Trapped in Transylvania (6 page)

We climbed off the ship and ran across the beach, taking cover from the storm under the peaked front roof of the church. While Frankie read the book to see what she could find out, I took a look around.

In the flashes of lightning, I saw that the church stood nearby a small graveyard of old, tilted stones. They made me shiver, as just about everything had since we had dropped into this book. The shivers convinced me that, even though the setting had changed, we were definitely in the same story.

“I found it,” said Frankie, pointing to the page. “The storm, the church. There should be a woman—”

“You there! You!” a woman's voice shouted.

“Right on schedule,” I said.

We turned to see a woman running toward the church. She was dressed in a long cloak, but her head was bare, and her long brown hair was tossed by the wind. She looked very scared about something. Probably about being in a horror book.

“My goodness!” she cried, rushing under the roof to us. “Are you all right? What are you doing here?”

Frankie and I glanced at each other. We knew the truth wouldn't help much. “We're new in town,” I said. “By the way, what town is this?”

“Why, it's Whitby, of course—”

“Of course, of course!” Frankie whispered. “The labels on the dirt boxes were addressed to Whitby. So, we're in England now.”

“Cool,” I said. “Lady, we're Frankie and Devin.”

“My name is Mina,” she said. “Mina Murray. But soon my name will change to Mina Harker.”

Frankie jumped. “Hey, we know you! Your boyfriend Jonathan told us about you—”

Mina nearly hit the church roof. “My goodness! Jonathan is in Europe even now! How do you know him?”

“We just left him in Dracula's castle,” I said.

“Which is pretty much a lair of evil,” said Frankie.

“Dracula was the man Jonathan was going to see!” Mina said. “Please—tell me everything you know.”

“Why, sure,” I said. Then I took a deep breath.

“It all started with me turning to chat with Frankie in Mr. Wexler's English class this morning.…”

Ten minutes later I finished with, “So I told Frankie to flip the pages. And she flipped the pages! Everything went all
kkkk!
and here we are.”

When I finally stopped, Mina was staring at me as if I were some kind of idiot. It's a look I am familiar with.

“But what does that mean?” she asked.

“Which part?” I asked. “I said a lot of stuff.”

“Everything you said was nothing more than a confused mumble of noises!”

I was stunned. She hadn't gotten a word of my long and detailed summary. I was bummed. All that effort!

Then Frankie pulled me aside.

“Devin,” she whispered. “I think we just discovered another wrinkle to this book thing. Even though all the Harker stuff at the castle happened before, Mina doesn't know it happened before. The author must be playing around with his characters. The reader knows what happened at Dracula's castle, but some characters don't.”

I tried to take it all in. “Does this mean we have to convince everybody all over again?”

Frankie chewed her lip. “Maybe we'd better just push the story along.” She turned to Mina. “So, what brings you out on such a dark and stormy night?”

“I came looking for a dear friend of mine,” Mina said. “Her name is Lucy Westenra. We've known each other for years.”

Frankie shot me a quick grin. Yeah. Lifelong friends. We knew a little something about that. “Go on,” I said.

“Lucy was staying with me but she disappeared from my house tonight.”

There was fear in Mina's eyes when she said this. She was obviously really into her character. She made me believe she really cared for this Lucy person.

“So, Lucy is sort of special, huh?” asked Frankie.

“She is a wonderful friend to me,” Mina said, her eyes getting moist. “Everyone loves her. In fact, before she became engaged, three gentlemen had asked for her hand in marriage—”

“Three!” I said. “Wow, this Lucy character must be some kind of babe—”

Whack!
Frankie smacked the back of my head lightly with the book. “One more crack like that, Devin, and I'm flipping back to the boat!”

I made a face and rubbed my head. “So …” I asked, “where do you think Lucy has gone?”

The wind tore at Mina's hair as she scanned the scenery. “She has been sleepwalking recently so I thought she was doing it again. I heard a sound in the night, and sat up in bed, only to find Lucy's bed empty. I ran downstairs. She was not in the house—”

Kkkk!
The sky lit up with a jagged flash of light.

“Oh, my!” Mina shouted. “Look there! It's her!”

