Dracula (A Modern Telling) (5 page)

He stared off in the distance after saying this and we sat quietly a while.

“Morning’s coming,” he said. “I can … taste it. You should sleep now, Jonathan. A good sleep is a rare thing for an adult. For some reason, that sweetness can only truly be tasted in childhood. Maybe because you don’t have the worries and conflicts gnawing away at your insides when you’re a child.” He rose. “But you’ll find good rest here.”

He saw the screensaver on my Mac. It was Mina. He stood still for an uncomfortably long time.

“Who is she?”

“My fiancé, Mina.”

“She could be … she is identical to someone I once knew. More than identical … do you believe in fate, Jonathan?”

“No.”

“Because you wish to be in control. When you let go of that control is when you truly find your freedom.”

With that, he left and shut the door behind him. I heard it lock from the outside.

May 12
th

A Longer Stay

It seems I’m going to be staying in LA. The Count came to me yesterday and asked me a few questions about shipping something across the country back to Boston. He also asked why I didn’t have a Boston accent and I explained to him that it was something I could control and had worked to remove. He then spoke about my biography that he’d read on the Rolling Stone site that talked about my upbringing in London, the place of my birth. Where my family lives now.

I told him it would be much cheaper and quicker to do it by plane but he insisted that he wanted to ship something by sea, so we talked about it and I told him the little I knew
, but suggested we talk to a travel agent or research a website that specialized in this sort of thing. He assigned the task to me.

Then, he said something I didn’t expect him to say: “You will be staying a bit longer.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Our interview’s not complete. I want to give you the full story
, and for that you’ll have to stay longer.”

“Why don’t we just finish now?”

“No, my head must be in it. This is something I am leaving for posterity. I want it perfect. For that, you need inspiration and I don’t feel inspired right now. You’ll just have to stay longer.”

I have to say I really felt like I didn’t have a choice. I could’ve protested and told him to call me a cab right away but I was frightened about what he was going to do. I truly felt like he could lock me in one of these rooms and no one would ever find me.

So I agreed to stay longer.

What choice did I have?

“And your blogs and emails,” he said. “I’m a private man and don’t like things discussed in public that don’t need to be. I would ask your discretion in the things you see and do here.”

I nodded and he left the room.

It was later that night that I couldn’t sleep. I kept the crucifix over my bed now and felt silly for doing so. But then this heavy dread would grip my gut like a fist and I would be glad that it was there for me to see and touch.

I rose from bed and went out into the hallway. Candles were lit on one side and it was enough illumination for me to make my way around.
The mansion was completely quiet. I couldn’t even hear the wind coming through the windows that I knew were open. I walked down, glancing at each candle. Every single one was unique, as if handcrafted specifically for this place. I stood in the hallway like an idiot and stared at one for several minutes, the way the wax melted just right and rolled down like a tear.

I walked into the next room and the window was open. I went over to the sill and stared out over the expanse before me. The cliff leading down appeared even more dangerous at night and at the very bottom I saw the glimmer of water
, like a river or stream.

As I stared down, I saw a window. Sticking out of it was the Count’s head. I couldn’t see his face but I knew it was
him from the back of his head and his movements. And then he did something that will haunt me as long as I live.

He crawled out of the window, and began creeping down the side of the mansion headfirst, like some
grotesque bug. He was wearing a crimson robe and it flapped in the wind like wings as his toes and fingers caught the exterior bricks of the mansion. I thought it was some effect of shadow or of the moon, but it wasn’t. It was him.

I locked the door to my bedroom, and sat with utter terror on the floor. My phone, inexplicably, doesn’t get service. I post on this blog offline and I have no idea if it gets posted throughout the day. If it does,
I’m asking whoever is reading this to please contact the police. I’m a prisoner here now, and I’m surrounded by terror.

May 15
th

The Walls Keep Closing

I saw the Count go out again in his lizard-like crawl. He’s a terrifying figure and not just because of what I’ve seen. His moods are unpredictable. One second he will be totally normal and the next he will explode with such fury at the most trivial thing that I’m constantly on edge around him because I don’t know what will set him off.

Last night, when he was crawling around, I took a candle from the hallway and checked all the doors. They were all locked again but the locks now appeared new.

I went about exploring more and more, to parts of the mansion I hadn’t been. I went to the front door and saw that you need a key from both sides. A key! That at least gives me hope. I’m willing to bet the key is in the Count’s room. I have to keep my senses about me. If I can find that key, I can get out of this hell.

May 16
th

Blog

I feel like I’m going insane. There are things in this place that I can’t explain. Voices. Things moving in the night without anyone nearby. Strange lights that come out of closets and underneath the doors of rooms when no one is there. The Count is now my only comfort. He’s who I look to for safety.

I asked him tonight if he could take me to that club again and he just smiled and said, “I don’t think so, my friend.”

I’ve started the habit of praying at night and it helps calm me down. The only other thing I have right now is this blog. I have no internet connection anymore but I still post here every night. I put the posts on a queue and if I can connect for just a few minutes … maybe someone will see them.

Putting things down accurately occupies my mind. I never understood how important it was for your mind not to focus on the things that are terrifying you.

