Dracul

by Dacre Stoker

  Bram takes a deep breath in through his nose and lets the air back out through his mouth. Sleep tries to capture him, his eyelids threatening to surrender. He stands away from the chair, takes three circuits around the room, then sits back down. He wants another drink of the brandy, but that isn’t wise; brandy will only make him more tired.

  “There you go again, drifting off to sleep in the middle of a story.”

  This time the voice is that of Nanna Ellen, exactly as he remembers her from his childhood. And the voice doesn’t sound like it is inside his head anymore; this time the voice comes from behind the door, muffled by its thick oak.

  “I didn’t want to leave that night, I really didn’t, but you and your sister gave me little choice. You should have never gone into my room. You had no business in there, in my private space. I would have never entered your bedroom like that, unbidden. I would never have considered rifling through your belongings like a common thief rifling through a victim’s possessions. I loved you—you, and your sister, too.”

  Bram feels his eyes drift shut, and he forces them open and sucks in a deep breath. The musty air is so thick with dank dust, it tickles at the back of his throat. He reaches into his pocket, pulls out the flask, and allows himself another drink.

  “You’re sitting here as an adult because of me, Bram. You know that, right? I could have left you to die that night, but I didn’t. I saw what mischief your witch doctor of an uncle was conjuring and I stepped in to quell it, your mother and father be damned. You have no idea what kind of trouble that brought on me, do you? I did these things because I loved you, I loved you as my own. I still do.”

  Bram ignores her. The brandy muffles her voice, if only for a little while. It clears the fog in his head and brings warmth to his tired bones. He returns the flask to his pocket.

  “Do you remember all those days we spent in your room, just the two of us? Lying atop your bed, telling stories. Oh, how we laughed! I’m sure I scared you, too; some of those tales were quite wicked! Remember the Dearg-Due? You were in a bit of a fever when I told you that one.”

  The word is familiar, but he cannot recall the story.

  “She was trapped in a room not unlike this one and look what happened to her. Look at what happened to the people who put her there. Oh, I would hate to see you suffer such a fate. If you open the door, you’ll never have to worry about these things. I can keep you safe.”

  Another chunk of the blessed wafer paste falls from the edge of the door and cracks into a dozen pieces on the stone floor. Bram barely notices, though; his only thoughts are of sleep, how much he wants to and how he cannot succumb—a battle waged behind heavy lids.

  “Perhaps you should take a nap. Just a short one. Just enough to cleanse your thoughts. I’m sure after you wake you’ll realize what a horrible mistake you’ve made. Go ahead and close your eyes; I’ll watch over you. It will be like when you were a child.”

  The rifle slips from Bram’s hand and clatters to the floor at his feet. He thinks about picking it up, but his arms seem so heavy, the gun seems so heavy, his eyelids so . . .

  “Sleep, Bram, sleep. I’ve got you.”

  THE JOURNAL of BRAM STOKER

  October 1854—As we stepped inside Artane Tower, I immediately noticed a dip in temperature. Matilda’s hand trembled in mine, and I knew she noticed, too. The entranceway opened onto a large square room, at least twenty feet across, with stone steps, narrow and steep, protruding from the outer walls and held in place by nothing more than strategic placement. To peer upwards proved dizzying, and as I did so, my body wobbled. There was no banister, only the smooth steps, each being only a treacherous two feet wide, with some even less so, chipped and cracked by time and lost to age, and with each step’s corners pointed in shape to accommodate the upwards circling of the stairs. And there were more steps to climb than I dared count; I did not want to know how many. Although two of the windows we had spotted from outside were visible, the third was not. I suspected the staircase ended with a chamber at the very top overlooking the Artane Valley and surrounding forest. The tower was originally designed for defense, and such a position would be advantageous, allowing for a view miles around.

