The Hatstand Incident - The dissapearing vampire guitarist

[Scene: Rain lashes the neon-lit alley outside The Hatstand, a jazz club with a reputation for strange disappearances and even stranger solos. Harry PI from "Harry, Barry and Larry Investigators", trenchcoat soaked, voice like gravel in a blender, lights a cigarette and begins his tale.]


“The Hatstand Incident,” huh?  

You’re askin’ about the night the strings screamed and the shadows swallowed a vampire mid-riff. Yeah, I was there. Not inside—too many garlic martinis on the menu—but close enough to smell the ozone when it happened.

It was a Thursday. The kind of night where the moon looked like it owed someone money. The Hatstand was packed—velvet flamingos on sax, a werewolf on drums, and Vladislav “Fangfret” Jefferson on lead guitar. He wasn’t just undead—he was unreal. Played a fretless bloodwood Stratocaster with strings made from banshee hair. Every solo peeled paint off the walls and made the chandeliers weep.

Then came the solo.  

Second set. Song was “Midnight Hemoglobin Blues.” Vlad hit a harmonic so high it cracked the mirror behind the bar. He bent the note, eyes glowing red, fangs glinting—and poof. Gone. No smoke, no scream. Just a lingering E semi-sharp and a single bat wing fluttering down onto the stage.

I investigated. It was in my blood. PI isn't just my job it's my name. I was born into it. 

Name's Pi. Harry Pi. I always get to the root of the problems. Even if it’s imaginary.

They wonder how far I'll go to crack a case. About one radius. Any further and I'm going in circles.

I entered the joint like a decimal, precise, unending and slightly irrational.

I interviewed the flamingos. They were tight-lipped—beaks sealed. The werewolf claimed Vlad owed him a pint of moonshine and a vintage amp. The bartender said the solo was so powerful it opened a rift in the fabric of groove itself. Some say Vlad transcended. Others say he was reclaimed—by the ancient council of nocturnal musicians who forbid solos above 88 decibels.

My theory?  

He played a note so pure, so perfect, it reversed his vampirism and launched him into a parallel jazz dimension. One where the sun never sets, and the audience always snaps in time.

So yeah, The Hatstand Incident.  

A vampire vanished. A solo lives on. And somewhere, in a smoky lounge beyond space and time, Vlad’s still playing—just one note, forever.


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