Short Story: "Through a Forest Dark and Dead"

It may not be spooky season right now, but you know that won't stop me from treating you all to some spooktacular literature. 😄

I am VERY proud of the story I've concocted for you today. It's a piece inspired by one of my all-time favorite books, Bram Stoker's Dracula. I wrote it over the course of last November and December with the goal of submitting it to Dracula Beyond Stoker, a magazine that specializes in stories inspired by the classic novel and its characters. I took the prompt of their upcoming issue to heart and crafted a piece based around Dracula's protagonist, the stalwart (and often unappreciated) Jonathan Harker. My submission turned out to not quite be what the magazine was looking for, but that just means I'm able to share it with all of you here. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed the process of writing it. Now, settle in and prepare for a harrowing tale set in the aftermath of poor Mr. Harker's escape from Castle Dracula...

Whenever he closed his eyes, Jonathan Harker saw blood. It came as a great red pool of death spreading across the land from the point where Castle Dracula stood. He saw a flood of evil poisoning the earth, and he saw himself drowning beneath its waves.

From behind the castle walls, the landscape below had been a vision of sprawling trees, silver rivers and gentle moonlight. Jonathan had thought it a sight of comfort and freedom to a poor, mad prisoner like himself. But now, as he stumbled through the wilderness on bloody, callused feet, the illusion broke and the desolation made itself known.

He took careful steps so that the grass, brittle and gray, did not crumble and crunch under his feet. He tried not to look at the pine trees which towered above him, their dark forms standing out against the pale, cloudy sky. The whorls and knots in their bark shifted before his eyes, becoming twisted faces—sometimes his own, sometimes Mina's, sometimes that poor dead mother in her final agonies. Most often, however, they were the grinning visage of the fiendish women from whom he had fled.

They must know by now that I have gone, Jonathan thought. Have they followed me? Do they watch me from the shadows? Am I naught but prey for them to hunt?

He picked up his pace, faster and faster, until he was running through the dark.

Snap! A sudden, white-hot burst of pain flared up in his ankle. The world around him shifted and tilted on its side. He reached out, grasping at the air in a vain attempt to stop his fall. It was no use; the hard earth slammed against him, knocking the air from his lungs, and he found himself rolling down a steep incline.

The trees rushed past in fleeting glimpses. Down and down, faster and faster—and then he came to an stop, with the sky hanging grim and stagnant above him.

At first, Jonathan could not bring himself to move. His left ankle felt as if it were aflame, and the sensation had already begun to crawl up his leg. Pushing against the ground with his trembling arms, he managed to lift himself until he sat upright.

The ankle looked even worse than it felt—a swelling lump above the bloody, torn piece of flesh that was his foot. He could not keep walking in such a state. As the realization sank over him, so the ache of exhaustion settled deep within his bones.

Resigned to spending the night outside, Jonathan attempted to take stock of what other injuries he might have suffered. He noted bruises on both his legs, then the stinging cuts of thorns along his arms and across his cheek. Those, however, were minor annoyances compared to the persistent soreness of his neck. The muscles there felt as if they had been wrenched out of shape by a rough, unmerciful grasp.

Without thinking, Jonathan brushed his fingers against the base of his throat.

Pain shot through his body like a lightning bolt. He screamed before he could stop himself and began to convulse, eyes rolling back into his head.

Half-formed images and sensations flashed through his mind. He remembered lying on his back in a dark room, a deep lethargy in his limbs holding him in place. From the corner, a looming shadow crept out of the dark to stand above him. Jonathan watched it bend down over his body before striking at his neck. Two sharp points sank into his skin, and then a weight settled upon his throat. The creature's mouth, dry and parched, licked the wound it had made. Then it began to suckle at the pierced flesh, drawing forth the blood from within.

Jonathan opened his eyes again, returning to the present. With a slow, trembling hand, he reached up to feel his neck again and confirm what he already knew to be there.

Two small holes an inch apart, small as needles, were upon his throat.

Jonathan rolled on to his side, pressed his face against the earth and wept.

At some point he fell asleep. When he did so, or how he had even managed it, he had no idea. All he knew upon waking was terrible dread and a bitter, searing cold.

Opening his eyes, Jonathan lifted his hand and saw a thin layer of frost spread across his bare skin. As he looked up, he saw something even more remarkable: snow falling down from the sky, already beginning to blanket the earth in a sea of white.

But that is impossible, he thought. It was summertime when I left the castle. I made note of each date in my journal. Is today not the 30th of June?

No. He might have fled his prison upon that day, but time had undoubtedly passed since then. How much time, then? A day? Three days? A week?

