Henry Hunter and the Beast of Snagov

by John Matthews

  Henry was chattering away to Mr Antonescu about the history of the place – apparently the present castle was built over an even older one dated from the thirteenth century. Vlad the Impaler used it as one of several places from which he could ride out for a bit of pillaging – and of course plenty of impaling.

  Mr Antonescu talked to one of the custodians and we got the VIP tour of the castle. I suppose I was expecting crumbling walls and dark, dank corners matted with spiderwebs, but in fact there was nothing like that. The place was impressive in a weird, historical kind of way – lots of old furniture, even older-looking tapestries on the walls and wooden floorboards that creaked with every step. But it didn’t really have much atmosphere – at least nothing like you’d expect of a place associated with the world’s most famous vampire.

  We finally arrived in the great hall – a huge, echoing room with a vast stone fireplace and several moth-eaten tapestries hanging on the walls. Over the mantelpiece hung a portrait of a dark-haired, unsmiling man wearing a funny kind of hat (well, I thought it was funny, anyway). Our guide paused in front of it and announced in a very deep and serious voice, “And here, of course, we have the portrait of the notorious Count Dracula!”

  I was disappointed. I couldn’t see any fangs and he wasn’t wearing a cloak, but then nothing seemed to be quite what I expected.

  Henry looked up at the portrait and said, “Actually, that’s not the Count at all.”

  The custodian came over all huffy and reddened.

  “I can assure you this is indeed the famous Dracula!”

  “Sorry, but it’s not,” answered Henry with one of his warmest smiles. “Whoever this is, it’s not him. The painting is at least a hundred years too modern, the costume is wrong and anyway, Vlad Tepes didn’t look like that at all.”

  Hearing raised voices, a couple of tourists drifted over in our direction, staring curiously. The custodian opened and closed his mouth a few times, while Henry pulled out one of the large books he had been consulting in the car and opened it at a page that showed a similar portrait to the one on the wall, except that the dark-faced man in the book was a lot more sinister and strange. There was something about the face that gave me goosebumps, even in broad daylight.

  Suddenly the castle seemed a lot colder and weirder. Our guide stood there twisting his hands and looking uncomfortable, while Mr Antonescu looked at the floor.

  “Never mind,” said Henry brightly, as if suddenly realising he’d upset everyone. “This castle is a really great place and it’s been fantastic visiting it.” He pulled me and Mr Antonescu away from the custodian, who seemed relieved to answer the questions of a group of elderly tourists.

  Henry turned to Mr Antonescu. “Do you think we can go to the real Castle Dracula now?”

  “But this is —”

  “Sorry,” interrupted Henry. “What I mean is that I know this is one of his castles – it’s just not the one I’m looking for.”

  Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought Mr Antonescu looked a bit shifty. He drew himself up and stuck out his chin and said, “May I ask which castle it is you wish to see?”

  “I was thinking of the Red Tower,” answered Henry, beaming at our guide as if he had just offered him a Mars bar.

  Mr Antonescu definitely turned pale.

  “But there is nothing to see there,” he said. “Only a broken ruin. And it is so difficult to get to…”

  “I’m sure we can find it with your help,” said Henry firmly.

  I knew that look and tone of voice. Once HH makes up his mind you might as well just give in and go along with him, because there’s no way he’s going to change it.

  Mr Antonescu huffed and puffed a bit, but in the end he gave in.

  I wanted to ask Henry why we were at Castle Bran at all if it was the Red Tower he’d wanted to visit all along. But before I could get him alone to pose my question it dawned on me that perhaps my friend had been simply humouring our guide’s first suggestion – Henry knew how best to play adults, especially when he needed to engineer his own way.

  As we left the castle I had a sudden feeling that I was being watched. You know that creepy feeling you get sometimes when something is not quite right but you can’t say why? Anyway, I looked back and thought I saw a figure standing in the shadows of the gatehouse. I blinked and it seemed to vanish as if it had never been there. I opened my mouth to tell Henry what I thought I’d seen, and then decided not to. He’d only tell me for the umpteenth time that I had an overactive imagination.

