“Feeling a bit tired,” he replied and stood up. “Good night, Darcie.”
“Good night, Fred.”
The door clanged, and Lothar made his exit.
Once outside, he walked around to the side of the building, grass switching at his pants as he moved into the shadows. He looked around for anyone watching. There was no signs of life. Even the road was free of cars. He turned his eyes upwards and started to drift towards the dark sky above. He soared out across the road, the forest of trees, his nose leading the way towards the blood of the two male tourists he had seen in the bar earlier. He found them easily enough, and descended onto the dirt road behind their RV.
Once on the ground, he walked over to the white and black RV and stopped when he reached the back of it. Two off road bikes were hanging there along with a couple of chairs. He looked up from the bikes and chairs to a window, and floated up to it. He peered through the plastic glass, and found both men asleep in bed. Danny was snoring away on one side, Brian on the other.
Lothar closed his eyes and zeroed in on Brian’s mind. He saw the white skin, the skull underneath, and then his meaty liquid brain. Once he was inside Brian’s brain, he traveled through the highways of his thoughts and memories. While he traveled he planted the path to his castle inside there, and he planted it in a way that would make Brian think that he had found the place simply by accident. When Lothar was finished, he hovered there a moment and smiled. He looked upwards and started to drift, up and up he went until the RV was just a speck on the ground. Soon he would feed and feed well. He smiled again, and then softly floated towards home.
3
The morning sun fell on Danny’s face as it pushed in through the blinds on the side window. He looked over at Brian, who was still sleeping soundly. They had met ten years ago, and had been inseparable since. Hunting for ghosts and trying to figure out why things go bump in the night had brought them together, and had helped to keep them together through a lot of difficult times. Coming out to the family on both sides might have been the biggest one they faced. They weren’t rich, but they were happy, and in the end, that’s really all that matters most of the time.
Danny slipped out from underneath the covers and groaned softly when he felt the cold morning air on his exposed skin. He grabbed a pair of jeans, socks, and shirt. He slipped them on and moved out of the small room, embracing himself in order to fight off the chills. In the tiny kitchen, he made coffee and waited for it to brew while slipping on his hiking boots.
“I always love to wake up to coffee,” Brian replied from the bedroom. He was sitting up in bed, wiping the sleep from his eyes.
“Thought it might best to get started early. In case we have a lot of walking to do.”
Brian slipped out of bed, and Danny watched him get dressed in jeans, long sleeve shirt, and socks. He then put on his hiking boots, and slipped into the small kitchen in order to find some food. He always had to have a bite to eat before his first sip of coffee. “Do you think we will find any truth to that legend?” He asked, munching on a pop tart.
“Are you on board with it now, because you were awfully rude last night?”
“I had this weird dream, and it kind of got me in the mood to go searching for it.”
“Dream?”
“Don’t read too much into it, okay? I know how you get with this dream mumbo jumbo stuff. It was just a dream. That’s all.”
“If you say so.”
“Dreams are dreams. Pure and simple. They come into our minds when we sleep, and leave us when we wake. Who knows why, when, or how they come into being?” Brian paused, so he could drink a bit of water and then continued. “Vampires do not exist. Their very nature defies logic. How can you be alive and dead at the same time? It just doesn’t make sense.”
“True, but nature does make strange things occasionally.” Danny replied, pouring out two cups of coffee.
“If there really was a Bubba up here, you know someone would have found him by now. A house that big, people moving deeper and deeper into the woods to escape their busy lives. Eventually someone would stumble on it, and if they haven’t by now it probably doesn’t exist.”
“You can be such a skeptic,” Danny replied, sipping on his coffee.
“True, but I keep you balanced.”
“Sure, come on, let’s get packed,” Danny replied, as he walked into the bedroom. He dropped a bag onto the bed, and packed for them while sipping on his coffee. It was the basic essentials, extra shirts, sunscreen, flashlights, and bug spray. He also packed away some ghost hunting gear for a just in case moment.
“I’m sorry about last night. I didn’t mean to be so rude,” Brian replied, as he made ham and cheese sandwiches. He wrapped them up, and then put them in a bag next to chips, bottled water, granola bars, and bananas.
Danny emerged from the bedroom a second later with a fully packed bag slung over his shoulder. “It was a lot to take in, and to tell you the truth I was mostly humoring them. I thought this might be a nice excuse to take a break from the road and do some mountain hiking.”
“That does sound like fun,” Brian replied, zipping up the food bag and taking a couple more sips of coffee. “I’ll meet you outside.”
