The First Rhys Hughes MEGAPACK®

By Rhys Hughes

I have been enjoying the work of Welsh fantasist Rhys Hughes for quite a few years now, and it’s an honor to be publishing not one, but three MEGAPACK® collections of his indescribably excellent, of which this is the first. There is fantasy, of course. But there is also absurdist comedy. And horrors. And monsters. And all manner of things that only he could come up with. Truly, there is no one writing at the moment who is anything like him. Looking backwards, he’s a bit like R.A. Lafferty (but not), and a bit like Neal Gaiman (but not), and a bit like Paul Di Filippo (but not). Or perhaps they are a bit like him? (Or not?) After all, it’s a bit field with lots of overlap.

Whatever these 24 tales are (or are not), prepare yourself for a strange and magical journey. You will have fun!

Included are:

BARBARIAN GRAN
VAMPIRIC GRAMPS
DEPRESSURISED GHOST STORY
THE POCKET SHOPS
ARMS AGAINST A SEA
THE AGELESS AGELASTS
THE PRIVATE PIRATES CLUB
SWALLOWING THE AMAZON
PYRAMID AND THISBE
THE FOREST CHAPEL BELL
JELLYDÄMMERUNG!
THE PURLOINED LIVER
JOURNEY THROUGH A WALL
THE JAM OF HYPNOS
THE TELL-TALE NOSE
THE BANKER OF INGOLSTADT
THE ASTRAL DISRUPTOR
THE MACROSCOPIC TEAPOT
THE CHIMNEY
WHAT I FEAR MOST
FINDING THE BOOK OF SAND
THE CANDID SLYNESS OF SCURRILITY FOREPAWS
CHAMELEONS
ANTON ARCTIC AND THE CONQUEST OF THE SCOTTISH POLE

If you enjoy this volume of our MEGAPACK® series, search your favorite ebook store for "Wildside Press MEGAPACK" to see the complete selction of more than 400 entries, covering science fiction, fantasy, mystery, literature, westerns, and much, much more!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wildside Press
• Release date: Dec 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9781667660745

Book preview

Table of Contents

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

ABOUT THE MEGAPACK® SERIES

INTRODUCTION, by John Betancourt

PRAISE FOR RHYS HUGHES

BARBARIAN GRAN

VAMPIRIC GRAMPS

DEPRESSURISED GHOST STORY

THE POCKET SHOPS

ARMS AGAINST A SEA

THE AGELESS AGELASTS

THE PRIVATE PIRATES CLUB

SWALLOWING THE AMAZON

PYRAMID AND THISBE

THE FOREST CHAPEL BELL

JELLYDÄMMERUNG!

THE PURLOINED LIVER

JOURNEY THROUGH A WALL

THE JAM OF HYPNOS

THE TELL-TALE NOSE

THE BANKER OF INGOLSTADT

THE ASTRAL DISRUPTOR

THE MACROSCOPIC TEAPOT

THE CHIMNEY

WHAT I FEAR MOST

FINDING THE BOOK OF SAND

THE CANDID SLYNESS OF SCURRILITY FOREPAWS

CHAMELEONS

ANTON ARCTIC AND THE CONQUEST OF THE SCOTTISH POLE

Wildside Press’s MEGAPACK® Ebook Series

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

The First Rhys Hughes MEGAPACK® is copyright © 2022 by Rhys Hughes.

The MEGAPACK® ebook series name is a registered trademark of Wildside Press, LLC.

All rights reserved.

* * * *

Barbarian Gran originally appeared in The Early Bird Catches the Worm, Gloomy Seahorse Press, 2018.

Vampiric Gramps originally appeared in Bone Idle in the Charnel House, Hippocampus Press, 2014.

Depressurised Ghost Story originally appeared in The Smell of Telescopes, Tartarus Press, 2000.

The Pocket Shops originally appeared in Orpheus on the Underground, Tartarus Press, 2015.

Arms Against a Sea originally appeared in ‘Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction #39’, 2011.

The Ageless Agelasts originally appeared in ‘Vastarien: Spring’, 2019.

The Private Pirates Club originally appeared in The Truth Spinner, Wildside Press, 2012.

Swallowing the Amazon originally appeared in ‘Black Infinity: Winter’, 2018.

Pyramid and Thisbe originally appeared in ‘Beyond the Boundaries, #9’, 1996.

