What's Gotten Into You!

by Katy Sundberg

"So you think the Phantom will strike tonight?" Johnny asked.

Chet just eyed him suspiciously. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, it is Halloween, and the demons are suppose to be running rampant," Johnny said with a smile.

"I don't think the Phantom would be too happy with you calling him a demon," Chet said. Just then the tones went off.

"Squad 51, Engine 51, unknown injury. Evergreen Cemetery. Time out, 2145," the disembodied voice said.

"Station 51, 10-4. KMG365," he responded to the handset. He handed Roy the paper and went to climb into the engine. They pulled into traffic and went to the cemetery. As they entered the front gate each man felt uneasy. After all it was a cemetery. It was Halloween. It was dark. They kept their eyes open. Looking for waving hands or a mob of people, anything that would alert them to where they were suppose to go. As they topped a hill they saw lights.

"What in the world?" Johnny said to Roy.

"I don't think that is where that is!" Roy commented. He stepped on the gas and pulled up to the lights. A young woman came running at them waving her arms frantically. She stepped up to the squad car as it stopped.

"You've got to help him, he's gone nuts!" she said.

"Calm down, Miss. Who's gone nuts?" Roy asked.

"The director. One of the klieg lights fell and I think he's trapped."

"You think?" Johnny said.

"I don't know. Just hurry!" They pulled up close to the lights and got out of the vehicle. Roy and Johnny waited for Captain Stanley to join them.

"Cap, this lady thinks the director is trapped under a klieg light."

"She thinks?" Chet and Marco said, together..

"That's what I asked," Johnny said, with a smile.

"She doesn't know." They began walking to the light. There were fog machines going, making fog float around their feet like a cloud. The noise of the generators was loud. The lights made the area as bright as daylight. Several people stood around one large light that had fallen.

"Hurry!" she waved and yelled at them. "He's gonna die!" As Captain Stanley approached he spoke.

"I'm Captain Stanley and I need to know what's going on here?"

"We're making a movie!" came a voice from the foggy ground. Everyone looked down.

"What happened?" Cap asked, looking at the ground.

"This stupid light fell and I just happened to be under it," the voice responded.

"What do you need us to do?" Cap asked.

"GO AWAY!" he yelled at the top of his lungs.

"But honey, they can't do that," said a pretty blonde with a bloody neck. Johnny immediately went to her.

"Are you okay, ma'am? Did you get hurt from the light?" Johnny asked as he took her arm. She pulled away from him and gave him a strange look.

"I'm fine. I'm not hurt," she said. She looked at the first girl, who pointed at her neck. "Oh. Really. I'm fine. It's just Karo syrup and food coloring. See?" She took two of her fingers smeared it in the red goo and then put it in her mouth. Johnny was totally distracted by her actions. "Want some?" She wiped her fingers in the goo again and offered her fingers to Johnny.

"No, ma'am," he said stepping back to stand with Roy.

"SHEELA!" came a loud yell from the fog.

"I'm not flirting!" she yelled back. She looked at everyone. "I'm not," she said quietly.

"Can some one please shut off the fog machines?" Captain Stanley asked.

"NO!" came the command from the fog. "George, if you shut those foggers off you will never ever work in this business again."

"Yes sir," came a demure voice from the darkness.

"It took us almost all day to get the fog this way and I'm not going to loose it because of some stupid light!" he said.

"Are your legs trapped?" Johnny asked.

"Yeah I guess. I can't feel them," he said.

"Do you want us to get you out?" Roy asked.

"When this scene is finished then you can get me out. Someone bring me that little monitor so that I can see what's going on!"

"Yes, CJ," said the woman who had met the squad. She disappeared into the darkness. The firemen just stood there, not sure what to do. The woman scurried back with a small TV screen and stumbled. "Sorry CJ!"

"OW! Thanks Bonnie! That portion of my body isn't needed anyway," he yelled. "PLACES EVERYONE!" Everyone went to his or her designated area. The beautiful blonde with the bloody neck lay herself on a bench. A man with a clapboard stepped in front of her and held the board out in front of him to wait for a command. A man that was behind the firemen yelled loudly.

"QUIET ON THE SET!" The area went silent except for cricket and frog noises.