  Along the walls, candles burned at every seventh step, their flames an unnatural hue of blue. I stepped to the first of these to get a closer look. The flame danced at the wick and seemed to bend towards me as I approached. I found this to be particularly strange since there was no breeze in this place to speak of. Yet, as I moved my hand closer to the flame, it bent to greet me. And when I moved away, the flame moved in concert, resuming an upright position. Stranger yet, a blue flame usually indicated great heat, but there was no heat, no warmth at all, as if I were watching the image of a flame rather than the actual flame itself.

  “She must have lit this candle recently; I see no evidence of melted wax. They haven’t been burning long,” Matilda pointed out from my side.

  She was right. Not a single drip of wax leaked down the side of the candle, nor was there any buildup at the base. Either a candle burned here for the first time or someone had cleaned the candleholder before lighting this one.

  Once again, I closed my eyes and reached out to Nanna Ellen. She had to be close—yet I felt nothing, no sign of her at all.

  When I opened my eyes, I found Matilda standing on the eighth step, shuffling her feet tentatively against the crumbling stone. The step seemed to be holding up under her weight. “I think it’s safe.”

  As she spoke these fateful words, something large and black came down at us from the top of the tower, falling with such speed and purpose I barely had time to react before it swooped past and then circled back up. Matilda let out a startled scream and fell from the staircase towards the stone floor, and I darted towards her in an attempt to break her fall. The two of us landed in a heap at the bottom.

  “Are you hurt?” I asked.

  She rolled off me and climbed back to her feet. “I don’t think so. What was that?”

  I stood and brushed the dust from my coat. “I think it was a bat. A very large bat.”

  “You’re bleeding.”

  I followed her eyes to the palm of my hand, where crimson from a cut about an inch long shimmered in the pale blue light. I gently touched my palm with my other hand. “It doesn’t hurt; I don’t think it’s very deep.”

  I pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of my trousers and wrapped it around the wound as a makeshift bandage.

  The large bat came back down, first circling high above, then diving directly between us. Both Matilda and I reared back, dodging the creature as it passed less than a few inches from our eyes. I watched the black bat soar back up, then alight upon a wooden beam about ten feet above our heads that ran the length of the tower. The vile creature glared down at us with beady red eyes. The image of Nanna Ellen again popped into my head and I shook it away.

  I expected Matilda would wish to leave, but instead she again grasped my hand and started up the steps, pulling me behind her. Undeterred by the bat.

  I stood still. “What if it swoops down again when we’re way up there?” I asked, pointing at the staircase far above our heads. “A fall from that height would most certainly mean death.”

  “Then, perhaps, we shouldn’t fall,” she replied.

  I remained still.

  Matilda tugged at my hand. “We will watch it closely. I was spooked once; I will not be spooked again.”

  A mouse scurried past our feet and came to a halt between us and the entrance to the tower, a mouse so plump it could easily be mistaken for a rat. It was nibbling at something, but I couldn’t make out exactly what. As if to prove her point, Matilda didn’t flinch at the sight of the rodent; she stood firm.

  I nodded my head, took a deep breath, and the two of us began to ascend the steps. With this, the candles seemed to brighten.

  * * *

 
; • • •

  WE REMAINED CLOSE to the walls, our hands groping for anything resembling a hold in the jagged surface of the stone. Here, the steps were no more than a foot wide, the surface of each perfectly smooth, worn by time and the countless feet that had trod upon them through the generations. Ascending, I kept a wary eye out for the bat. The creature, monitoring us intently from its perch, took flight as we passed and landed upon another beam just above our heads. The flutter of its wings echoed off the ancient walls, filling the chamber with what sounded like a hundred bats beating against one another. Passing the bat for the second time, I heard the chitter of tiny teeth and was reminded of the mouse we saw earlier.

