I stared at John Baker over the rim of my glass of brandy. He had
a sly smile and watched me with that sidewise way of looking at
people like he was hoping no one would notice that he was looking.
John Baker was British, a self-declared scientist.
We were sitting in a Bucharest sidewalk cafe enjoying a warm
evening in Rumania.
"You don't really believe me, do you Ed?" John asked softly. "You've come here all the way from the U.S. to investigate vampires and you don't believe they exist."
I sipped the brandy. "Look, John, my magazine sent me here to do a story on vampires. Last year I did an excellent article on the Loch Ness monster and I have no doubts that such a thing does not exist."
"Perhaps not, but I can assure you that vampires do exist."
"Well, I really wish it were so. It'd make my story easier to write. Can you show me one?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
John took a sniff of his cognac. He had been nursing it all evening. "My dear friend. As I told you earlier, I am researching vampirism. And I need something rather difficult to get. A person who has just been bitten by a vampire; who has just received the infection or whatever it is. I want to study the progression of the, shall we say, condition."
"So you'll have to go where the vampires are biting, right? And what will you use for bait?"
"You, if you really want to meet one!"
I laughed. "Very good! But I thought they usually are most attracted by pale young damsels with soft throats."
"That's just in the movies. Robust men with plenty of thick blood are more to their taste. A big young man like you would be perfect." John finally took a slight sip of his cognac.
I snorted my amusement. "And where am I to be lashed to a post on a hilltop under a full moon with my throbbing, warm throat exposed for all to pierce?"
"That way you'd be more likely to catch a cold than a vampire. The best place to find these strange creatures of the night is in Transylvanian graveyards. Most of them are dead and buried, sort off." "Transylvania? A place with that name really exists?"
"Ah Ed, you disbelievers! It is a large, rural region in the Carpathian Mountains, also called the Transylvanian Alps, north-west of us, between us and the Hungarian border. We could leave tomorrow. I have rented a small country home there just west of the city of Cluj."
"But you'll need a living vampire, won't you?"
"They're hard to come by. When the locals discover them, they rapidly become dead and buried."
"Ah, yes! With a stake through their heart!"
"Often, or with their head cut off. But, no problem. We just pull the stake out and that night the vampire comes back to a form of life. A very hungry vampire, I might mention."
"And, you, an educated Englishman, believe this nonsense?"
"Now, I could guarantee an interview with..."
"An interview! You mean to sit down with a vampire and talk about..."
"Well, maybe 'interview' isn't the appropriate word. Let's call it an encounter. Of course the problem is that you are going to be terrified and will refuse to go through with it."
"Terrified? Of things that go bump in the night? I got over that when I was 12 years old."
"My friend, I'm talking of graveyards, ancient bodies and the living dead reaching out of the darkest shadows of the night!"
"John, let's talk like adults. Graveyards are at best, boring. I've explored the catacombs of Mexico and Sicily. Dusty skeletons in even dustier, rotting, old fashioned clothes.
They don't frighten me; they look silly with their stiff postures and jaws hanging open."
"You have a very modern outlook on these things. Which in Transylvania can be unhealthy. But, no matter, we'll go in the morning. I'll pick you up in front of your hotel, say at seven?"
"Fine."
"I'll be driving a light green Skoda."
"I wouldn't know a Skoda from a London double decker bus."
"It doesn't matter. I'll find you."
Seven:thirty found us driving down a rather indifferent highway with the mountains rising in the North. At first nothing was said as we just observed the country side with rows of people working in the fields. An occasiona farm tractor broke the monotony.
"How long have you been here investigating these creatures?" I asked John.
"A bit more than two years."
"If you'll pardon the humor, have you met any good vampires lately?"
He gave me one of his looks, sighed, then answered. "Not directly. Look, this is like studying erupting volcanos. A volcanologist is not supposed to throw himself into his work." He had a slight smile.
"Touche! I asked for that one."
