And I Love You, Too...

"I love: little baby ducks.  Old pick-up trucks.  Walks in the rain.  And trains.

And I love you, too..."

I Love by Tom T. Hall

"What's that?" Kate flipped over the thick book and looked at the cover. "The Writer's Market?"

"She brought it home from the bookstore the other day," Methos said absently as he finished off the last of the beer. "Who's turn was it to run to the store?"

"Yours. So what's in here?" Kate opened the book and turned pages at random.

"Places to sell writing. Hence the title." Methos rolled his eyes and turned as Daniel entered the room. "Daniel, you forgot to buy beer again."

"Wha..? Oh, sorry. I'll go in just a minute. I need to pick up..." his sentence trailed off as Kate giggled. "What?"

"They have examples of books recently put out by each publisher in their listing. This one's called The Darker Desires of Dracula."** She giggled again.

"Uh...as opposed to all those light and fluffy desires Dracula has?"

"That's what I was wonder..." Kate stopped in mid-sentence and she began to laugh.

"What?" both Methos and Daniel said after a moment.

"There's a song that's been playing a lot on the classic country station..."

"You listen to 'classic country'?"

"She listens to everything," Methos said with exaggerated patience.

"...and it starts out, 'I love little baby ducks. Old pick-up trucks....' Anyway, I was just imagining Dracula singing ..."

"Don't!" But it was too late, as it had been for poor Ethel in the Ray Stevens song 'The Streak'. Dracula had already appeared, dressed in a formal tux, and carrying a microphone. He bowed to an audience only he could see, and began to sing in a heavy Romanian accent.

"I luuuuuf little baby ducks..." The words slurred around his fangs and the accent. Methos and Daniel hung their heads. "And onions."***

"I can't believe you did that. What were you thinking?" Methos glared at Kate through the blue spotlight that was now filling the room.

"Uh...oops?" Kate shrugged.

"What I can't believe is that he's singing it that way. It's not very...Dracula-like, is it?"

"For god's sake, Daniel, don't help."

But it was too late again. Fueled by imagination, Dracula put a little more passion into his voice, if not more diction, and began changing the lyrics. "I luuuuuf...puppies vhen they bleed. Virgins vhen they scream. Moonlight killing sprees. Und trains."

Methos drew his sword and Kate pulled her switchblade. There was a brief count-down, then Methos' sword fell in a perfect decapitation arc, and Kate moved in a second later to slide her blade into the headless vampire's heart. Head, body, and a lot of blood fell to the pale blue carpet.

"Ewwww," the three survivors said simultaneously, and looked at each other.

"So who's cleaning this up?" Kate asked.

"Uh...I have to go to the store. Methos is out of beer."

"Daniel, he's conned you into going the last three times he was supposed to."

"Really? Uh..." Daniel looked at the mess soaking into the carpet. "That's okay. Besides, don't look at me. This is your fault."

"He's right, Kate. You were the one that came up with the singing vampire."

"It's not my fault at all. It's the Writer's fault. She was the one who left the book out. We should let her clean it up."

"She'll just take it out on us if we do that," Methos complained. "Or on me, specifically, since she'll assume I'm at fault."

"Well, you usually are."

Still squabbling, the trio left the room, and the blue spotlight slowly faded out.

*****

**This is an actual book title offered as a sample publication in the 2003 WM.

*** 'And onions.' is an actual line from the song. I couldn't make up stuff this good.