The Shadow Box: Paranormal Suspense and Dark Fantasy Thriller Novels

by Travis Luedke

  Then he waited in his improvised nest for the fox – his sweet Little Fox. He watched her enter, collect six eggs and leave. Nothing happened?

  He repeated his surveillance for a full week until he realized the moon had finished its cycle and was on the wane. He was furious with himself for being so stupid. The Count would not tolerate stupidity – that was for women and children.

  Lucien would just have to wait for the moon’s cycle. He attended school with his beautiful Little Fox as usual. Francine cleaned and cooked as usual. His mother found new ways to berate him as usual. And his drunkard of a father was useless as usual, sleeping it off in some whore’s bed.

  He spent a week in surveillance confirming the connection with the full moon. On the seventh day, Lucien watched in total silence his Little Fox entering the chicken coop with the wicker basket. He instinctively knew this was not his Delicate Rose for she had such a powerful control over the usually skittish chickens, her eyes had changed to a deep raven-black and her hair had darkened.

  She looked through the wire for anyone who might see her, whirled around, grabbed a chicken by the neck and ripped off its head with her teeth. She plunged the open neck into her mouth and drank its blood, its clipped wings still flapping. The fledgling vampire dropped the carcass to the floor and smiled right at Lucien.

  Lucien heard the dark music tantalize his brain with thoughts of blood-soaked bodies writhing in sexual abandon. As if in a trance, he left his hiding place and embraced her. Their tongues intertwined, tasting the saltiness of blood mixed with their passion. The bitter taste reminded Lucien of cheap wine. She gasped and the passion stopped.

  Lucien’s testicles crawled up into his groin seeing Francine marching back into the kitchen, leaving a bundle of washing on the cobbled yard.

  Lucien held Little Fox’s hand and both entered the kitchen to face the inevitable tempest.

  Francine angrily shook her niece, pointing to a few drops of chicken blood staining her pink blouse. She shouted at her niece, “How dare you risk our livelihood over your evil lust for blood.”

  Lucien watched in curious fascination when Francine slapped her niece across the face.

  The girl simply smiled back at Francine with strange contentment. She giggled.

  To Lucien it looked as though Little Fox was staring right through Francine and into his racing heart. A shudder came over him quickly followed by an eruption of stomach-churning revulsion – The Count exploded in his mind. Sweat burst out on his forehead. He felt inhumanly powerful. Dark thoughts raced across his mind – thoughts of blood-letting, death, torture and sexual delights, both demure and forbidden. He saw great battles and feasting on the hearts of the vanquished.

  The Count spoke, “It’s time for you to drink human blood for it will make a man of you. You must take her blood to become strong … and when the Eternal Hour has arrived … take it all. But be warned, Master Lucien, do not trust the bitch.”

  But Lucien was enraptured. “You love me Lucien. Protect me.” He heard her voice speaking directly into his mind just like The Count.

  Lucien’s heart soared at her words. The Count cursed, now ejected by Lucien’s infatuation. Lucien pushed Francine away from his beloved, “Never lay a hand on her again or you’ll suffer the consequences.”

  Francine stared at him in desperation, “Please, Master Lucien, don’t tell the mistress of the house. I need this job, not for me but for my poor Rose.”

  Lucien surged with his power. “Get out! Make the beds or whatever the hell else you can think of ... just get out of my sight.”

  Francine nodded subserviently to Lucien before scurrying off.

  Lucien heard that dark music filling his mind with wondrous thoughts of blood and lust. He pulled Little Fox to him and kissed her for he had to taste more blood. But what he tasted was very different. He didn’t know what it was – if it had a name at all. But The Count recognized that taste of death, a cloying, darkly sweet taste that numbed the mind for more. He succumbed to her power and relished her essence now entwined with his.

  That was when Lucien’s mother caught them. Bram Stoker’s Dracula was in her hand. She screamed dementedly at her son, “This is the Devil’s playground. I forbid you to read such a vile book.” His mother marched up to Lucien and smashed the book in his face. Mother screamed at her evil son for practically raping the young girl. She slapped his face repeatedly until his lower lip split. The book screamed into his mind. He bent down and picked up The Count’s former home. As he kissed the book his bloody lip smeared the worn leather cover.