The Forest Chapel Bell originally appeared in Tales from Tartarus, Tartarus Press, 1995.

Jellydämmerung! originally appeared in ‘The Dream Zone: September’, 2001.

The Purloined Liver originally appeared in ‘Nasty Piece of Work, April’, 1997.

Journey Through a Wall originally appeared in Midnight Never Comes, Ash-Tree Press, 1997.

The Jam of Hypnos originally appeared in Poe’s Progeny, Gray Friar Press, 2005.

The Tell-Tale Nose originally appeared in The Smell of Telescopes, Tartarus Press, 2000.

The Banker of Ingolstadt" originally appeared in The Smell of Telescopes, Tartarus Press, 2000.

The Astral Disruptor originally appeared in The Astral Disruptor, 40K, 2010.

The Macroscopic Teapot originally appeared in Stories from a Lost Anthology, Tartarus Press, 2002.

The Chimney originally appeared in Worming the Harpy, Tartarus Press, 1995.

What I Fear Most originally appeared in Bone Idle in the Charnel House, Hippocampus Press, 2014.

Finding the Book of Sand originally appeared in A New Universal History of Infamy, Ministry of Whimsy, 2004.

The Candid Slyness of Scurrility Forepaws originally appeared in Link Arms with Toads, Chomu Press, 2011.

Chameleons originally appeared in Bone Idle in the Charnel House, Hippocampus Press" originally appeared in 2014.

Anton Arctic and the Conquest of the Scottish Pole originally appeared in Tallest Stories, Eibonvale Press, 2013.

ABOUT THE MEGAPACK® SERIES

Over the last decade, our MEGAPACK® ebook series has grown to be our most popular endeavor. (Maybe it helps that we sometimes offer them as premiums to our mailing list!) One question we keep getting asked is, Who’s the editor?

The MEGAPACK® ebook series (except where specifically credited) are a group effort. Everyone at Wildside works on them. This includes John Betancourt (me), Carla Coupe, Steve Coupe, Shawn Garrett, Helen McGee, Bonner Menking, Sam Cooper, Helen McGee and many of Wildside’s authors…who often suggest stories to include (and not just their own!)

RECOMMEND A FAVORITE STORY?

Do you know a great classic science fiction story, or have a favorite author whom you believe is perfect for the MEGAPACK® ebook series? We’d love your suggestions! You can email the publisher at [e-mail]. Note: we only consider stories that have already been professionally published. This is not a market for new works.

TYPOS

Unfortunately, as hard as we try, a few typos do slip through. We update our ebooks periodically, so make sure you have the current version (or download a fresh copy if it’s been sitting in your ebook reader for months.) It may have already been updated.

If you spot a new typo, please let us know. We’ll fix it for everyone. You can email the publisher at [e-mail] or contact us through the Wildside Press web site.

INTRODUCTION, by John Betancourt

I have been enjoying the work of Welsh fantasist Rhys Hughes for quite a few years now, and it’s an honor to be publishing not one, but three MEGAPACK® collections of his indescribably excellent, of which this is the first. There is fantasy, of course. But there is absurdist comedy. And horrors. And monsters. And all manner of things that only he could come up with. Truly, there is no one writing at the moment who is anything like him. Looking backwards, he’s a bit like R.A. Lafferty (but not), and a bit like Neal Gaiman (but not), and a bit like Paul Di Filippo (but not). Or perhaps they are a bit like him? (Or not?) After all, it’s a bit field with lots of overlap.

Whatever these 24 tales are (or are not), prepare yourself for a strange and magical journey. You will have fun!

—John Betancourt

Publisher, Wildside Press LLC

wildsidepress.com | bcmystery.com

PRAISE FOR RHYS HUGHES

Rhys Hughes seems almost the sum of our planet’s literature. He toys with convention. He makes the metaphysical political, the personal incredible and the comic hints at subtle pain. Few living fictioneers approach this chef’s sardonic confections, certainly not in English. —MICHAEL MOORCOCK

If I said he was a Welsh writer who writes as though he has gone to school with the best writing from all over the world, I wonder if my compliment would just sound provincial. Hughes’ style, with all that means, is among the most beautiful I’ve encountered in several years. —SAMUEL R. DELANY

It’s a crime that Rhys Hughes is not as widely known as Italo Calvino and other writers of that stature. Brilliantly written and conceived, Hughes’ fiction has few parallels anywhere in the world. In some alternate universe with a better sense of justice, his work triumphantly parades across all bestseller lists. —JEFF VANDERMEER