"I plan to show you the Countess Vladina. She is a famous vampire who was killed in 1742. She occupies a huge copper coffin built for two and was buried with a stake through her heart."
"Built for two! Who's the Countess' coffin-mate?"
"No one. She's alone. Now-a-days nobody knows who the other side was intended for. The Count died years before of natural causes."
"Still it's an interesting note. A female vampire! Nothing like a little sex appeal to sell mags."
That killed the conversation for another half hour. We began to hit the foot hills of the Transylvanian Alps so John had to slow down considerably.
"John, do the locals let you rummage through the coffins in their graveyard?"
"It's an ancient, rarely visited graveyard. There's an old, blind keeper. I pay him something to leave me alone."
"You bribe a blind graveyard keeper to look the other way. Clever!"
"Ed, I can only hope that your sense of humor will carry you through."
It was late in the afternoon that we reached John's 'country estate'. It was a rather primitive mountain farm house with a morose old couple who acted as caretakers. We unloaded our bags and hauled them into our rooms. I went back to the car to see if there was more. In the corner of the trunk there were two car batteries and what appeared to be some sort of air blower.
"Hey, John," I called, "do these batteries go in?"
"No, we'll need them later tonight."
"I'll be introduced to old Mrs. Vampire tonight?"
"Why not? It's looks like it'll be a good night for it."
I looked doubtfully at the rapidly gathering mist on the pastures around us. "Why not hold off for a clear night? If she's been waiting for 250 years for this social engagement, another night won't hurt."
He chuckled. "There are no clear nights here. Besides, think of her hunger for your 'warm, throbbing throat', as you so beautifully expressed it."
"Oh brother!" I snorted as I slammed the trunk lid closed.
"We had a meal in Cluj so there's no reason not to leave immediately. It'll be dark in an hour," was John's cheerful suggestion.
"You're the tour guide."
We took a wandering country dirt lane in the general direction of the dying sun. Shortly I could no longer see the sun for the mist was closing in rapidly.
"These locals, as I understand it, claim that vampires don't exist," I mused.
"That's right. At least to tourists and such. Among themselves they know damn well that vampires exist. Too many young loved ones have ended up in the cemetery with a stake through their hearts."
"The fate you would like me to meet." John hit the brakes and we stopped in the middle of the deserted lane. Tendriles of mist drifted across the windshield in the waning light.
"Ed, let's get it straight right now. Do you want an intimate introduction to a vampire even if it means that you will become one yourself?"
I grinned. "Sure old buddy. And don't let the fact that I don't believe in these imaginary creatures stop you. O.K?"
"Oh, I have no intention of letting your disbelief get in my way. None whatsoever. This may be your last magazine article but is it ever going to a good one!"
We soon came to a massive masonry portal. John pushed open the creaking iron gate while I unloaded the batteries and blower. An old man came feeling his way along the wall. John spoke to him. I saw a few colorful Lei notes exchange hands and the old man shuffled back the other way. We entered the graveyard, each carrying a battery.
"I still don't know what this blower and batteries are for."
John was puffing a bit as we went up a slight rise between rows of strangely designed gravestones. "In certain mausoleums the ancient air is bad.
The blower will change it rapidly," he answered.
"Now that makes sense."
The mausoleum that we arrived at appeared more like a small castle. Of course the gathering darkness and deepening mist made it loom hugely and disguised its true size. John fumbled with the massive bronze doors.
They opened with a muffled creak; the sound being instantly adsorbed by the dense fog. As we moved inside, John pulled a big flashlight from under his coat and a brilliant beam lit up the interior.
As strange as it may seem, the haze inside was even denser than without. The entire far wall was covered with niches, all filled and sealed with inscribed slabs of granite. Stairs lead down into the depths of the mausoleum. The flashlight was essential for the darkness was now complete.
We slowly went down into the central area, then to one side until we were in a crude, dripping alcove. In its floor a great stone slab was set.
John went to the back and returned with a block and tackle set.
"You've certainly been here before," I commented.