The answer did not come. His last clear memory was of looking down from his window in the castle wall, preparing to make the dangerous climb down the precipice. After that came nothing but fragments: terror, exhaustion, despair.

Jonathan grimaced and tried to shield his face from the glare of the sun. Had it always been so bright and uncomfortable outside? Why did the beams of sunlight feel like needles pressing at his skin?

It is only because I spent so many days tethered to the Count's nocturnal existence. The feeling will soon pass.

He began to sit up, then froze as he remembered the pain from his ankle the night before. But the memory was all that remained—the pain itself had somehow vanished. Jonathan pulled back the torn hem of his trouser leg to get a better look.

The swelling and redness on his ankle were gone. Even his foot appeared less torn and callused under the daylight.

But it was sprained, if not broken. It could not have healed in a single night. Could it?

Did the skin where the injury ought to be look paler now?

From the back of his throat arose a faint yet sharp sensation of thirst.

A wave of nausea and revulsion hit Jonathan in an instant. He clapped a hand to his chest to feel his heart; the way it thudded like an overworked engine gave him a fleeting sense of relief, for it meant he was still alive.

"Stop it!" he said to himself, fighting back his rising panic. "The Count did not…he could not have done such a thing to you."

But that was a lie, wasn't it? The two marks on his throat were proof enough.

Jonathan wondered if feeding was how the Count and his kind made more of themselves in addition to sating their fiendish urges. Perhaps the three terrible women in the castle had once been like him—lost, wandering these same lonely woods, praying for salvation that would not come. Waiting for the madness and thirst to overtake them and draw them back towards the castle. Back towards their master.

He had to find help.

Jonathan staggered to his feet, trying not to notice how his formerly wounded ankle could now hold his weight once more. Instead he turned his back on the rising sun and set off into the trees. His instincts drove him west, back the way he had come from England all those months ago.

Eventually, he thought, he would come to the edge of the wilds and find himself in civilization once more.

The sun climbed to its apex in the heavens. It beat down upon Jonathan's back until he took shelter beneath the limbs of a willow tree for refuge from the searing heat. Though the shade brought him some relief, his restlessness soon pushed him to move on.

Bistritz was but a day's journey from the Borgo Pass, he thought. I must be drawing close to that area by now. Perhaps I will chance upon some nearby farm or village and be saved.

He imagined what such good fortune would mean: the softness of a bed, the warmth of a roaring hearth, the heartiness of a good meal.

The aching in his stomach grew stronger, as did the sharpness in the back of his throat.

As he walked along, he attempted to scrounge for food. He would have taken berries, nuts, even a few roots—anything at all. But the bushes he encountered bore no leaves, let alone fruits. The trees' bare branches shuddered in the wind, and their gray trunks twisted towards the ground as if they were men doubled over in agony. Even when Jonathan finally dropped to his hands and knees and pawed through the dirt, he found no scraps worth eating.

He took in the sight of the wasteland around him. Every living thing in the woods must have perished or fled—due to what, he could already guess. Only a monster such as the Count would drain the life from his own homeland this way.

When he touched the marks on his throat, he groaned. The thirst had grown from a mere itch into a low, steady throbbing. Waves of pain shot through his chest when he tried to gulp down air, as if his body rejected his attempt to ignore the need growing within him.

"Think not of it," Jonathan muttered as he forced himself onward. "Think of home."

Home—his own English soil. First to London, with its innumerable streets and teeming crowds, the whirling and rushing soul of humanity itself. Then on to Exeter, back to those familiar buildings and faces he held so dear. He would first go straight to the great cathedral and give thanks to God for delivering him from the grasping claws of evil. Then he would go to Mr. Hawkins and tell of all which had occurred in Transylvania, warn him of the monster they had unwittingly aided. Perhaps with quick and decisive action, they could even prevent the Count's arrival.

Then at last he would go home to Mina. They would weep tears of joy over seeing one another again. She would think it a miracle that he had survived such an ordeal. And in response, he would hold her in his arms, stare into her eyes and sink his teeth into the flesh of her—

No!

His own horror dragged him back into reality, where he stood alone in a barren clearing. The sun was in front of him now, fading from white into red as it dipped towards the horizon. The brightness of daytime had given way to the dim hues of twilight.

"Good God," was all he could say.

Had he wandered in the forest all afternoon without realizing it? Without ever needing to rest? How was it that hours had passed by while seeming to him like mere minutes?

He gasped and then cried out in pain, his hands flying to his neck. His throat was on fire. The muscles within tensed and spasmed in time with his heartbeat, as if begging for even a single drop of nourishment. Drink, they commanded with each movement. Drink. Drink. Drink!