"SPEED!" came the voice from the fog. "AND ACTION!" The clapboard slapped and the man quickly moved out of the way. From out of the darkness loomed a large figure. As he stepped into the light, he wore a large black cape that went to the ground, and as he walked, it stirred the fog in swirls behind him. His hair was dark and he wore a tuxedo. He was a very handsome man of about 6-foot. His shoulders must have been padded because they were very broad. He slowly walked over to the woman on the bench and stood watching her. His mouth opened to reveal two large canine teeth. The blonde woman slowly raised herself off of the bench and stood next to him. It happened as smoothly as a dance. As she stood there, she closed her eyes, and craned her neck to the side where the Karo syrup and food coloring were. He leaned down and placed his mouth over her neck, and wrapped his arms, with the cape, around her small frame. It looked to the firemen like the fangs were going right into her jugular vein. Chet took a sharp breath and got a nasty look from one of the crewmembers. He shrugged his shoulders and mouthed 'sorry!' The scene before them transfixed the firemen. It seemed real. Everyone jumped when she let out a scream that would wake the dead, and then collapsed to the ground. The man in the cape spread his arms so that the cape flapped open. Some one began screaming in the darkness. The firemen turned toward the scream because it came from behind them. A man covered in blood came running from the darkness. He pushed through them with a wooden mallet and a very sharp pointed stick. He ran at the man in the cape and placed the stake at the man's heart hitting it at the same time with the mallet. It looked like the stake went clear through the man's chest. The blood poured out of the 'apparent' hole. Just then there were howls off in the distance. The man in the cape screamed and fell over backwards, dead. Johnny leaned over and whispered in Roy's ear.

"There isn't that much blood in the human body..." Someone in the crew looked at him. He closed his mouth. The man with the mallet threw back his head and laughed like a maniac. When he was done laughing he reached down into the fog and lifted the beautiful blonde up into his arms. He began crying and carried her into the darkness. When they had disappeared into the darkness, the man in the cape slowly sat straight up with the wooden spike sticking out of his chest.

"CUT AND PRINT. THAT'S A WRAP EVERYBODY!" came the call. "You can shut down the foggers now, George," the voice from the fog said.

"Yes, CJ." The noise from the foggers stopped. The fog slowly dissipated. They started to see a form under one of the klieg lights. It was lying on both legs. He didn't appear to be bleeding from any cuts.

"My legs are feeling a bit numb," CJ said. They recruited several men to help move the heavy light. Johnny and Roy both went to get the equipment they needed to begin treatment.

= = = = = = =

Chet awoke to the sweats. He was sure that Johnny had turned into a vampire. Taking deep breaths, to calm his already shot nerves, he stood up on shaky knees and went into the bathroom. He needed a drink of water so he went into the kitchen to get the glass. Chet stood at the sink drinking the water when he heard a noise behind him.

"OK, Gage," he turned around. Squatted on the table was a man, no a wolf. Fear gripped his being. Chet's heart skipped a beat. The blood drained from his face. He jumped back away, from what he perceived as danger. The corner of the cabinet door hit his temple. He dropped the glass and it shattered spilling its contents on the floor. His legs gave out from underneath him, and he hit the floor hard, hitting his head. The cut on his head began to bleed profusely. Johnny jumped off of the table pulling the mask off of his face, laughing. He didn't see the blood or the gash in Chet's hairline.

"Hey, Chet it's only me!"

Roy stepped into the kitchen. "I told you not to do that," Roy said. "Kids today!" he said with a smile.

"Come on, Chet! Get up. The joke is over." Johnny stood looking at his 'sparring partner'. "Chet?" He kicked at his foot. "This isn't funny, Chet!" He bent down, placed his hand on Chet's chest, and shook him, hard. Roy had come over to stand at Chet's head.

"Chet, come on," Roy said, he looked down at the floor and noticed a puddle of blood beginning to form. He pushed the table and chairs away from the area. "Johnny, he's bleeding!"

"It's not real," Johnny said.

"It most definitely is," Roy said. Johnny saw that Roy was not joking. He went to get the drug box and bio-phone.

"Cap, Chet's hurt!" Johnny yelled in the apparatus bay. The other firemen entered the bay, confused.

"What did you just say?" Captain Stanley asked.

"Chet's hurt," he repeated.

"How?" the Captain demanded.

"Marco, can you carry the oxygen tank for me?" Johnny asked. "Chet bumped his head on the cabinet door and he's bleeding."

"Okay, Gage, what happened, whose fault is this?" Stanley said.

"Apparently, mine, sir." Johnny paused, not sure if he wanted to continue. "I scared him to death!" Johnny said, as they all went into the kitchen.

"You what?" he asked.

"When I saw him leave the dorm room, I went and put on the mask the makeup girl gave me last night." Johnny sat the equipment down next to Roy and Chet.

"And?" Stanley said.

"I wanted to get him back for the last time he scared me. So, I climbed onto the table. He turned around and bumped his head on the cabinet's open door."

"I saw the whole thing," Roy said.

"And you did nothing to stop him?"