"Of course. It took many hours of work to unseal this place, and to open the tomb and coffin."
"And you found?"
"The moldering, crumbling remains of the Countess Vladina." "To be expected, right?"
John didn't answer. He had hooked the rope of the block and tackle somewhere above to one side and was attaching a hook to a ring set into the side of the the slab covering the tomb. We pulled on the rope and the great slab slowly lifted with only a slight grinding noise. Exposed in the depression below was a massive coffin, its lid embossed with a big cross and covered with dust and scattered debris.
"Note that the coffin is very wide and is made from heavy sheets of copper.
I had to break many lead seals to get its lid off and discovered that the lid is only over the bottom two thirds of the coffin. Here, help me."
He was unlocking some modern padlocks which held a number of heavy chains in place. These chains were obviously meant to keep the lid in place.
"Why the chains?"
He glanced up at me. "To be sure that the Countess stays were she is."
As we lifted the copper lid I asked, "Who would want to take a 250 year old skeleton?"
"You insist on misunderstanding, my friend."
The inside of the coffin was dusty gray. A figure lay on the right hand side (my left as an observer), visible from the middle of the chest down. It wore full length skirts that had fallen into tatters. The exposed legs and arms were thin, gray and crumbling. They were fastened to rings on the bottom of the coffin by rope that had also fallen into pieces. There was a complete set of lashing rings also on the unused side of the coffin. I suddenly realized that the remaining part of the coffin top had a huge bolt head on each side of the cross. Both bolt heads were part of large copper screws that passed down to the bottom of the coffin. The one on the left had a sharp point. The one on the right was sunken firmly into the center of the Countess' gray, fragile looking chest! Ancient, dark stains were visible under the centuries' accumulation of dust around the threaded copper stake.
I was impressed and startled, in spite of my resolve to keep 'my cool'. "I thought that the stakes had to be of wood."
"More movie invention. It just has to penetrate the heart completely and to stay there. Hold the light. Kneel down beside the coffin and take a look at the Countess."
I did so and, staring up into the still covered part of the coffin, could see her dusty face, lips drawn back from brown teeth in an eternal grimace, a few scraggly strands of light colored hair moving slightly in the disturbed air. The glint of some gem was visible beneath the dust at her throat. A chill ran down my spine. In spite of my worldliness, I felt a touch of primeval fear. I straightened up. John was unscrewing the pointed bolt from the empty side of the coffin.
"Impressive, isn't she?" John asked jovially.
"Not the most beautiful woman I've seen. She didn't say much either. Why are you removing that screw?"
"Give us room to work. I see you brought your camera. You'll want some shots."
I got a few photos. It was difficult since I couldn't get a face on shot because of the coffin top. I looked around and there was John, sitting on the edge of the grave, with a silver liquor flask in his hand. He poured a little in the top and offered it to me.
"A bit of a draught to chase the chill of the grave, Ed? Besides we ought to toast the Countess. Been a long time since anyone has done that! Go ahead, it's your favorite brandy."
I chuckled and sat on the grave side with him. Raising my cup on high I intoned, "To the Countess Vladina and may all her dreams come true!" I drank the brandy with one swallow.
"I don't think I would have given that toast, Ed. It might come true!"
I laughed and passed out. I was looking at John's face. I had to look down to see him. "Sorry, John," I said. "Don't know what happened to me. Hey!"
The 'hey' was because I had discovered that I couldn't move. I was lying on my back with my feet, hands waist and neck tied down! As I strained to move there were faint metallic clinks. Suddenly it dawned on me; I was tied into the empty portion of the Countess Vladina's coffin!
There was some light from the flash but I had to look down over my chest to see it. Startled, I looked to my right. There, close to mine, was the head of the Countess, still with its evil smile, eye sockets staring are the blackness of her coffin top as they had for two and a half centuries.
John's face appeared again. "Hi there, Ed old buddy. Got it all figured out?
