Dracula (A Modern Telling) (26 page)

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nning out into the hallway, he heard Jack far down below yell, “We’ve got something.”

They hurried down to the main floor and saw Quincy, Jack
, and Arthur waiting by the entrance. It was an odd thing, Mina thought, that they should not dare enter without Van Helsing present. Each was younger and stronger but Van Helsing clearly dominated their minds and they had accepted him as their leader.

“What is it?” Van Helsing said, coming up to the door. His expression changed to surprise as Mina came up behind him to see what was inside the room.

The room was large, the main floor being at the bottom of a flight of six or seven stone steps. It was a crypt. The walls were stone and it was cold, windowless, and had the stink of staleness and mold. Pushed up against the walls were three coffins.

Van Helsing removed a machete from his bag, and stepped inside. Quincy went after him and with a quick glance to each other, Jack and Arthur did the same. Only Harker remained with Mina outside.

“I know who they are,” Harker said in a whisper.

Van Helsing lifted
one of the coffin lids. Inside was a young girl of twenty or twenty-one, white, with tattoos on her arms. Van Helsing walked out of the room and got a small two-foot rod of metal with a sharp end of wood attached. He held the rod high above the girl’s body.

“Doc,” Quincy said, “shouldn’t we at least check if she’s actually a
… you know?”

“She is,” Jack
said. They looked at him a moment and then back to the girl. Van Helsing took a deep breath, and then swung downward with a grunt.

The wood tip pierced the woman’s chest and embedded itself into the coffin’s interior. The woman’s eyes flew open and she screamed and attempted to sit up but the rod held her in pl
ace. She pulled at it like an animal impaled, as blood shot out of her mouth and eyes and ears and nose. Van Helsing stepped away, covering his face to avoid the waterfall of tainted blood, when behind him a coffin burst open and another woman leapt out at him and landed on his back, knocking him to the ground.

Quincy fired one round directly into the woman’s head and it did absolutely nothing. The woman tore into Van Helsing’s flesh, attempting to
shred the arteries and veins out of him, and Arthur and Jack jumped upon her.

The third coffin opened and another woman leapt out
… just as one of Van Helsing’s short spears hurtled through the air and went through her neck. She hissed and broke off the spear, but didn’t die.

Harker stood before them as Jack and Arthur tried to pull the creature off of Van Helsing. Harker took another spear and with a scream akin to a war cry, rushed at the third. She leapt toward him like a jaguar and he fell to his back at the last moment, narrowly missing her fangs, and thrust up with his spear. It pierced her flesh and went into the heart, spewing blood over him as the woman gurgled and screamed.

Harker stood and ran over to where she was writhing on the ground. He had a machete in his hand, the same one Van Helsing had intended to kill the girl with but had lost during the struggle. Harker held it over his head, hesitating only a moment before swinging down with all his strength, severing head from neck.

The other two women screamed so loudly Harker had to cover his ears. As they did this, distracted, Van Helsing
pulled away and ran out of the room, collapsing onto the floor. Harker saw this just as one of the women leapt onto him.

Quincy had pulled out his knife and stabbed the woman in the back, the tip nearly piercing all the
way through her. She fell off of Harker and spun around on the floor, trying to reach the knife handle that was sticking out of her back.

Harker swung down with the machete and caught her in the face, imbedding the blade deep within her skull. He pulled it out, bits of gore flying over him, and swung again, nea
rly severing the head in a single blow. It was then he heard a whimper.

The woman in the coffin, pinned like a bug to an examiner’s board, was weeping.

“Jonathan, please,” she said. “I want to live. Please.”

Harker walked to her. “Hello
, Charlene.”

Blood was still flowing out of her, causing her to cough. “I want to live, baby. I will be your slave. I will take you
places, show you things you didn’t think you would ever see. Is it so wrong what I’ve done? It wasn’t my choice. He made me this way. He stole me in the night from my parents and made me this way. But I want to live. Please.”

Harker lifted the machete but his hand wouldn’t move. He held it there a long time and then lowered the weapon, and walked out of the room. He turned just as he heard a scream and saw Jack cut the woman’s head off. He was weeping as well and whispered something that Harker thought sounded like, “For Lucy.”

Mina stood by Harker’s side as they searched the castle. Van Helsing was badly wounded but insisted he would not leave until he personally saw Dracula dead. Jack wrapped his wounds as best he could with what he had.

“I can only slow the bleeding, Professor. We need to stitch this wound.”

“Do it as we walk.”

Slowly, to allow Jack some stability with the needle and wire that Van Helsing had in his bag, they went room to room. As morning turned to afternoon, they realized the endeavor was simply too large a task to complete before nightfall.

“When does it get dark?” Harker asked.

Van Helsing replied, “Soon, perhaps another hour. We cannot be here in the dark, Jonathan. We will not last against him then.”

Harker stopped and looked around. “In the mansion in LA, he slept in a crypt underneath the house. Like a room underneath the basement.”

“Then that’s where we’ll go.”

Harker helped Van Helsing across the castle to a set of stairs leading below. He saw Quincy and the other two men above them and called up to them. When they had rejoined them, they began making their way to the underbelly of the castle.

It was dark and wet and Harker could feel a breeze though he knew no doors or windows could be down
there. Van Helsing had flashlights and he saw that torches lined a great corridor. He lit three of them and passed them around. With enough illumination to at least see where they were walking, they began their descent.

