Dracula (A Modern Telling) Read online

  One portrait struck me in particular, that of a man in medieval clothing who looked exactly like the Count. But the painting appeared hundreds of years old and was faded and tattered. I wondered if it were possible that one of his ancestors looked that similar to him, or if he had just had a painting done of him in medieval clothing.

  I snuck out into the hallway and looked down both sides of the corridor. No one was around. I made my way down the staircase. I was in a part of the mansion that seemed cut off from the rest of it. I couldn’t see the front door anywhere. But I did see a large oak door and I opened it. A staircase was leading down. It was dark down there, the floor just dirt. Soft, almost silky dirt, but still just dirt.

  Some coffins were lying around. I thought they were boxes at first but I could see from the engravings that they were coffins. I opened two of them and they were empty. I couldn’t open the third one.

  I also saw large boxes. Like wooden crates. Several of them were stacked against the wall and I started opening them. It was dark down except for the light of a few candles and I don’t know if I’ve grown numb to it or if I’m just out of my head, but I wasn’t afraid.

  In the third one, buried so deeply in dirt that only his face was showing, was the Count.

  He looked dead. He was grayish-white and his eyes were closed. I said something to him, something about breakfast, but he didn’t open his eyes. So then I tried to see if I could wake him or if he was actually still alive. But I couldn’t do it.

  I was about to turn away when his eyes burst open and he hissed like a snake. I jumped back and fell on the ground. I looked for anything to grab to fight him off but then I noticed that he hadn’t left the box. His eyes remained open and he was baring his horrible teeth, but he hadn’t woken up.

  I’m sitting back in my room now, wondering what the hell I should do.

  June 26th

  Last night I tried to kill the Count. I hit him with a shovel that was in the basement. I hit him over and over and over again. But it didn’t do anything. It was like his head was made of rock. His face was twisted in a such a hateful glare that I lost my willpower and went upstairs.

  In the evening tonight, the Count found me on the stairs. He came to me and said, “You will be leaving tomorrow morning. I think you’ve gotten enough for your interview.”

  “I want to go now. Tonight.”

  “What about your baggage?” he said with a grin.

  “I’ll send someone for it later.”

  “My driver’s not here.”

  “I’ll walk, I’ll gladly walk.”

  He grinned again. “I won’t keep you if you don’t want to stay.” He walked to a door and flung it open. It led into the great hall and I saw the front door. He walked over to it and I followed as he unbolted it and flung it open.

  My heart couldn’t handle the excitement I was feeling and I was just about to break into a sprint when I heard those wolves. I could see them just outside in the courtyard. They were leaping with excitement and those horrible red jaws were snapping in a frenzy. One of them saw me and growled. He sprinted for the door, his eyes locked on me. He was nearly inside the home when I saw the Count step aside, giving it a clear shot. It’s eyes were locked onto mine, a look of terrible death coming over it.

  “No, shut it. Shut the door I’ll leave in the morning. Count, shut the door!”

  The Count laughed as he slammed the door shut.

  June 30th

  This might be the last blog entry I make. Last night I heard the three women and the Count’s voice near my room. He was telling them that tomorrow night … I don’t know, tomorrow night … something. I opened the door and saw the three women there, nude and beautiful and the most frightening things I had ever seen. One of their heads looked like a skull with hair and she laughed at me as they ran away.

  I’m climbing back down to where the Count sleeps. These doors have locks and I bet he doesn’t trust anyone else with the keys. I think I’ve seen them on him. I’m going to take his keys and I’m either going to escape or I’m going to die.

  Mina, forgive me for everything.

  To: [email protected]

  From: [email protected]

  Subject: what’s up

  Date: May 9, 2012

  Hey Lucy, I got your present. That was awesome, thank you. Sorry I haven’t emailed you in a while but I’ve been super busy. Your FB post this morning was sooooo funny.

  To answer your question, Jon’s good. He emailed me and should be home in a week or so. How cool is it that he’s hanging out with Blood Burn right now?????

  I’ll let you know when I hear more. I asked if he could get us tickets to their show in Madison Square Garden but he hasn’t written back yet.

  Love ya

  XOXO

  To: [email protected]

  From: [email protected]

  Subject: re: what’s up

  Date: May 9, 2012

  Mina, you piss me off. I’ve texted you like three times since yesterday and you haven’t texted back :(

  New York is awesome. I’ve been going to museums and I saw ground zero and put up a little flag in some grass near there. I saw a show and was hit on by about 50 guys at this club one of my friends dragged me to. guys are the same everywhere i guess.

  i did meet someone though. he’s a psychiatrist. my mom absolutely loves him and he is so hot. i can’t wait for you to meet him. he says he might come back to boston to hang out.

  ok, i can’t lie, it’s Jack. and i know we’ve known him forever and he’s like a brother. but still.

  And guess what? All three of the guys I’ve been dating want to step it up to the next level. I don’t know what it is because I haven’t said anything about it. I’m only 20 and these guys are already talking serious. Why would I do that when I can play???