The drink was drugged. I couldn't have fastened a big, young guy like you in there if you were conscious now could I? You wanted to meet a vampire. Even if you didn't believe in them. O.K., you will. You'll spent the whole night with one on very intimate terms. It won't be the most comfortable night you've ever spent but it will be memorable! Of course neither of you will be able to get out of this coffin and she'll be very, very hungry. Oh, the air blower will be connected to the hole where the bolt on your side was inserted. The used air will leave by the hole where the Countess' bolt was.
Yes, I will remove it otherwise you'll just spend the night with a moldering corpse! The stone lid to the tomb will also be closed but I'll leave a few stones to hold it up a bit so it will not crush your air hose. Ta-ta! I'll come and get you in the morning!"
I shouted something but the lid of the coffin came crashing down and I heard the squeak of the the Countess' bolt being removed. A stray beam of light showed me a dark stained point being pulled out of the hole in her, or should I say our, coffin lid. There was a rattle of chains and click of padlocks as the lid was firmly fastened down. Then there was utter blackness as I heard the faint rumble of the great stone slab being lowered in place. Thud! Then nothing.
I could feel a slight movement of air on my face. But the blower was too far away to really hear. The only thing that I could hear was the beating of my heart. The thought crossed my mind, a heart beat, what an out-of-place sound down here deep in a tomb sealed beneath a hillside in... Panic struck. I was sealed in down here! If something happened to John Baker, I would stay here for eternity!
I thrashed around as much as I could, but the ropes held me tight. I finally calmed, perhaps the calm of exhaustion. I was finally completely calm, almost falling asleep when I heard a faint sigh. My heart leaped!
Morning already? John was coming back? I strained to hear what ever I could but was thwarted by the deafening thump of my own heart. But even with that, something was wrong. My heartbeat had taken on a strange beat, almost double. Was I going to have a heart attack down here? No, the other beat was slower, not the same as mine. The other beat? How can there be another beat?
There's no other heart down here other than the ruined remains of the Countess'... I spun my head to look to my right but of course saw only stygian blackness. However, with my ears turned in that direction, I could tell that, in the absolute silence of the tomb, another heart was beating and it was located in the direction of the ancient corpse beside me! My guts knotted up. There were vampires! And I was tied down and sealed in the tomb of one! One that was coming to life! Its heart was beating.
My eyes strained at the absolute darkness. And what was it finding in that dried crust of a corpse to pump!
Then my ears detected a new sound! A whisper of movement! The faint rasp of dried flesh trying to move! My breath caught in my throat. I realized that I was crying like a child. I must control my sobs and gasps or this thing by my side would become aware of me! I must!
A slight gasp sounded along with what could only be the crackling of lungs dried to parchment for centuries, trying to take in air. A smell of fetid dust reached me. The first exhalation! The gray, dusty, rotted corpse beside me was coming to life! What was even worse was that I was tied down and the corpse's ropes had long since rotted away. I would be at the corpse's... No, the Countess' mercy!
Mounting waves of horror overcame me as I could hear each new step in the Countess' struggle become a living thing again. There was the gurgle of fluids where there could be none; confused mumblings where nothing should exist to be confused. There was no longer any need to strain to hear, my shared coffin was filled with scratchings, gasping, throbbings and occasional strange words in a raspy woman's voice. Then silence except for a steady breathing. I heard hands on the coffin lid above us, a gasp of exertion then a whine of disappointment. Then it came, a little grunt of interrogation, "Uh?"
In the darkness to my right appear two faint reddish glows, two diabolic eyes where no eyes had a right to be! I felt the rasp of a utterly dry hand run down the side of my face. I shrieked, "NO!" and tried to draw back. A high pitched, happy, "Ahhh!" came from just below the glowing eye spots. They came closer. I yelled again.
A crusty female voice came back in a parody of a mother soothing a child, "Drosnya, Drosnya." I didn't know what that meant but I wasn't soothed. Then dry, dusty teeth and thin, hard ridges of lips were pressed against my cheek. They rapidly moved down to my throat. A sharp pain formed there and the absolute blackness of the tomb became the even blacker blackness of unconsciousness.