The castle floors soon turned to earth and the breeze felt like wind, attacking the illumination of the torches. The corridor narrowed and then opened wide onto a massive floor. Chains hung from the ceiling and wooden crates filled the space, along with relics that
could have come from a medieval fairytale.

DR. SEWARD’S EVERNOTE JOURNAL

October 5

I was stunned for most of the time we searched this great castle. We had just killed three of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. Killed. Perhaps that isn’t the right word. They were already dead. Statues that ran on living blood. Still, the severed head of a beautiful women that only a moment before was begging for her life is difficult to take in.

The mood was tense as the sun began to set. We had a feeling, all of us, that if darkness enveloped us, we would not leave th
e place alive.

We were upstairs searching a room filled with paintings when Jonathan called out to us. The paintings were exquisite, but absolutely terrifying. Something about them said they should have been destroyed long ago and were in existence well past their fated time.

“What is it?” Quincy yelled down.

“We’re checking the bottom floor. Come with us,” Jonathan yelled back.

We made our way down. It wasn’t really a bottom floor, like a basement per se, it was like an escape tunnel, dug out of the earth below the great structure. As we walked down the hallway, I couldn’t help but feel what I thought was wind, but unlike any wind I had ever experienced. The air itself was warm but sent shivers up and down my body when it touched me. Van Helsing, who had blood stained into his clothing, and appeared as if he would pass out at any moment, found torches and lit them. Rather than the light comforting us, seeing the ancient brick walls and the dirt floor only heightened our fear.

We walked the corridor until we came to a massive hall. It easily looked like some middle-ages
blacksmith’s floor. I could picture weapons being forged there, and armor and shields. Wooden crates took up the spaces on all sides.

We looked to each other
, and without a word began opening the crates. Even Van Helsing helped as best he could with the injury he had. I had managed to stitch the wound mostly closed but we needed a medical facility immediately, as well as a massive infusion of antibiotics. The castle was filthy. Even the air seemed to carry pestilence and I was afraid too much time there would lead to infection.

The only one that wasn’t helping was Mina, who stood by the entryway, staring out like a doe at something incomprehensible.

The room was soon filled with the clatter of wood hitting the ground as we worked. I kept checking my phone, which hadn’t had service the entire time we’d been in the mountains. But I wasn’t looking to make a call. I was checking the time. The Almanac I had looked up before we came said the sun would set at 6:12 pm. It was now 5:24 pm.

I couldn’t help but think what exactly these crates were used for. There were so many, some stacked on top of others, that I thought perhaps the Count had been planning to move somewhere. Or maybe he already had and this was just what
had been left over.

I took the lid from one crate and began to move it aside
… and felt nothing but pain.

Something exploded out of the crate, earth and splinters and wood slamming into my face. I was thrown back onto the ground as a loud roar filled my ears. I saw only flashes of movement. Jonathan swung with his machete, hitting something.

I could see the figure now before my eyes. It was the Count, a massive wound across his throat from Jonathan’s swing. Van Helsing rushed over and pressed one of his circular tabs into the beast’s forehead. The flesh began to sizzle as the creature gasped for air. He still had to breath after all, I thought.

Dracula spun in the air like an acrobat and landed on Quincy
, tearing into him like a jaguar. I heard sinew and bone ripped out of his body as he screamed. Arthur pulled out a blade and rushed him but was knocked back like some doll.

I took a deep breath, fear nearly making my knees buckle, and ran in.

Leaping on top of him, I wrapped my arm around his throat just under the chin so he couldn’t bite me. He felt like stone underneath me as he jumped into the air at least ten feet and spun around, forcing me to land on my back and absorb the blow. The machete I had in my other hand flew away from me into the darkness.

The wind was knocked out of me but I didn’t let go of his throat. I knew if I did it would
mean death. Van Helsing ran at him again and pressed the tab to his lips. They burned and sizzled as the creature shrieked and flung me away from him.

The burn had weakened him.
Jonathan lifted his machete.

“No!”

Mina sprinted over and threw herself in front of him.

“Mina, get out of the way!”

“No, Jonathan. Leave him alone.” She grabbed the machete that had been knocked out of my hand. She held it up, threatening us with it like she had lost her mind. She helped the creature to its feet, backing away from the men. “Don’t touch him!”

The creature was choking on its own blood as it emptied out of its body onto the dirty floor. Dracula, the great Dracula, was not immortal.

Jonathan went to grab Mina when Van Helsing stopped him. “Let her go,” he said calmly.

“She’s my wife.”

“I know, I’m sorry. But you must let her go.”

Mina helped
the creature as she backed away into the blackness. I could see candlelight off to the side. I stood up, feeling pain in every inch of my body, when I noticed that Quincy was lying on the ground. We ran to him. His throat had been ripped out.

“Quincy,” Arthur gasped.

As the man died, I turned to Mina. I walked over to her and saw that the small room she was in was a chapel. The creature had kept a chapel close to where he slept. Suddenly, I felt sorry for him in a way I didn’t think I would.

Mina bent down over him, tears flowing down her cheeks onto his face.

“My God has forsaken me,” the creature said. “It is finished.”

“My love, my love. I am with you always.” She kissed him passionately and slow
ly withdrew her lips.

“Give me peace.”

Mina, weeping, gently laid him down, kissing him once more on the forehead, before swinging her machete with both hands, and severing his head from his body.

She collapsed onto the floor, and Jonathan ran past me to her. I turned away, and began walking out of the castle. I could hear Van Helsing when he said, “We have become God’s madmen. All of us.”