of Romania, drinker of blood and defiler of virgins, prince of the night, terror of the ages, beast-master of many forms and dread count of Transylvania since time immemorial, licks his razor-sharp incisors in a fiendish fashion and laughs. “Mwhahahahaaa!”
He’s just rolled a twenty.
It’s games night down the Red Hellhound, and the fortnightly league game of Dungeons and Humans is in full swing. Placing an exquisitely painted lead figurine on the gameboard with a confident thwack, he intones in a devilishly deep baritone: “I go through the door.”
Dracula is proud of his character. He’s been playing the same one for a year now. A level 7 IT consultant from the kingdom of Croydon. Called Colin. Special skills include: turning it off and on again, and talking about GDPR.
… trendy looking coffee and juice bar on the other side of the road.
Their quest, to secure a coffee apiece and one of the better toasted sourdough sandwiches, is now nearing its climax.
Lord Voldemort, whose turn it is to play Careers Adviser, looks up from behind the rulebook with a perverse grin. Well, a more perverse grin. To be fair his resting dark lord face is already pretty perverse, what with the squashed-up nose and the teeth and all.
“Did you check for mid-level managers?” he hisses.
All eyes turn to Skeletor.
He is the party’s HR Business Partner, responsible for seeking out and disarming managerial traps.
“I hate my character class.” complains Skeletor. “All I do is eat cakes and read other people’s emails.” Disgruntled, he grabs his ram’s head sceptre and strides off towards the bar.
“Who wants a drink?”
The Red Hellhound is an old-fashioned Victorian boozer. A vanishing breed, even on the streets of Hades. Games night takes place in the cosiness of the snug; Dracula and his cohorts huddle together on mahogany benches upholstered in green leather. The paraphernalia of the game is strewn across brass tabletops supported by cast iron legs.
“Did you check for mid-level managers?!” insists Michael Gove, doing the thumb thing for emphasis.
Michael’s character is a level 13 politician (he always plays himself), special skills include: taking cocaine, and being so annoying enemies are forced to attack him first.
“No I didn’t. But it was He-Man’s fault.”
Audible tuts ripple round the bar. Nemesis blaming is frowned upon in the underworld. Everyone knows you’re here because you’ve been defeated by your nemesis (or nemeses), but it’s a faux pas to blame them publicly. Not too embarrassing for Skeletor who, everyone agrees, has a pretty kick ass arch-enemy in the shape of He-Man. But a different story for Voldemort, who was defeated by a pre-pubescent bespectacled geek, along with his ginger sidekick. And Emma Watson.
At the bar, thronged two deep, an impatient Skeletor casts a weary eye-socket over the top shelf.
“Everyone’s a gin wanker now,” he moans to anyone who will listen, and there are plenty who will. The pub is packed.
This being the night before Halloween, most demonic folk don’t have work tomorrow. It’s bad form to terrorise humans while they are busy dressing up and terrorising themselves. There is an unpleasant buzz about the place; cigar smoke, and raucous laughter of the maniacal variety, fills the air in the grade two listed central hell hotspot.
Across from the snug Cruella De Vil is losing another game of pool to Saddam Hussein. Stubbornly refusing to remove her Dalmatian fur coat, she only ever pots the spotted balls, even when playing stripes.
Judas leans on the jukebox, silver coin in hand, and (surprise surprise) Sympathy for the Devil blares out for the fourth time this evening.
“Why always thumbs Michael?” inquires Frankenstein’s Monster, sat wedged into a corner and stooping to avoid the lampshade.
“Well, focus groups told us pointing was too ‘pejorative’, the thumb is a happy medium. It means ‘I really really mean this, but not in an angry pointy way’.”
He resettles his spectacles then continues:
“It’s a bit like the word ‘pledge’, it sounds like a promise, but it isn’t. So when we break it nobody minds. At least, we got less angry faces on the focus group survey.”
Turning his rot-swollen head as quickly as the bolt will allow, the errant Doctor’s creation regards the politician with a thoughtful, appraising air.
“Why you in hell Michael?”
“Erm … the focus group. It was made up of members of the British public you see, and they err well … did we check for mid-level managers?”
“You didn’t.” hisses he whose name was mentioned a bit earlier on.
“You are accosted by a Vice President of statistics and his minions.”
Unperturbed, Dracula slurps down the last of his Artisan Craft Blood, and wipes the froth from his aristocratic chin, before slamming the schooner down on the table with a diabolical grin.
“Mwhahahahaaa! I talk to them about GDPR.”
Voldemort shakes the die. It clatters, totters, tumbles and rolls before settling on
… a lowly two!
The save versus boredom is failed. The Vice President of statistics and his Associate Vice President minions fall asleep. The party advances. They can almost smell the coffee. The end of level boss is now in sight.
Lord Voldemort places a 1:16th scale replica of a hipster down on the board behind the coffee bar. The figurine is painted an unconventional beige and dressed from the waist up like a French sailor.
“The barista with the elaborate facial hair flexes his tattooed arms for the showdown.”
Michael looks afraid, Dracula worried. Even Frankenstein’s Monster has never seen jeans that tight before.
Dice in hand, our (anti) heroes steel themselves for the final battle. Dracula prepares his opening salvo of a rather involved Mocha order, whilst Michael gears up for some serious smashed avocado on toast when, suddenly, with a bang and a crash and a wallop and a thump!
… the saloon doors of the Red Hellhound swing violently open!
The juke-box stops!
Pool balls halt!
Cigarettes burn unattended in demonic mouths that hang agape.
… It’s Sauron! (You know, the big eye from The Lord of the Rings. One of the Maiar, servant of Melkor?)