"You don't really believe me, do you Ed?" John asked softly. "You've come here all the way from the U.S. to investigate vampires and you don't believe they exist."
I sipped the brandy. "Look, John, my magazine sent me here to do a story on vampires. Last year I did an excellent article on the Loch Ness monster and I have no doubts that such a thing does not exist."
"Perhaps not, but I can assure you that vampires do exist."
"Well, I really wish it were so. It'd make my story easier to write. Can you show me one?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
John took a sniff of his cognac. He had been nursing it all evening. "My dear friend. As I told you earlier, I am researching vampirism. And I need something rather difficult to get. A person who has just been bitten by a vampire; who has just received the infection or whatever it is. I want to study the progression of the, shall we say, condition."
"So you'll have to go where the vampires are biting, right? And what will you use for bait?"
"You, if you really want to meet one!"
I laughed. "Very good! But I thought they usually are most attracted by pale young damsels with soft throats."
"That's just in the movies. Robust men with plenty of thick blood are more to their taste. A big young man like you would be perfect." John finally took a slight sip of his cognac.
I snorted my amusement. "And where am I to be lashed to a post on a hilltop under a full moon with my throbbing, warm throat exposed for all to pierce?"
"That way you'd be more likely to catch a cold than a vampire. The best place to find these strange creatures of the night is in Transylvanian graveyards. Most of them are dead and buried, sort off." "Transylvania? A place with that name really exists?"
"Ah Ed, you disbelievers! It is a large, rural region in the Carpathian Mountains, also called the Transylvanian Alps, north-west of us, between us and the Hungarian border. We could leave tomorrow. I have rented a small country home there just west of the city of Cluj."
"But you'll need a living vampire, won't you?"
"They're hard to come by. When the locals discover them, they rapidly become dead and buried."
"Ah, yes! With a stake through their heart!"
"Often, or with their head cut off. But, no problem. We just pull the stake out and that night the vampire comes back to a form of life. A very hungry vampire, I might mention."
"And, you, an educated Englishman, believe this nonsense?"
"Now, I could guarantee an interview with..."
"An interview! You mean to sit down with a vampire and talk about..."
"Well, maybe 'interview' isn't the appropriate word. Let's call it an encounter. Of course the problem is that you are going to be terrified and will refuse to go through with it."
"Terrified? Of things that go bump in the night? I got over that when I was 12 years old."
"My friend, I'm talking of graveyards, ancient bodies and the living dead reaching out of the darkest shadows of the night!"
"John, let's talk like adults. Graveyards are at best, boring. I've explored the catacombs of Mexico and Sicily. Dusty skeletons in even dustier, rotting, old fashioned clothes.
They don't frighten me; they look silly with their stiff postures and jaws hanging open."
"You have a very modern outlook on these things. Which in Transylvania can be unhealthy. But, no matter, we'll go in the morning. I'll pick you up in front of your hotel, say at seven?"
"Fine."
"I'll be driving a light green Skoda."
"I wouldn't know a Skoda from a London double decker bus."
"It doesn't matter. I'll find you."
Seven:thirty found us driving down a rather indifferent highway with the mountains rising in the North. At first nothing was said as we just observed the country side with rows of people working in the fields. An occasiona farm tractor broke the monotony.
"How long have you been here investigating these creatures?" I asked John.
"A bit more than two years."
"If you'll pardon the humor, have you met any good vampires lately?"
He gave me one of his looks, sighed, then answered. "Not directly. Look, this is like studying erupting volcanos. A volcanologist is not supposed to throw himself into his work." He had a slight smile.
"Touche! I asked for that one."
"I plan to show you the Countess Vladina. She is a famous vampire who was killed in 1742. She occupies a huge copper coffin built for two and was buried with a stake through her heart."
"Built for two! Who's the Countess' coffin-mate?"
