A great creature went heaving across the frigid wilderness. He was no wolf; he was Bistritz, the brave bat who in today’s travails had been far overtaxed. He raced past boulders the size of battleships—all nothing compared to him—and through a blizzard that seemed to have intensified.

What’s more, the bat now raced through a smattering of battery, the militia come to execute Dracula. A battalion of tanks, each as small as one of his paws, fired a few rounds at his husky hull, but none did him more than a scathing; the biggest rounds were for his master.

So Bistritz went on and, maugre the cold, he was panting, sweating bullets metaphorically just as much as literally. His tongue lolled as he ululated a gargantuan, “HOOFH! HOOFH!”

Innardly, a bewildered Adam and a ruffled Trials huddled in the dark of the cellar of Castle Dracula. Packed in suitable arrangement were thousands of barrels containing fine winery, extending in date to before the Common Era! Actually, most of it was blood. But they were in no state to think about that. This was the most secure shelter of Castle Dracula, and if things outside went too far south, they would be thankful for it. Everything thumped and rollicked, too, with the rhythm of an unsettled Bistritz.

“This situation doth not suit me one bit,” quothed…Trials?

“Why, land of Goshen,” Adam said. “The very same words sat on mine own tongue. Could our natures be closer than I thought?”

“So predictable…and yet so earnest,” she said to the floor. “No, Frankhotep, I’m makin’ fun o’ you.”

“The name is A—”

“Adam.”

They wobbled.

Then Trials said, in the voice of a game show host, “I see it’s a ‘no’ on Walter. I just hope they save my fish dinner.”

Adam’s eyes went saucerine. “How can you be so crass, you, you…chuff-cat?”

He, untutored innocent, did not know: awful puns and banter are how comedians in dead-end bars speak of the dead, revere them.

And Bistritz, fully horizontal but with the speed and aspect of a desperate mountaineer, clambered to the coast of Cape Agulhas. Then he leaped into the water, for an explosion was coming that otherwise would have flung him into the aether—if not torn him apart.

***

Warm grass. Temperate ocean. A gentle mist, and nighttime rainbows stooping to earth. This was no Galapagos isle, nor was it a dream. Well...indeed it would be the source of many penguin nightmares, having changed a comfortable ecosystem into what was, for them, surely a hellscape. But for the purposes of our story, it was beautiful.

Had Adam stuck his head out of Bistritz’s mouth during the chase to observe, he would have swooned. Bistritz, however, had found an underwater cave housing an air pocket. Every half-hour he rattled off more echolocation, fully confident that Master Dracula with his special ears would track them down soon.

Now it was the cusp of morning. Dracula’s deed had long been done. He only took time to meditate, and feed.

Somehow it felt wrong to suck blood mere hours after the death of a friend. For this shame, Dracula chided himself. Walter would have wanted him to preserve his health. Why should consuming the blood of his enemies diminish anything?

All across a mansion in utter ruin, and beyond even that, never again to stand at attention, were bodies. The bodies of obedient werewolves, now humans, with mini-moons long since crushed under Dracula’s pacing bootheels. Their rifles, too, were powder.

Dracula had crushed Alice’s golden moon, and afterward pocketed the dust. Money, after all, was a powerful thing. Her corpse was here, somewhere.

And a mist passed over the bodies. Any blood in pools or corpses it passed, it slurped, saying “mmm,” “slllllurp,” and “schleeeyerp mmmyumyumyummy.” Soon the blood was gone—and Dracula was full, sated from sip where he stood.

And he stood, mustache billowing, by the fallen satellite, which had been cut nearly in two as if by a seismic fissure. Dracula’s fissure. Without warning it snapped clean in half, producing the sound of a 1920’s car running out of gas.

There was one body he could not bear to visit.

Robert Fishman did not possess that body. From nearby came the sound of scales and suit fabric dragged across floor and earth. Here came the man that time forgot, crawling but, fortunately, not so bloody.

Dracula did not immediately turn to face Robert. He simply looked at the ground, all grass, shattered concrete, and puddles of melt. If one were to see him without knowing what had transpired, one would think his affliction was vague distraction.

Robert stopped, lifting himself on his forearms. “Vlad…Vlad,” he was panting. “Let’s…go…home. They…waiting.”

For many seconds, Dracula did not budge. The world had warmed, but he stood frozen in grief.

Then something made his bleak heart to shake. It drifted through the sky, which yet was marred by drifting debris, and landed in his hand quite delicately. He was not meant to visit Walter again; it was Walter who had come to visit him, in the form of a sneaker.

With a note attached:

“Thanks, Drac. Looks like I won’t be needing this thing anymore. You need it more than me. Don’t be a loser—win that gold. For all the misfits out there.”

Dracula could barely read through the haze of tears. They were vampire’s tears, as crimson as his irises, his heart.

Hours later, Dracula found Bistritz’s undersea cave. He had carried Robert here, over his shoulders; and their path to shore was a line of slow-trickling blood, from the fish-man’s wounds, from the vampire’s face. He had zig-zagged between tanks, all ruined, ruptured, and smoking by his hand.

His reunion with Bistritz was that of a veteran father and his war-hero child, for Bistritz too had been through the trenches today. Pride was strong between them. Despite not having seen Walter Whipple before his passing—or perhaps because of that—the bat, too, was mournful. Still, the mere presence of Master Dracula and Friend Robert brought some light and cheer back into Bistritz. Lucky to have such a steed, they were; on this adventure there were always new places to go, new scenes through which to scrape, to scuffle, to lose hope, to catch stars.

As the castlebat flung himself from Cape Agulhas’ waves with a vast and drippy wingbeat, another mysterious object whipped its way in: the second sneaker. Miraculously, it floated through Bistritz’s innards on the hints of various tradewinds before entering the castle’s ventilation system and alighting on Dracula’s uninhabited sleeping coffin. The sneaker’s side, though worn with the ages, retained some writing:

“From Count Dracula to my most gracious speedman. I am glad to announce you now have a new matching pair of running shoes. Do well not to forget: it is never too late to move forward.”

***

A word on the fate of the farm animals:

Before he left, Dracula set all the animals loose from their bio-dome, gave each one a gift of $100 for travel expenses, and allowed them to go their own ways, to make their destinies come true.

As dawn arose and the rainbow arches entered their full splendor, farm animals turned their eyes to waning stars. Grievingly they all remembered...Walter Whipple...before spreading out, following paths to wherever they might lead. Into their futures.