  Lucien laughed, licking the blood from the book with obvious relish.

  His mother gasped with religious shock, crossing herself. “I knew you were the Devil’s spawn. Like father like son.”

  Over the next two weeks, his mother subjected him to the confessional and several mind-numbing encounters with Dr Vernier at the institute.

  Lucien sat calm as could be while Father Papineau and Dr Vernier argued over his sanity.

  “It’s merely an adolescent phase,” Vernier said.

  “What if there is more to it than that?” Papineau offered. After further discussion, Papineau told Lucien’s mother, “We both agree the boy is going through normal rites of adolescent passage, but needs the stern hand of his father to keep him from going astray.”

  “How is that possible when the damned swine is never home,” she angrily replied. His mother dragged Lucien by the hand down the leafy lane to their home.

  Lucien could see his mother was more troubled than ever and that she had obviously ignored their advice.

  Lucien hated Papineau and Vernier with such fervor he couldn’t sleep for days, thinking of different ways to kill them. His hatred didn’t stop there as The Count took a firm grip of his deranged mind and nourished it.

  Lucien had to be careful from now on to deceive his distrustful mother and Francine, for if his father discovered his dirty secrets there would be hell to pay. He relished playing the game of cat and mouse as it honed his insanity to new levels. Lurid thoughts of the next full moon gripped him like a fever, turning Lucien into a monster where his evil alter-ego held sway over what little reason remained.

  Lucien overheard his mother quietly talking to Francine.

  “You watch that whore niece of yours. Never leave her alone with my Lucien ... she has bewitched him.”

  Francine obeyed by keeping Delicate Rose in their room above the stables with every full moon. Lucien paced outside the stables like a lone wolf on the prowl. He was heartbroken and defeated. The Count was not!

  Lucien’s rage and hatred screamed inside his head. There had to be a way to be with his true love. There had to be or he would die of his need for her.

  Chapter 31

  LUCIEN’S PATIENCE WORE paper thin until his mother and Francine grew bored with their interminable vigil. The thought of driving his dear mother insane drove Lucien to new heights of bedevilment. But he didn’t have to wait much longer. After all, they had to sleep.

  He also knew that his beloved Little Fox could not sustain her lust for blood on his mother’s precious egg layers, especially now that Francine watched the coop with hawk’s eyes. Like their undying love, her bloodlust had to be sustained elsewhere. So during the full moon’s rising allure, he found her and together they sneaked off at twilight to hunt rabbits.

  Little Fox slaked her insatiable thirst from the quivering animal’s throat with a terrifying bloodlust before transferring the disappointingly earthy taste to Lucien’s eager tongue.

  He succumbed to the dark music that coiled within his loins like a nest of snakes in a mating frenzy.

  But her thirst couldn’t be satisfied. She needed more – much, much more.

  When the next full moon expelled the sun’s rays, Lucien took his Little Fox to Busson’s farm, where, strangely enough, she knew a pig was about to be slaughtered.

  Lucien’s otherworldly persona, The Count, asked Busson a favor.

  Th
e farmer gave the boy a worried look, but allowed the favor, pocketing an extra twenty Francs for his trouble.

  She stood, fidgeting with excitement, while Count Lucien slit the pig’s throat with a demonic chuckle. The hot blood gushed into a wooden barrel.

  Count Lucien gave a wry smile, noticing the curious looks Busson gave them. He handed the bloody knife back to the farmer and left with the bucket of blood.

  The youngsters raced off with their prize to the nearest hiding place, where she gorged herself on the cooling liquid.

  She kissed him.

  He preferred this blood to chickens or rabbits any day. It had a more rounded flavor, no tangy aftertaste and the rusty taint was far less discernible. It was glorious. It came close to the plumy taste of a young Chateau Dupont, which Lucien let her drink as often as she liked, quite often indeed.