"No one. She's alone. Now-a-days nobody knows who the other side was intended for. The Count died years before of natural causes."
"Still it's an interesting note. A female vampire! Nothing like a little sex appeal to sell mags."
That killed the conversation for another half hour. We began to hit the foot hills of the Transylvanian Alps so John had to slow down considerably.
"John, do the locals let you rummage through the coffins in their graveyard?"
"It's an ancient, rarely visited graveyard. There's an old, blind keeper. I pay him something to leave me alone."
"You bribe a blind graveyard keeper to look the other way. Clever!"
"Ed, I can only hope that your sense of humor will carry you through."
It was late in the afternoon that we reached John's 'country estate'. It was a rather primitive mountain farm house with a morose old couple who acted as caretakers. We unloaded our bags and hauled them into our rooms. I went back to the car to see if there was more. In the corner of the trunk there were two car batteries and what appeared to be some sort of air blower.
"Hey, John," I called, "do these batteries go in?"
"No, we'll need them later tonight."
"I'll be introduced to old Mrs. Vampire tonight?"
"Why not? It's looks like it'll be a good night for it."
I looked doubtfully at the rapidly gathering mist on the pastures around us. "Why not hold off for a clear night? If she's been waiting for 250 years for this social engagement, another night won't hurt."
He chuckled. "There are no clear nights here. Besides, think of her hunger for your 'warm, throbbing throat', as you so beautifully expressed it."
"Oh brother!" I snorted as I slammed the trunk lid closed.
"We had a meal in Cluj so there's no reason not to leave immediately. It'll be dark in an hour," was John's cheerful suggestion.
"You're the tour guide."
We took a wandering country dirt lane in the general direction of the dying sun. Shortly I could no longer see the sun for the mist was closing in rapidly.
"These locals, as I understand it, claim that vampires don't exist," I mused.
"That's right. At least to tourists and such. Among themselves they know damn well that vampires exist. Too many young loved ones have ended up in the cemetery with a stake through their hearts."
"The fate you would like me to meet." John hit the brakes and we stopped in the middle of the deserted lane. Tendriles of mist drifted across the windshield in the waning light.
"Ed, let's get it straight right now. Do you want an intimate introduction to a vampire even if it means that you will become one yourself?"
I grinned. "Sure old buddy. And don't let the fact that I don't believe in these imaginary creatures stop you. O.K?"
"Oh, I have no intention of letting your disbelief get in my way. None whatsoever. This may be your last magazine article but is it ever going to a good one!"
We soon came to a massive masonry portal. John pushed open the creaking iron gate while I unloaded the batteries and blower. An old man came feeling his way along the wall. John spoke to him. I saw a few colorful Lei notes exchange hands and the old man shuffled back the other way. We entered the graveyard, each carrying a battery.
"I still don't know what this blower and batteries are for."
John was puffing a bit as we went up a slight rise between rows of strangely designed gravestones. "In certain mausoleums the ancient air is bad.
The blower will change it rapidly," he answered.
"Now that makes sense."
The mausoleum that we arrived at appeared more like a small castle. Of course the gathering darkness and deepening mist made it loom hugely and disguised its true size. John fumbled with the massive bronze doors.
They opened with a muffled creak; the sound being instantly adsorbed by the dense fog. As we moved inside, John pulled a big flashlight from under his coat and a brilliant beam lit up the interior.
As strange as it may seem, the haze inside was even denser than without. The entire far wall was covered with niches, all filled and sealed with inscribed slabs of granite. Stairs lead down into the depths of the mausoleum. The flashlight was essential for the darkness was now complete.
We slowly went down into the central area, then to one side until we were in a crude, dripping alcove. In its floor a great stone slab was set.
John went to the back and returned with a block and tackle set.
"You've certainly been here before," I commented.
"Of course. It took many hours of work to unseal this place, and to open the tomb and coffin."
"And you found?"
"The moldering, crumbling remains of the Countess Vladina." "To be expected, right?"
