Contributor: Miles Gough

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I thought I might have offended the Grand Fiend. It was about the food. He was eating his old stand-by, Pickled Presbyterian's Feet and I had a thin crust pizza with extra cheese and garlic. I said with a mouthful of pizza, “Oh no, I can’t believe I’m eating this in front of you. I am so sorry.”

The Grand Fiend was his usual magnanimous self. “I will take your apology, for I am sure that you did something that deserves forgiveness, but I am baffled why your food would cause you to prostrate yourself so.”

I said, “The garlic. The extra garlic. I know you’re not a vampire, but I don’t know how if it affects you and I should have asked.”

The Grand Fiend leaned back, “And how does garlic affect the mighty vampire?”

I knew I was being set up for the fool, but I couldn’t stop. “Uhm. Well it’s anathema to them. They can’t be in the same room as someone who has garlic.”

“It is so good that the old propaganda still has its power. I am relieved that even you, one who is learning the ways of the nether beings, falls for it. Garlic, to ward off vampires. Isn’t that the quaintest thing.”

I put my pizza slice down. “It’s propaganda? So it does nothing to vampires?”

“Of course it does something to vampires, just the same as you. It makes them hungry.” He noticed my confusion and took a breath. “Let me ask you this. Who do you think first said that garlic was protection against vampires?”

He didn’t let me think of an answer before he shouted out, “Vampires. Vampires did it. Now, you ordered your pizza with extra garlic, because you love the taste of it. Vampires love their food, also spiced the same way. They like to bite into flesh that has the odor of garlic. So how do they make sure their meals are well-seasoned? Why eat people who wear garlands of garlic around their necks. How do you get the livestock to wear such ungainly necklaces? Why, spread the rumor that garlic will keep the creatures at bay. It’s brilliant marketing. The humans feel more secure, and the vampires get tastier feasts.”

“That’s amazing,” I said. “So all vampires love garlic that much?”

“Oh no, please don’t let me mislead you. They just don’t want bland food. Who does? There is a reason the folklore mentions a variety of herbs used to ward off vampires, because different vampires have different preferences. Some vampires spread the rumor that rosemary kept the bloodsuckers off, but they did that only because that was their favorite herb. You’ve heard of rosemary chicken? This is rosemary peasant.

“I know of one vampire that traveled through the countryside spreading different pieces of advice to each of the villages he entered. One village, he told them to use a poultice of thyme and sage, another was told to use garlic and another still to bathe in water and rosehips. He did this because on the evenings he wanted a garlicky dinner, he hunted in that village. If he wanted tender sweet meat, he preyed upon the village of the rosehips. The whole countryside was his spice rack.

“That’s the way to be. To create a variety of choices so that you will never be bored. If you have the same thing every day, dressed in the same manner, then you are nothing but old clothes and over boiled roasts. Live life with some fire, some taste.”

I felt excited about what he said, but I didn’t want anymore pizza. The Grand Fiend must have thought similarly, because he looked at the Presbyterian Feet he was gnawing on and sighed. “Yes, one must not be stuck in a rut. Let’s have a merry hunt. Shall we partake in a few pints of ice cream?”

And that is what we did. I got Rocky Road, and the Grand Fiend splurged on a large tub of Butter Blood-Clot Ripple.


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Author: Miles Gough

Contributor: Miles Gough

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Can you believe it, I was a out getting fresh air. I know. I went out and didn’t even light up my smokes. I needed to cleanse my nostrils. I am the kind of guy that only sees the outdoors as a place to run through to get to the liquor store. As far as I can see, the natural environment is a placeholder until we can zone a few more cigar bars and mini-marts. But I have been working in the dangerous world of weaponized gasses and I just had to go out. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The birds need to shut the fuck up, but the outdoors is okay for a change of pace. Wouldn’t want it to do it that often, you know camping is not a four letter word, but its still pretty obscene.