  Lucien was so enraptured with her during their monthly trysts that he failed to understand the significance of the blood feasts and the full moon. And as the Dupont wine slowly matured within the confines of oak barrels, so Lucien’s dreams succumbed to the Count’s insidious control, reaching a crescendo at every full moon.

  But many times, during other stages of the moon, young Lucien had tried to force his Delicate Rose to drink blood to placate his unbridled lust, only to see her run away with disgust clearly written across her innocent beauty.

  The Count strongly urged, “Show her what a man you are. Take her blood then you will know her true name.”

  Lucien could not bring himself to harm her. After these failures, the love of his life would often stay clear of him, as if their love was tainted in some way.

  He retreated inside himself, becoming sullen and silent as he battled internally with The Count. “Why won’t she give her vampire name to me?” He cried.

  The Count screamed at his weakness. “Take her blood!” The Count was resigned to the fact it would take the next full moon to bring Lucien out of his shell, and awaken his dark side – the side he worshipped, as written in his bible of blood.

  And as it was written so it came to pass, for the moon was surely full and had blossomed, opening its silver petals for her subjects desires. Lucien opened the bottle and never replaced the cork. His lust for her blood would not be satiated by the meager offerings so far indulged. He let The Count all the way in.

  Count Lucien lured the poor girl to the stables, a place befitting her death.

  He twisted her arm behind her back and pushed the pathetic bitch onto the straw-covered ground. He withdrew a knife from his trousers and slit the palm of his hand. Lucien tried to entice her with his blood, but she was Delicate Rose at that moment and was repulsed by his offer. He rubbed his blood all over the servant girl’s face, but she would not take his essence.

  The moon was not full until the following night. The mistress of the dark had fooled him with her allure. The Count howled his hatred into the night and blamed Lucien for being outwitted by a feeble-minded whore.

  The bitch whore kicked and screamed with all her might with Count Lucien’s hands gripping her throat. He looked at her in a curious fashion.

  The Count spoke in Lucien’s mind, “Go on ... she is your servant ... take the worthless whore ... take her blood!”

  Lucien’s rage overflowed into a terrible fury as he understood his need for her coincided with the cycle of the moon – and it was just not enough. It would never be enough. He released his grip on her throat.

  The terrified girl wiped the blood from her face with the sleeve of her blouse, crying desperate tears. “I hate you!”

  Count Lucien allowed her to escape and shouted out in a hoarse voice, “Be warned, whore ... tell anyone and we will make you suffer. You dance with the Devil … you sleep with the Devil.”

  And as the Devil’s wrath ravaged the land with his pestilence they called Spanish Flu, Lucien stood silent inside the pantry covertly listening. Aunt Francine berated her niece over her lack of certain female attributes – namely her monthly affliction.

  His father had never spoken to him about such disgusting matters of the human body, and if he dared ask, Lucien would have received a severe beating for his inquisitiveness.

  And so Lucien listened in torment as his beloved was threatened with a visit to Dr Colbert. His black heart sank with the thought that his Delicate Rose might have something seriously wrong with her and would never again satisfy his bloodlust. The Count would have none of this. Lucien listened with a wicked smile.

  “You must take her eternal blood when the time is right … when I am ready for the eternal joining.”

  Lucien watched, enraged as Francine dragged his Rose out of the kitchen. He crawled behind the nesting boxes and whimpered like a child with The Count screaming at him to be a man.

  “Kill Francine and take the whore. Lock her in the keep of the fourth turret and wait for the Eternal Hour.”

  Lucien put his hands to his ears to stop the tirade from The Count, but it was useless.

  Still hidden from sight, Lucien’s heart skipped several beats, watching Aunt Francine and his beloved Rose return from the doctor. She smiled right at him as she entered the kitchen. He raced up to the kitchen door and listened. He sighed with relief when Francine hugged his true love to her bosom, saying there’s nothing wrong with her.

