Everyone Calls it the Ice Cave

Me: Did you finish those cookies yet?

Ben: Yeah like a hundred years ago.

Me: Okay I need that Tupperware back.

Ben: lol

Me: Did you give it to a hobo?

Ben: His need was more than mine.

Me: This is why I never lend out Tupperware.

Ben: I just got to the part in SALEM'S LOT where all the main characters except the woman now believe in vampires.

Me: Is that after the part where the vampire is in the English teacher's house?

Ben: Yes.

Ben: It's just before the part where the doctor who believes in vampires gets his throat ripped out.

Me: That was the scariest part I thought, where he knows there's something upstairs and he has to go investigate or whatever.

Ben: Of the entire book

Ben: ?

Me: From what I remember.

Me: Because there's nothing happening.

Me: It's all psychological.

Ben: I still thought the part in the graveyard burying the kid was scarier.

Me: How is the book so far?

Ben: Okay, although recently I've been irked at the behavior of the characters.

Ben: Like, they neither outright accept vampires without a thought nor are they as skeptical as rational people.

Ben: They're like half-skeptics, which I find even more implausible.

Me: Yeah I noticed that too.

Me: I guess if they acted like rational people they would still refuse to believe in vampires even as they were being murdered by vampires.

Ben: Right, or at the very least they would be doing the same things that they do in the book, but for the purpose of attempting to *disprove* vampires rather than affirm their suspicion that VAMPIRES ARE REAL.

Ben: Once you've seen a dead body rise, rend asunder a man's throat, and then sink through a solid wall (btw, wtf), *then* you are allowed to believe in vampires.

Me: Wasn't the doctor a skeptic until that happened?

Ben: No.

Ben: He wanted to prove vampires.

Ben: It took an hour for a stranger to convince him that vampires were real.

Me: Hahaha.

Ben: Only the woman refuses to believe.

Ben: Okay, so I guess the English teacher is allowed to believe.

Ben: He actually saw a dead dude fly around and stuff.

Me: Is the ka-tet assembled yet?

Me: I dont rember when they all get together.

Ben: No we haven't seen Callahan in a while.

Ben: I left off just after the vampire escaped and the doctor is clutching his torn throat, screaming.

Ben: Also, wtf sinking through walls.

Ben: I thought we were playing vampires straight here.

Me: Vampires can turn into bats, wolves, and clouds of mist according to the lore.

Ben: Clouds of mist cannot sink through walls.

Ben: And by "according to lore" you mean "according to CASTLEVANIA: SYMPHONY OF THE NIGHT (PS1)."

Me: That's in the same canon as BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA, so yes.

Me: But since I've never read that book, I don't know why I know that trivia is from there.

Ben: It's a good book.

Me: Isn't Dracula only in like a tenth of it and the parts he isn't in are really boring and Gothic?

Ben: I don't really remember.

Ben: The first chapter is all that I remember.

Ben: It is a good chapter, at the very least.

Me: Oh good.

Me: I bought it years ago so maybe I'll look into it after JORGE LUIS BORGES, reputedly the best writer of South America.

Ben: Being the best writer in South America is like being the best chef in England.

Me: Uh, Gordon Ramsey.

Ben: "...the Gordon Ramsey of South American literature..." ~ THE NEW YORK TIMES

Me: Hahahaha.

Me: Who went through a wall?

Ben: The mother of the two kids.

Ben: Where the first kid disappeared and the second one became a vampire.

Me: Well I've consulted Google and there don't seem to be any ready made examples of vampires going through walls.

Me: Maybe they can vibrate their molecules really fast like the Flash to go through walls.

Ben: Maybe I read the scene wrong

Ben: and merely presumed that she sank through the wall.

Me: No it probably happened.

Me: There's a scene later after it's established vampires need permission to enter a house where one just breaks in through the window.

Me: Maybe it was a special circumstance though.

Ben: Haha.

Ben: I'll have to evaluate the scene in context.

Me: Maybe it's like that scene in Jurassic Park where they spend ten minutes hacking the Unix system to lock the raptors out of the room, then they just come in through the window two seconds later.

Ben: Later, it is revealed that the woman was right and that there aren't actually any vampires, just an elaborate plot to steal the cache of Mayan gold buried under the Marsten House.

Me: Is that her theory?

Ben: No.

Ben: Her actions make no sense.

Ben: She has no theory.

Ben: She's never heard of science.

Me: She's an artist.

Ben: She sells paintings.

Ben: Or something.

Ben: Chapters ago, before anyone believed in vampires, the teacher suggested to the main character that the two of them and the woman should drive up to the house to meet the new neighbors.

Ben: Chapters later, the woman still demands to go to the house even though nobody else wants to go and nobody ever really invited her in the first place and that now there might be vampires.

Ben: So she drives up there to prove that they're not vampires, and on the way she buys a crucifix and wrenches a stake from a fence, and then parks her car at the bottom of the hill and army-crawls up to the house.

Ben: All in the name of proving that vampires don't exist.

Ben: AND THEN A HAND FALLS ON HER SHOULDER FROM BEHIND AAAAAHHHHH and then the scene changes.

Ben: It's like reading Goosebumps.

Me: The cave is cut in ice. Everyone calls it the ice cave.

Ben: Hahaha.

Ben: Why would anyone call it anything, who would give a shit about the cave for any reason?

Me: Because they have to beware, the snowman, yo, didn't you fucking listen?

Ben: Obviously not.

Ben: I think that book had the most complex plot of any Goosebumps book.

Ben: Like, her mom was a witch or something.

Ben: And also a snowman.

Ben: But it was a trick and her mom was evil.

Ben: And her dad was the snowman?

Ben: But then she was the snowman?

Ben: I don't even know.