Robert pieced together all the facts: the exorbitance; the physical features; the neck-bound gold medal, dented, which he used to open soda cans. “Such, money, that, face,” he said. “You, must, be, Walter, Whipple…Olympic, sprinter, from, back, in, day!”

“Yeah, and what of it?” Walter growled. “Want an autograph or somethin’?” He spat. His spit landed seventy feet away in an antique spittoon originally awarded to the winner of the 478 B.C.E. Panathenaic games.

“Wow. What a dump,” snarked Trials, “and I’m not talkin’ about the house.”

“I heard that!” the Whipple snapped. “Look, you can warm up, state yer business, and then I want yer butts outta here. I’m thirsty, so I’m gettin’ me a drink.”

Everyone watched as Walter Whipple shuffled across the floor and made a straight line from the seating area to the humongo kitchen. No longer was he King of the Sprint. One would not even think him King of the Bocce Ball.

Walter Whipple returned with a single enormous drink in a wide-brimmed goblet. He sat. He lifted sapphire to lip and drank deep of this life. Did his cup runneth over? No, for he no longer ranneth. He set it down.

“What’re you lookin’ at? Spill those beans, Drac.”

Dracula gulped, drinking deep of sadness and a bygone friendship. “I was only, ah, waiting on you, dear Walter.”

“Well, don’t. I got errands. I just got done night-feeding the horses and soon I’ll have to night-feed the chickens.”

“An exiled life of animal husbandry does not suit you!” Dracula bellowed with his arms thrown wide. “I come to you with my ragtag band of monsters and misfits to invite you back into society. If my plot is successful and my heart can reach Igor’s, I assure you I can grant you amnesty and mainstream acceptance the likes of which you have never experienced.”

Walter gruffed, without humor, “You’re pullin’ my leg. And nobody pulls these hamstrings but me. You think I’m not happy where I am? It was my choice to come out here, as far away from werewolves as I could, and live my own way! You’re not puttin’ me on your terms. Not me, of all people.”

“Pardon my ignorance,” said Adam with his hand raised schoolkiddishly; “however, I have slumbered for a millennium, and have no knowledge of this angry oldman I see before us. Why, in truth, must we scrape to incorporate a normal human in our ranks? If this be the goal, why do we not merely reach into any city in the world and pluck an ordinary Joseph from the street?”

“I’m with Rags,” said Trials uncomplimentarily. “We’ve got enough fogeys. This guy is so fat and old, the only thing he could outrun is a BLT!”

Robert heaved, “Trials, you, centuries, old.” Then, turning to Adam, he said, “This, man, incredibly, special. Back, in, day…”

“Yes!” Dracula co-opted, pointing with an eager finger. “Back in the day—”

“Save your breath, guys, I can give my own backstory,” said Walter. “You seen any other humans in your travels so far? Must not’ve gone into any o’ those miracle cities you just made up. Ever since the world government made humanity a crime, I’ve been refusing the werewolf surgery. I’m the only man who didn’t want it. I live human and I’ll die human. To the rest of society, this makes me a monster. A fleshy freak of nature. Like how you’re a freak of nature, Hatshepstein.”

“Monsieur, call me not monster. I am Adam.”

“Heck! They used to call me the Olympic champion sprinter!” He slapped his hands upon the knees and hamstrings that withered even as they spoke. “Nobody gave me respect then, either! And I was happy livin’ that way.”

“But would it be no lie,” Dracula proposed, “to say you wish to experience something from bygone days? Like, say, the moon, or the house of your childhood...ah!” He snapped his fingers. “Deep down you may still crave a sense of community that you received in that greatest of Olympic sprints!”

Walter shook his head. “My life ain’t a bargainin’ chip, Drac. Besides, any chance I have to distance myself from werehumanity and laugh, I’ll take.”

“You laugh?” said Trials. “In this freezer? What’s that gonna do? Those people don’t care. Games aren’t worth anything if you’re like fifty million miles from whoever you’re toying with. Unless you’ve got a megaphone.”

To the circle’s surprise, this got Walter to hyuck. Exhausted though that laugh may have been, it tempered his character ever so slightly. The unnerve streaming from his eyes changed, as if the mind within, a vessel of long-expired and curdling milk, had been left outside for thirty-five years but just took a step back in time—one day back. This gave Dracula hope, for Rome was not pasteurized in a day.

Then issued forth a wistful sigh. “Yeah, I miss the days when I used to whip my legs in front o’ the world. But I’d rather keep ‘em cooped up in the southernmost tip of the continent than live among those were-jerks. No thanks.”

Dracula raced to say, “But have you considered—”

But Walter Whipple leaped from his criss-cross’d position, a feat which none others on Earth could manage—not the acrobat vampires, not reanimate dead, no hyphenated men, nor even the flexy felidae. He flipped three times in the air and landed on his slippered toetips with such ease that to him, the magnitude of his accomplishment did not even register!

“Now, Drac,” he said, “I respect ya as a fellow outsider, but you can go play your games with someone a little less tired of this crap. Take yer leave when you’re set, anyhow.”

