Dracula Ascending (Gothic Horror Mash-up)

by Cindy Winget

  All Van Helsing could do is nod his agreement and shrug.

  “How many residences do you think we will have to search before we find the right one?”

  “I really couldn’t say.”

  Sensing that his friend wasn’t in the mood for talking, Victor lapsed into silence.

  They returned to the house just as Jonathan alighted from the carriage and made his way towards them. “Good news! The list of possibilities isn’t long,” he said, holding up a piece of paper. “There are only five residences in the area that are either attached to a churchyard or near a graveyard and have been recently sold.”

  “Excellent!” cried Victor. With any luck, they would sniff out Dracula’s lair by this time tomorrow.

  “Shall we start with the closest and make our way from there?” asked Jonathan once they had gone inside and informed Jack.

  At first they thought to split up and each go to a different place in order to expedite the process of finding Dracula, but upon further reflection, concluded that should he be there at the time, it would be a good idea not to be caught on one’s own.

  “The first one is only a few leagues away. Does anyone object to going now?” Jonathan looked around, but the eagerness upon the other men’s faces told him that they were ready to begin the search. “Just let me go inform Mina, and we shall leave.”

  True to his word, the first residence was not far. The trip seemed shorter on account of their enthusiasm. They told tales and bawdy jokes, laughing uproariously at even the most mundane anecdotes, high on the satisfaction of being on the offensive for once. Even Jack seemed more light-hearted and smiled more than he had done in all the weeks since Lucy’s death.

  In no time at all, they arrived at a two-story brick home which faced the local cemetery. As they descended out of the carriage, Jack thought to ask, “Barring Dracula actually being here, how will we know if we have found the right place?”

  They all stopped, this having not occurred to any of them. “Hmm…good question,” said Van Helsing, without venturing an answer.

  “I just assumed we would be able to sense it,” Jonathan admitted sheepishly. They took a stroll around the cemetery first, but saw nothing suspicious or out of the ordinary. No door to a mausoleum cracked open or a gaping grave. No swish of bat wings or sinister mist. They wandered back over to the residence but upon knocking on the door, learned that a family now happily lived there, and they reported no strange occurrences surrounding their property.

  “On to the next?” asked Jonathan.

  They all nodded, though with slightly less enthusiasm than before.

  Once again, they climbed into the carriage and went on their way. Yarns were still told and jokes made, but the laughter was less raucous, more reserved. The second residence was still abandoned, but there was no graveyard in sight.

  “Your employer must have been mistaken on that end,” concluded Van Helsing.

  Upon further inspection, they did find three headstones belonging to a couple and their daughter who had died of typhoid fever thirty years previously, but that was all.

  “Do you gents wish to continue?” Jonathan asked.

  They all nodded, but with decidedly less eagerness. This time, no stories or jokes were told. They remained silent, each individually musing on what they would possibly find at the next place. This residence, a sprawling, yet crumbling mansion, seemed right up Dracula’s alley: it was attached to an old churchyard and seemed the style of residence that Dracula would have procured for himself, but by the looks of things, no one had disturbed this spot in quite some time.

  All enthusiasm now gone, the men agreed that it was time to return to Whitby and begin their search again in the morning. The sun was beginning to dip down behind the clouds, turning them gold and then to a soft pink before leaving the men in complete darkness, but for a single lantern.

  The following morning, after eating a hearty breakfast, the men got ready to leave. “The next two residences we wish to search are quite a ways away, my dear, so we may be gone most of the day,” Jonathan told Mina.

  She nodded, but Victor could tell that she could barely keep her eyes open. “Why don’t you return to bed while we are away?” he told her.

  “Yes, I believe I will,” she said, stifling a yawn.

  Van Helsing was frowning. “Are you quite all right, miss? You seem to be lethargic a lot lately. Have you not been sleeping well?”

  “No, not really, truth be told.”

  “Have you not been taking the sleeping draughts I have been making up for you?”

  “Yes, but I think I am going to stop. They give me terrible nightmares and I never feel at all refreshed by them.”

