Chapter 57: Fangs for the Memories

The pinball game is intense, and not just because the flipper buttons keep shocking your fingers! You realize that you are racing against time, because if Doctor Frankenstein catches you in here, who knows what he and his monster will do to you. At 10,000 points and 20,000 points, silver crosses popped out of the machine. You get nervous, though, because as your score gets higher, more and more blue sparks come out of the power cable, not to mention the flipper buttons! Just as you manage 30,000 points and a third cross pops out, a massive lightning bolt shoots from the backglass, and sends you hurtling across the room, crashing into a pile of pots, pans, and old electrodes. The room is black now, except of the glow of Melvin, and a flashing “TILT – TILT – TILT” on the machine, which gradually fades to black.

Melvin flies over, concerned. “Are you okay?”

You pull a pot off your head, and shake off some other lab paraphernalia with a lot of noisy clanging. “Yes… I think so.” You reach into your pocket. “But we’ve only got three of the five crosses! Will that be enough to defeat Dracula?” In the distance, you hear screams, groans, and… a smashing noise.

Suddenly the door flies open – it’s Igor. “You’ve got to get out of here! You shorted out the whole castle! The master is furious, and the monster has escaped!”

You and Melvin zip out the door, only to see the Monster smashing his way down the corridor toward you. The fury in his eyes is terrifying. Seeing no alternative, you run back into the room, and slam the door, trying to pile up the pots, pans, and other lab equipment in front of it. “Igor, what do we do?” you shout.

“Well,” says Igor, “I don’t see any other alternative.” He pulls out his flute, and puts it to his lips.

“NOW he’s going to play music?” says Melvin, incredulous.

“Of course!” you say. “That will calm the monster, right?”

Igor pauses. “Oh no. In fact, it makes him quite furious.” He starts to play. Immediately, you hear the monster scream in anger and the door and wall smash in. But, just as Igor plays his final note, a trap door in the floor clicks open under the pinball machine. Igor jumps in, and you and Melvin follow. You land on the floor below in a familiar hallway, and Igor plays the same song backwards, and you see the trap door click shut and disappear. You can hear the monster stomping around a floor above you, sounding frustrated, and then you hear what sounds like a pinball machine being smashed to bits. Fortunately, the floors of the castle are very thick, and it sounds like it is quite far away.

“I knew these musical locks would come in handy,” says Igor, tucking his flute back into his robe. “How many crosses did you get?”

“Just three – do you think that’s enough?”

Igor makes a circle in the dust on the floor with his foot. “Well… maybe… assuming you can trap Dracula in less than twelve seconds. But we have to get you out of here. The monster has seen you, and once he gets mad at someone, he’s relentless.”

“Is Dracula’s castle near here?” you ask.

Igor laughs. “Oh, no. It’s… very far away. Far, far off in the mountains. On foot it will take you months to get there.”

“Well, how will we get there, then?”

Just then, Melvin happens to look behind you, and shouts, “Look out!” You turn just in time to see that weird hallway ghost charge at you. You dive out of the way, and lose your white cap in the process. The ghost starts to come at you again, but then pauses, and says, “Hey Igor, who are these two?”

Igor cocks his head. “I’m not really sure. But they helped me build a wall to contain the monster. They need crosses because they want to defeat Dracula.”

The ghost looks at you with its hollow eyes. “Is THAT what you were doing? With that white hat, I thought you were the painter. Sorry I bit you so many times.”

“Yeah,” says Melvin. “What was up with all that biting?”

“Sorry,” says the ghost, shrugging. “I just… like the walls the way they are. Ever since Doc Frankenstein moved in, he won’t stop redecorating. He won’t even leave the acid pool alone. And I can’t even find the spiders half the time.”

You look over the spider bites all over your arms and legs. “I haven’t had that problem.” You hear more roaring and stomping upstairs, and dust and pebbles start falling from the ceiling.

Igor looks up at it. “I think he might actually break through.”

The ghost looks over your bites sympathetically. “Wow, we really did you up a treat. I wish there was some way I could make it up to you.”

Igor says, “Maybe you can. They want to go to Dracula’s castle.”

“Why do you want to do that?” says the ghost. “Dracula will kill you. He kills everybody. He killed me.”

“We have to help a friend of ours named Peek.”

The ghost’s weird eyeholes get real big. “PEEK? Oh, now I have to help you. His friend Sneak tried to kill Dracula once, and I think got trapped in there. Do you have any crosses?”

“Yeah, three.”

“Hmm…” says the ghost. “That might be enough… if you’re fast.”