Yeah, I’ve been working in natural gas, but in a valid way. I ain’t helping the environment, I’m causing havoc, or at least trying to. Couple weeks back Nolan, the sommelier at the Cavendish Club, came to me with an idea. You know how he is this crazy movie nerd. He pairs wines to Jean Claude Van Damme movies. He tried to pair reds with Steven Segal movies but it turns out that the only things goes well with those masterpieces is Schlitz in a can.

Nolan came to me and said he had a way to make some money selling weaponry. He showed me this French movie to explain his idea and I’m in hell, because this shit has subtitles and middle aged guys in a big house. The plot is they came to this house to eat themselves to death with fine French bullshit food. Whatever. Why kill yourself on foie gras and truffles when Big Macs and super sized fries are so easy to get? Anyway, I’m being tortured by culture and finally the movie gets to the end and one the guys farts and farts and farts, like for two minutes he’s farting and then he keels over and is dead.

Nolan was like, “That’s it, That’s what we need to do. We need to make a food that will make you fart to death. We can package it as Silent But Deadly Cuisine and sell it to folks who want to do a little nefariousness and get away with it. No matter how nasty the fart is, the evidence will be cleared by a good breeze. The medical examiners will look for poison in the food, but there is no poison, it’s just plain food.” He told me I was the guy to make up a dish that could fart a man to death.

This was stupid, so yeah, I had to do it. I did my research, looked into what could make a guy fart so long their whole system would shut down. I used some special skills with it, the kind I know. I had to create food that was hard to digest and it would be stuck in the colon making bacteria. I pan seared a small cut of prime rib. I made a sauce for it using five different beans and cream. I sweetened it with sorbitol and some other fructose. I placed it all on a bed of au gratin potatoes. I also got my hand on an enzyme that slowed digestion of food so that it this packet will wind up in the colon almost undigested.

This seemed like the ticket, but shit, I wasn’t going to test it. Nolan had a guinea pig in mind. There was this asshole who always ate at the Cavendish who was rude and nasty. So Nolan gave him my dish as a treat for being such a great customer. The asshole acted like of course he deserved this special treat. I tell you. Why we cooks haven’t killed all our customers already in one big hibachi massacre is beyond me.

Nolan served it to this asshole and he sucked it up but fast, and you know, he didn’t die. Did he fart? He farted. Ever been to the elephant house at the zoo? Kind of like that he farted. But he didn’t even complain of cramps or discomfort. And the worst part, he loved the food. Told everyone to order it, that it was a wonderfully earthy dish every gourmand should eat.

I went over to the Cavendish today to check on Nolan. Is he pissed at me. He asked me why I couldn’t fail and make a shitty dish? He’s in hell; the place stinks like you never sniffed. And everyone is ordering my dish as a special. All I can tell you buddy, don’t go to that neighborhood and light a match. Something might explode.

Wait. Maybe something will explode. Okay, so I can’t kill someone by farting, but what if they can flame throw those farts? We can have ourselves a decent weapon that no one can frisk you about. Yeah, that’s the way I’ll go with it. You know me, making lemonade out of lemons. Foul stinky ass lemonade, but still lemonade, brother. Got to go, I got to find an igniter that can fit comfortable in a fella’s underpants.


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Author: Miles Gough

Contributor: Miles Gough

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We were talking very innocently, one evening, over the preference of man-eating mutant octopi for the flesh of baseball players, when with no connection, the Grand Fiend slammed an angry claw down and stated with hissing insistence, “I just don’t understand why putting human brains into gorillas was ever a popular fad!”

It took me a moment to catch the swing in the conversation and then asked, “I am sorry, but I don’t recall it ever being a fad. Pet rocks, I recall, but not Gorillas with the brains of humans.”