Every Hughes story implies much, served with wit and whimsy and word-relish, high spirits and bittersweet twists. —IAN WATSON

A dazzling disintegration of the reality principle. A rite of passage to the greater world beyond common sense. Raises the bar on profundity and sets a comic standard for the tragic limits of our human experience. Like Beckett on nitrous oxide. Like Kafka with a brighter sense of humour. —A.A. ATTANASIO

I wore throughout the undisplaceable, unsequelchable rictus of a grin of both delight and amazement. —MICHAEL BISHOP

Hughes’ world is a magical one, and his language is the most magical thing of all. —T.E.D. KLEIN

BARBARIAN GRAN

The snowy season had come, and it was snowing now as the light began to fade. It would probably snow all night and in the morning the world would be clean again. But under the freshness, the crispness, the pristine shroud that gleamed in the rising sun, the filth and horror would still be there, waiting for the thaw and the decay of the spring to dissolve the mush and leave only bones. The old woman nodded to herself for a moment as she entertained this thought.

Bones are like icicles, she decided, but they lie horizontally on the ground and don’t hang from the branches of bare trees or from the eaves of crude circular huts. Perhaps icicles really are bones, the bones of frost monsters, stunted giants with colder lives than men. And yet the men were cooling now too, the men strewn on the battlefield beyond the hill. Soon they would be frozen hard, stiff enough to stand up like statues, if one was ever inclined to do so.

She had been preparing for the battle for many days. As soon as the warriors had made the fateful announcement, a declaration of war on a neighbouring tribe, she had groped in the gloom at the rear of her hut for her box of knitting tools, the yarn and needles. There were no windows in these huts. They were stone and wood and bone constructions with a hearth in the centre. They were smoky and small but a barbarian needs no finer luxury, not even an old woman.

The fire had been low and the embers pulsed a deep red as she opened the lid of the crudely carved box in order to reach inside and remove what she sought. She was an expert at knitting but only did it before battles. There was a good reason for this. Out came the needles and yarn, and then began obsessive, almost feverish work, the knitting of what tradition dictated must be knitted. And she revelled in her task, this crone with only one tooth in her wrinkled head.

Some knitters make hats, others socks or gloves, a few cardigans or ties, and it is not entirely unknown, among the annals of knitting history, for trousers to be knitted by one individual over the course of one night. The chronicles of wool are less fierce and bloody than those of swords or spears, and yet there is drama here too, heroism, tragedy and triumph. Are the fates of a knitter always mundane? Knit likely! And the old woman who knitted now was a special one.

She was the grandmother of the most spectacular warrior ever to emerge from the chilly wastes of this blasted land. A warrior who had gone east to ransack the gilded cities of the voluptuous orient, south to hack a kingdom for himself among the vines and creepers of the jungles, west to sail as a pirate the ocean that goes on forever and ever, and even north to the lands where snow is considered warm and men grow hair on the inside of their faces as well as the outside.

Yes, she was special, this hunched hag on her misshapen stool, with her eyes of beady brightness and her gnarled fingers working the knitting needles with incredible dexterity, clacking and drooling and chucking and wheezing as she finished the last of the face coverings, the woollen garment that in future ages would be known as a balaclava and adopted by hikers at night and terrorists by day. She had knitted more than three hundred and her wool was exhausted.

It was done. Her work and the battle, both done. And her work relied on battles to give it meaning. She knitted for the dying men, those who were still in the world of the living but slipping away into the world of the dead. They were in transition, on a final journey, and her task was to care for them. That was the mission of the barbarian grandmothers, and she was the greatest of them, held in awe by the other hags, most powerful and efficient of all the elderly knitters.

She stood up from her stool with a grunt and a creak. It was her spine that creaked and the stool that grunted. She hobbled now but no stick was necessary for her to lean on. Barbarian grandmothers did not use the aids of soft civilisation. Sticks, crutches, frames and other such devices were for weaklings. She would hobble on her own two feet, feet blackened and hardened by a tough life, feet that resembled the claws of an ancient reptilian bird, feet that felt no pain at all.

With slow but precise movements, she collected the balaclavas and put them in a sack. Three hundred of them. Maybe more than would be needed, but why should she care about that? The spares would keep for new battles. There would always be fights and bloodshed in this part of the world. It was a law of the bleak gods of the tribes. A man was only a man when he was killing or being killed. Death by the sword, axe or spear was considered honourable, noble, correct.