The pounding upstairs is getting louder, and the ceiling is definitely starting to crack. You get the feeling that the monster is jumping up and down on the trap door. Melvin shouts, “Igor, this whole place is going to collapse!”

Igor looks up, then looks down, then looks up again. As rubble rains down from the ceiling with each pounding jump from the monster, Igor pulls out his flute and plays. The ceiling trap door opens, and so does the one in the floor. You see the monster, in his furious green glory, plummet past you into the now open trap door in the floor, and you hear a loud thud below. You, Melvin, Igor, and the ghost all gather around the trap door in the floor to peer down into the hole. You see the monster lying unconscious on the little island in the basement acid pool. As you watch, the island glides off into the darkness.

“He’s lucky he didn’t land in the acid,” says Melvin.

“Yeah, but he’s going to get a lot of spider bites,” says the ghost.

From above, the angry face of Doctor Frankenstein glares down. “Igor! Where is my monster!”

“He’s in the basement, master. I think he’s… resting.”

“Well, stop jibber jabbering with that painter, and help me get the electricity back on.”

“Duty calls,” says Igor. “Ghost, can you take them to Dracula’s castle?”

“It will be my pleasure! They probably won’t survive… but… imagine if they do!”

“Igor,” asks Melvin, “will you be okay, with the monster, and the doctor, and everything?”

“Oh sure,” says Igor. “Just an ordinary evening around here.” He surveys all the cracks in the walls and ceiling. “You can see why we redecorate so often.” He peers out the window. “If you are going to defeat Dracula, you better get going. It’s well after midnight.”

“Yes,” says the ghost, “we had better go.” It seizes you around the waist, and to your horror, leaps out the window. You are quite high up, and find yourself hurtling towards the sharp rocks on the mountainside below, and you scream. At the last possible second, the ghost pulls up, and you narrowly avoid certain death, suddenly sailing up into the sky. As you look back at the castle, you see Igor in the window, waving goodbye, and Melvin darting out after you, trying to catch up.

When you catch your breath, you gasp, “Did you have to scare me like that?”

“Sorry,” says the ghost. “You’re heavier than you look.”

Melvin catches up. “Nice night for flying!”

“Yes,” says the ghost, looking up at the flashing gray clouds in the night sky. “Unless we get hit by lightning. But at least the rain has stopped.”

As you sail over the mountain forest below, you try to decide whether what is colder: The high altitude mountain air, or the chilling arms of a ghost around you. You’d rather not think about any of it, so you change the subject. “So… how do you know Peek?”

“Yeah,” says Melvin. “And how do you know so much about Dracula’s Castle?”

The ghost sighs, his cold breath literally sending chills down your spine. “It wasn’t always his castle. It used to be my home.”

“When was that?” asks Melvin. The moon breaks out from behind a cloud, and you see it reflect off of a mountain lake below. In the distance, a wolf howls.

The ghost sighs again. “I… I don’t remember, exactly. Being a ghost does things to your memory, I think. It could have been a thousand years ago, I’m not sure. I was once alive, I know, living a happy life. Then Dracula appeared in my bedroom one night and the next morning I was dead and my castle was his. I became a ghost, haunting my own home, swearing revenge on Dracula. For centuries, I plagued him, causing him all manner of difficulties, and no matter what he tried, he could not get rid of me.” The ghost pauses, to fly up and over some clouds. “And so it went, for centuries. Until the dark day he met Doctor Frankenstein.”

“Why would Doctor Frankenstein visit Dracula?” asks Melvin.

“Dracula heard about the famous scientist, and invited him to Ghost Manor.”

“Ghost Manor?” you ask.

“Yes,” the ghost says quietly. “It’s what I call my home. I… can’t remember my living name, and I’ve been a ghost so much longer than I was alive.” He continues. “He explained to Doctor Frankenstein that his house was haunted, and that he desired to make it ghostproof. The doctor believed that by running electricity through metal walls, he could repel ghosts, even trap ghosts.”

“Did that work?” you ask.

The ghost inhales and sighs its deepest sigh yet, and you feel ice crystals forming on the back of your neck. “Yes, it worked. I was furious. My life was taken from me, and then my own home. Not only could I not live there, but Frankenstein built special ghost trap rooms to try to imprison me. But I was too clever for that, and so I followed Doctor Frankenstein home, to haunt him instead. If I couldn’t haunt the fiend who stole my home, I would haunt the one who cast me out from it.” He looks down. “Ah, here we are. There’s Ghost Manor, just ahead.”

You see a large castle made of reddish brown stone, surrounded by a great cemetery. The ghost flies down, and lands among the tombstones near the castle, but not too near. You are very glad to have your feet on the ground again, and hug yourself, and rub your arms, trying to warm up from the bone-chilling flight, but in a chilly cemetery in the mountains, after midnight, you aren’t having much luck.

