by FREDERICA VON McTOAST-HYPHEN, Alternate Reality News Service Pop Culture Writer
Terror struck the Metro Convention Centre when somebody posing as a vampire killed at least seven people and injured as many as 23 more.
"It wasn't a somebody - it was a vampire! A real, live...undead person!" insisted Tina Justtinathankyouverymuch, who was at the Convention Centre for the horror section of the annual Fan Expo.
You would have thought that Justtinathankyouverymuch, who was there specifically to attend the "Twilight: Who Would Have Thought a Mormon Could Vamp It Up So Well?" panel, would have been delighted to meet a real vampire. This was not, however, the case.
"He was so old!" she exclaimed. "He must have been at least...30! And...and he had bad teeth! And, those ratty old clothes! Edward Cullen would never have been caught undead in a bow tie! Eww!"
Organizers of the Fan Expo insisted that the murderer could not have been a real vampire. "He was just your garden variety psychopath," insisted Mumsy Bratworst, panel coordinator and head zombie. "Who...likes chewing up people's throats. As fetishes go, I've seen weirder.
"Trust me. If he had been a real vampire, we would have given him headline status, with a double length Q&A and at least two celebrity signing sessions!"
At first, people at the con didn't take the killing seriously. "For sure, I thought, 'Is the next season of True Blood starting already? This has gotta be a promotion,'" said runner up for best costume at the con (modern office worker from The Vampire Lestat), Ronnie Pleasedontletmyparentsknowiwashere. "I mean, the guy didn't growl - everybody knows that vampires revert to a subhuman condition when they're feeding - and the blood didn't gush like it does in the movies. Fake, fake, fake. Lame, lame, lame.
"Imagine my surprise when the screaming started."
When it became apparent that the bodies were real, some people in the crowd decided to fight back. Leading the vampire resistance was Bruce Campbell, b-movie horror star.
"Nix the b-movie guff," Campbell stated. "Just because we have low budgets and work in genres not considered important by critics doesn't mean that our films are any less legitimate than anybody else's."
I stand corrected. Campbell led a motley crew of survivors against the vampire with crucifixes held high. "He ate three girls in Sookie Stackhouse costumes," Campbell said. "Obviously, we needed a better plan."
As luck would have it, there was a phial of holy water in the Convention Centre. Unfortunately, it was up for auction, and since the auction wouldn't be held until the next day, conference organizers were loath to give it up. Campbell had to convince them to have a special early auction for that specific item. Fortunately, they relented. More unfortunately, the highest bidder was Monroe Imcoolerthanyousogetoverit, a 17 year-old Goth and papal fetishist.
"I tried everything I could think of to get the holy water from that kid," Campbell said. "I promised to autograph the chainsaw from the Evil Dead movies for him. I offered to give him Sam Raimi's unlisted home phone number. I even said I would dress up as a maid and clean his room for him. Nothing. So, I decked the kid and took the holy water from him. People were dying and time was of the essence."
By that time, the sun had come up over the horizon and the murderer had vanished.
Other attendees at the convention, which has science fiction, fantasy and comic book components as well as horror, had mixed feelings about the vampire. "Yeah, vampires don't do anything for me," Allan Everygeekystereotypeyoucanimagine sniffed, a hint of envy creeping into his voice. "Why couldn't a real, live Jedi have made an appearance at the convention? Now, I would have paid almost twice as much for that!"
The comic book fans were too shy to offer an opinion on the record.
Toronto police are treating the murders like any other homicide. Oh, sure, throats were ripped out and blood was everywhere, but "It's a copycat crime," Constable Greg Stouffer stated. "Somebody who has seen Nosferatu one too many times, and taken it rather seriously."
Stouffer, the author of A Layman's Guide to Crime Scene Procedure and The 100 Best Movies of All Time, 1998, continued: "Most officers would use Werner Herzog's 1979 version of Nosferatu starring Klaus Kinski as the basis for this conclusion. However, as affecting as it was, I prefer F. W. Murnau's 1922 version starring Max Schreck. All of the detecting instincts I have accumulated in my years on the force tell me that the emotionally evocative power of German Expressionism is superior to Herzog's fascination with obsessively outre behaviour.
"Either way, the killer was definitely not a member of the living undead. He was merely a human copycat."
Well known rumpled journalist and chronicler of the bizarre, Karl Rorschach, was nowhere to be found.