Published April 3, 2011
Hey all. This is supposed to be a parody of conventional vampires. Tell me what you think.
Not much was unique about 13 Mountview Place. It was a gray apartment complex, surrounded by other buildings, also of varying shades of gray. It had its own set of gossiping neighbors, cheating husbands and godsdamned kids making a racket all day. It was the sort of place urban legends begin.
Residing at #709, 13 Mountview place were a 10 year old and his extremely harassed aunt. The boy’s name was Larry Stubbins, although on the street he went by ‘Leadpipe Larry’, ‘Stubbo’, or the more colloquial ‘You little bastard, gimme back my wallet.” His resume, if he had one, would include ‘Leader of Leadpipe Larry’s Little Lads’, a notorious street gang, ‘Purveyor of candy from babies’ and ‘President of the Piss off Old People Club.’ Ahh, the casual criminality of youth.
Larry fancied himself a bit of a detective, and his latest victim of investigation was Mr. Randal, a middle aged gentleman who lived in the penthouse, on the thirteenth floor of the apartment building. Mr. Randall was a tall, good looking man, and only his grayish hair betrayed his age. He kept to himself, but had a dark sense of humor and an affinity for Bloody Marys. (Author’s Note: A bloody mary is an alcoholic drink made of tomato juice. They are delicious.) Also, he always wore black, was an atheist, and no one had ever seen him eat or drink. They particularly hadn’t seen him eat garlic. Naturally Larry suspected he was a vampire, and was convinced that he was behind the spate of cat disappearances plaguing the neighborhood. (Author’s Note: I view this as necessary pest control, but it impedes the flow of the story. I don’t like cats.)
Every day Larry and Mr. Randal shared a 5 minute elevator ride down, before walking to the bus stop. It was a slow elevator. While previously the trip had been filled with an awkward silence between a child and an adult who knows nothing about children, now Larry was determined to use this time to pull the deepest, darkest secrets from the recesses of Mr. Randal’s mind.
The next day, Mr. Randall entered the elevator to the sight of Larry eating a packet of highly odoriferous garlic chips. He watched with horrified fascination as Larry fit at least 15 chips in his mouth.
“Do you want fum mifter?” mumbled Larry, a gleam in his eye.
“No, thank you. I do not enjoy garlic as a flavor. It blocks my sinuses”
“Do you know who elf doefn’t like garlic” asked Larry, his mouth still full.
“I believe vampires historically do not enjoy the substance. It renders them quite helpless”
“You a vampire, mister?” asked Larry, swallowing his mouthful.
Mr. Randal declined to answer. As they walked in silence towards the bus stop, Randal popped into a corner store, emerged with a bulb of garlic, took a large bite out of it, and then smiling, handed it to the boy. Larry took it, perplexed.
“Aren’t you going to have a bite too?
Larry studied the bulb skeptically. He hesitantly took a bite. It was bitter, horribly pungent and made his eyes stream. Gasping for breath, he boarded his bus, which had just arrived, and glared back at Mr. Randal, who was giving him a smile of total innocence.
Well, he’d better watch out tomorrow. Larry would bring out the big guns. The water guns. The holy water guns.
To be continued…
I await your comments. Be as critical as you like.
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140,667 Literary Works • 673,586 Reviews
Hi
This piece was really fun to read, I'm not sure whether thats because the kid reminds me of my little brother or not but I loved it.
I liked how you managed to capture the way that kids act in such a short piece.
I also find it difficult to add humour to a story and you managed this very well indeed.
Can't wait to read more,
- apple96
Ok this was hilarious and made me laugh out loud. It was parodious but it made a lot of sense if this was an entire book I would read it in an hour in love. It makes me think: what's next? Will Larry suspect the hairy fat neighbor for a werewolf? I loved it loved it loved it and would enjoy another installment or chapter. I almost rolled on the floor and laughed. Keep up the humorous work my friend.
Hello again! Here is my review.
I really love the beginning of this story. It has whimsy and mystery, and just a fun pace.
Otherwise, I think this story is cute and has a supernatural little edge to it. I enjoyed it. Keep on writing!
Hi there!
It's me from the Religious Discussion Club.