The storm was hurling strong wind through the harbor and blowing the fog to shreds. We could just see a figure in white sitting on a bench in the nearby graveyard.

“It
is
Lucy,” cried Mina again. “Oh, I have a horrible sense of fear upon me. Let us hurry to her!”

The moment we started for her, a dark shadow surged up behind Lucy's bench. It seemed to grow larger with every leap we took.

Frankie gasped. “Is that the dog? The black dog from the ship?”

“Except it's not a ‘dog' anymore,” I said, making air quotes with my fingers as I ran. “It's … changing.…”

In seconds the dog seemed to grow into the shape of a man. In one swift move, it bent over Lucy.

“Oh, my gosh,” I said. “It's … it's …”

“What is it?” cried Mina, running as fast as she could in her old costume.

“Well, it ain't Scooby-Doo!” Frankie snapped. “Hey, you, Bitey Boy! Get away from her!”

The dark thing raised its head. Its pasty white face and red gleaming eyes told us it could only be the terrible fiend himself—Count Dracula.

I saw a flash of black cape in the fog and then a whooshing sound as he rushed away into the shadows of the graveyard. When we got to her, Lucy was alone.

She was young, like Mina, and pretty, so I could understand why so many guys wanted to marry her. But right now she was as white as paper and just about as thin. She clung to the bench as if she were half dead.

“Lucy, my dear, what happened?” said Mina, kneeling next to her. “Who was that person?”

Lucy coughed slightly as Mina pulled a shawl around her and fastened it with a pin at her throat.

“No one was here,” said Lucy.

But even with the shawl pulled tight,. I saw two small puncture holes on Lucy's throat.

I shot a glance at Frankie. We both nodded. We knew.

“No one was here, huh?” I said. “Then how do you explain those two red marks on your neck?”

“They're pimples?” said Lucy.

“I scratched her when I pinned the shawl?” said Mina.

“I tried to put on lipstick but I missed?”

“She fell on a fork?”

Frankie gave me a look. “Dude, here we go again!”

Chapter 12

With the storm easing up, we all scooted off to Mina's house where she said her friend Dr. Sewer was visiting.

“Dr. Sewer?” I blinked. “They need doctors for that?”

“Not
sewer
, you dummy,” Frankie said, pointing to page one hundred and three in the book.
“Seward
, with a
D
. He's one of Lucy's three men friends. But she didn't pick him to marry her.”

“I think I need a scorecard,” I mumbled.

“What you need,” said Frankie, “is to do some reading. It's not impossible, you know. In fact, here. Take the book. My brain is tired. You read for a while.”

“Harsh,” I grumbled, but I took the chubby book from her anyway as we entered Mina's house. It was a nice place: small, but with cute fluffy gardens all around it.

“Dr. Seward is here at the request of Arthur Holmwood, Lucy's
fiancé,”
Mina said as we helped Lucy in.

“Ah, so
Holmwood's
the one she chose,” I said.

When we barged in the front door, a man rushed to help us. He was dressed in a plain dark suit.

“Dr. Seward,” said Mina. “Lucy was sleepwalking again. We found her in the cemetery.”

“Ah, poor Lucy,” said the doctor. We all helped her upstairs to her room. Then Frankie and I stayed in the hall as Mina and Dr. Seward got Lucy set up in bed.

A few minutes later, they came back out.

“She is resting now,” Mina said to us. “Thank you.”

Dr. Seward shook our hands. “Both of you, thanks for helping. When Lucy's fiancé Arthur asked me to check on her, I didn't dream she could be in such a state.”

“State?” I said. “England is a country, right?”

Seward gave me a look, then turned to Mina and smiled. “My dear, the most wonderful letter has come.”

Her eyes lit up. “Not …”

“Yes! Jonathan is alive and safe,” Dr. Seward said.

“All right!” I said. “He made it past the vamp babes.”

Mina jumped for joy. “My Jonathan! Where is he?”

“In Budapest, in Europe,” said the doctor. “He is in a hospital. But don't worry, we are assured he is all right. He fled Transylvania and arrived in Budapest just days ago. I've arranged for you to take the next boat to him.”

