Party on Horror Beach

CHAPTER NINE

Later, during the wee hours when everyone but Mike was sound asleep, clouds drifted across the Moon casting dark shadows over the beach.

One of those shadows detached itself and glided silently over the sand. The living darkness crept to the side of the lifeless Frankenstein Monster. A silver signet ring with a carnelian stone was pressed to the Monster’s neck bolts, first one then the other. There was a sharp crack as energy discharged into the Monster. Pinpoints of light, bright as an arc-wielder’s torch, flickered. Streamers of metallic-tasting smoke rose from the bolts, which glowed white hot in the dark.

A shudder ran through the Monster’s body. Its black lips trembled. Its eyelids flickered, straining to open.

The darkness laid a spider-like hand across the Monster’s chest.

“Not yet, old friend. Soon. You will know the time.”

Then the shadow slipped away, vanishing into tangled woods just as the clouds scudded past the Moon and pale silver light washed over the sands.

No one had even noticed the dark presence.

Years earlier…

Dracula rose out of the suddenly still sea. Water cascaded down over his dead white face. A long black silk cape hung in tatters from his shoulders, waterlogged and heavy. Cold fire blazed in his eyes. The sea seemed to hold its breath in the face of his anger. He strode stiffly out of the water. Bedraggled and drenched, he walked with what dignity he could muster. Despite his stiffened back and squared shoulders, he shuffled with barely enough energy to pull himself free from the tide that pulled at his ankles.

The darkness of the deep water preserved him against the sun. But he was still weakened from being denied rest on his native soil. Worse, terrible things crawled and slithered across his face as he lie helpless in the black depths of the channel. Cold mouths with tiny sharp teeth nibbled and snipped at his lifeless flesh. Things crawled into and under his clothes, defiling him with the slimy trails they left. Dracula, whom Death could not touch, was forced to feel what it was like to be a dead thing on the bottom of the ocean. He had not relished the experience.

After an indeterminable time, Dracula gathered the strength to pull himself free from the ocean floor. The marks that the Wolf Man left on his flesh, on his bones, still ached, dull and hot, festering with the occult contamination of the beast's cursed claws. He had survived. But it had been a near thing.

He looked up at the Castillo de Viuda, where lights blazed in every window. Purposefully he strode up the winding path to the House. There was debris from the masquerade party still strewn about the gardens. Crumpled paper-mache mask faces littered the steps leading up to the front doors. Their frozen smiles and blank eyes mocked the Lord of the Vampires. Dracula gritted his teeth and clenched his fists as he strode over those false faces.

With a gesture he flung the stout oaken doors open.

Stepping into the grand entry hall, he narrowed his eyes and squinted about. A sly smile played across his lips.

“I know you are there. Explain your presence in this house.”

There was a sinister, silken laugh.

“Allow me to introduce myself.“ Said a rich voice with a clipped British accent. The voice echoed through the hall, though no speaker was evident. “My name is Geoffrey Radcliffe. I suffer from a…rather unique condition.  I have been searching for a certain Doctor Mornay, who is said to have experience with ‘unusual conditions’ and to have an admirable lack of concern toward the moral restrictions that could complicate my treatment.”

“You see, I thought my condition had been cured with a blood transfusion. But it slowly returned. I tried subsequent transfusions, but those only provided temporary relief. There was a bit of unpleasantness over the way I acquired donors for my transfusions, so I faked my own death, easy enough under the circumstances, and set out to find a permanent cure.”

All this talk of blood and transfusions stirred the hunger that sustained Dracula through Undeath, but he gritted his teeth and ignored the throbbing pain as his fangs pushed through the gums.

“I learned about this Doctor Mornay, Sandra Mornay, and set about trying to find her. I followed her trail here, but I seem to have missed her.”

Dracula nodded and purred out a small chuckle.

“Do not worry. She should be along, shortly. It takes more than a fall from a window to kill the blood of my Blood. She is currently finishing a…swim at the beach.”

“Well, that is convenient. I hope you don’t mind if I wait?”

“Not at all.” Dracula paused. “But one thing, Mr. Radcliffe. Why are you naked?”

The Count turned and looked directly at the Invisible Man, a predatory smile on his lips.

A cold chill gushed down Radcliffe’s spine and he suddenly felt intensely vulnerable, standing naked before the vampire’s gaze.

Dracula glided out of the room with a silken laugh.