Nightlight by The Harvard Lampoon

failed me. They were all in pictograms.
    I was about to give up when I saw a shiny racecar covered in antennae. Something about this car induced a strong feeling in me … I was seized with an urge to tow it. Nothing irks me more than a car parked in a loading zone. I wrote down the license before entering the “Computer Games and Price Elasticity for Storm-Chasers” store to my right.
Someone
was going to feel the cold hand of justice today.
    “May I help you?”
    A wretched old man with stink-breath was nosing his garbled moldy nose into my face. I felt bad for him. It was too late for his life to bear an impact on me, Belle Goose, Red Cross—certified babysitter.
    “Do you by chance have any vampire simulation games?” I wanted to see the world through Edwart’s eyes. “Scrap that—do you have any Edwart Mullen simulation games?”
    “Well I don’t know about the latter, but we’ve got plenty of the first. We’ve got your coffin-sleeping vampire simulation, your crucifix-fearing vampire simulation, your human-blood drinking vampire simulation, your above average looks but otherwise completely normal vampire simulation—”
    “Ooh! That one! That’s the one.”
    “Okey dokey. Just have a seat in the booth and I’ll help you out with the 3-D goggles.”
    “I assume these goggles also prevent the vampire spirit from escaping once you switch out your human one,” I said, putting the goggles on and tying them tight.
    “These goggles make all the green things have red shadows.”
    “Right. And the fine print is that they turn you into a vampire.”
    “If that’s the character you choose, yes. But permit me to suggest choosing Yoshi—a formidable underdog among an otherwise completely armed and loaded cast.”
    “Yeah, sure—will do,” I said, giving my vampire character a missile launcher.
    Immediately after the simulation began I felt my skinblanching and my hair growing beautiful. I felt my teeth sharpening and my blood going dead. I had this insatiable urge all of a sudden. An insatiable urge for magnesium.
    No—that wasn’t it. I wanted blood.
    I ripped open the booth’s curtain, my own strength surprising me as the material swung effortlessly to the side. I was free and not even my morals could stop me.
    “You!” I said menacingly, turning on the old man. I didn’t have anything against him personally, but I couldn’t control myself. Being a vampire was
difficult
. I was filled with newfound awe for Edwart, that he could walk through the hall everyday without lunging at the nearest person’s wrist and clinging to it with his teeth, as I was doing now.
    The senior was old but he was strong. He flicked me off in one fell wrist circle, tearing off the goggles with five slower but persistent gestures.
    As the vampire spirit escaped, I quickly came to my senses. “Whaa-aaa?” I shook the dizzies out of my head and wiped my saliva off his wrist. “That is one crazy machine, old man,” I informed him. “I hope you have a license for that.” I gathered up my things and walked out without taking the game controller I had bought. I wouldn’t give him that satisfaction.
    The sun had set now and the streets were eerily quiet except for the spooky “Whoooooo” noise I made to scare away zombies—enemies of spooks. I had to counteract this with zombie noises to scare away any spooks I might have attracted. As I wandered aimlessly through the pitch-blackalleys, I had a funny feeling I was being watched. I heard rustling, and the distinct sound of a Sega game controller waving through the air. I turned around. It was the old man, seniley whirling his merchandise. My heart began to pound, beating against my chest, pummeling my ribs and getting all braggy about its muscle strength. I was being followed.
    Quick, I told myself. Try to remember what you learned from Jimbo’s Self Defense for Young Ladies. Jimbo was a beefy man with prison tats.
    “Go into the nearest dark alley,” I recalled Jimbo