“How could you not recall it? It seemed to be everywhere for a while. You would go in for a kill, hungry and hot, and there distracting your victim was a gorilla wildly genuflecting for freedom from its current predicament. Oh it was an epidemic. Some of the gorilla men were angry and took it out on the population, which ruined the market for us regular monsters. We would go into a new neighborhood and find security heightened due to the gorilla problem. A few gorilla men used their new agility to rob jewelry stores, which seemed like a logical use of their new skill sets, but mostly they tried to round up other apes and take over the world. If we nether creatures cannot seem to dominate the world, do you think a small band of intelligent oversized monkeys can do it. I think not. They would be round up and put into labs or the unfortunate zoo. Even now, if you go to a zoo and marvel at how intelligent the gorilla behind the bars appears to be, it most probably because he has the brain of a man. Less of them are around, this was a fad of the fifties and sixties.”

I had no idea that such a thing was the case and I told the Grand Fiend such.

“Just so. Even the ones that caused havoc should not be seen as a nether creature. They were victims, though highly odorous ones. This was all the faults of those mad dabblers, the scientists with endowments who decided that they should try to be bend nature itself and put a human brain in any old thing they had lying about the laboratory. Why so many of them had spare gorilla carcasses handy is a mystery beyond my capability. My theory is that one mad dabbler created one on a whim and wrote about it in a magazine, something like Popular Vivisectionist Magazine, including plans and schematics and all the subscribers had to do the same. Monkey see, monkey do, if you will forgive the obvious idiom.”

This was all fascinating, but I squashed anymore discussion with my next question, “So would you consider these scientists, these mad dabblers, monsters? Would they be the human equivalent to your nether creatures?”

The Grand Fiend was obviously upset with this question. After a long pause he simply said, “They are not even worthy of being a late night snack and we would have eaten them all long ago if they didn’t have a foul aftertaste.” He grumbled that it was getting late and all my apologies did not change his mood.

As I was leaving, he did seem to regain his regular demeanor. In parting he said, “But speaking of fads, you mentioned pet rocks and if you remind me, I will tell you the true origin of the Pet Rock and the great destruction it left in its way.” I did bring that up to him later and the story was a fine one, which might be told in these pages on another occasion.


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Author: Miles Gough

Contributor: Miles Gough

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I just got back from the hospital and I’m too wired on pain killers to not want to go on about it. Don’t worry about me and the hospital, it was just five stitches on my forehead, not even a wound if you ask me. Toast Club got out of hand last night, but that is the kind of thing that happens at Toast Club. I heard that the guy from The Castle Cafe will have to wear an eye patch for a while, now that’s a wound. Maybe I should wear an eye patch, cause that shit’s cool.

Toast Club is the best after hours underground competition we cooks have done, and now, who knows if it will ever happen again. The idea is simplicity, which is usually not my thing, but this is extreme simplicity, so I’m with it.

Everyone always says that great chefs are better than anyone else, no matter what the hell they’re cooking. Some French dude just wants you to cook an omelet to see how badass you are. To our thinking, that’s too complicated for the test. If you say a great chef can make anything better, then they can make toast with butter better than your average schmuck. So me and a few real believers started Toast Club. We do it once or twice a month in the back room of Julio’s kitchen, the one with the craps game. We do it on days when dice ain't flying.

We have two contestants. They start at the same time. They are given two identical pop up toasters, four pieces of Wonder bread and an ounce of Land O Lakes butter. They have to make four pieces of toast and put on butter and the four judges figure out who is the supreme chef from the results. That’s pure. All the contestants can control is how long to toast the bread and how much butter to put on. And that’s all you need to figure out who should be swaggering big and long.

The judges are beyond reproach and yeah I am one. Can you think of anyone better qualified? C'mon. We been doing it for some time and the best chefs in town are almost always the winner. Sometimes a dark horse brings out an amazing win, like Noberto working the line at Altese, he is a genius with the butter, right amount every time. After he trounced all comers, he got himself a name and was promoted to Chef d’cuisine. This ain’t no joke if you were wondering.

This all gets us to last night. We were pretty wasted on kosher wine from this insanely elaborate bar mitzvah, so maybe we should have canceled, but the crowd was hungry for it. Of course we ran it. Miles who works at a upscale pizza joint out by the mall was one toaster and then there was Stan. God, you got to know Stan. Worked every place. Had style, but was an annoying shit. With that bad an attitude, its a wonder he doesn’t have a restaurant empire by now. He was a return combatant, had lost three times already and if I can remember, they weren’t even close. I think one time he even burned the toast, now that’s amateur.