The Count had told me to never fall asleep in any place in the mansion other than my room. But I couldn’t be in there tonight. I needed a sense that I was somewhere else. I went to the room with the open window near mine and pulled a couch up and lay on it. Though I fear him, there’s something in disobeying him that gives me a slight thrill. I’ve thought about fighting him. But he moves … unlike anything I’ve ever seen. I tried to touch him once just to see if I could and he instantly appeared on the other side of the room. And his strength is far more disturbing. So I don’t fight. Instead I walk around at night like a ghost and plan an escape that I’m not sure will ever come.

As
I lay on the couch and stared out the window, I suddenly got the impression that I was not alone. I looked over to the doorway and three women were standing there. They were nude, and three of the loveliest creatures I had ever seen. Models, or porn stars maybe. Built to be lusted for by men.

The
y moved through the room like silk and were on me.

Pearl white teeth were pressed against ruby lips
, their cold hands over my body. Something about them was unlike any other women I had ever met. I longed for them and feared them at the same time. One of them, I saw now, was Charlene.

Staring into their eyes, I wished they would kiss me. I wished they would rip off my clothes and ravage me, dominate me. I wanted to be dominated and humiliated.

They were whispering among themselves and they laughed. A beautiful, silvery laugh after so many days when I’d heard nothing but wind in the mansion. Their voices were like water-glasses played softly by a human hand. It was otherworldly.

“You’re the first,” one said to Charlene. “He’s yours by right.”

“There’s enough for us all,” she said.

I lay quiet in a type of anticipation that made me feel like my body would fail me. Charlene ran her hand up my chest and clawed me. Her voluptuous lips were near me and I smelled her breath. It was sweet, like honey, but underneath the sweet
was bitterness. Like something perfumed poured over something foul.

She bent over me with perfect breasts that just lightly touched my
neck and sent shivers up my spine. Arching her back, her face was lit by the moon and she licked her lips like an animal. In the moonlight I could see the moisture on her shining, velvet lips, and the red tongue that lapped over the white teeth.

Her face brushed against mine, and went lower and lower. Past my chin until I felt her on my throat. I heard the sound of her tongue licking her teeth and lips and felt
her hot breath against my neck. I felt her lips shivering against the sensitive skin of my neck and I moaned in ecstasy as she grinded her hips into mine. I was hers, and anything she wanted to do to me I wanted done. I was hers to use and discard or to love and cradle.

The ecstasy, as quick as it had come, began to fade away and I chased after it like a child chasing
a butterfly. It was then I became suddenly aware of the presence of the Count. And not just his presence, but his fury. Like a raging storm.

He moved like an apparition and grabbed Charlene by the back of the neck, throwing her against the wall. His eyes were lit on fire, glowing red in the darkness. I didn’t think
anyone was capable of such absolute fury. He growled at the other two women who quickly hid in the dark corners of the room.

“How dare you touch him when I forbid it!” he screamed.

Charlene, sadly, as if resigned to her fate, said, “You’ve never loved. You don’t know what it’s like to long for love.”

Laughter
filled the room. It was hard and soulless. The Count turned to me and there was sadness in his eyes that I had never seen before.

“Yes, I have loved.
You can tell this from my past that I loved more greatly than any of you.” He turned to them. “Now go, when I’m done with him, you may have him. But not now.”

“Can we not have anything tonight?” Charlene said.

The Count motioned to a bag he had brought into the room with him. Charlene ran over to it and opened it. I thought that maybe my ears were deceiving me but … it was the screams of a young baby. Charlene picked it up with fervor and the three women circled around it, and faded from the room. I could hear the screams of the child in the hallway as they grew farther and farther away.

Outside I saw the dim, shadowy figures of the women as if they had turned to shadows and then they were gone.

The horror of it overcame me like a sickness, and I slipped into unconsciousness.

May 17
th

I woke up in the bed in my room. Last night seemed like a dream but I knew it couldn’t be. My clothes were hanging in the bathroom in a way I don’t usually have them and some of my other things were laying around the room in places I never put them.

Although my
internet connection isn’t on and I’m posting offline, I’m grateful that the Count hasn’t opened my blogging app. If he saw this blog, he would erase it all and probably just destroy this Mac that’s been with me for years.

I’m looking around this room that has become my prison cell and for some reason I’m comforted. As confined as I feel, as much as I miss Mina’s big brown eyes and the way she kisses me
, and the mushroom burger at U Burgers, and my friends at Patsy’s Bar just next door to my condo, I feel relief.

Anywhere is better than with those three demonic women who are waiting to tear into me.

May 18
th

I keep thinking the three women were a dream. The color of their lips and tongues against the backdrop of moonlight was so vivid it doesn’t seem real. I went down to the room today to lay on the couch again to see if it would jog my memory, but the door had been slammed shut so hard it had splintered and jammed.

Later in the n
ight, as I lay in bed, I heard silky feminine laughter from down the hall and could see two pinpoints of yellow at my door, looking in.

It was no dream.

May 19
th

The Count has turned on my internet for a brief time. He’s monitoring my emails and activity but I didn’t do anything but hit the post button on my blogger app and it should have posted everything online. Please, please please, anyone out there, call the police and get them here!