“That’s got to be the stupidest plan I’ve ever heard,” Woeisme said as Jakob appeared crestfallen. “First of all, the logistics are messed up. Where are we going to get a 10-gallon drum of marmalade, an industrial strength garden hose, five pairs of left-handed scissors, a bootlegged videocassette of the first season of Mr. Belvedere, a pair of Batman Underoos, a dented lobster pot and a slightly randy Chihuahua?”
“That’s just a technicality. The plan is pretty brilliant,” Jakob insisted.
“No, Jakob, it’s not,” Woeisme said firmly. “None of us can speak Esperanto or understand Navajo sign language.”
“If you did, it would be a great escape plan, you have to admit,” Jakob said, his feelings a tad hurt.
“It’s not a great escape plan! I don’t know what was worse, the hour you spent explaining it to us or the careful diagram you sketched detailing how this ludicrous plan would actually get us out of here,” Woeisme said. “In that time, Bela has savaged another guard and Fig has fallen asleep.”
She gingerly kicked Fig on the shoulder and the young man awoke with a start. Seeing Woeisme, he smiled appreciatively. She returned the smile in an adoringly teenage kind of way.
“Alright, we scrap the plan!” Jakob said and, filled with bovine-lycanthropic angst, sulked.
The Voles marched them into a cave lit by torches, bonfires and novelty candles shaped like fluorescent mushrooms.
“Welcome to Hëll,” one of the Vole guards said mockingly. “It’s not really Hëll, just an illustration I used to break your spirits and intimidate you.”
“Intimidate this!” Bela said and bit the guard. She tore a large portion of his neck and drank his blood greedily.
“Mom!” Woeisme hollered.
“Oh, sorry, sweetie!” Bela said, and wiped the caked-on Vole blood from her chin.
Two Vole guards entered the chamber and sniffed around. They saw the exsanguinated body of their flurry comrade on the ground.
“Blimey! Wot ‘appened ‘ere, guv’nor?” the cockney Vole explained in animalistic horror.
Bela, using her inhuman vampire quickness, flew across the room in nanoseconds, sank her protruding fangs into the Vole’s meaty neck and paralyzed him. She withdrew, and blood squirted to the ceiling in an artistic jet through the puncture wounds.
“Dude, that’s pretty cool,” the other Vole guard observed, before Bela plunged her fangs into him. The Vole flopped around like a floppy sort of creature that was being attacked by a vampire.
Bela then recoiled in horror.
“Golly! There I go again!” she said, slightly embarrassed and repulsed. “What is it with me lately?”
“Let’s get out of here!” Woeisme exclaimed, and the group made their way out of the room to the twisty cave passages adorned with stalactites, stalagmites and graffiti of Voles engaging in lewd behavior.
“I don’t like being a vampire! It’s not what I thought it would be,” Bela said worriedly. “I thought I’d be luring people with my otherworldly charms, sucking on their necks and having sex in coffins. It would be gothy and exotic and sensual. What I’m feeling now, well, it’s just unnatural.”
“Drinking the blood of animals is kinder than drinking human blood,” Jakob noted. “It’s not unnatural.”
“Remind me of that when you turn into a cow next time,” Bela growled.
They passage wended a half mile until it opened into a large, round cavern bathed in a pale green light. A carved wooden pedestal stood at the cavern’s center. A crispy brown onion ring a foot in diameter hovered over the pedestal like only an enchanted onion ring could. The onion ring emitted a powerful glow, and a sound reminiscent of an angelic choir reverberated from it.
“Can that be?” Jakob asked, trembling.
“Is it really?” Woeisme uttered, as tears welled in her eyes.
“Yes it is!” came a hideous voice.
A creature resembling a deformed, four-foot high Mr. Potato Head doll waddled into the room, carried by short, stubby legs. The potato person had bumpy brown skin, a bulbous nose marred by warts and acne and two red, bloodshot eyes. An ugly mouth containing a set of sharp, protruding fangs was under the creature’s nose, and the beast’s two skinny arms ended in fierce-looking talon-tipped hands. The anthropomorphic potato wore a black suit and cape and a small golden crown topped his bald, rough pate.
“Behold, the Onion Ring of Power! And it’s mine! All mine!” the disgusting potato creature said before laughing a vile, rotten laugh.
“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced,” Jakob said nonchalantly.
The freakish potato creature threw his head skyward and proclaimed, “Behold! I am Vlad the Impeeler, Scourge of Potatokind and Lord Vampire!”
“What exactly are you?” Woeisme asked.