"It was a harmless joke, Cap. I didn't see anything wrong with it. That's why I let him do it."

"Honest, Cap, If I would have thought this would happen I would not have done it," Johnny said. "I swear." He sat up the equipment he needed. Roy had taken paper towels, put them on the gash, and was applying direct pressure to the wound. Johnny took his blood pressure, his pulse and his respiration, and informed Rampart General. Dr. Brackett instructed him to start an IV TKO, 2 liters of O2, a pressure bandage, and transport. Johnny did as instructed and they waited for the ambulance. They heard the ambulance pull up and Marco went to bring them in.

= = == == = = = = = = = = = = = =

The men were all sitting around the kitchen table drinking coffee. "So what did the doctor say, Chet?" Marco asked.

"He said that I was pretty lucky. He said where I hit my head could kill a person, but I missed killing myself by inches."

"How many stitches did you get?" Mike asked..

"The doctor said 24."

"Wow. That's a lot of stitches for your head," Johnny said. "What made you so jumpy?"

"You remember Halloween night, when we had that weird call to the cemetery?"

"Do I!" Marco said.

"That night I had this dream that Johnny and Roy were vampires and that's why they liked being paramedics. Johnny was chasing me around the station, trying to steal my blood, and turn me into a vampire like him."

"Get real, Chet. I wouldn't want your nasty blood. And I definitely wouldn't want to live forever on this earth with you," Johnny said, with a small smile.

"I'm just telling you what my dream was."

"Besides, I'm not the vampire type," Johnny said.

"Oh? And what type are you?" Chet asked.

"I think I'm the Zombie type." Just then his arm fell off. Chet sat back in his chair.

"Yeah, I didn't think Johnny was a vampire type either," Marco said smiling. His fangs showing over his lower lip.

"I didn't either," Captain Stanley said. His lower face began to stretch, grow hair, and a dog's nose.. He turned into the wolfman. Chet looked at Roy. He noticed that Roy's complexion had changed to a pasty green color.

"I never thought of Johnny as the vampire type either.." Roy said. Roy stood up and went over to the coffee maker. He pulled out an extension cord and plugged himself into the outlet. "AHH! That feels better," he said. "I was beginning to run out of power." Roy was Frankenstein's monster. Chet looked at Mike, the only normal looking one in the room, besides himself. Mike changed before his eyes. Mike grew scales, gills, and webbed fingers before his eyes. He was the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Chet stood up and began to back out of the room.

"Chet!" The five monsters came after him calling his name.

"Chet!" He heard a different voice from behind him. "Chet!" He turned around and saw Dixie standing in the apparatus bay in an Elvira skintight outfit. She stretched out her arms and said "Chet! Come to me!" she said in a seductive voice. He shook his head to clear it. He closed his eyes to make it go away. He just kept hearing her say "Chet! Come to me!" He tripped over something lying on the floor. He landed hard, hitting his head. Everything went black.

= = = = = = =

When he came to he was in the emergency room at Rampart General. Dr. Brackett was leaning over him.

"Welcome back to the living, Mr. Kelly. You have a nasty concussion. We were worried there for a while that you weren't going to come back to us." Dixie stepped up to the gurney.

"Are you feeling better Chet?" She asked. "I've got a whole waiting room full of firemen worried about you."

"Show me your teeth!" he said to her.

"Doctor, I think he's hallucinating."

"Just show me your teeth," he said.

"Okay." She pulled her lips up over her teeth. "How's this?" she said.

"Good. Now yours," he said looking at Dr. Brackett. Dr. Brackett pulled his lips up over his teeth.

"Satisfied?" Dr. Brackett said.

"I dreamt you were all vampires," Chet said.. Just then Johnny and Roy stepped in the door. Chet almost fell off the gurney, trying to get away. If he hadn't been strapped down he would have fallen on his head again. The two men raced over to prevent the inevitable. Each got a side and Chet tried to scream, but nothing came out. Dr. Brackett gave him a sedative to calm him down.

"What happened?" Johnny asked.

"He's convinced we're all vampires," Brackett said.

"Not Johnny," came the weak voice from the gurney.

"What am I, Chet?" Johnny asked, trying not to laugh.

"You're a Zombie," he said calmly. "Roy is Frankenstein's monster."

"Well, they're both dead guys," Roy said. "That makes me feel better."

"Cap is the wolfman. Marco and Dixie are vampires. Mike is the Creature from the Black Lagoon," he said weakly. "It's the full moon," Chet said. "Halloween brings out the demons." He drifted deeper into a sedated sleep.

Johnny grinned at his friend. "No, pal, I think it's to much late night, bad TV."