Dracula 1912

 

  DRACULA 1912

                                          By Joseph Rubas

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

                                

 

  Copyright 2016

  Joseph Rubas

  Dracula 1912

 

 

  Also by Joseph Rubas

 

  Novellas

  The Shapeshifter

  The Rocking Dead: Seasons 1-3

  Short Story Collections

  Pocketful of Fear

  After Midnight

 

  For my mother, Robin. It was you who took me to see Titanic in 1997, and it is you to whom I owe this novel.

 

 

 

  PROLOGUE

  Life had been good under the master.

  That’s what the old people said, their eyes shining with love as they recounted the days when HE resided in the castle. He treated them well, they said, paid them to work, paid them to kidnap travelers from the road and bring them to him, paid them to watch the roads and footpaths twisting through the craggy mountains of lower Transylvania, keeping their eyes open for possible invaders. In the days of the master, the old people said, there was plenty.

  But English men came one day long ago and slew the master; they drove a knife through his heart and left him in one of his crates. He turned to ash and blew away on the wind.

  Or most of him did.

  One man was said to have captured some of him and put him in a jar. This man, a Pole named Voyteck, wanted to be in charge, and with the master out of the way, he was: He installed himself in the castle and made the others his slaves. He raped the women, beat the men, and spat upon the crypt in which the master was once interred.

  In the Year of Our Lord 1908, the people rose up against Voyteck and cut off his head, which they put on a pike; his body was left for the wolves.

  The clay pot said to contain the ashes of the master was taken and held until the following autumn. Under the light of the first harvest moon, the people selected the prettiest virgin from their ranks, took her out in the woods, and, by the flickering light of a bonfire, cut her throat, collected her blood, and sprinkled in on the ashes of the master.

  This is good, the old people said. HE would return and provide for them. No more hard winters. No more starvation. No more destitution.

  They took the ashes to the master’s crypt, filled a box with soil, and left them there. Each night one or two of them would steal into the mausoleum under the ruins of the castle and marvel at what the box held. The dirt and ash was decidedly taking on the shape of a man.

  In 1910, the master opened his eyes for the first time and tried to speak, but was too frail. A thief was killed and his blood given to the vampire. Each month this process was repeated until the master was able to walk on his own. He was perpetually weak, however. He took less nourishment from blood, and tired too quickly. This, some said, was because most of him had blown away on the wind. He was not fully there. He grew stronger, though he needed more rest than he once did. A rabid wolf attacked him in December 1911, and while he killed it handily, his wounds took weeks to heal. Sleeping on his native soil was no longer enough.

  For three years the master fed gluttonously. People were taken from roadways and villages surrounding the castle and brought to him sometimes two and three at a time. In January 1912, his people took him to Bucharest so that he could be nearer to people. But his thirst grew, and by the end of the month, he had killed all of his followers.

  More, he thought, I need more.

  In March, he found himself in a nickelodeon. Pictures flickered happily across a screen. The film, whose name he didn’t catch, took place in America...New York City, to be exact.

  A thriving metropolis packed with people. Black, white, Arab, Asian, European...a buffet of souls, his for the taking.

  America, he decided, was where he wanted to go.