She hefted the bag and threw it over one hunched shoulder. Then she shuffled out into the falling snow. She moved with appalling slowness but unstoppable purpose. She had the entire night to complete her task. There was no rush. She was like the very geology she walked on, like the movement of landmasses on a bed of magma. Slow but implacable. A gran on a mission. A barbarian gran fulfilling her destiny. A gradual gran. The snow whipped about her form.

The light flakes flew into her face, perhaps saying hello to the white hairs on her desiccated chin. She blinked away the snow that settled on her hooded eyelids and a dry cackle escaped her infinitely thin lips. She could smell the blood from afar! Truly this had been a great battle, a magnificent struggle, and she would have a wonderful time doing what she planned to do. She barely sunk into the snow, so light was she as she lurched onward, horrid nostrils flared in greed.

I am coming, my darlings! she croaked, more to herself than to any ear on the battlefield. Don’t despair! I’ll be there soon...

Then she shook with silent laughter, a gran in her senescent prime. A gran full of the twilit joys of physical seasoning and emotional erosion. The most barbaric of all barbarian grans! A gran one would not mess with on any level in any circumstance. It even seemed the snow laughed along with her, in the way it whooshed and swirled as the blizzard gathered strength. As for the victorious warriors, the survivors were now coming back to their dwellings and passing her.

They greeted her respectfully, those who were still able to do so, for exhaustion and wounds had made some of them incapable of the little niceties that always helped to smooth barbarian life. They dripped gore, some of it their own. Her feet stamped it into the snow, blending it with the flakes as if she was mixing a cake. But she was a barbarian gran, not a normal one, and did not mix cakes. Onwards she went, and not once did she shift her sack to the other shoulder.

She was strong, this old woman, strong and fierce. She rounded the small hill that had obscured the sight of the battle from the village and now she saw the full extent of the carnage for herself. Her eyes were still keen enough for that. Hundreds of men sprawled on the ground. Hunks of severed flesh tumbled around them. Limbs at odd angles, mouths agape, entrails uncoiled and exposed like improbable sausages. Some still groaned. These were the ones she longed for.

She moved with accuracy and wisdom, wasting no time with the dead. She was too experienced at this game to make mistakes. She paused by each dying man and reached into her sack, then extracted a balaclava and eased it over his head. She did not differentiate between warriors of her side and those of the other tribe. Her task was to cover the heads of both with woollen garments, to shield the flesh of cheeks and brow and mouth from the snow and icy wind.

The night passed but only occasionally did a gap open in the blizzard to reveal a few stars, twinkling madly, and not once did she look upwards. She concentrated on her chore, the sack growing lighter and lighter as the balaclavas were distributed. At last the sack was empty, the final balaclava had been put on the final head, and now the sky was growing light in the east. By some strange coincidence she had knitted a perfect number of balaclavas with none left over...

She stood up straight for the first time in many months, her hands on her hips, and she stretched her ancient body and revelled in the music of her cracking bone joints. A vast yawn opened up her grotesque head. The snow blew into it and then changed its mind and hurried back out before that horrid portal snapped shut again, the solitary tooth glinting like a dagger of ice for a moment before the thin lips came together. It was done, it was over, and she had excelled herself.

She gazed across the battlefield, the entirety of it, the red and white, and the black stains that were fallen men. The living had gone home, the dead had died and gone to the afterlife, but the dying were here and all wore one of her balaclavas. She smiled. It was good, it was right, it was what the gods had ordained. Not one of the dying had frozen to death overnight. The gods would be pleased with her. And she was pleased with herself, this gran of grans, this astonishing hag.

Still with her hands on her hips, she completed the last stage of the process. She whistled through her hideous lips. It was a high whistle and it carried far. And it was answered by a flapping of distant wings. The crows were coming. They were coming in great numbers. Crows and rooks and ravens. They recognised the signal, they knew what it meant, that she was a friend, a provider, this barbarian gran. And the gran did not stay to watch, for she had seen it all before, often.

The crows were messengers of the gods, agents of the gods, maybe even the gods themselves in disguise. Who knew? But they had tastes and preferences, just like the men and women of the lower world did. They liked eyes. They loved eyes. It was the food they relished most of all. Even eyes that were bigger than their bellies. They had to be fresh eyes, not stale ones, not frozen ones. Fresh healthy eyes that belonged to heads that were still alive, to dying men, not the dead.