  But Jack, I don’t know. He’s really smart and I like that. And then Quincy, he’s that guy that’s up here from Texas, he’s great. He’s a marine and he’s like an animal. whenever I go out with him I have no idea what’s going to happen. and there’s Arthur. I don’t know. I’m so confused. It’d be so much easier to just have one of them. I’ve been cool with them dating other girls and I thought they were cool with me and other guys but they seem all weird about it now. I don’t know, I wish you were here with me so we could talk about it.

  love you 4 ever

  Evernote Journal for Dr. Jack Seward

  I’ve been depressed since Lucy told me she didn’t want to be in a relationship and was fine with me dating other women. Which I guess is fine. She’s such a great girl though and I could see myself settling down with her. But she’s not even twenty-one yet and I guess she’s just not ready for a serious relationship. Maybe she just needs more time.

  I threw myself into work today to see if I could avoid self-prescribing anything. I’ve seen so many doctors develop substance abuse problems from just a few prescriptions written when they were feeling depressed that I try to avoid it like the plague.

  The hospital was empty today; it always is on Sundays. The psychiatric ward is busier than most as many of our patients require constant monitoring and attention. A young girl the other day bashed her head into the floor until her skull fractured and she tried to pick at her brain. A pure psychopath is mostly damaging to themselves in that fashion, but thanks to movies like Silence of the Lambs, people think all psychopaths are sadistic monsters. Then again, the majority of the prison populations in the United States do suffer from psychopathy.

  As I was making my rounds, I stopped at the room of this one patient who has been perplexing me lately. I spoke to him a long time. On top of the poor man’s schizoaffective disorder, he was also diagnosed by Dr. Chun with bipolar, delirium, and epilepsy. He suffers from the most interesting disillusions and I couldn’t help but indulge him just to hear more about them.

  He’s 59, but he’s strong as a bear, and looks young, except for his skin which is saggy and gra
y. No doubt from a life of drugs and hard living. R.M. Renfield is his name. He is for the most part sanguine in his temperament but sometimes he goes into a fury and breaks everything in his room. It doesn’t happen often but when it does I know it terrifies the staff because he is completely out of control.

  I’ll have to watch him more carefully and monitor his meds until we find the right balance.

  Mina Murray ‏@MinaNsisters3‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

  I miss Jonathan! He hasn’t written me in a while. Anyone know any good jokes to cheer me up?

  DR. SEWARD’S EVERNOTE JOURNAL

  I’ve been monitoring Renfield more closely and he’s fascinated me even more. I know I’m not supposed to focus on one patient like this, but I can’t help it. The man is absolutely an enigma.

  Today I found a little collection of insects he keeps in his room. He’s told me before about his absolute, almost fanatical, love of animals and we’ve tried to indulge him by getting a kitten in the ward. A lot of patients have responded to the cat well and he’s become a permanent fixture here. I read of a case in Texas at a hospice where a cat would go to the rooms of people a day before they died. It is apparently well documented (note: get the original documentation and verify if it’s true).

  Renfield is obsessed with flies at the moment and he’s using his food to attract them to the small window in his room. They were piling up so high that one of our staff mentioned something to him and, rather than soaring into a fury which is what we expected him to do, he said very calmly, “Give me three days and I’ll get rid of them.”

  June 7

  Renfield has now started collecting spiders. Giant ones. He keeps them in little boxes and is feeding the flies to them. On the bright side, his flies have diminished like he promised. I’m worried that he’s not getting enough to eat however as at least half his food is being used solely to attract flies for the spiders now.

  June 18

  Renfield’s spiders have now turned into a bigger problem than his flies. He’s collected so many that they crawl over his room and are on every piece of furniture, all over his bedding, in his comb and shoes. He sleeps with them and lets them crawl all over his body. I inquired if this bothers him and he said no.

  I’ve asked that he get rid of his spiders because they’re coming out of his room and going into the rooms of other patients. He seemed saddened by this but said that he would get rid of them. As I was speaking to him, a large, bloated fly came into the room. Pigeons defecate on our window sills and the fly must’ve been full on the fecal matter.

  Renfield grabbed it, expertly catching it between his thumb and forefinger, and ate it. I told him I disapproved of this and he said that it was life, and life feeds on life and will give him strength. I’ll have to make sure he doesn’t eat his spiders.

  I’ve seen that he keeps a little journal. We’ve allowed him some paper and a felt tip pen. He writes a lot and most of the pages are filled. It looks like a series of numbers from what I can tell and they’re added up in columns and then there’s more numbers and they’re added up as well. I’m not entirely certain what he’s doing with it.

  July 1

  Renfield has been taking care of the pigeons on his sill. His spiders are nearly gone and I think that’s how he’s getting the pigeons to stay. I was watching him today from inside his room and he turned and saw me, a big grin on his face, and he ran over.