  We got back into the car and left Castle Bran in silence. As the road wound even further up into the mountains I was dying to ask Henry what he knew about the Red Tower, but I had to wait until we stopped for fuel at a roadside petrol station. While Mr Antonescu was chatting to the pump attendant I got my chance.

  Henry shrugged. “Castle Bran is the most famous – the one all the tourists go to. My research tells me it has nothing to do with the real mystery. But you know what I always say, Dolf. Leave no stone unturned. It was worth going if only to eliminate it.” He hesitated for a moment, then added in a low voice, “Besides, I wanted to see if we’d be followed.”

  “Followed!” I said, then realised I’d spoken loudly. “Followed?” I whispered. “And were we?”

  “Oh yes,” said Henry quietly. “There’s been the same black car on our tail since we left Tirgoviste… But don’t look now, Dolf. I’d rather wait and see what they do next.”

  It was a struggle not to look back down the road we had just driven up. I stared over at Mr Antonescu. I wondered if he knew we were being followed, and if this accounted for his nervous behaviour.

  “Don’t worry, Dolf,” said Henry breezily. “The fact that we are being followed means we’re getting closer to solving the mystery. All I want to do now is get to the real castle – or at least what I think is the real one.”

  “This ‘Red Tower’ you mentioned?”

  “Yes. It’s much older than Castle Bran and all the experts say it’s where Vlad Tepes spent most of his time. If there’s anything to find out I think it’ll be there. I was humouring Mr Antonescu when he suggested going to Bran first. No harm in getting him on our side. And there’s something else, Dolf. Guess what else is just a few miles away?

  My brain went into overdrive. “Um… Snagov?” I guessed.

  “Got it in one!”

  I tried to push down the bad feeling in my gut. The adventurous side of me wanted to track down whatever it was that was hidden in Snagov. But I have a more fearful side too, which I was finding hard to ignore. “Mr Antonescu doesn’t seem keen to go there.”

  Henry frowned. “No. He doesn’t. I can’t decide whether he knows something we don’t, or is just afraid. I suppose we’ll find out sooner or later.”

  At that moment Mr Antonescu rejoined us. He seemed unaccountably more cheerful as we drove on, though he still found time to point out that the way up to the Red Tower – or Castle Arges, as I learned was its real name – was arduous.

  “We will stay in a place I have found for you tonight. Then, in the morning – if you still wish to proceed – we will make our way to the castle.”

  “If it’s all the same to you, Mr Antonescu, I’d rather go up there tonight,” Henry said.

  I glanced at the rear-view mirror. Mr Antonescu looked as if he’d been hit in the face. I grabbed the door handle as he swerved the car over to the side of the road and turned around to glare at us.

  “Mr Hunter,” he said, “I am instructed to take you wherever you wish to go. But it is also my duty to keep you safe. The Red Tower is not a good place. It has a bad reputation and the way up to it is difficult, especially in the dark. Surely you do not wish to go there now?”

  “That’s exactly what I do want, Mr Antonescu,” answered Henry firmly. He lowered his voice. “I’m sure you know we’ve been followed ever since we arrived in your country. Then there’s that business back in Tirgoviste. What exactly was it that paid us a visit? I
think we’ll only get to the bottom of this mystery by going to the place with the bad rep after dark.”

  While Mr Antonescu sat there with his eyes bulging, Henry went on. “If you don’t want to come along that’s up to you. Just take us as near to the castle as you can. I’m sure we’ll be just fine on our own, won’t we, Dolf?”

  I wasn’t at all sure we’d be ‘just fine’, but I already knew that being around Henry Hunter meant never expecting an easy ride. So I grinned as hard as I could and nodded as if we regularly visited castles that were home to vampires at night.

  Mr Antonescu stared at us for a bit longer. Then he shrugged. “Very well. If you are so foolish as to risk your lives, I cannot prevent it.”