He shuffled away, as slow as a stalactite’s melt, in a perfectly straight line.

Dracula could hardly suppress his excitement. He was shaking and grinning like a child circus-bound!

When the man was distant enough, Trials said, “Who needs ‘im?”

In his exuberance, Dracula exploded! “You just witnessed his acrobatic capability! He shuffles now, but were those slippers off, he would move as if weightless. His athletic ability far surpasses any wolfman’s! Being a werewolf does enhance the muscles and reflexes of normal humans (as well as of many monster types, yours truly included), but when he flapped those feet in those 2987 Olympic Games, the spectators swore up and down that his human shape gave him an unfair advantage. Walter Whipple is a natural-born running monster.”

Walter, with a third of the room to go, froze. He was squinting at its exit.

“What is wrong, my fast friend? Have my paltry compliments thawed your icy heart?”

“No, no, just hush up a second...” He squinted harder. What was wrong with his hallway? The lighting was off, but why? Seconds ticked by until the reason came to light. The reason was light—on a bomb’s fuse!

Walter retreated, doing a hustle-shuffle back toward the guest room. “Everybody in the kitchen!”

The guests looked about for a moment more. Only when Dracula dashed to that kitchen waving the rest on did they follow suit.

“It’s a bomb!” shouted Walter, sweat flying. “Get in the sink!”

The squad jumped and rolled in, their slippers flying! Lucky for them, the sink, as big and platinum as money could buy, was as roomy as a triple-sized tub. Walter, seeing that no room remained, spun ballerina-like into the fridge.

Seconds later, a fireball blast detonated in the living room, and its infernal remnants came their way, blazing through cabinetry and chip bags (fifty dollars each). It only charred the backs of those in the sink.

The aforementioned four rose bewildered. There was a newly wrought fire crackling in the center of the guest room—and though it was not nearly big enough to cover eighty feet, it was devouring the center, chewing through the tapestry fragment they had sat on a mere moment ago.

Walter emerged from his fridge unharmed. Fear not for his exposure to cold; he was quite familiar with it.

“Tarnation!” said Adam.

“Good gracious!” said Dracula.

“Good thing I have such a big house,” said Walter.

“Have I truly brought danger into the home of my friend?” Dracula went on to gulp. “Dear sweet Walter! Please make haste. Get to safety as we deal with whatever visitors we seem to have brought alo-”

Two garlic canisters rolled in through the doorway.

In a mere sliver of a mere second, Walter kicked off one slipper and it hit the first canister, and he kicked off the second slipper and it hit the second canister, and readers should imagine this happening in slow-motion, and all four things—the kicked things and the hit things—flew out, and they landed in the bonfire as ash.

Walter chuckled. “Puh-lease, mate. This is my house, and you’re my guests. And no wolves are gonna throw a party on my property uninvited!”

Dracula looked to Walter’s feet and was filled with gladness, for he was wearing familiar toe socks. The sprintmaven's spirit had grown rougher over the years, but it surely had not dulled.

Military-grade boots kicked through the glass ceiling, sending shards flying across the concrete and twinkling into the central flame below. Three werewolves descending via ropes, in berets and white-mottled army fatigues, with green-camo moons, made their ghastly entrance. Dracula readied his fangs, Adam rubbed his hands, the whole of them tensed...but the ropes stopped a quarter of the way.

“Grrreport!” yarped one commando into a wristmmunicator. “Ropes too short. Requesting additional rope to tie to the ends.”

But an Antarctic chill swept across the roof and had its way with the dangling wolves, rustling them like windchimes. The three became tangled, konking into each other with heads, backs, and moons!

“Weather conditions too hazardous for additional rope operation,” an ally responded. “Initiating doggy recall.” In a quite sluggish and embarrassing display, the three werestooges were reeled back into the helicopter whence they’d lunged.

“I figured this’d happen someday,” said Walter. “Had this house set up with several anti-siege measures. Thanks to my Olympics money, I’ve got more tricks than a werewolf at a werewolf show.”

Their next foes emerged from holes…dozens of hand drills came cracking through the floor before their kitchen. Wolves poked their heads out, looked around, and spotted our favorite ghouls.

“Enemy sighted! Commencing disengagement from tu—ruh-roh!”

The diggers ducked just in time as the fridge, like a hammer, smashed onto their holes. Robert, triumphant, pumped his appliance-throwing arms and squealed like a hog!

Walter, with a wonderful singing laugh, rang a tiny glass bell. I don’t know why.

The guest room’s open ceiling let cold and snow stream in, meaning the bonfire was shrinking by the second and the militia’s “storm the guest room” concept was beginning to look pathetic—that is, until its commander made her presence known. “Enough games!” she shouted; from a hole just before the pyre steppened another wolf with a bad attitude. Alice Liddell, the Head of Defense, climbed out in fatigues and aviator shades, framed by the last glint of a dying fire, capping her sentence with the pop of a dying gum bubble. If her authoritative tone had not made her position clear enough, her mini-moon did, haloing gold. “They know we’re here. Let’s say our greetings all at the same time. All hands fire!”