  I dared not glance down; the stone floor was at least twenty feet below us now. With each step, I heard tiny little pieces of loose rock slip from under our feet and hurtle to the ground. Matilda squeezed my hand in hers, then let go. The next step was less than six inches wide, nothing more than a nub of rock protruding from the wall. She tentatively placed a foot upon it, quickly shuffled past to the next full step, then waited for me to do the same. I took a deep breath and followed behind her, careful to place my foot precisely where she had placed hers. As we climbed, we realized some of the steps were loose, and although none of them broke away from the wall, a fair number felt like they might.

  I looked up. “Halfway there,” I mumbled.

  The bat must have taken offense at my words, for it fluttered to life and circled past us, cutting so close I felt the wind of its wings on my face as I ducked a moment before it would have collided with me.

  Matilda let out a soft shriek and dodged the bat, too, her hands gripping the wall to keep from tumbling. I thought it would fly by again, but it did not; instead, the creature landed at the top of the steps above a large oak door.

  “It’s blocking our path,” Matilda said.

  “It will let us pass,” I replied, not quite sure how I knew this, only that I did. There was something else. Although I could not sense Nanna Ellen nearby, I was certain she had been here. She left her essence on each step, on each handhold along the wall, her very breath hanging in the air. I was certain she had been here recently, as recently as this very night. Again, I wondered if she could sense me, too, if this strange bond was mutual. And if she could, indeed, sense me as I did her, did she have the ability to mask this sixth sense we shared and somehow hide from me at will? It would seem so. This thought brought on a shudder—I saw her once again, catapulting towards me from the ceiling, only this time we weren’t in my attic room, we were standing right here on these steps—I pictured her falling towards us from the top of the tower, her arms and legs outstretched, grabbing at both Matilda and me as she fell past, pulling us with her to the depths below.

  “Keep moving,” Matilda said. I looked up to find her nearly ten steps ahead of me, almost to the landing at the top, with the bat perched a few feet above her head.

  I reached for the stone wall and started up after her, mindful of each step and careful not to slip on the loose stones. We made quick work of the remaining steps and found ourselves at the top, facing a large iron-banded oak door. As we neared, the bat took flight yet again, perched on the windowsill across from us. As I watched, another bat landed beside it, then a third—each larger than the last, their size shaming the size of the diminutive mouse below. Little chirps came from the trio, and they glowered with beady red eyes, long white teeth dripping saliva on their shuffling claws.

  Matilda eyed them anxiously, but I refused to display fear; instead, I turned my back to them and took in the large door.

  It must have been nine feet wide, and it appeared to be carved of a single slab of oak, improbable as that may be. Large iron bands wrapped the surface at the top, bottom, and again at the center, and in the middle appeared to be an ancient bolt-hole for some type of lock. I found it strange that such a door would lock from the outside rather than the inside and couldn’t help but wonder what might warrant such a thing.

  I reached for the bolt and pushed it aside. The metal did not squeak, as one would expect of a contraption as old as this, but instead it slid effortlessly aside, finishing with a distinct click as some unseen cylinder disengaged. With this uncoupling, the door pushed in just a hair, now free to swing on its sturdy hinges. A heavy, malodorous air seemed to exhale through the gaps, the foulest of stenches—and a gag escaped my throat. Beside me, Matilda turned away, pressing the sleeve of her jacket over her nose and mouth, her eyes watering with the wicked scent of it. I had smelled death before, and this was such a scent; stagnant and impure, the odor of a long-rotten thing locked away in a small place, contaminating the air around.

  With her free hand, Matilda did what I could not and pushed on the door, sending it swinging into the room.

  Although a window occupied the far wall, someone had bricked it over, sealing out the night, and the moonlight, too, but this was of no matter for the walls were lined with the same candles we found along the staircase—their flames burning bright and dancing upon the wicks. Again, I noted the lack of fresh wax; the candles burned yet they didn’t become spent. They didn’t expel smoke or scent, they just gave off an odd blue light.

  I think Matilda expected to find Nanna Ellen, because she burst into the room with a quick step, prepared to surprise anyone who may be standing inside. We encountered no one, though.