“What indeed, my little lady,” the russet potato creature said and shuffled its squat body towards the pedestal as it eyed the Onion Ring of Power. “You are after the precioussss….My precioussssss…”
“Great,” Bela said. “I’m lost in this Vole cave, I’m a vampire and I’ve got a talking potato doing a Gollum impression. If the Dan Quayle, Michael Dukakis and Stephen Colbert references weren’t enough…”
“Silence, young waif!” Vlad commanded. “I am the last of my kind, a hybrid vampire potato. I was the Potato Goddesses’ former boyfriend when she dumped me after high school. She said we were both going away to different colleges and things got awkward…”
Vlad caught himself and stammered, “But that’s none of your business! I’ve taken to hunting for this Onion Ring of Power and will add it to my collection of delicious relics like the Jalapeño Popper of Purity, the Mozzarella Stick of Strength, and the Corn Chip of Courage.”
“Whatever, dude,” Jakob said. “We just want the onion ring.”
Vlad hissed like an animal and levitated off the ground. He reappeared in front of the pedestal and moved, snakelike as an icy chill projected off his body.
“You shall not have the sacred Onion Ring of Power,” Vlad said menacingly. “Instead you shall leave this place and never return…after…”
“After what?” Woeisme asked.
“After you listen to my standup routine!” the vampiric potato exclaimed as a cordless microphone materialized in his hand. A lone spotlight shone down from above, illuminating Vlad. “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Chuckle Coffin, the funniest place underground! I’m Vlad the Impeeler, Scourge of Potatokind and Lord Vampire here to tickle your funny bone and maybe drink your blood, so be generous with your applause and don’t forget to try your waitress and tip your veal!”
Bela shook her head with disbelief.
“That film producer is not going to believe this,” she murmured.
“Why did the vampire attack the actor? Because he wanted show business to be in his blood!” Vlad said into the mic.
When his audience failed to respond, he launched into another comedic gem: “What’s Dracula’s favorite car? A bloodmobile!”
Somewhere, a cricket chirped loudly.
“My ex-girlfriend had a thing for potatoes. She pulled my spud. I gave her the fingerling. She gave Mr. Potato Head. Any of these suggestive potato jokes doing anything for you?” Vlad asked.
“Not really, no,” Woeisme honestly admitted. “Now are you going to give us the Onion Ring of Power?”
Vlad produced a tiny potato puppet dressed in a sailor suit and readied for the second half of his Catskills routine – ventriloquism!
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is my son, Tater Tot,” Vlad said, and spoke to the puppet, “Say hello to the nice people, Tater Tot.”
Vlad manipulated the puppet and said “Hello, people!” in a ridiculous, high-pitched screech.
“I hate to break up this stellar act, but we’re in a hurry,” Fig said.
Angered to the point a hybrid potato-vampire can be, Vlad’s eyes burned red and he floated off the ground.
“You dare interrupt my set? After all of the open mics and a guest spot at the Improv?” Vlad said, his voice booming and unearthly. “You shall now die, human scum!”
“I’ve seen your act. You’re the one dying,” Jakob quipped as a Vole on a drum and cymbal hit a rim shot. Ba dum tisss!
“Thanks, folks! I’ll be here all week!” Jakob said.
Vlad the scion of Hëll and scourge of potatokind was ready to pounce upon them, ready to unleash his demonic minions and devour them, but before the potato vampire could strike, Bela had already grasped the Onion Ring of Power.
A bright glow enveloped her as the onion ring’s mysterious powers activated.
• 
Well, I wondered what the next contributor would do with the cliffhanger I’d left him or her. Now I know. “That’s got to be the stupidest plan I’ve ever heard…” I laughed out loud, as did my girlfriend.
“I’ve seen your act. You’re the one dying,”
I loved that line. 🙂
flopped around like a floppy sort of creature that was being attacked by a vampire. was my fave. 🙂
When did Fig get his body back..?
I guess during that interlude when Jakob was explaining the plan. Maybe someone else will fill in the details. Or maybe when they tell Fig that He Belongs Dead that he’ll just disappear into dust.
my favourite line: “filled with bovine-lycanthropic angst”. Great bit.
He had me at “Vlad the Impeeler.”
For the record, a publish-on-demand (ie, no layout of cost) version of this mishegas once it’s all over, with profits going to the Hero Initiative or the CBLDF would probably not ruffle too many feathers and sell fairly well. And it would be the final crowning irony in reference to the misguided lady who inspired it in the first place.
Sign me up, I’d totally buy one.
I think I can commit to 5. 🙂
Theno