  “Hmm…that is curious. I have never had a patient of mine have that reaction, though I admit it has been many years since I have practiced medicine. I mainly hang out with cadavers these days.”

  Mina looked ready to fall asleep right there at the dining room table, so they shooed her away to her bedroom, insisting that they could get along without her.

  “Why don’t you stay here, Jonathan?” Jack said suddenly.

  “What? I couldn’t possibly.”

  “I think your wife needs you. She doesn’t look at all well. I know how I felt when my sweet Lucy was so ill. We would all understand if you wanted to hang back and see to her needs.”

  “There are maids for that,” insisted Jonathan.

  Jack glared at him until he conceded that it would indeed be a good idea to stay home and attend to his wife.

  After packing a hamper of food, Victor and the others alighted once more into the carriage and went on their way. The high enthusiasm of the previous day was absent, but there was a marked hope in the air that, this time, they would succeed in finding Dracula’s lair.

  Not far into the journey, Victor brought up something that had disturbed him. “Should we be worried about Mina?”

  “What do you mean?” asked Van Helsing.

  “We know she has had a hard time sleeping, how could she not? We all have, I am sure. At least, I know I have. But something she said just before we left bothered me.”

  “In what way?”

  “She mentioned that she has been having nightmares.”

  “So?” growled Jack.

  “So, that is what Lucy used to say.” Victor waited while that thought sunk in before continuing. “We have all been wondering why Dracula has been leaving us alone. Perhaps, he hasn’t been.”

  “I will have a look at her the moment we return to Whitby,” Van Helsing promised.

  *****

  “This is it. This is the place,” Victor intoned as they climbed down out of the carriage at their first destination.

  “How can you be certain?” asked Jack.

  “I just know,” Victor said.

  “Come now, surely you can’t know just from a glance,” Jack insisted.

  “No. I agree. This is definitely the place,” Van Helsing piped up.

  Victor could tell that Jack was trying very hard not to roll his eyes. He couldn’t put a finger on why exactly he felt that this was Dracula’s lair, but he knew it, nonetheless. Knew it to the center of his bones. Perhaps, it was the connection he had always felt with Dracula, between man and his creator. Something in the atmosphere gave off a feeling of foreboding. An ominous sensation in the pit of Victor’s stomach promised that this night would be a turning point in his hunt for absolution. The air was so thick that a more prudent person than Victor Frankenstein would surely have fled these evil grounds, but Victor did not turn back.

  A stone manse stood tall and strong off in the distance. Victor stepped onto the brick path that led toward its front entrance and began to follow it, Van Helsing and Jack bringing up the rear. Moonlight shone through the large stained-glass windows, causing the grounds to shine in a kaleidoscope of colors. A small graveyard was partially hidden in the shadows of the building. Victor could just make out the rough gray tops of headstones. As he drew nearer, the sme
ll of rot and decay assaulted his nostrils, sending his olfactory senses into a whirl.

  “Ugh, what is that awful smell?” asked Jack, his face puckering into a grimace of disgust.

  Instead of answering, Victor continued forward, venturing undaunted through one side of the unlocked double doors. It was heavier than he anticipated. He struggled with its weight until Van Helsing helped pull it open far enough for the men to slip inside. The room was dim, lit only by the light of the moon and stars that peeked out in the early twilight and filtered in through the windows.

  “Shouldn’t we check out the graveyard first?” Jack inquired.

  “No,” Victor said definitively, “if Dracula is here, he will be inside where he feels less exposed. No one can inadvertently stumble upon him as he sleeps.”

  “But when Jonathan was at Castle Dracula, he—”

  “I know. He would slumber in a coffin in the churchyard. But that was in the remote wilds of Transylvania. I feel certain that, here in England, he will be indoors.”

  Jack shrugged, as though he did not care one way or the other. “What is that?” he suddenly asked, pausing in the entryway.

  Victor paused as well, listening. He could hear the soft and gentle scurrying of some creature that remained hidden in the shadows. The noise became louder. This was not an individual animal. Then, a new sound infiltrated the darkness; the scratch of a match being ignited. Van Helsing’s visage came into view, appearing ghoulish in the small light of the flame blossoming from the long wooden stick he held. He hastily lit a single lantern and held it up while simultaneously dropping and stamping out the match.