  “Please please please, I have the biggest favor to ask. Such a big favor.”

  “What is it, Mr. Renfield?”

  “The kitten. I have not seen the kitten in a long time.”

  “I think the hospice staff on the next floor up have him there.”

  “Could you please please please bring him back? I can teach him and feed feed feed him unlike anyone else here.”

  “I’ll look into it.”

  When I said that, he threw me such a fierce, aggressive look that I thought he might attack me. He has attacked several staff in the fifteen years he’s been here and it’s my fault that I came into his room rather than visiting him through the opening in the door we have for patients like him or having him removed to the therapy room which has a guard in the corner at all times. I thought it might establish a better connection and show him that I trust him. But I’m going to have to be more careful in the future.

  July 2

  I came back at the end of my shift and checked on Renfield. He was brooding in his room and pacing maniacally back and forth. He fell to his knees and began crying and begging me for the kitten to come back, that his soul depended on it. The fact that he wanted it so badly made me think I shouldn’t give it to him. I said he couldn’t have it right now and he went and sat on his bed and rocked back and forth as he chewed on his fingers to the point where blood began to spill down his hand and to the floor.

  July 5

  One of the orderlies came to me today and told me that Renfield is really sick. We went and checked him out. Feathers were all over the room and drops of blood were over his bed. I noticed there were no pigeons anywhere.

  I’ve ordered his dosages of thorazine be increased and gave him some triazolam to get him to sleep tonight.

  I have thirty-one patients here under my care but Renfield is the one I seem to spend the most time with. I think I’ve come up with a new diagnosis for him as well: zoophagous paraphilia. The stages of this syndrome, which I’m excited to say has not be catalogued in the DSM IV, begins in childhood where the subject is exposed to some event where the child is sexually excited by a severe injury involving blood, or by the ingestion of blood.

  At puberty, this obsession becomes fused with sexual fantasies and the subject turns to autovampirism. That is, they will begin drinking their own blood. At that point, when the excitement of their own blood fades, they’ll move on to other living creatures. It seems to have a fetishistic and obsessive-compulsive element to it. I’ve run across only a few cases in the medical literature. To think that I have a patient suffering from this right here in my ward is, I’m a little embarrassed to say, very exciting. It’s much more rare than lightning striking or a shark attack or even winning the lottery to have someone with this syndrome locked permanently away in a place where they can be studied.

  I would love to carry out some experiments and see how far Renfield’s willing to go, how deep his pathology is affected by blood and flesh obsession. But the types of experiments I would want to do may not sit well with the ethics board. But the advancement in this field of research we could gain from just even a cursory examination of Renfield … I’ll have to give this more thought.

  To: [email protected]

  From: [email protected]

  Subject: Jonathan

  Date: July 9, 2012

  Hey Lucy. I got an email from Jonathan saying he’s starting for home. It was really weird though and he didn’t talk about anything he’s seen or what we’re going to do when he gets back. It was like one sentence. I feel kinda anxious about it.

  I heard Art’s coming up when you get back? That’s exciting. I like Art the most of any of the guys you’re dating. He’s always such a gentleman. So is it getting serious between you two? I know you said you weren’t looking to settle down and pop out a bunch of kids, but if I didn’t have my Jonathan I would jump at the chance for a boyfriend like Art.

  I was thinking the other day about your sleepwalking. Do you think it has anything to do with the Ambien you’ve been taking? I mean I remember you doing it when we were in high school but were you taking anything then too? It just seems weird that out of nowhere you would start up again. I think what we should do is lock your bedroom door and make sure there’s nothing in there that you can hurt yourself with. I’ve talked to your mom and that’s what she thinks we should do too (sorry, she called me and was really worried about you).

  I went out for a walk today and sat on this bench near a park. This old man was sitting on the bench next to me and he began mumbl
ing to himself. He said that life is just waiting for something other than what we’re doing and that death is the only thing we can count on. He turned to me and said death is coming. He was a really nice-looking old man but what he said creeped me out. I had to leave.

  Please let me know when you’re home so I can see your sweet face. I could really use the cheering up right now!!! ;)

  TRAVELEOLOGUE

  The Travel Blog: By Michael Petris

  August 8th,

  To my dear readers following my humble adventures through this blog, I say, welcome! It’s been a few weeks since I posted from my trip in Kenya and I’ve taken a new direction now, going out to sea. For those of you reading this blog for the first time, your humble narrator is attempting to visit every country by sea. So far, fifty-eight countries have been visited in the span of two years. Not bad, not bad.

  But I was out today over the Gulf of California and we were hit by a storm you wouldn’t believe. Saturday was totally fine, not a cloud in the sky. I was chilling by the pool of the hotel with a hottie and sipping margaritas. But on Sunday we’re in the Gulf and the crew are panicked. They said they saw something called “mares tails” in the sky. Apparently it’s a type of cloud formation indicating a storm, though none of the weather reporting bureaus had indicated that a storm should be nearby.