Barbarian gran walked away and she whistled again, but this time quietly and for her own pleasure, a primitive but powerful melody she had learned when she was a young girl, a long time ago indeed. Her balaclavas had protected the men from the cold and had preserved their lives through the night. They would preserve the men for the remainder of the day, and possibly even through the following night. The men on both sides of the battle. Keep them warm and dying.

She made no distinction between friend and foe and neither did the gods. Neither did crows. Eyes are eyes and a sacrifice is a sacrifice. If you fight, as a man should, and you are unable to walk away on your feet, this means something. It means your time is over. Accept it. Try not to scream too much as your eye is plucked from its socket by a cruel beak. Balaclavas keep heads warm but expose the eyes. Which is why barbarian grans knit them, and knit them well.

VAMPIRIC GRAMPS

Logic can be a frightening thing. The power of the mind to apply reason to a problem is often the most highly praised talent of humanity; and yet I have learned from vile and grim experience that pure deduction is capable of reducing a man to mewling and shuddering paroxysms of despair. Not so long ago I was that man. Indeed, in many ways, I still am. Logic is the origin of my misery, the bane of my soul.

It began with a mildly philosophical discussion about those legendary beings known as vampires. I was talking to my neighbour and friend, Mr Damocles Blinker. He had won fame in his youth as an explorer of weird lands and beliefs, travelling the world and learning arcane secrets from a succession of improbable priests, gurus and occultists. Of all his meetings the most memorable had been in Moldova.

I have told you this story many times before, he said as he accepted the glass of brandy from me, but as you never seem to tire of hearing it, I see no reason not to oblige you again…

Thank you, Damocles! I blurted in my enthusiasm.

He grinned. My pleasure, Burt.

And he proceeded to set the scene, to describe the woodlands north of the town of Iaşi, the lonely road, impenetrable night, fierce storm and the frantic search for shelter, the knocking on the oaken door of an unlighted residence, the creaking as it opened…

Ghetu was a genuine vampire, I assure you, an aristocratic avatar of that particular brand of evil, he said.

Almost a cliché? I ventured uncertainly.

Damocles nodded. Yes, my friend. He had the black cloak, the pallid expression, the empty castle; but it wasn’t a real castle, more of a fortified manor house. It was deserted and cobwebbed from highest turret to cellar and filled with antiques that he regarded merely as bric-a-brac, clocks and clavichords, velocipedes and phonographs. He informed me that I was his first guest for more than thirty years.

And he showed you to a spare room in the attic?

He did. With a dusty black bed.

You were his guest for three whole days?

Yes. Until the storm abated.

And he never tried to bite you during your stay?

No, Burt. But there’s a good reason for that. Ghetu assumed that I too was a vampire, a kindred dark spirit.

Damocles, why would he think such a thing?

The answer to your query is simple, Burt. Please refill my glass with more brandy first. Thanks. In the long central hall of his house, there was an enormous circular mirror hanging on one wall; but in that mirror I had no reflection and he noticed the fact.

This occurred shortly after your arrival?

Yes, while I was still stained from the rigours of my journey. I passed that mirror only once; during the remainder of my visit I never went back into the central hall. That was lucky.

But you’re not really a vampire, are you?

Damocles drained his glass before responding; he was a master of the theatrical pause. No, he said quietly.

What are you then? The transparent man?

I waited patiently, but he was unforthcoming, so I prodded him with a deep sigh. He looked up and explained:

The reason I had no reflection was an optical illusion, nothing more. I doubtless would have been exposed as a fraud had I stood in front of that mirror on the following days. But that first instance convinced Ghetu that I was as undead and vampiric as he. The truth is that it was an example of camouflage rather than invisibility. The stains on my clothing matched to a remarkable degree the patterns of mould on the wall opposite the mirror and in the dim light of the few candles…

You blended perfectly into the reflected background?

Exactly, Burt! Ghetu never realised!

It was at this precise point that a sudden thought occurred to me. I had heard the story from Damocles’ lips many times; it was enjoyable, almost soothing in a peculiar way, but suddenly there was something I wanted to ask that I’d never considered before. I can’t frown like ordinary men, nor can I pout or squint, but my apprehension manifested itself in other ways, in a specific movement beyond the ability of most human beings, a gentle undulation unmistakable to my friend.