The contest started with the pomp and circumstance of Lucas doing his MC routine. He did the stupid first rule of toast club, is don’t talk about toast club. For real, first rule of toast club, is that no one should stay that stupid fucking line anymore. But give it up to Lucas, he worked the crowd and we were ready. The toasting began and Miles was calm, doing a neat trick of warming the butter knife on the side of the toaster. Stan looked in his element, which kind of worried me, because he was never a relaxed dude. The toast popped and the buttering began. My favorite part, this is where the finesse happens. And then the presenting of the toast.

We bit into the offerings and Miles’s was good. This tasted like a fine piece of breakfast. I gave it high marks. Then I moved to Stan’s plate and holy shit that was fantastic. In all the times of Toast Club, this was the best goddamned piece of toast I ever ate. We had to give it up to Stan, though it pissed me off to do it.

Lucas ran over to Stan and raised his hand in victory. Stan had tried to move away but Lucas was too fast. Then Lucas’s eyes got all big. He took his hand back and looked at it and then smelled it. “Son of a bitch,” he said, “this guy spiked his butter. He has bacon fat on his finger.”

Can you believe it? He had come in with a finger full of bacon fat and when he was spreading the butter, he had put a little of it on each piece of toast. You know that no cook can resist bacon, so of course we were goners for it. That was a dirty trick and me and the other judges jumped the no good shit.

One thing for Stan, he can tussle in a fight. And he is smart enough to bring some back-up. He and his buddies brought their knives and it got nasty. Eventually, we made a lesson of him, but not without injuries. No one disrespects the sanctity of Toast Club.

At the ER, me and Lucas and a couple others were talking that maybe this was a sign to end Toast Club. If one asshole can play us that way, maybe we didn’t have the best contest devised. Next week, we’re going to debut Chip Club. Who ever can open the best bag of potato chips and pour the finest beer, wins. You should come, it’s going to be spectacular.


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Author: Miles Gough

Contributor: Miles Gough

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For a change of scenery, the Grand Fiend took me to an abandoned hunting lodge. We sat well above the city, that was now engulfed in flames. From our vantage point, it was hard to determine who were the humans and who were the marauding monsters. “Conflagrations are so beautiful to gaze upon and consider the joy of it all, don’t you think.”

I was just happy to not be in chaos below so I had to agree. We watched for several minutes and I asked, “Do you know what the monsters are?”

“I am sad to admit that I am not quite certain, though really, I think they are doing a fine job, a little on the grandiose side, but isn’t that anyone's prerogative? Monsters can interpret the job anyway they so desire.”

Watching further, I began to see glints of light reflecting off some of the marauders. “Look at that, I think those monsters are metallic. Its possible that what we are watching is a robot attack.”

“Robots,” the Grand Fiend pronounced the word slowly, as if testing it on his tongue. “That is slightly disappointing. Shouldn’t this be a job for living monsters? Another instance of automation taking over jobs.”

“I’m confused, what is your opinion on robots? Do you feel they are monsters or are they not to be considered one of your ilk?”

“Now that is an interesting debate and a divisive one in the extreme. Most monsters look at them with disdain. I think it is because they are created and originally maintained by humans. Its like food that create their own assistants. Imagine if you will, a hamburger who decides that being a hamburger is too difficult a task and needs to create a metallic semi sentient hamburger to help them in being hamburgers. Its absurd. We monsters are own creatures, we do not conform to the whims of our food supply.”

“But,” I interjected, “don’t vampires and werewolves come from humans as well? They were men and now they eat men.”

“And that’s why the issue of robots is so problematic. Yes, the similarities between vampires, zombies and lycanmorphs and the robot horde you see below you are evident. Perhaps the difference is that robots were created to be subservient to humans, while we nether creatures were never anyone’s beasts of burden.”