  With the opening of the door, the nasty air rushed out at us as if freed from this place for the first time in centuries. Beneath this odor, I also detected a deep, earthy scent. The room was larger than I had expected, at least twelve feet across, and completely round except for the door. The ceiling climbed to a height of at least ten feet, dominated by a large canopy of stone bricks supported by thick wooden beams much like the ones we encountered in the staircase.

  The cobwebs and dust were so thick a hundred years could have passed since the last time someone stepped foot in this place, had I not known otherwise. I thought of Nanna Ellen’s room and the dirt on the floor, how she left no footprints while Matilda and I left so many.

  I knew Nanna Ellen had been here, because at the center of the room was a large wooden crate, about three feet deep and almost as wide and of a length that rivaled Pa’s height. The top had been pried open and set aside, and it was from here the malignant odor emanated. Dirt covered the floor, much like Nanna’s room.

  * * *

  • • •

  AT FIRST GLANCE, the crate struck me as peculiar. Spiderwebs filled the room; they dangled from the ceiling and walls as thick as the canopy of an old weeping willow in the deepest bog. Even as we pushed the door farther into the room, webs broke free and fell to the floor with tiny eight-legged creatures scurrying for shelter the moment they recovered, taking refuge amongst the thick plumes of dust and grime. How had someone gotten such a large box up the stairs?

  Matilda, still shielding her mouth, walked with caution into the room, her eyes fixed on the large crate. She circled carefully at a distance of a few feet, then approached, waving away the webs nearby. As she peered over the edge of the crate and took in the contents, her face creased into a frown; then she shook her head and stepped back again, a scream coming from her, but muffled by the sleeve of her coat.

  “What is it?”

  She grew pale, and for a moment I thought she might give in to nausea, but she fought off the sensation. Unable to speak, she pointed to the crate opening, her finger trembling before her.

  I wanted to turn back. I wanted to take her by the hand and rush back out the door, down the steps and across the fields to our house, where I would climb back into the safety of my bed and pretend this was nothing more than another bad dream—but I knew I couldn’t do that. We had braved the night to come to this place, to search for Nanna Ellen, to get answers, and I had to remain steadfast and courageous.

  I forced my feet to move, for they did not wish to do so. I coaxed them into the room o
ne step at a time until I found myself standing beside the large wooden crate. I felt Matilda’s hand on my back and nearly jumped at the touch. My head spun around to face her only long enough to see her mouth the word Sorry. Then I turned back to the crate, leaned over it, and peered inside.

  Dirt filled the crate to the rim—the same disgusting earth we found under Nanna Ellen’s bed, crawling with earthworms as thick as my finger, slithering through the black and over and under one another before disappearing back into the dirt. Peppering the surface were hundreds of maggots, their tiny white bodies glistening with slime under the flickering blue light of the candles. As grotesque as this sight was, it was not the reason Matilda screamed, for this was not the worst thing in the box—not the worst by far.

  Near its center, barely visible under the thick layer of earth, rested the mutilated carcass of a cat. Its throat had been violated with a ragged tear, the pink muscle and yellow fat beneath exposed to the air, causing the carcass to brown and dry just the slightest.

  As I stared past into the dirt, I realized the feline was not alone; nearly a dozen dead rats also dotted the black earth, their fur so filthy I could barely distinguish them from the dirt. The smell should have repulsed me, but I found the scent oddly calming.

  When my arm began to itch at this thought, I took a step back to find Matilda staring at me. “Did Nanna Ellen slaughter those animals?”

  In my mind, I saw her glaring down at me from the ceiling, her red eyes glowing with hatred and hunger, and I knew that she could do such a thing, even if I didn’t want to believe it. Then a worse possibility dawned on me. “You said Thornley passed a bag to Nanna Ellen in her room, a bag containing something alive . . .” I let the word hang, unwilling to complete the thought aloud.