John didn't answer. He had hooked the rope of the block and tackle somewhere above to one side and was attaching a hook to a ring set into the side of the the slab covering the tomb. We pulled on the rope and the great slab slowly lifted with only a slight grinding noise. Exposed in the depression below was a massive coffin, its lid embossed with a big cross and covered with dust and scattered debris.
"Note that the coffin is very wide and is made from heavy sheets of copper.
I had to break many lead seals to get its lid off and discovered that the lid is only over the bottom two thirds of the coffin. Here, help me."
He was unlocking some modern padlocks which held a number of heavy chains in place. These chains were obviously meant to keep the lid in place.
"Why the chains?"
He glanced up at me. "To be sure that the Countess stays were she is."
As we lifted the copper lid I asked, "Who would want to take a 250 year old skeleton?"
"You insist on misunderstanding, my friend."
The inside of the coffin was dusty gray. A figure lay on the right hand side (my left as an observer), visible from the middle of the chest down. It wore full length skirts that had fallen into tatters. The exposed legs and arms were thin, gray and crumbling. They were fastened to rings on the bottom of the coffin by rope that had also fallen into pieces. There was a complete set of lashing rings also on the unused side of the coffin. I suddenly realized that the remaining part of the coffin top had a huge bolt head on each side of the cross. Both bolt heads were part of large copper screws that passed down to the bottom of the coffin. The one on the left had a sharp point. The one on the right was sunken firmly into the center of the Countess' gray, fragile looking chest! Ancient, dark stains were visible under the centuries' accumulation of dust around the threaded copper stake.
I was impressed and startled, in spite of my resolve to keep 'my cool'. "I thought that the stakes had to be of wood."
"More movie invention. It just has to penetrate the heart completely and to stay there. Hold the light. Kneel down beside the coffin and take a look at the Countess."
I did so and, staring up into the still covered part of the coffin, could see her dusty face, lips drawn back from brown teeth in an eternal grimace, a few scraggly strands of light colored hair moving slightly in the disturbed air. The glint of some gem was visible beneath the dust at her throat. A chill ran down my spine. In spite of my worldliness, I felt a touch of primeval fear. I straightened up. John was unscrewing the pointed bolt from the empty side of the coffin.
"Impressive, isn't she?" John asked jovially.
"Not the most beautiful woman I've seen. She didn't say much either. Why are you removing that screw?"
"Give us room to work. I see you brought your camera. You'll want some shots."
I got a few photos. It was difficult since I couldn't get a face on shot because of the coffin top. I looked around and there was John, sitting on the edge of the grave, with a silver liquor flask in his hand. He poured a little in the top and offered it to me.
"A bit of a draught to chase the chill of the grave, Ed? Besides we ought to toast the Countess. Been a long time since anyone has done that! Go ahead, it's your favorite brandy."
I chuckled and sat on the grave side with him. Raising my cup on high I intoned, "To the Countess Vladina and may all her dreams come true!" I drank the brandy with one swallow.
"I don't think I would have given that toast, Ed. It might come true!"
I laughed and passed out. I was looking at John's face. I had to look down to see him. "Sorry, John," I said. "Don't know what happened to me. Hey!"
The 'hey' was because I had discovered that I couldn't move. I was lying on my back with my feet, hands waist and neck tied down! As I strained to move there were faint metallic clinks. Suddenly it dawned on me; I was tied into the empty portion of the Countess Vladina's coffin!
There was some light from the flash but I had to look down over my chest to see it. Startled, I looked to my right. There, close to mine, was the head of the Countess, still with its evil smile, eye sockets staring are the blackness of her coffin top as they had for two and a half centuries.
John's face appeared again. "Hi there, Ed old buddy. Got it all figured out?