I cleared my throat, “I hate to be contrary, but wouldn’t being forced to be the servant to humans give robots a better reason to hate and attack them?”

“If I must consider that, I would say that you are correct. But we are monsters, we are fiends, we have the right to be discriminatory. I am a master of fear and attack. I am the beast you wake up screaming about, and I do not want to be compared to a toaster with a foul disposition.”
I opened my mouth to add one more thing, the Grand Fiend gave me a shake of his giant head and I knew to remain silent. “Let us not worry about who is doing the killing. Let us just celebrate that killing. They are proving themselves worthy by deeds. Let’s just revel in the sheer artistry of this messy anarchy.”

From our vantage point, the smoke was almost complete, though when the wind was favorable, we were still allowed to hear the faint screams of the survivors. The Grand Fiend smiled and quietly said, “Robots.”


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Author: Miles Gough

Contributor: Miles Gough

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My number one, huge ass, disappointment this week was the show Cupcake Wars. I heard the title and liked the possibility. I was point six on the stoked meter. I even told the fellas working the line with me that I couldn’t go out to have some brews, no I was going home to watch Cupcake Wars.

Then I watched the dunderheaded thing. The hell. Teams battle to be chosen to make a thousand cupcakes for some made-up party. And the loser? They still have to make the thousand cupcakes and only then told that oh yeah, you suck hard wind. Its like, I’m sorry, but though you did discover a cure for cancer, its just not as sexy as Team B’s cure for cancer, so here’s your complimentary t-shirt and get the hell out of my studio.

And the worst part is, the cupcakes they make are just cupcakes. They totally reneged on the opportunity of the concept. It’s called Cupcake Wars, so why are they not making armaments out of them? Am I the only one to see this as the killer pitch?

Follow me. Your assignment, make the tastiest poisoned cupcake ever. A cupcake so delectable, you would eat two or three of them even after you knew they were lethal. Now that’s some tasty shit. I call that the Borgias Challenge.

Or you can go the full Mission Impossible and have a grenade challenge. Make a cupcake that can be eaten just as you please, but flip a chocolate chip on the frosting and that baby is armed. To win, it must be delicious and blow a hole in a half inch steel plate.

My favorite is the Voltron Challenge. Create five individual cupcakes that with a cue will fuse together into one giant sword wielding uber cupcake. Body count baked goods, that’s what this show should be about.

It could get wonderfully out of hand. Each contestant upping the ante with deadlier cupcakes. Pastry proliferation would occur. Machine gun cupcakes go to smart bomb cupcakes to dirty bomb cupcakes with fresh strawberry topping and up and up until there are nuclear cupcakes with Three Mile Island frosting.

There would be stale mate. Each contestant with atomic ingredients and no one willing to bake. A game of chicken. No one wins because if someone did, that would be the end of everything. Mass annihilation and butter cream. That’s what this should be. Ought to be. But of course not. They wimped out.

Not me. I believe in the vision. That’s why I’m moving ahead to phase two. Oh hey. There’s the oven timer. My first batch is ready. I got to go. I need to focus on taking them out. It took a while, but I found a pair of lead lined oven mitts. If we ain’t a blasted out radioactive rubble in five minutes, come on over and help me taste test these bad boys.


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Author: Miles Gough

Contributor: Miles Gough

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It was an odd evening with the Grand Fiend. He was reluctant to talk. He begged forgiveness by stating he had a large meal earlier and it was not agreeing with him. He did not need to explain; it was obvious from his distended stomach and from his dinner kicking and hitting. I could see the rumbles and stretched areas where I made out the shape of the desperate fist. Truly, I could almost identify the brand of the boot pushing futilely for some freedom.

“Oh, how I wish for fleeter gastric acids. But that is beyond anyone’s control. The part I can control is the ostentatious flourish I have of swallowing my prey whole. It does nothing for the taste, just a party trick that amuses. Like someone who can toss peanuts high in the air and have them land in opened mouth every time. Of course, peanuts are small and have less of a vested interest to escape than my meal does.

