Dracula's Demeter: The Vampire King's Stunning Sea Voyage
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William was sent for a towel for Renfield's face, while the patient talked Martin's ear off. The one-sided conversation consisted of the lunatic's own brand of circinate babble, centered on the Abbey and his insistence the deserted mansion would soon live again. Martin understood none of it, but would admit Renfield's glee, his gory chin, and his claim that, “He's come! He'll be here soon, you'll see,” left him… uneasy.
* * *
Lucy was up early, at her bedroom window, staring to the east and the distant harbor. There'd been a dreadful storm, and a thrill throughout the village with the arrival of the stray ship. It was all so exciting, who could sleep? And yet, she remembered little of what had occurred. She remembered being dried off, dressed and put to bed… It was all so strange.
She was not, Lucy knew, the woman she had been only yesterday. Something had changed. What, she could not say, but she could feel it. Would Arthur still love her, she wondered, still marry the Lucy she had become?
“Oh, Lucy,” Mina exclaimed, entering the room. She joined Lucy at the window, chattering gaily from one subject to another. She'd just looked in on Mrs. Westenra who was sleeping like a baby. The color, she said, was back in Lucy's sweet cheeks. (No wonder three men had fought for her hand.) Lucy must be getting better. Perhaps last night was the end of the dreams; the nightmares. Mina was happy, for the first time in days. She hoped she would soon hear from Jonathan. Perhaps today? And what a night, a storm, and how terrible was that sailing ship so dramatically running aground!
They stared together at the harbor and the tilted wreck of wood and canvas on the rocky beach. “They say she's Russian. It's horrid. That there was only one seaman aboard; and he was dead.”
Lucy listened without hearing, her attention drawn from the broken vessel to the distant east cliff and the gloomy ruined Abbey beyond. Something… someone there… was calling her name. She could feel it. Tonight, she thought, secretly… Tonight.
* * *
The authorities conducted their investigation of the derelict ship, gathering information but finding factual conclusions strangely elusive. Most stunning of all was their discovery that her destination had been – exactly where she wound up, their own port of Whitby. How, in the name of a good and loving God, she had gotten there without a living crew… The mind boggled.
What happened to the crew was a subject of wild conjecture. Had the captain committed mass murder; done the crew to death? The rumors ran from suicide to the supernatural. The discovery of bottled notes in the pocket of the corpse, and later his Ship's Log, turned Captain Nikilov into a hero and turned suspicions instead upon the missing first mate. Ultimately, the facts mattered little as those involved had been foreigners after all.
In contrast to her unbelievable arrival was the disappointingly ordinary cargo she carried. Nothing whatsoever to stir the imagination or answer the mystery of the ship's crossing. Other than normal provisions, and a god-awful supply of sand ballast, the ship held only fifty boxes of ordinary dirt. These were turned over to Mr. S.F. Billington, a Whitby solicitor acting for an unnamed party. A rather confused representative of the Russian consul arrived, paid the requisite harbor dues, and claimed the battered schooner (to the chagrin of a know-it-all law student). And, though a surprising number searched for some time, no trace was ever found of the black dog that abandoned the vessel, and scared the coast guard, upon its arrival. Wrecked and desolate, Demeter had, at the cost of captain and crew, accomplished her task and delivered her cargo. Outside of everyone's knowledge, Nikilov had also accomplished his; the ship had been saved and his honor as a captain salvaged.
The figurehead on the prow of the schooner, broken and run aground on the sands of Whitby, stared vacantly inland. Trevor Harrington, gone with his love, ruined and lost upon the sea, among the first to meet Count Dracula on his journey to a new land, was well-studied and knew much that was hidden. He knew, for instance, Demeter was a Greek goddess, a mother earth figure who controlled the crops, fertility, and the beginnings of life. But Harrington was ignorant of the rest of her story. Or perhaps on that bright morning in Varna, as he planned his own new life, he'd simply chosen not to remember... that Demeter was the mother of Persephone. That her beautiful daughter, ravaged then kidnapped by Hades, was forever after permitted to visit this earth only four months of each year, when the land bloomed with spring flowers. When the growing season ended Persephone was yanked back to hell by her diabolical husband for eight cold months. Harrington had failed to recall that the torch in Demeter's outstretched hand illuminated, not only the seas before a cargo ship, but the goddess' way as she searched the darkness and the depths for Persephone, stolen in the night and made the bride of the monstrous king of the underworld. What better name could grace the bow of the ship that brought the night stalker, the king of all vampires, to the shores of England?
None more fitting than Dracula's Demeter.
About the Author
Doug Lamoreux is a father of three, a grandfather, a writer, and actor. A former professional fire fighter, he is the author of four novels and a contributor to anthologies and non-fiction works including the Rondo Award nominated Horror 101, and its companion, Hidden Horror. He has been nominated for a Rondo, a Lord Ruthven Award, and is the first-ever recipient of The Horror Society's Igor Award for fiction. Lamoreux starred in the 2006 Peter O'Keefe film, Infidel, and appeared in the Mark Anthony Vadik horror films The Thirsting (aka Lilith) and Hag.
Other Books by the Author
The Devil's Bed
The Melting Dead
Corpses Say the Darndest Things (A Nod Blake Mystery)
Co-authored:
Apparition Lake (with Daniel D. Lamoreux)
Contributed:
Horror 101: The A-List of Horror Films and Monster Movies (Edited by Aaron Christensen)
The Best of the Horror Society 2013 (Edited by Carson Buckingham)
Hidden Horror: A Celebration of 101 Underrated and Overlooked Fright Flicks (Edited by Aaron Christensen)
More horror from Creativia
The Blackstone Vampires series by Carole Gill – gothic romance and horror.
Moribund Tales by Erik Hofstatter – a short story collection of raw and visceral horror in tradition of Edgar Allan Poe.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
A Penultimate Moment as Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Epilogue
About the Author
Other Books by the Author
More horror from Creativia