“So what’d you think of your first horror movie, kiddo?” Stacey asked, giving Lupi’s brawny shoulder a playful, almost-fatherly squeeze.  “We probably should’ve started off with the first one and led you through them, but man, number six is soooo fucking good, we didn’t wanna wait!”

            “It’s a fine film.  A damned fine film, at that,” agreed Bushwhack Bill, who was dressed in one of his many custom-tailored suits.

            Lupi, who was in her human form, stopped walking, looking off in the distance as she absently scratched behind one of her ears with her hand, while Stacey and Bushwhack Bill awaited her assessment with bated breath.  “I …” she began, turning to look at them, trailing off as she attempted to gather her thoughts on the matter.  “That was …  Hmm.  Uh, well …  I did … not know what to make of it,” she said, giving an apologetic shake of her head as her companions stared at her in shock.

            “Say what?” squeaked Stacey, looking horrified.  “But … but … dude!  What’s not to make of it?  I mean, Lupi, come on!  It was a movie about a big black guy running around and killing a bunch of rednecks, in between making all sorts of funny comments!”

            “That’s part of it,” Lupi said, nodding.  “Why was he making all those funny comments while he was killing all those people?  I thought this was supposed to be a scary movie, not a comedy!  I can understand why Jack Action says all those funny things while he’s fighting the bad people, because he is a good guy, but this Nathan man in this movie, he was a bad guy, wasn’t he?”

            “Well, sorta, I guess,” Stacey said.

            “Not at all,” replied Bushwhack Bill.  “He was the hero.”

            They exchanged glances, shrugged, and then Stacey added, “It’s kind of a grey area.  Haven’t you heard of black comedy?”

            “Yes, I have,” the werewolf said.  “That’s when a black person like Charlie Murphy from TV or my friend Richie makes fun of white people because they are all so uptight and scared of everything.”

            Bushwhack Bill laughed out loud, gleefully tapping his miniature cane against the sidewalk to underline his mirth.  Stacey rolled his eyes and shook his head.

            “No, it’s not like that.  Well, it kind of is, I guess, but this movie wasn’t that kind of black comedy,” he said, and Lupi frowned in further confusion.  “Not really.”

            “But Nathan was a black man and he made fun of a lot of those white trash people he killed.  Is that not black comedy?”

            “Damned right it is,” Bushwhack Bill chuckled.  “Funny shit, too.”

            “Shaddup, you’re not helping.  I’m trying to teach the kid stuff here,” grunted the vampire, giving Bill a dirty look.  “The other kind of black comedy is where horrible things happen in such a way that they’re funny, like when Nathan rigged up that outhouse so it shot into the sky like a rocket when Uncle Ezekiel sat down in it, and then it blew up in the air and rained shit and guts all over the trailer park.  That was funny.”

            “That was awful!” protested Lupi.  “That would be a terrible way to die!”

            “Yeah, and it was outlandish as all hell, too!  Totally unrealistic and completely over-the-top, which was the whole point!” the vampire exclaimed.  “Shit gets so crazy that it’s like watching a live-action Roadrunner cartoon, but there’s enough blood and guts and screaming and yelling and carrying on and stuff that it doesn’t come off like a cartoon, but it’s still too goofy to happen in real life.  It’s like watching a really warped version of reality, and you laugh because it’s so ludicrous.  After all, how often do you see a bunch of rednecks getting ground up in a cracker factory by a wisecracking, serial-killing black guy, like what happened in the finale?”

            “Poetic justice, if you ask me,” Bill chuckled.

            “Well … not often, I would guess,” Lupi admitted.  “That is somewhat ridiculous.  But still gruesome.”

            “Precisely!” Stacey said, sounding like a proud teacher.  “That’s the whole point of it!  If he was just cutting them up without any flair or doing it like some kind of grim, joyless snuff film like The Passion Of The Christ, that wouldn’t be any fun, would it?  This is extreme humor, Lupi.  We laugh because it’s fundamentally silly, albeit in a bloody, gutsy kind of way.”

            “Hell, I laugh because a bunch of inbred white folks get all fucked up by a badass brother,” said Bushwhack Bill.  “That shit’s always golden.”

            “You’re not helping,” Stacey repeated, giving the midget a sharp look.  “I’m trying to explain some esoteric shit here, and you’re just clouding the issue because you get a hard-on every time you see Nathan hack up some redneck.”

            “Hey, I’m just pointing out that there’s more than one reason we go see these things,” Bill grunted, waggling his cane at Stacey.  “If you ever had to deal with rednecks like I’ve had to, being who I am, you’d be getting wood every time you see one of ‘em die horribly, too.  That Nathan guy is empowering for the little people like me, and that’s why I love the whole damned White Trash Massacre series.”

            Lupi nodded.  “I can understand that.  For you, these films are like revenge fantasies.”

            “Exactly,” said Bill, rapping the end of his cane on the sidewalk.  Stacey rolled his eyes.  “It ain’t easy going through life being gay and black, not to mention a little person on top of that.”

            “Since when do you need to be empowered?” he asked the midget.  “Nobody ever fucks with you!  Every time a redneck’s ever even looked at you cross-eyed, you’ve either stabbed them, shot them, or cut them up with a bottle.  Or worse.  I’ve seen rednecks cross the street to avoid passing you on the fucking sidewalk because they’ve heard about you!  They’re scared to death of you because you’re a sadistic, hateful little fucker!”