Jonathan's vision blurred as he lost his balance and nearly collapsed on the ground. In his mind's eye he imagined the urge spreading through his body, up to his brain, controlling and overriding his every impulse. He would trade all the air in his lungs for a single glass of water to—

His throat closed up, as if repulsed at the very thought. He could not allow mere water to pass his lips, he realized: the urge within him wanted something richer, something more pure. Something full of life.

A twig snapped somewhere at the clearing's edge, and Jonathan turned his head to look. Amidst the trees and the growing darkness staggered some pitiful thing in the shape of a deer. It was nothing but skin and bones, the former shrunk tight around the latter. Its spindly legs trembled with every step, though it never ceased its dazed forward motion. Its head stayed low to the ground, sniffing for food that it would not find.

Jonathan sniffed as well. The deer was a wretched animal, yes, but a living one. Still full of blood.

Once his mind had uttered the terrible word, he could not stop repeating it. Blood. Yes, it was blood that his throat now craved. Sweet, warm, lifegiving blood! He began to stagger towards the deer. If only he could chase it down! He would pin the creature to the ground, sink his fangs into its flesh and drink his fill until it stopped moving.

And then, as if he had stepped outside his own body, he saw that very scene before him.

His own form lay hunched above the prone deer, face pressed against its neck. The sounds of wet, greedy suckling filled the air. Suddenly the specter moved, looking up to stare at him. Its eyes were solid black, its skin as pale as untouched snow. Red spashed against white: there was blood smeared across the monster's mouth and dripping from its chin. It sneered at him, then parted its lips and hissed, baring its long, sharp pair of fangs.

Jonathan shrieked and broke into a run.

He gave no thought to which direction he fled. Seized in the grip of blind panic, real and imaginary terrors blended into one. He thought he saw his other self chasing after him, crawling on hands and knees like animal. His legs carried him through bramble bushes and across jagged rocks, making new cuts and drawing forth even more blood. The trees blurred as they flew by, then closed in around him as a single gray mass with knife-like branches which tore at his face and hands. His ragged breathing and frantic heartbeat thundered in his ears. He did not dare to look behind him, or even in front of him.

Thus, his body sensed the presence of the water before his mind did.

Jonathan's legs abruptly seized up, refusing to carry him any further. Unable to steady himself, he pitched forward and landed on his face in the dirt. As his adrenaline began to fade, the sound of a soft, babbling current reached his ears. It was a low and ominous noise, like a mocking whisper devoid of discernible words.

When he looked up, he saw a dark blue river stretching out before him. It must have been about nine meters wide, and it cut right through his path across the woods. On the opposite side, a fog was descending to blanket the trees.

His first thought as he stood up was to look for some means to cross: a bridge, or an overturned tree, or even a few rocks sticking up from the water. But the river's surface remained unbroken as far as he could see, apart from the rippling of the current as it rushed along.

Then I must stick an arm or a leg into the water, he thought, and ascertain how deep the river goes, to see if I might ford it.

But that idea made his limbs seize up again, as if they sensed some terrible danger within it.

"I must get across," Jonathan muttered to himself. "I will get across."

He lifted his arm and resolved to simply plunge it into the water, just to prove to himself that he could. His fears would be calmed somewhat if…when he satisfied himself on that question, and then he would concentrate on finding a safe way across the river. Simple and logical, he thought. Mina would approve.

Jonathan took a breath, brought down his hand—and paused just above the surface of the water.

It was absurd, he thought. It was impossible. He could see his own hand stretched out above the river, trembling as it hovered in place. It rose when he tried to lift it, and his fingers moved at his command. But when he tried again to dip his hand into the water, some unseen force made him stop. His own body would not obey him, no matter how hard he pushed against that strange, sick feeling of dread.

He stood up. If he could not test the river's depth by touch, then he would step right into it, no matter how deep the water might be. If it proved shallow, then that was all right. If it proved deep…well, he would confront that as he had confronted all the other obstacles in his path.

But again he could not compel himself to make the decisive move. All he did was look down at the river, but his legs seized up with that fearful hesitation all the same.

A terrible thought entered Jonathan's mind. The fear overtaking him, he realized, might not be his own. What if the Count feared running water just as he had feared the crucifix before? Perhaps it was a check on the power of that monster, a means of keeping him confined to his old hunting grounds. But he had found some means to rise above it, if he was on his way to England.

He has passed the curse to me. I am condemned to be trapped here in his place—to lose my soul and become a monster.

"It's not true," he said aloud. "It is not true! It is nothing but madness!"

Yet he felt the evil sinking deeper into him, infecting his flesh and eating away at his logical mind.

Jonathan sank to his knees, holding his head in his hands. Am I to die here? Will fate permit me to die at all?

No, he must not think like that. He must get home to see…to see…

Who was it that he wanted to see?