I loved this, it was funny, witty and interesting. Your style is awesome. Just have a few nitpicks though.
Shouldn't this be 'goddamned'?
Please do away with the author's notes? They're a bit distracting. We wanna enjoy the story
Hi Tr3x!
You probably read on the Shamrockers wall, but you were randomly chosen to have a review on your work... so here I am!
Things I liked
Apart from it being a parody...
This was hilarious! XD I'll talk about the bold later...
and
I loved these! These are great!
This is hilarious!
What an interesting way to finish!
Things to be improved
...aren't very much. Just a thing here and there!
I'm trying not to be too serious... XD
About the bold... at first you used a single speech mark and at the end of 'wallet' you used two. Was that an error?
I was actually a little bit confused with the authors note. Is it possible to give them a separate paragraph?
Finally (this is very picky), is it possible to change the "#709" to "Apartment 709"? I didn't understand what that meant until I read another review...
Overall
Overall, great work! I loved it!
Keep writing!
Mac
Hey there!
It's nice to read a vampire story that isn't oh so serious fo once.
As a lot of the other reviewers have already pointed out, I appreciate the humour in this
I did spot some mistakes and I'll do my best to help correct them for you.
As a general rule, numbers should be written out in full. For example, '13' should be 'thirteen' It just helps the piece to look more professional and doesn't distract the reader so much. I noticed the same problem a couple more times in the piece, but I won't patronise you by pointing them all out.
You need some punctuation here. There should be a full stop at the end of the first and third sentences, and a question mark after 'garlic' in the second sentence.
***
Apart from those two pointers above, I think this story is brilliant. I really am looking forward to reading more and I hope you do continue this
I hope this helps!
xDudettex
Hiya Tr3x! Sorry it took me this long to get around to reviewing. ^^'
So, my first impression of this was that is was really cute and funny. It's nice to see some light humor every once and a while, and you do well with this sort of thing. The writing was very casual, which made it easy to follow, but sometimes that lack of discipline made it seem childish or half...butted. *cough* Overall, the concept is clever, and I like the little cliff-hanger type ending. Despite it being such a light story, it still makes the reader wonder what the truth is about this Mr. Randall character.
Now for a bit of nitpicking:
Ok, this is very picky of me, but I thought that since you said in the previous paragraph that the apartment complex was 13 Mountview place, that the repetition was a little annoying. It'd flow better in my opinion to just say "apartment number 709." The reader will still know where you're talking about.
Ah, this boy sounds...charming. I especially loved the last bit about the colloquialism. That made me giggle. :3
Vampire or not, who in their right mind would take a bite out of a clove of garlic, even in order to confound an annoying boy? Point taken, that's still pretty ridiculous. (I really don't care if you leave this in, I thought I'd just point out how odd such an action is.)
Other than that and the points previous reviewers have already addressed, this little story is looking good! I agree with the other before me that I think the author's notes could, be nixed. You have enough humor in it already that side notes only cheapen the effect.
This was an enjoyable read, and I hope I've helped a little. It being so short and comical makes it difficult to critique anything too hardcore.
Thank you again for entering my contest, and if there's anything you need, do ask.
Much loves,
Bunny
LOL this is so funny I could see this as a great movie!!!
Nice job it was well written.
Luvs's a lot Kimberly
Hey,
Thanks for reviewing my vampire story. I'm here to review your, and as I have trouble reviewing without being picky and rather annoying, I'm going to give you an indepth review though, really, I don't have too much to complain about.
I'm not very good at humor, so I appreciate it when I see it. I think this is well done, and I hope my review helped. PM me when the next part is out.
Megsug
OMG!! This is so good.
It's funny while actually making sense
Also it has a very casual type of writing
that I really like
I absolutely loved it so
PLEASE continue it
Also when the next chapter comes out
can you remind me please?
I am just a bit busy nowdays :l
<3
Hiya! I'm Luxe.
This story made me giggle. There were several grammar mistakes with commas, so my reccomendation is to go back through and read it aloud to yourself so you find the mistakes and be able to fix them. That should help a lot. But I found the story to be a work of potential comedic genius. I loved the way you gave the little kid several names. I especially liked "You little bastard, gimme back my wallet." I loved it!
Cheers,
Luxe