“Mother said, don’t play with your food. But mother did become food, but not at that particular time. When I did eat her she didn’t offer me advice nor aphorisms, all she said as she slid down my throat was that she was once again disappointed with me. Actually, that is one of mother’s aphorisms after all.

The Grand Fiend chuckled, but the indigestion played on his face and he let things fall silent again. He belched up plague and nodded apology. “This is endemic for creatures such as me. We are cursed with poor digestion. If you see a loner in the corner constantly popping Tums or swigging from a bottle of Maalox, then you might have a nether fiend on the premises. Or you might just have mortal who eats too much fried processed foods, but still, one must be vigilant.

“For me, the feisty ones do not have any improved flavor, they are but annoying until they settle. I had one industrious morsel strike his Zippo lighter while he was interred in my stomach. The pain was terrible. I had to do something, so I reasoned, what to do with fire? Why you douse it with liquid. I took the closest bottle near me and guzzled. Naturally, it was a gallon jar of 150 proof rum. For three day, I was hiccuping fireballs.”

I poured coffee for us, and he ignored his glass. “I had one late night snack hitting me like he was a contender for middle weight champion. I was in such straights, but then I recalled that before I swallowed him, he was getting into a fight with another citizen. I hunted that second man out and swallowed him as well. The two fought each other, leaving my poor stomach lining alone. I can’t use that solution often. I was full after eating the first fellow. The second one was gluttony and so much saturated fat. No, the best I can hope for is that my victim will surrender quickly to his new reality. To give up the ghost, and become one.”

I was concerned. “How do you get through this, how do you let the pain pass?”

“All I can do is think of better times,” he said.

“The better times, when you are sated and at peace,” I suggested.

“No. I think of the times when I am hungry. When I am famished for hunting, for sport. When every person passing is potential. Is possible. When every encounter is backlit by lightning storms. When every gaze and gesture is a fait accompli for satisfaction.”

He looked down at the seismic movement of his belly. He suggested a game of Scrabble, but it was obvious on inspection that the game we had was missing half the tiles. So instead we let our coffees cool and listened to the wind rattle the shutters outside.


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Author: Miles Gough

Contributor: Miles Gough

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"Why are you not doing mating rituals?" the Grand Fiend asked one evening. "You are just cloistered away with such a doddering old monster such as myself. Shouldn't you try to find a mate, a companion, or at least some late-night hook-up?"

I told him that I only meet with him once a week, and I enjoyed our time together and our talks. I also mentioned that dating was never a comfortable thing for me. That was one of the reasons I enjoyed the research I was conducting. Talking with blood thirsty monsters once a week was more satisfying and safe then a blind date excursion to a TGIFridays.

"But what about dancing?" he asked. "How can you live without dancing? A little Inuit woman told me once that if you do not dance you rust. What fine advice. I was greatly affected by her wisdom and made sure to eat her slowly and with relish; one should not gobble down such treasures, but savor them."

"Dancing scares me more than anything," I said. "I feel like I have several poorly assembled left feet."

"Nonsense. I have seen a 12 foot long bi-forcated centipede beast do a soft shoe to Putting on the Ritz quite handily. Why should you feel impeded if it did not? Perhaps monsters are the only ones who can truly appreciate the joy of dancing. The opportunity of a spotlight that you do not need to shy away from.

"Werewolves are quite beautiful when dancing, though quite ostentatious. They like to go for a large ballet routine. I saw one start dancing in human form and take a huge leap into the air just as the moon emerged and landed gracefully as a wolf. I would like to see Barishnikov try to do something so elegant.

"And you would weep to watch zombies do the salsa. Zombies are wonderful in appropriating latin rhythms into their shambling walk. Actually, all the shambling creatures are keen to do a cha-cha.