The answer did not come when he searched his memory. All he could conjure was the faint outline of a woman standing in a doorway; her name and her face eluded him. Why had he thought her so important?

He backed away from the river, snarling at the sound of the rushing water. What had he been trying to find beyond these woods? Why had he left the safety of the castle?

"Come back…"

Jonathan looked behind him. The creeping shadows of night were growing stronger, and as he watched, they shifted and solidified into three dark female outlines.

"Come back," the women repeated, speaking as one with a lilting and honey-sweet voice. "We shall be lonely without you. Our lord has so cruelly abandoned us. The castle stands without a master." They advanced towards him from the trees, moving in unison.

Jonathan could see them distinctly now. The two dark-haired beauties moved to either side of him, while their golden-haired leader remained in the center. She smiled, revealing her white fangs, as she held out her long, pale hand.

"We will help you, brother," she said. "Come back with us. Come home."

He reached for her.

And then the night transformed into a brilliant, blazing day.

Jonathan faced away from the river when the white light burst into being, and he still covered his face in a vain attempt to protect his eyes. For a moment he thought the Sun had somehow risen back above the horizon—and if not the Sun, then something quite like it. The dazzling radiance illuminated the forest, throwing back the darkness.

The three women never stood a chance. They screamed in pain as the light struck them, then darted back towards the insufficient safety of the rapidly shrinking shadows. Peering out from between his fingers, Jonathan saw their true faces for the first time. They were nothing but walking corpses, pale and sunken and hollow. Their red eyes, blazed with anger, just as he had seen the Count's eyes do, but in these he now saw a hint of terror as well. He watched them flee, snarling and hissing, until they vanished back into the trees.

Jonathan would have fled as well, but he could not rise from the spot where he knelt. His legs felt as if they were rooted to the ground. He closed his eyes and huddled in the dirt, waiting for the light to strike him down.

But it did not. Instead he heard a voice, gentle yet firm, call to him from the opposite riverbank. "Jonathan…"

It sounded so beautifully familiar that it gave him the strength to turn around.

The light did not burn his eyes or singe his skin as he feared it would. In fact, it seemed to grow dimmer under his gaze. As he looked closer, he realized that he could see the source of the brightness. It came from a glowing form lingering among the trees across the river. Jonathan could make out the shape of an ethereal feminine figure within. She was tall and dark-haired, and her body shimmered as she hovered just above the ground. Though Jonathan could not see her face, he felt the piercing darts of her eyes upon him.

"I am waiting for you, Jonathan," she said. Her tone was warm like a crackling hearth and grounded like rich English earth.

Where had he heard that voice before? It was…it sounded like…

"Mina!"

Without another thought, Jonathan dove into the river.

The water barely came up to his knees. He began a mad dash towards the opposite bank, barely aware of the swift current pushing against him or the icy cold biting at his legs. Not once did he look back; the horrors behind him lay forgotten as he focused on the goal ahead.

"Mina!" he called out again as he neared the other side. "Mina, wait!" Hauling himself out of the water and back on to solid ground, he kept up the chase.

He could not seem to reach her. The farther he ran, the farther Mina seemed to recede from him. The light floated beyond his reach, slipping back into the trees. By the time he grew weary and needed a moment to catch his breath, she had nearly faded away altogether.

"You have been brave, my darling Jonathan," she whispered as she disappeared. "You do not have far to travel now. Hold on."

The forest fell silent.

Falling to the ground and gulping in deep breaths, Jonathan lay on his back and stared up at the sky. The clouds had begun to part, and he could see the first stars of evening lighting up the heavens.

He was soaking wet and unable to move his limbs. Fresh pain blossomed in his left ankle. His body felt like an immobile statue, condemned to gather moss and erode into nothing. But the thirst—that vile, pulsating thirst—had vanished completely. His throat was dry, to be sure, but he no longer struggled to breathe or swallow as he had before.

"I'm going mad," he whispered.

It must be so, for how else could he be reduced to a wretched creature chasing phantoms through the woods? And if the vision of Mina had not been real, neither had the three women. Even the Count's bite may have been his imagination.

Jonathan brushed his fingers against his neck, upon the spot where the two marks had been. His skin was smooth: the marks were gone, if they had ever been there to begin with.

The thought did not comfort him as much as he had hoped it would. Some part of him wanted to believe the vision of Mina had been real, that she had felt his anguish and reached out across countless miles to save him from oblivion. Even if that meant the terrors which had followed him from the castle were real as well.

Yes, he was most certainly going mad. But it seemed better to be a madman than a monster.

"I do not have far to travel now," he said. "She told me so herself."

Far off in the distance, he heard the faint whistle of a train.