  He accelerated away, just a little bit faster than I liked on those narrow roads, but that wasn’t the thing really bothering me. Nor was I thinking about our impending visit to Castle Arges. No, my brain was still focused on the fact that someone – or something – had been following us ever since we entered the country.

  The question was, who was watching us, and why?

  THE RED TOWER

  The Red Tower, aka Castle Arges or Castle Dracula, stands at the top of a mountain. While I scavenged the mini-bar for any remaining edible snacks (I found an out-of-date cereal bar and a packet of ginger-nut biscuits), assuming supper would be the last thing on Henry’s mind, Mr Antonescu took us about halfway up – as far as he said the road was navigable. Then he pointed to where a narrow track snaked off amid the trees. A very worn and battered sign inscribed with the name of the castle in Rumanian was nailed to the trunk of a big tree. Someone had scrawled other words across it: NU SE POATE. I guessed what they meant even before Henry told me: Keep Out.

  It was clear Mr Antonescu thought we were completely mad, and to be honest I wasn’t entirely convinced we weren’t. But this was life with Henry Hunter, and even then, I wouldn’t have swapped it for anything. He stood there while Henry produced two large torches from the boot of the car, along with two well-stuffed backpacks, one of which he handed to me.

  “Should be everything we need for tonight, Dolf,” he said, grinning. I took the rucksack and tried to return the smile. Then I turned to Mr Antonescu, who looked a rather forlorn figure standing by the car. He watched us with a look that clearly said he did not expect to ever see us again.

  Henry set a cracking pace and for the next hour neither of us had much breath for talking. The way was steep and the path soon petered out, replaced by rough scree that had us slipping and sliding and falling over several times.

  “Not far now, Dolf,” Henry said every so often, as if he’d climbed this mountain hundreds of times before. And finally, it wasn’t. We emerged from a grove of trees onto the mountain peak. And there in front of us in the gathering dark was the real Castle Dracula.

  Unlike Castle Bran it was small, and looked a lot older – and somehow nastier. A narrow wooden bridge spanned a very deep gorge between us and the gates, which hung off their hinges as if they’d been blown out by some kind of explosion.

  In the darkness, big shadows hung everywhere around us like bat wings, and far below we could see the lights of a couple of villages glowing dimly. There was just enough light from the moon to get a glimpse of huge mountain peaks to the north. Then clouds drew across the moon and darkness rushed in on us like a cloak.

  “No going back now, Dolf,” said Henry, in a chirpy voice – he said this because he was happy about it, not because he thought I needed reminding. He was right, of course. There was no way we could find our way back down the mountain in the utter darkness. This was what adventure was to Henry Hunter – all about the unknown and the dangerous. And this was one of our most dangerous situations yet.

  Henry switched on his torch, which was one of those powerful LED jobs that are as bright as a searchlight. Shadows jumped about everywhere, and for a moment I thought I saw something solid moving by the castle wall – maybe a flash of eyes – but just as quickly it was gone. “Did you see that?” I asked.

  “What?” said Henry, casting the torch around.

  “I thought I saw something moving.”

  “Probably just a wolf,” said Henry.

  “There are wolves around here?” I said, wondering why I hadn’t guessed this before. But Henry wasn’t listening. He was shining the torch into the gateway of the castle.

  “Let’s go, Dolf,” he said, and set off across the wooden bridge.

  Without a better suggestion, I followed, the bridge boards creaking ominously every time either of us put a foot on them. I couldn’t help but imagine the bridge collapsing, sending us plummeting to our grizzly deaths in the valley below. I was too young to die.

  But my worries were unfounded, and we soon found ourselves up close and personal with the castle wall.

  It was a lot more ruined than I had realised. Big cracks split the walls and in places there were just heaps of rubble. But the gatehouse still looked pretty solid despite the broken gates, and with our torches held out in front of us we passed under the frowning stones and emerged into the courtyard.