"The finest dance I ever saw was done by a ghoul who found itself in a kitchenalia store on a summer's evening. The place was packed with purchasers of gourmet cookwear. The sound system played a salsa CD and the ghoul was compelled to dance cha-cha. One, two, cha-cha-cha. The ghoul was loving the music, the movement and the attention. The whole store stopped and witnessed his graceful display of the moment. He took one young lady and swung her around and partnered with her for a few steps. People were cheering and clapping along and the ghoul kept on dancing. When the song was over the place shook with applause. The ghoul took a low respectful bow.

"Of course, there were no survivors."

After saying this, the Grand Fiend was silent for some time. He then announced the evening over and sent me out to go dancing. I went home instead. While walking down the street, I found my step lighter, supple and daring.


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Author: Miles Gough

Contributor: Miles Gough

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“You would be amazed with what monsters talk about when they get together,” the Grand Fiend told me over a meal of take-out falafel (for me) and deep fried human fingers (for him). He leaned back, in that typical expansiveness of his, and smiled fangs. “What do you think monsters talk about?”

“I’m not sure, prime hunting grounds, you know, how to get victims.”

“Not by half,” he said with strong slither of dismissal. “Why would they ask about that in this overpopulated world, this is a global fast food proposition. Do you talk to your friend about grocery shopping?”

“Then I suppose they go on about not getting caught by the authorities or at least, from those monster hunters you’ve mentioned.”

“Sir Edward and his ilk? Why bother? Talking about them just enables the little nuisances, best not mention vermin or every where you go, you will swear you are noticing cockroaches underneath every foot fall, for those who have feet. No. I will stop you from going any further. What do monsters talk about? They talk clothing.”

He paused long enough to realize that I had an expected response and filled my part, “Clothing? What do you mean clothing?”

“I mean, that is what they talk about. Vampires go on about adequate dry cleaning. The kind that truly can remove blood stains from good shirts. They exchange business cards of good ones for every city they might be visiting. They mention the excellent, no questions asked locations. There are endless debates over the worth of one hour cleaning or the two days get it right establishments. They can go on endlessly on a side debate about proper reprisals of those dry cleaners who leave stains in. Should they be killed or perhaps just a well worded critique on Yelp. Then another discussion concerns why get the stains out at all, is it to avoid detection or is it but a deep sense of propriety? Vampires are much about aesthetics, too much if you will take my editorial aside.

“Lycanthropes and all the shape shifters have in depth discussions on leaving and creating clothing caches. These might be the most delightful of arguments, it borders on art because there is no good way to seed the world with proper sweat suit hideaways. One were-bear I had the chance of meeting claimed to have created the entire nudist colony movement back in the fifties just to justify his lack of proper dress. I did not believe him, but a what a lovely hour I spent listening to such rot.

“Other popular topics are about biting through types of clothing. Some shape shifters are allergic to the synthetic material in some apparel. Others cannot stand the feel of gortex on their incisors. And everyone loathes down vests with all those feathers fluttering about their crime scenes. It is all about clothing.”

Perhaps I was too entertained with the topic, and I said, “And mummies go on about what medical supply stores have the best gauze bandages.”

The Grand Fiend sniffed dismissively. “Mummies do not stay in their bandages. They leave that thing behind as soon as they are resurrected. Though that does bring up a difficult and all too common discussion; what clothing style should be worn? Is one trapped in an antiquated style or should one go modern dress? The mummies also want to wear those ancient Egyptian toga schmatas that they were so found of back in the hieroglyphic days. Others in the conversation stress that you should consult the latest issue of GQ. Some vampire tribes live for that new couture, while others, those recently unearthed, are stuck in fedoras and starched shirt collars. Wars have started over such schisms. “

“And what’s the answer,” I said. “Who’s right?”

“Neither are completely wrong. I think the skeletal parasite demons have it right when they wear the skin of their victims. It doesn’t matter the style or skin color, it is how you swagger in it. If you believe in yourself and your right to be seen, then you are wearing your environment like a fine beau brommel. You have to feel good in your own skin, whether it is yours or just something you’ve borrowed for a spell. But, it is best to change with the age, to shed your skin for the time. Like this.”

And the Grand Fiend demonstrated how that change should be done.


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Author: Miles Gough