  “You are always prepared, aren’t you?” Victor laughed admiringly.

  Van Helsing simply smiled.

  “Look!” came Jack’s voice.

  Victor’s gaze was drawn by the scampering of furry creatures. Rats. Hundreds, nay thousands, of rats! Bile boiled in Victor’s stomach as the small disease-ridden rodents drew nearer. They poured out of large cracks in the mortar or else entered from different rooms. Some even appeared to crawl out from under the floorboards. He turned to run and saw that the escape was already blocked, the path to the door impeded by hundreds of rats. They would have to step on them in order to get outside. The thought was too much for Victor, who had always been repulsed by the creatures. He shuddered at the thought of their tiny claws tearing into his flesh or being nipped at by their sharp rodent teeth.

  “What are we to do?” he asked desperately, his breathing becoming ragged in his dry throat.

  “Like you said, I am always prepared,” Van Helsing replied. He drew from his pocket a small, long metal object. Van Helsing placed it to his lips and blew. A shrill high-pitched wail emanated from the object.

  A whistle! Victor realized.

  “What is that?” Jack asked in confusion. “How does that help us?”

  Van Helsing only smiled. “Just wait.”

  Victor was willing to put his trust in Van Helsing, but he was having difficulty swallowing as he took in the swarms of black beady eyes that stared at him. Their small whiskered noses seemed to twitch in delight at his fright. He tried to tell himself that he was being childish, but he couldn’t help but back up a step until an indignant squeak informed him that he had stepped on one of the rats.

  “How long do we have to wait?” he asked.

  Before Van Helsing could reply, a yipping invaded the space as three terriers appeared in the open doorway. Snarling when they saw the rats, they ran into the swarm and began to tear them asunder in gory strips of glistening fur and entrails. Victor was no stranger to the macabre but knowing that the canines were meting out death instead of life as he had, somehow made the spectacle worse.

  To Victor’s immense relief, he saw that as their comrades fell, the other rats became frightened and began to scatter back to the dark depths of the house from whence they came.

  When the last rat had crawled away and there was nothing left but the three dogs, licking their chops and panting, their long pink tongues lolling out of their open mouths, Van Helsing finally spoke, “I have been training dogs for years and I thought to myself that if there happened to be any in the vicinity they would surely come to our aid.”

  Jack shook his head in wonder. “You amaze me more and more, my friend.”

  “Why has Dracula not made himself known?” cried Victor, punching a fist into the dusty wall. “We know that this is certainly Dracula’s lair, knowing that he can command the mean creatures of the earth. Nowhere else could we have run into so many rats.”

  The other men agreed, but when a search of the property yielded no evidence of Dracula’s presence, they returned to the carriage.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Did you hear that?” Jack asked as they pulled up to Whitby.

  “Whatever do you mean?” asked Victor. He looked at the house and could see no cause for alarm.

  “I thought I heard a scream,” Jack explained.

  Once more, Victor gazed at the house. He saw no reason to suspect that foul play had been wrought here. There was no indication that the door had been broken into, allowing access to the house for some enterprising thief. Though of course, they all immediately thought of a far greater threat than a common cutpurse.

  Victor lengthened his stride and opened the door. Upon his first inspection, he found everything in its place and felt no presence in the house. But as the men ventured further into the residence, back toward the kitchen, they met their first indication that not all was well here.

  The four maids that serviced Whitby house lay prostrate upon the ground. One had her arm thrown over her eyes, concealing her face. Another lay face-down, as though she had been trying to crawl away and had passed out before she could reach her destination. The other two looked as though they had merely fallen asleep upon the floor.

  “What happened? Are they dead?” Jack asked.

  Victor shook his head. “I see no blood.” He walked up to the four women and carefully inspected each of their necks, but found no bite marks. He saw that their chests moved steadily up and down. “They are still breathing. Poison, do you think?”

