Twenty-one years later in the Bronze Age, a funeral happened.

Old Mr. Carmine had died. The news reports said that he died of Acute Kidney Betrayal, but his friends suspected the spleen was in on it too. Either way, he was dead now so everyone figured it was Funeral Time O’Clock.

Back when Old Mr. Carmine was just regular Mr. Carmine he had been one of the co-inventors of the Frisbee, as came up in Part One. The decades since then had been good ones for Old Mr. Carmine, which is nice because he’d had a rough life before that. By the last year of his life he was the seventh-richest person in his home village of Ploip and he wasn’t even much of a jerk about it. People would often say of him “Of all the seventh-richest people of any given a place that I’ve met, he’s the best!” That’s why his funeral had very little vandalism and a handful of actual mourners.

At the funeral, Old Mr. Carmine’s business partner Kredick put his hand on Old Mr. Carmine’s coffin and whispered some tearful goodbyes to his friend. He was gaunt figure with long white hair and sharp teeth. He had not visibly aged a day since he had first met Mr. Carmine, for he was a vampire! Lightning streaked across the sky and thunder made a big boom too. It was creepy, but kind of cool.

Then Kredick turned away from the coffin toward the pews, his billowing cape flowing as he moved. He looked at those who joined him in mourning. Clarice was there, of course. She was Old Mr. Carmine’s eldest daughter, and the only one of the three Carmine children who had not left town to join the illegal surf-fighting circuit.

The staff from the Frisbee factory were there as well. There were only ever a few workers at the Frisbee factory, since all they needed to do was buy a thing of butter and take the lid and sell it as a Frisbee then repeat the process. A few years back they’d nearly doubled the workforce when they hired someone to wipe off any butter that got stuck on the lid, but it was still not exactly creating a lot of jobs for the village. But the people who did work there liked it well enough and bothered to come and pay their respects.

Oh, and also Ken was there. Kredick forgot who Ken was, but was sure he’d seen him around before. Maybe at Sally’s thing at the aquarium that time? Whatever. He wasn’t important to the story, but it was nice of him to come out.

Kredick looked upon these mourners and their sadness. He wished he could say something that could make sense of the tragedy, but no words came to his mind except “arable” which was a word that came to his mind a lot, but which did not seem to pertain here. He took his seat.

Kredick hated death. As an immortal vampire he had witnessed the loss of many people over the centuries, while he himself remained in his state of perpetual undeath. So many dead. Eleanor Frisbee, his true love. Johnny Squeables, his bookie. Traffic Cone, his dog. And now Old Mr. Carmine, his friend and business partner. That’s like four. “Death is really starting to cheese me off,” he thought to himself as he brooded. Of all the vampires in the world in those days, Kredick was among the most talented brooders.

Later, at the reception after the funeral, Clarice, who had noticed the brooding, approached Kredick to ask how he was holding up.

“mphoudoink?” she asked. Her mouth was full of little sandwiches, but Kredick got the basic idea.

“I am as well as ever, my friend, for I am dead. Eternal. Unchanging like the dust of the moon.”

“butymphochompifsmm,” she said.

“That is true, but–”

Ker-smash! The window had shattered as a dark figure jumped through and landed crouched in the middle of the room! The small crowd gasped and shouted, even Ken.

This new figure stood up straight and looked directly at Albatross McGee from the factory and pointed a long, clawed finger at her. “Wait,” said the figure. “You’re not the one.” He crouched back down, shimmied a little, then popped up again facing Kredick this time and pointed a long, clawed figure at him. “You,” he said “prepare to die!”

“Mortez!” said Kredick, who immediately recognized his old enemy from the end of Part One. An enemy he killed two decades ago! How could he be here now?

“I’m a vampire too!” said Mortez. Lightning and thunder went again but it was more threatening than atmospheric this time.

“Oh!” said Kredick.

Mortez had prepared a speech that would have explained how he came back as a vampire, why he waited until Old Mr. Carmine had died to get his revenge, and how he preferred muffins to puffins, but he never got his chance to give it. He didn’t realize that in the years since the invention of the Frisbee, people had gotten really good at throwing things. All the mourners except Ken started throwing their shurikens at Mortez the moment they realized he was a vampire. Seconds later Mortez was dead again.

“chplshlunklebm,” said Clarice as she put some more little sandwiches in her mouth.

“You got that right,” said Kredick and gave a joyful thumbs up.

So that’s how Kredick decided that death wasn’t all bad, because it could happen to people who were trying to get revenge on him. That boosted his mood for a while.

Eventually Clarice retired from her job as an astronaut, which gave her time to pick up some butter for the Frisbee factory, so Kredick gave her full ownership of the operation. Her family would go on to run the factory until the end of the Bronze Age when it was bought by Waffletaster Incorporated and sold for parts. And that is why Frisbees are so expensive now.

And as for Kredick? There are those who say that even to this very day he resides in his creepy mansion and watching over the village. Among those who say that is Kredick himself.

Patrick D Ryall, the D is for Coriander