The date of my last letter

The Count said I was due to leave in the morning. I didn’t believe him. I asked: Why not tonight? I’d gladly walk. I didn’t care if there were any feelings in him left to hurt. I wanted out.

He took me up on my suggestion and opened the giant castle doors to let me outside. When he did, the howling grew louder - louder than every before, as if on cue. He kept slowly opening those doors and I just pictured the wolves who had devoured that poor woman previously leaping inside the castle with their red maws and giving me the same treatment.

Shut the door! I told him … and he did, triumphantly.

I need only last the night!

I don’t think I will.

The wailing

“So, my friend, you are tired? Get to bed. There is the surest rest. I may not have the pleasure to talk to-night, since there are many labours to me; but you will sleep, I pray.”

A woman threw herself at the castle doors last night. She was screaming for the return of her baby, calling the Count a monster.

You know that howling noise I had complained about earlier? It seems the Count had been right, as the woman was no more than into her first fits of insanity before a pack of wolves charged at her.

I tried to go to sleep, but I couldn’t shake the echo of frail wailing from my dreams.

The Taxi of Doom

“Denn die Todten reiten schnell” —
(”Because the Todten rides fast,” according to Babel Fish’s translation from German to English.)
(At least, I think that’s German.)

There was never a darker, stranger journey than the one I just experienced.

The Golden Krone doorman hailed me a taxi (the coach, I guess, that the Count was referring to in his letter). When it pulled up it did do slowly. The crooked-nosed man peered out across the passenger seat and sullenly rapped his fingers against the steering wheel. I stood there for a while, anxious … partly because the doorman had fled inside the hotel as soon as he spotted the driver, and partly because I was expecting the taxi driver to do his damned job and pack my luggage in the trunk.

Didn’t take too long before I gave in and threw the luggage in the back. The driver said nothing, even as I asked for the quickest route to the Count’s. I did find a small handle of rum in the backseat cup holder, and sneaking glances up at the driver through the rearview mirror, I didn’t feel at all rotten for sneaking a few sips.

The rum, however, must’ve gone to my head, as just as I was about to complain to the driver regarding his frequent stops along the highway and the loud howling from the taxi’s stereo system … there was black.

Yes, it was night. Yes, I was drinking. But I’m not a college student anymore. I KNOW that I can handle a few sips of rum … even while nursing a sour mood. So what happened next simply made no sense.

(I snapped a quick photo of the street behind us before losing all motor functions. I’m sorry again, Mina. You’re going to marry such a lush.)

I saw blue flames in the woods along the side of the road. I cleared my throat to try to get the driver’s attention, but it seemed as though he had already seen them as the taxi slowed and yet again he disappeared along the tree line. Despite the rum’s warmth, I felt an overcoming coldness seep in through my cracked window. The driver had left his door wide open and it was so dark by then that I couldn’t help but imagine something getting inside.

Of course nothing happened. The howling in the stereo grew louder. The temperature dropped to the point where my butt was frozen to the cushion, but the taxi driver returned - the warmth and silence with him. Again, perhaps I was too out of it to notice him turn on the heater … but I swear he didn’t. And now that I think about it … it couldn’t have heated up that quickly anyway.