“Do you still have the crosses?” asks the ghost.

You reach into your pocket. “Yes… I…” oh no! You feel around in all your pockets. “I only have one!”

The rainbow ghost frowns. “I was afraid of that. The crosses are enchanted. They have returned to the coffins they were taken from. You see, after Frankenstein built all his electric walls, Dracula refused to pay him, and so Doctor Frankenstein pried the silver crosses from the coffins as payment. But some of them were enchanted, and now that they are near the castle, they have returned to the coffins.”

“Well, how can we defeat Dracula with just one cross?” you ask, your voice in a rising panic.

“You probably can’t. You’ll need to find the other two crosses when you get inside. Remember, you can’t kill Dracula, you just need the crosses to keep him from killing you before you steal his key.”

“Oh right,” you say, rubbing your forehead. “We’re here to get the key so we can free Peek’s friends from the bad man’s house… the Graves Mansion. I almost forgot!”

You look at the castle, and feel overwhelmed by a sense of pure evil emanating from within.

“So… we just… walk in there?” asks Melvin, nervously.

The ghost laughs. “Oh, no. Dracula has all kinds of guardians. Bats, scorpions, flying skulls, an evil knight (boy, is that a long story), and a giant mummy with an axe. You’ll have to defeat them all to get in.”

You and Melvin look at each other. “How are we supposed to do that?” you both exclaim simultaneously.

The ghost laughs. “Ha, yeah, I know. That’s part of why no one can defeat Dracula.” He looks around. “I know a way to do it, though. Those enchanted creatures can all be defeated by ectoplasmic spears.”

“Ecto-what?” asks Melvin.

“It’s a ghost thing,” says the ghost. “See, when a ghost floats over a grave, for a brief moment, an ectoplasmic spear materializes from the ether. Watch.” He floats in front of one of the gravestones, and indeed, for a brief moment, you see what looks like a delicate crystal rod appear over the grave, and just as quickly, it seems to evaporate. “If you’re quick, you can grab it. Get ready.” He floats over another grave, and again a crystal rod appears. Quick as you can, you snatch it out of the air, and the ghost is right! In the moonlight, you see every color of the rainbow dancing inside the spear, no thicker than a twig, but about two feet long, and tapered to an incredibly sharp point.

“Wow!” says Melvin. “Ghost weapons from beyond the grave! This is pretty cool!”

You look at the castle again. “Ghost, will you come with us?”

He shakes his ghostly head. “No way. Dracula is waiting for me, there’s nothing he would love more than trapping me. I’ve heard he might have other ghosts trapped in there, all because he’s trying to catch me.”

“Hmm,” you say. “Anything else we should know?”

“I think that’s most of it,” says the ghost. “There should be lamps in the front entryway. If you make it past the mummy, grab one, it’ll be dark inside. Oh! And don’t be tempted by the golden walls.”

“Golden walls?” asks Melvin, confused.

“Yes. Gold is the best conductor of electricity, so Doctor Frankenstein melted down the gold from my vaults to build the electric walls that keep me out. One side of the walls is deadly, by the other side is safe. I’ve heard that several foolish burglars have tried to steal the gold from his walls, only to end up ghosts themselves when the power reverses.”

“Got it,” you say. “Spear the creatures, get the lamp, find the crosses, repel Dracula, find the key, and get out.”

“That’s pretty much it,” says the ghost, looking with concern at the setting moon. “You better get in there, though. The sun will be up soon.”

“Wouldn’t it be safer to do this in the daytime?” asks Melvin.

“It’s quite impossible,” says the ghost. “Ghost Manor only appears after midnight when the moon is full. The actual castle was destroyed long ago. Make sure to get out again before the sun comes up, or you may never be able to leave.”

“Oh, come on!” says Melvin, clearly at the end of his rope. “Ghosts, disappearing castles, Dracula, Igor, Frankenstein, and the Mummy. Where is the Wolfman, I ask you? WHERE IS THE WOLFMAN?”

“Are you done?” asks the ghost.

“Yeah,” says Melvin sheepishly, “I’m done.”

“Then follow me. You’re going to need a lot of spears to get into Ghost Manor!” and he darts off across the cemetery, a row of crystal spears popping up in his wake.

Put the Ghost Manor cartridge into your Atari 2600. Set both difficulty switches to b. Set the Color/BW switch to “Color” to play as a girl, and “BW” to play as a boy. Play until Dracula is captured, and you rescue the friend from the castle. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.