  By daylight it must have been impressive – at night it was just plain scary. Although I didn’t actually ask Henry, I was sure at that moment even he would agree. Dark shadows lay in wait everywhere, and when we shone our torches into them they seemed to swallow the light and turn it into something feeble. We could just make out the shape of the castle: a rough octagon with towers at each corner. Most of them were ruined, with big gaping holes that looked a lot like eyes watching us.

  A thick carpet of leaves rustled underfoot – if there was something waiting for us, it was going to be impossible to take it by surprise.

  Henry’s attention was immediately drawn to a crumbly, moss-covered well built of stone with a wooden arch from which hung a rusty chain. When he shone his torch into its depths, the light only penetrated about a metre. He dropped a stone into it and we waited. It was at least ten long seconds before we heard the clunk of it hitting the bottom.

  Henry moved on to examining some carvings on the outside of the stone well.

  “Take a look at these, Dolf,” he said.

  I peered at the carvings. At first I could make nothing of them, but as my eyes traced the outlines like a dot-to-dot puzzle I could make out a row of sharp stakes embedded in the earth, each one decorated by a skull.

  “Fascinating,” said Henry. But as I stared harder at the carvings, Henry’s attention had been taken by something else. He was shining his torch on the ground a few metres to the left of the well. There, half-hidden by the leaves, was a big iron ring.

  “There’s supposed to be an underground chamber somewhere here,” said Henry, setting off across the courtyard towards the iron ring.

  He never got to it.

  Three steps away, the ground gave way and Henry vanished with a yell that echoed around the great stone walls. It was followed by silence.

  If you’ve ever wondered what the phrase ‘rooted to the spot’ means, this described me right then. Every muscle in my body simply stopped working for at least a minute. I tried to call out but all I could manage was a croak.

  Come on, Dolf! I told myself, and took a couple of deep breaths. That made me feel better. I shone my torch at the spot where Henry had vanished and saw a large hole framed by some splintered wooden planks. Slowly, one step at a time, testing the ground before I put any weight on it, I crept nearer to the edge of the hole. Finally I was able to peer down.

  Darkness. I guessed that however far Henry had fallen, his torch must have gone out. A strange musty smell came from the hole. I shouted as loudly as I could, “Henry! Are you okay?”

  Silence.

  I leaned over the hole and shouted again. Still no answer. Then, just as I was beginning to give up, a faint sound drifted towards me from the depths. The sound of someone scrabbling. Then, distant but clear, and very echoey, came a voice. Henry Hunter’s voice.

  “I’m okay, Dolf.” A wave of relief flooded through me
. As I stared down, a very dim light appeared. A match. Of course – Henry always had a box of matches on him.

  “Can you climb out?” I yelled.

  “I can’t see any way to do that, Dolf,” came Henry’s voice. “I think I’m going to need a hand.”

  “Um, did you pack a rope?” I called down.

  “Only one – but it’s in my pack,” he answered. “Which is down here with me.”

  “Okay,” I said, trying to think quickly about what else I could use as a rope. “I’ll see if I can find something up here.”

  “Just where do you think you’re going to find rope around here?” said a voice behind me.

  I jumped, my heart beating wildly. I spun round and shone my torch into the darkness. At first all I could see was a shadowy silhouette.

  My first thought was: I don’t think it’s big enough to be a monster.

  My second was: Who says vampires have to be huge?

  And my third was: It’s a girl’s voice.

  “Could you point that thing somewhere else?” she said. Her voice was clear and low and she spoke English with only a trace of an accent. I lowered the torch obediently, but its peripheral glow still allowed me to get a proper look at her. I guessed she was around fourteen or fifteen. She would have been pretty if she wasn’t scowling. Her dark hair was cut short and stuck up in spikes and she was clad from head to foot in black leather. But it was her eyes that got my attention. They were bright blue, and in the reflected torchlight they seemed almost to glow. (I know that sounds lame, but if you’d been there you would have said the same.)