“I will meet him right away!” she said, running to her room to pack.

While she was gone, Dr. Seward wrote out a telegram. When Mina appeared carrying a suitcase, he handed the telegram to her. “Please send this when you get to town,” he said. “And
bon voyage!”

“Oh, to see Jonathan again!” Mina cried happily. She raced out of the house and sped toward town singing.

I wondered if we would meet her character again, and I found myself sort of wanting to read ahead, but Dr. Seward called us both into Lucy's room.

She was asleep, breathing quietly. Seward bent over her, holding a candle near her throat. He examined the two puncture holes closely.

“She is so pale and thin,” he said. “Her pulse is weak. She seems to have lost a fair amount of blood. And what do you make of those strange marks on her throat?”

“Those strange
puncture
marks?” I said. “Well, it's so obvious. They came from—”

“Devin!” said Frankie, making big eyes at me and pointing to the book in my hand.

I understood. “Ah, yes, the clueless approach.”

I looked at the ceiling. I stroked my chin and muttered for a while. Then I paced a little. Finally, I said, “Well, doctor, what do
you
make of the marks on her throat?”

“I have no idea. What do you make of them?”

“Well, what do you make of them?”

“What do you make of them?”

“What do you make of them?”

Seward threw up his hands. “This is going nowhere! Luckily, that telegram I asked Mina to send was to my old friend and teacher, Professor Abraham Van Helsing. Van Helsing is a great scientist from Amsterdam who knows more about strange diseases than anyone else I know. Perhaps he can tell us what is happening to Lucy. I only hope he arrives soon, before she gets worse.”

He sat down next to Lucy's bed and waited.

We all waited.

Tick-tock
, went the clock. We sat for a while. We sat a little more. I stared around. Frankie stared around. Then we both stared around.

“Maybe you should read,” Frankie whispered to me. “You know, to push things along.”

I grumbled, but opened the book. I looked at some words. Then I read a sentence. I got to the end of it and read the next one. Then the next one.

The problem was, we had to wait for Dr. Seward's telegram to go all the way from Whitby, England, to Amsterdam, Holland. That could take days. Luckily, authors can make time pass as quickly as they want. About a page later, it happened. I looked up from the book.

“It's talking about a doorbell—”

Ding-dong!
The doorbell rang.

I blinked. “Wow, reading works!”

Dr. Seward jumped up and we followed him downstairs. “That will be my old friend Professor Van Helsing now—”

Blam!
The door flew open. In barged a chubby little man with large eyes, big bushy hair flying in every direction, a frizzy beard, a long mustache, and a cane.

“Hello, Professor Van Helsing!” said Dr. Seward. “I'm so glad you could come!”

“Ya, is good you are glad!” the chubby man snapped.

“Yes, well, Professor,” said Dr. Seward. “We have a patient here. Lucy is her name. She has a strange ailment. She seems to have lost a lot of blood. She is weak and pale. She was seen with a mysterious dark figure. And she has two small puncture marks on her neck.”

I was waiting for Van Helsing to start with the clueless chin-stroking business, and the whole what-do-you-make-of-the-marks thing, but he surprised me.

“Ach!” he blurted out in his heavy Dutch accent. “Lucy has attacked by a vampire been! It so clear is. We decide what first to do, yes? Yes! First—flowers I put in her room some.”

The guy was really into mangling the language, but he seemed to know his stuff. As if by magic, he managed to pull a huge wad of flowers from his coat.

“Cool!” I said. “She'll like those—”

“They are not for liking!” Van Helsing exploded in my face. “They are for not
dying!”

Without another word, Van Helsing clomped up the stairs and burst into Lucy's room.

She was propped up in bed, pillows stacked behind her. Her face was even paler and grayer than before. Her lips were thin. Her eyes drooped. Her hair was a mess. She looked even worse than the first time we'd seen her, which was pretty bad. Sorry to say, she didn't look much like a babe anymore.

“I am afraid,” said Lucy, clutching at her throat.

“Flowers are for fearing not,” Van Helsing said, crunching his words again. “There is much goodness to you in these so common flowers. See, I place in your room myself them. I make a wreath to wear you.”