  But Aunt Francine was obviously not convinced. With a mind-jolting rage, Lucien listened to his true love being threatened with a visit to Father Papineau.

  The next day, after sunset, Francine and her niece walked the short distance to the village of Douvrey.

  Lucien followed them across fields, hiding behind hedgerows. He reveled in the power of the predator on the hunt.

  Unfortunately, it was during the full moon cycle. Little Fox screamed, fit to burst her lungs, when Francine tried to drag her into the church.

  Father Papineau rushed from the church to discover what the commotion was all about. He saw the utter terror in the girl’s eyes as Francine desperately tugged at her outstretched arm. The priest laid a hand on Francine’s shoulder. “Leave her. Come tell me what troubles you.” He gave the girl a worried look as he entered his church with a distraught Francine.

  Lucien rushed to his Little Fox and hugged her, rubbing his erection against her groin.

  She giggled and pushed playfully away. She spoke as that otherworldly personality, the vampire, “Be still, Lucien, so I might listen to them.”

  Lucien stood speechless as she relayed what went on inside the church. Nothing was left out, not even the priest’s thoughts.

  “She’s telling the holy one about my need to drink blood on the full moon. He’s extremely worried. Now she’s saying you are responsible ... you have contaminated me with your lust. The holy one thinks Francine is insane.” She giggled then gasped. “Now the holy one believes I am a vile minion of the dark one, crossed over to this world to wreak havoc on his flock. He thinks of me as an abomination. He remembers my Eternal birth.” She cried. “I am Eternal!”

  Lucien went rigid as The Count rejoiced. She had given her true vampire name – Eternal. He loved that word with all his black heart. He saw her look of horror.

  She backed away from him in terror.

  The Count ordered Lucien to take her. Lucien snatched her hand and tingled with her power. His heart raced out of control. She struggled briefly then relaxed.

  Eternal spoke, “Francine says I am not normal. I don’t bleed only take blood. The holy one is thinking of telling his superiors.” She sighed and relaxed. “He can’t do that. He would have to explain my birth, his dirty little secret.”

  Lucien wanted to enter the church and kill that meddling old fool, but Eternal stopped him with a dark look from jet-black eyes.

  A wicked smile transformed Eternal’s face into something much more sinister. “I know, Lucien.” Her devious grin changed to panic. “They’re coming! Leave now!”

  The church door squealed open and Lucien ran for all he was worth. His mind was racing as fast has his fe
et carried him home. Eternal was far more powerful than he had ever thought. Even worse, she knew how The Count felt about her and what he wanted to do to her. Lucien’s fractured mind shattered to a thousand bloody pieces of uncertainty and delusion.

  One month after his parents’ tragic deaths, Lucien noticed a distinct change in Francine. She seemed to have forgotten all her worries about her niece. For the first time in God knows how long, Francine was actually happy. She hummed and sang as she went about her daily tasks. Lucien and Delicate Rose gladly helped with the household chores.

  Then one fine day the Devil knocked on the Dupont’s front door and was allowed in. Aunt Francine, temporary guardian to Lucien and her niece, succumbed to the influenza that had decimated the country’s population.

  Francine became terribly ill. The two teenagers did their very best to save her and she actually did recover after days of washing in rose water.

  The Count told Lucien that this curse of the Devil’s playground had been released by the war, as if death had not taken its quota of young souls.

  But Francine was finally released from her mortal bonds, weakened by her flu attack. After a brief bout of mourning, Lucien allowed The Count to become the prominent force in his deranged mind.

  Count Lucien dragged his screaming Delicate Rose up the winding stairs of the chateau and locked her in the uppermost circular room of The Great North Turret.

  The Count spoke, “It will be three more years before the eternal moon shall return on the day of days. Then you shall drink her dry and become Eternal.”

  Lucien obeyed The Count for many months, until his impatience got the better of him. He sold his property to some pathetic artist and her soldier husband. He bundled his terribly emaciated true love into the black Mercedes Edwardian Tourer, with hands tied behind her back, and drove off for Paris, where his penchant for blood would go unnoticed.