You are troubled, he observed. But why?

When the ripple had passed and I was calm again, I voiced the thought aloud, my abrupt revelation, the dark epiphany. I said, "Vampires have no reflections in mirrors. If a big mirror is hung on a wall of a room, or if the wall is the mirror, then everything present in the room that doesn’t show a reflection will be a vampire. That’s logic."

Damocles set down his glass and poured himself more brandy; it must have been clear to him that I was too distracted by my own philosophical ponderings to remember my duty as a host and attend to his needs. Yes, it is, he agreed. Unassailable and clear.

That is the famous test for vampires, isn’t it? A good vampire hunter will always carry a mirror with him…

"Or with her, he replied, somewhat testily. Don’t forget that women work in this field too. I once knew a feisty redhead with green eyes by the name of—" But he noticed my agitation and broke off. He knocked back his drink and his cheeks visibly pulsed.

"I can think of something in that hypothetical room that will never be reflected in that conjectural mirror," I said.

Never, Burt? he answered.

Not once. Shall I now tell you what it is?

He was amenable. Please do.

I hissed sharply, The mirror itself!

Damocles absorbed this information. His intelligence and experience, both considerable, seemed to bend inside his head, furrowing his brow so thickly with lines that for a moment it seemed he had imprisoned himself behind the bars of a horizontal jail.

But that means… he said thickly, his tongue protruding.

Yes, my friend. It’s true.

All mirrors are vampires! he screeched.

He half raised himself out of the chair, fell back with a deflating hiss, and despite my perspicacity I couldn’t tell whether it was the cushion or his ego that had compressed. All.

Pounding the arms of the chair with his fists, he wept.

We sat in silence for minutes.

Finally I added, Logic can’t be argued with. Tomorrow morning I’ll remove every mirror from every room in my house. I suggest you do the same. We’ll have to spread the word, let other people know. Because of vanity, we have all been harbouring undead parasites among us for many millennia. This situation must cease.

He nodded. I had convinced him; or rather, logic had. Pure logic. Why keep pets when logic purrs around your ankles with such tenacity? For an hour we tried to change the topic, to discuss a few of his other adventures, lighter in tone than his Moldavian exploit, but it was useless. The stain of darkness had seeped into our souls. At last he bade me goodnight and left me alone. The house was lonely again.

Many days passed and then logic came back, its ramifications causing mayhem in unexpected corners of my psyche. I realised that if mirrors are vampires, then all vampires must be mirrors. Or to put this statement into algebraic form: if M=V then V=M. Soon enough the implications of this formula substantially increased my dread.

I reasoned as follows: if all vampires are mirrors, whenever I look at a real vampire I should see myself, my own reflection. Anyone might be a vampire, any random individual in the street. If I looked at someone and they didn’t look like me, in other words if I couldn’t see myself reflected in them, then either they were normal humans or else they were vampires who were failing to show my reflection.

And in the latter case, the only logical reason for this failure was that I had no reflection myself. Which would mean that I too was a vampire! In the following months I stared with phenomenal intensity into the faces of everyone I encountered. I went to restaurants, theatre lobbies, taverns and libraries, every location where I might reasonably be expected to have the opportunity of meeting crowds of people.

But not once did I find one who looked just like me!

And yet they couldn’t all be normal human beings. The statistical odds against that were incalculable. At least one of them had to be a vampire. I know that vampires form a tiny percentage of the general population, the most oft-quoted figure is less than 1%, but I had stared into the visages of thousands of individuals. The logical conclusion was that I had stared at a vampire face to face, but that he or she hadn’t displayed my reflection. So there was no way I could deny the truth.

Burt Smith, namely myself, was a vampire…

The horrid realisation of my condition depressed me. Was it foolish to hope for a cure? I had no wish to adopt the lifestyle of a bloodsucker, my outer physique and inner parts aren’t suitable for vampiric activities, I’m simply not agile enough; I have the maximum flexibility of a grandfather, no more than that. Indeed, I am often called ‘Gramps’ by my friends as a term of descriptive or metaphoric endearment. So I decided to seek out a surgeon capable of reversing my condition.

I learned that the only surgeon who might be skilled enough to aid me in my quest was Doctor Ricky Tensor…

Thanks to the modern miracle of the telephone network I managed to contact his secretary. I carefully explained what I wanted. By this