The rest of the high fantasy crew are close behind.
They look decidedly half-cut.
The Night King staggers, arm round the shoulders of Saruman, and Baron Vladimir Harkonnen can barely keep afloat as Melmoth (their token Goth) wanders in behind, a jug of scrumpy sloshing at his lips.
“Fuck’s sake.” mutters Dracula. “Not that lot again.”
The high fantasy crew are very cliquey. In their view, the rich and detailed worlds from which they come, along with the lofty, epic scale of their oft-serialised struggles, makes them a cut above your average roleplaying vampire, the interesting narrative structure of Dracula notwithstanding. Told entirely via a series of letters and journal entries, Stoker had achieved something remarkable, never attempted by your Tolkiens, or your George R.R. Martins.
Still, try telling that to Sauron. Fifty-four thousand years old with a hankering for a single malt, he frowns menacingly at Dracula and his roleplaying buds.
A giant, lidless, eyebrow-less frown.
“One snug to rule them all,” utters his sidekick Saruman.
(It’s well known the seats in the snug are the comfiest in the bar).
“They are our seats!” shouts Saruman.
The Night King glares angrily in support. The snug is nowhere near large enough to accommodate both groups of ne’er do wells, so something has to give. Dracula isn’t for moving, but the high fantasy boys are accustomed to getting their own way.
“I advise you to bend to the will of my master.” Saruman’s poison tongue coated in honey.
“Or else what?!” Skeletor stomps back from the bar.
Plonking himself down on the edge of the bench he hands round the Jägerbombs. A comedic cartoon buffoon he may be, but gumption he has by the bucketful. Leaning his bony elbows on the table, and biting his bony thumb in the direction of Sauron, he lets his bony tongue run free …
“What you gonna do? Make some jewellery? Give us all a ring to wear? Quaking in my boots. How’s your depth perception you one-eyed prick? Bwahaha!”
“You are most unwise to insult my master.” Saruman’s voice, soft as silk.
With a resigned sigh Dracula puts Colin back in his velvet-lined keepsake box, downs his shot and stands. He doesn’t want to fight (and ruin his best cape) but neither does he want to give up his seat.
Unhurried, he removes a delicate leather glove, finger by undead finger, then slaps Sauron with it, square across the cornea.
“A duel sir. We shall include our seconds.”
And with that, the stage is set for mayhem!
The forces of Evil on one side, the forces of … also Evil on the other.
Sauron summons the Nazgul; Dracula the children of the night; the Night King orders his wights to advance; and Michael makes a really serious pledge to cut educational funding to Mordor if they don’t back down. A battle to shake the foundations of the Earth seems inevitable when, suddenly, with a smack and a hammer and a crash and a boom!
… the saloon doors of the Red Hellhound swing violently open!
The juke-box stops!
Pool balls halt!
Cigarettes burn unattended in demonic mouths that hang agape.
… It’s Buffy!
She’s wearing the brown tan skirt from season 2 episode 15, the one with the silver buttons up the front that stops mid-thigh. Kinda A-line but not really. She has the matching boots on too, same colour, that come up to mid-calf. Tonight however, she’s paired it with the yellow cardigan from season 3 episode 2. It’s cute, in a girl-next-door kinda way. How she dressed pre-Spike. Her eyeshadow is of palest lavender, and her long golden locks are done up in braids … anyway. It’s Buffy yeah? The vampire-slayer. The girl monsters have nightmares about.
“Howdy gang, sorry I’m late! Total ‘mare getting here. Do you know they only have one guy operating the ferry on the sticky river?”
The villains swap confused glances.
“Erm … the river that sticks?”
More confusion. Buffy does that faux-perplexed face thing and shrugs.
“Ah Buffy excellent, I was wondering if you got my message.” Michael pockets his BlackBerry and sidles over.
Dracula arches an eyebrow. “Explain yourself Michael.”
“I did warn you not to trust me Drac.”
“I’m not angry Michael. Just disappointed.”
“Awkward.” says Buffy.
Our heroine pulls out a stake and winks. It’s like the wink she does to camera in season 7 episode 16. You know, when Andrew is recording the battle against the First for posterity, and each of them get a slow-motion montage in the kitchen. Deliberately overegged, in a cheeky ‘watch this’ kinda way. It’s that wink.
Outnumbered (and obviously outgunned) it only takes a moment for the forces of Evil and Also Evil to forget their differences and join forces to become:
… really really Evil!
Lesser demons finish their beers and skulk away. The bartender hides. Skeletor suddenly remembers he’s left the oven on, and escapes through the window with a cacophonous crash.
Somersaults are somersaulted. Stakes are driven, quips are quipped, and capoeira kicks are improbably performed by Sarah Michelle Gellar’s stunt double.
When the dust settles the Slayer is victorious. The Dungeons and Humans board is the only thing that remains. Buffy rolls the dice … twenty!
“Mwhahahahaa.”
She checks the rulebook.
“Ooh chocolate sprinkles, yummy!”
Waving hell a fond(ish) goodbye she makes an icky face at Gove before piggy-backing him off into the sunset. Balance is restored to the (nether) world once more.
Kinda.
(c) Stephen Kehoe, 2021
Stephen Kehoe is a recovered drug addict from Preston and splits his time between London and the Northwest. His degree in English is from Goldsmiths and he studied creative writing at City, University of London. Time Gentlemen Please is the second thing he has ever written, inspired by true events.
Oliver Yellop is an actor from Essex and a graduate of both The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and The National Youth Theatre of Great Britain. Oliver has performed extensively across the London stage appearing in plays at The National Theatre, The King’s Head Theatre, The Southwark Playhouse and The Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch.
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