            Bill regarded the vampire coolly.  “Well, I know they’re still thinking badly of me, and that still hurts.”

            “Good grief.”

            “Deeply.”

            “Shut the fuck up.”

            Scowling, Bushwhack Bill reached into his coat, pulled out a switchblade, popped it open, and then took a swipe at Stacey’s leg with it.  But the vampire, who was a longtime associate of Bill’s, was well-versed in dealing with him, and neatly dodged the flashing blade.

Stacey then leaned over and put an arm around Lupi, who was about to lunge at Bill, her face twisted in ferocity as her protective instincts very nearly got the better of her.  When she snarled in protest, he said, “Easy, easy, wolf-girl.  It’s nothing, really!  I’ve lost count of how many times he’s stabbed me with that thing.”

Folding his switchblade back up, Bill watched Lupi warily.  “Yeah, it’s all in good fun.  It’s cool.”

Her eyes narrowed at the little man, the werewolf growled, “I would prefer you did not stab him in my presence.  I quite like you, but I will hurt you terribly if I feel it is necessary.”

“She’s kinda defensive,” said Stacey, ruffling the werewolf’s long, shaggy blonde hair in a gesture that was both affectionate and an attempt to calm her down.  “Best kid you could ask for.”

“Could’ve warned me,” the midget grunted, still keeping his eyes on Lupi, looking ready to dart at any second, just in case.  “The last thing I need is to get slam-dunked into another damned dumpster by one of your women!”

The werewolf suddenly brightened up.  “That was Brandi that did that, I am sure!”

“Yes,” Bill icily replied, giving Stacey the evil-eye.  “Bastard didn’t tell me about her the first time we all hung out together, and when I went to cut him when he was running his damned mouth, she was on me like a monkey on a cupcake.  Ended up in a dumpster before I knew what the hell happened.”

“Oh, stop whining, it’s not like she killed you or anything, you big baby,” Stacey said.  “If she’d killed you, then you would’ve had reason to bitch.  She just got your suit dirty.  And gave you a concussion.  And cracked your ribs.”

Bill snapped the switchblade open again, keeping an eye on Lupi, who watched him with equal interest.  When Stacey added, “And made you shit yourself, which was pretty cool,” Lupi remembered what Brandi had done last week when a similar situation had arisen in a bar, when Stacey had been taunting some bikers.

After a moment of careful consideration, she stepped away from Stacey and nodded at Bill.  The midget wasted no time, and he buried the switchblade into Stacey’s thigh, giving it a sharp twist once it was all the way in.

Stacey, who’d been caught off-guard, howled in surprise and took a swipe at Bill, who yanked the switchblade free and scurried between the vampire’s legs, ducking and holding onto his bowler hat as he hurried through, narrowly avoiding getting kicked by his cursing victim.  Taking advantage of his position, Bill quickly stabbed the vampire in the other leg, pushing at it as he did, and Stacey ended up toppling over into a noisy, thrashing heap on the sidewalk as movie patrons studiously kept their distance from him.

“You little shit!” Stacey yowled, his voice reaching the familiar shrill, girly tone he used for moments of distress.  “Fucking sawed-off prick bastard!  What if you cut one of my tendons?!  I hope you get leprosy and your dick falls off in some cheap man-slut’s ass, you nasty little stab-happy pillow-biter!”

“Stop whining, it’s not like I killed you or anything, you big baby,” Bill chided as he stopped next to Lupi, who was watching Stacey with amusement.  Though protective of him, she’d also learned that his capacity for withstanding damage was absolutely astounding, and that getting stabbed in the legs was little more than a minor inconvenience for him in the grand scheme of things, regardless of how much he bitched, so Bill hadn’t actually hurt him.  Much, at least.

When Stacey loudly and messily pulled over a trashcan in an attempt to get back to his feet, Lupi was unable to help herself and laughed aloud at the string of inventive profanity that flew from the vampire’s mouth.  She laughed even harder when he angrily bellowed at a couple of moviegoers who were watching him with open enjoyment, and it got even worse when he started flinging garbage at them, reminding her of the monkeys at the zoo.  His screams of rage even sounded somewhat like a primate’s.

“Big fucking help you are, wolf-girl!” he grunted when he noticed that Lupi was nearly doubled over with laughter.  “I thought he wasn’t supposed to stab me around you!  What happened to that?”

“You needed to be taught a lesson,” Lupi said, paraphrasing what Brandi had told Stacey after the bikers had thrown him through the plate-glass window of the bar.

“Yeah,” Stacey sullenly growled as he made a big production of stumbling back to his feet, “The lesson being: never trust a midget with a knife!  And that you’ve been hanging around Brandi too much, because you’re starting to sound like her!”

“I will take that as a compliment,” Lupi said, “Thank you.”

“Fucking fickle women.  One minute you’re protecting me, the next you’re letting me get stabbed and laughing about it,” the vampire muttered as he dusted himself off.  “One of these days, I’m gonna get killed while I’m fucking around, and then the joke’s gonna be on you.”

Lupi looked down at the grinning midget and asked, “Speaking of jokes, was that black comedy, since Stacey getting stabbed was viewed as a humorous event?”

Bill smirked up at her.  “No.  That was just straight-up funny.”

Lupi scratched behind her ear again and shook her head.  “I still do not understand.”

“You laughed, didn’t you?”

The she-wolf nodded.