  “Laudanum,” came Van Helsing’s voice.

  “What?”

  “They have been drugged with too much laudanum and are in a stupor.” Van Helsing held up a glass vial he had been inspecting. “They appear otherwise healthy. I suspect that our friend didn’t want to be interrupted.”

  “Interrupted? From what?” Jack asked.

  “Mina!” Victor shouted, comprehension dawning.

  Horror appeared on Jack’s face.

  The men hurried from the room and ran up the stairs to Mina and Jonathan’s room. Van Helsing turned the knob. “It’s stuck fast.”

  “Here, let me try,” Jack told him.

  Van Helsing stepped aside and Jack took his place. He turned the knob and pushed and strained, but the door would not budge. All three men then put their shoulders to the door, until the wood around the lock cracked and gave way.

  The scene that met Victor’s gaze would forever be burned into his memory. Jonathan lay in a stupor, while Mina, in a white nightgown, knelt upon the edge of the bed. Dracula, in all his tall, dark glory, stood in front of her, gripping both of her hands in one of his large ones. He was just as grotesque as Victor remembered him being. Long black hair flopping onto his pale forehead. His face and hands crisscrossed with scars from where the stitching had been, yet the finely tailored clothing that he wore—double breasted silk vest atop a white linen shirt, a fine black frock coat that descended to his calves and matching trousers, along with an extravagantly tied cravat at his throat—lent him an air of sophistication. But as aristocratic as his appearance was, it could not erase the cruel glint in his dark eyes or the perverse twist to his wicked mouth. He turned a malicious smile upon Victor, pivoting just enough for Victor to gaze more clearly upon Mina.

  Dracula’s other hand was laid upon the back of her neck, forcing her face down to
ward his chest. She struggled, but the monster’s grip upon her was too strong. As Victor stepped closer, he saw that Dracula’s vest and shirt had been ripped open, exposing a long deep gash in the sallow skin. Mina’s mouth was pressed to it, inviting her to partake of the iron nectar, or else risk suffocation.

  Count Dracula flung Mina from himself and turned his rage and thirst for vengeance upon the newcomers. Mina fell onto the bed, her pristine nightgown now marred with scarlet. Dracula rushed toward them, evil intent written upon his countenance.

  “Back, you fiend!” roared Jack, holding up a silver crucifix. Dracula stopped in his tracks, but the hatred written upon his face remained. He snarled at Jack like an animal caught in a trap. He changed course and flew toward Van Helsing and Victor.

  Prepared for this, Van Helsing upheld an envelope, no doubt filled with holy wafers, which once again forced the creature to stop. “Back to your lair, demon of hell!”

  Dracula’s smile widened, revealing his long, sharp eye teeth. “You may be safe for now, but you won’t be on your guard forever. I have nothing but time. I am staring down an eternity, so it matters not to me how long it takes to exact my revenge upon you.”

  “Take me,” Victor said impulsively, stepping forward. “Your quarrel is with me. I will come willingly and you can have your revenge. Only stop tormenting my friends and loved ones. I will no longer permit others to be punished for my sins. I admit that until now, I still held onto that animalistic need for survival, deluding myself into thinking that if I were to die, no one else would step in and protect mankind from your evil machinations. Well, no more! I shall die and we will have done with this nonsense!”

  “A very noble sentiment, Doctor Frankenstein,” crooned Dracula. “However, I am no longer interested just in killing you. If I had wanted that, I would have done so long ago. I realize now how finite and small that revenge would be. No, I seek something more. Something much grander. I was once the most powerful man in the East, feared and hated by all, but loved by my people. As the Prince of Wallachia, I commanded armies and nations, not because they feared me, but because they respected me. I have little chance of that now. Not with the way I look, but fear can be just as effective. Why should I deign to quiver in the dark, spending my days in hiding in order to save mankind from my cruel appearance and their petty superstitions? Why should I, a creature more powerful than all, who will live to see centuries, care a wit for what people think of me, whose lives are so fleeting and worthless? No longer will I grovel like a maggot in the dirt for a bit of kindness.