The drink was drugged. I couldn't have fastened a big, young guy like you in there if you were conscious now could I? You wanted to meet a vampire. Even if you didn't believe in them. O.K., you will. You'll spent the whole night with one on very intimate terms. It won't be the most comfortable night you've ever spent but it will be memorable! Of course neither of you will be able to get out of this coffin and she'll be very, very hungry. Oh, the air blower will be connected to the hole where the bolt on your side was inserted. The used air will leave by the hole where the Countess' bolt was.
Yes, I will remove it otherwise you'll just spend the night with a moldering corpse! The stone lid to the tomb will also be closed but I'll leave a few stones to hold it up a bit so it will not crush your air hose. Ta-ta! I'll come and get you in the morning!"
I shouted something but the lid of the coffin came crashing down and I heard the squeak of the the Countess' bolt being removed. A stray beam of light showed me a dark stained point being pulled out of the hole in her, or should I say our, coffin lid. There was a rattle of chains and click of padlocks as the lid was firmly fastened down. Then there was utter blackness as I heard the faint rumble of the great stone slab being lowered in place. Thud! Then nothing.
I could feel a slight movement of air on my face. But the blower was too far away to really hear. The only thing that I could hear was the beating of my heart. The thought crossed my mind, a heart beat, what an out-of-place sound down here deep in a tomb sealed beneath a hillside in... Panic struck. I was sealed in down here! If something happened to John Baker, I would stay here for eternity!
I thrashed around as much as I could, but the ropes held me tight. I finally calmed, perhaps the calm of exhaustion. I was finally completely calm, almost falling asleep when I heard a faint sigh. My heart leaped!
Morning already? John was coming back? I strained to hear what ever I could but was thwarted by the deafening thump of my own heart. But even with that, something was wrong. My heartbeat had taken on a strange beat, almost double. Was I going to have a heart attack down here? No, the other beat was slower, not the same as mine. The other beat? How can there be another beat?
There's no other heart down here other than the ruined remains of the Countess'... I spun my head to look to my right but of course saw only stygian blackness. However, with my ears turned in that direction, I could tell that, in the absolute silence of the tomb, another heart was beating and it was located in the direction of the ancient corpse beside me! My guts knotted up. There were vampires! And I was tied down and sealed in the tomb of one! One that was coming to life! Its heart was beating.
My eyes strained at the absolute darkness. And what was it finding in that dried crust of a corpse to pump!
Then my ears detected a new sound! A whisper of movement! The faint rasp of dried flesh trying to move! My breath caught in my throat. I realized that I was crying like a child. I must control my sobs and gasps or this thing by my side would become aware of me! I must!
A slight gasp sounded along with what could only be the crackling of lungs dried to parchment for centuries, trying to take in air. A smell of fetid dust reached me. The first exhalation! The gray, dusty, rotted corpse beside me was coming to life! What was even worse was that I was tied down and the corpse's ropes had long since rotted away. I would be at the corpse's... No, the Countess' mercy!
Mounting waves of horror overcame me as I could hear each new step in the Countess' struggle become a living thing again. There was the gurgle of fluids where there could be none; confused mumblings where nothing should exist to be confused. There was no longer any need to strain to hear, my shared coffin was filled with scratchings, gasping, throbbings and occasional strange words in a raspy woman's voice. Then silence except for a steady breathing. I heard hands on the coffin lid above us, a gasp of exertion then a whine of disappointment. Then it came, a little grunt of interrogation, "Uh?"
In the darkness to my right appear two faint reddish glows, two diabolic eyes where no eyes had a right to be! I felt the rasp of a utterly dry hand run down the side of my face. I shrieked, "NO!" and tried to draw back. A high pitched, happy, "Ahhh!" came from just below the glowing eye spots. They came closer. I yelled again.
A crusty female voice came back in a parody of a mother soothing a child, "Drosnya, Drosnya." I didn't know what that meant but I wasn't soothed. Then dry, dusty teeth and thin, hard ridges of lips were pressed against my cheek. They rapidly moved down to my throat. A sharp pain formed there and the absolute blackness of the tomb became the even blacker blackness of unconsciousness.