“Right behind you.” Danny took a final sip of coffee, and then followed Brian out the door, locking it once he was outside. He took a moment to look around, to enjoy where he was currently standing on the end of the dirt road. Sure, there were bottles and beer cans, along with plenty of trash strewn about, but that didn’t take away from the beauty of the mountains that were all around him on this crisp, calm, clear day underneath a sharp blue sky.
“So clean,” Brian replied, as he took in a breadth of fresh air. “I miss mornings like this when we’re back home in Raleigh.”
“I love these mountains.”
“Me too,” Brian replied, looking around at their surroundings, then down at the compass in his hand. “You know, I don’t think that bartender was right. I think we should be going more southward than to the north.”
“How would you even begin to know that?”
“I don’t know. Call it a hunch.”
Danny looked around at the woods, the deep dark woods with the trees pressed in close and tight. “We’re city folks, Brian. If we get lost out here, nobody is going to find us, and I know neither one of us are capable of roughing it in the woods. My idea of roughing it is a day without coffee or a warm bed.”
“Trust me, okay,” Brian replied. “Have my instincts ever been wrong?”
“Rarely.”
“That’s right. Now let’s go before we lose the morning discussing it.”
“Fine. After you,” Danny replied, and gestured for him to move forward.
Brian hoisted up his back pack, and then made his way into the thick heavy trees.
Danny took one last look at the RV, and then followed after him.
4
The morning drifted into the afternoon, and the men found themselves not only lost, but out of food, out of water, and just plain out of patience with each other by the time they reached the small hill.
“Good going, Brian. Got us lost, didn’t you, following your hunches?”
“Shut up, Danny!”
“Don’t you tell me to shut up!”
Brian turned to face his partner. They had never come to blows before, but this casual walk in the woods was about to turn into one. Danny probably had him beat in the weight department, but Brian was sure he could get in a few punches before he was over powered.
“I’ll tell you to shut up if I want to,” Brian replied, and decided on a whim to let it all drop. He turned away and walked down the leaf and weed filled ground underneath the canopy of trees, leaving Danny momentarily stunned and alone. He stopped when he reached a small stream bubbling and splashing cold mountain water. He knelt down beside it, and splashed the clean liquid on his face until he found his composure. He then took a seat on an old rotten log, wiped off his face, and c
losed his eyes. He tried to find his calm and his center as he sat their cooling off.
“Look, I’m sorry,” Danny replied, sitting down beside Brian, turning his face up to what was left of the colorful fall leaves. He eyeballed the forest around them, and suddenly stood up when his eyes picked up on something.
“What?” Brian asked, following his lead.
Danny walked over to a fence that ran right and left, evaporating into the woods in either direction. It was silver and covered with rust, wrought-iron strong with pentagrams woven into it. It stood at least twenty feet high, and the top of it was covered with what looked spear tips.
“It’s a fence,” Danny replied when Brian caught up to him.
“So, it’s an old fence.”
“And there’s a gate over there,” Danny replied, moving to his left. He stopped when he reached a worn out path that wound through the forest and down to the gate. They had been walking almost parallel to it most of the day.
Brian looked up at the metal behemoth in front of him. It stood at least thirty feet tall, wrought-iron strong, covered in rusted silver just like the fence. The gate was split right down the middle, and on one side it had the letter L woven into it, and on the other the letter E. There was an upside-down cross perfectly set in the center, half on one side, and half on the other.
“L.E., I wonder who or what that stands for?” Danny asked.
“Certainly not Bubba,” Brian replied with a small smile.
“No, certainly not.”
Brian strained his eyes forward, and he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “Is that a house in the distance, Danny?”
“Where?”
“Straight on,” Brian replied, pointing forward through the gate.
“I think it is.” Danny replied, as he looked down at the path at their feet, and then followed it through the gate to the other side. The path ran forward through a large overgrown lawn and moved off towards the house. A house now bathed in rich late afternoon sunlight.
Brian grabbed the two gates and pulled them open just as Danny reached to stop him. The gate split down the middle then pulled apart without a screech.
“Are you seriously going up there?” Danny asked, pausing Brian, who was starting to move forward.
“What do you mean? It’s what we came out here for, isn’t it?”
“It is, but are we sure this is the right house?”
“It has to be. It may not be as big as that bar girl made it out to be, but it’s the only one we’ve seen so far today, and it’s the only one that could come close to her description.”
“It’s also getting late in the day.”
“Look, I bet this path will lead us back to the RV or at least close to it. We check things out a bit, and then we head on back.”
“This just seems like a bad idea.”
“Now you’re not on board with this,” Brian replied. “You seemed so gung-ho last night at the bar.”
“I guess I wasn’t thinking we would find anything. I was thinking this was just going to be an excuse to take a pause. Now that I see this place, I’m not so sure I was right in wanting to come out here.”
“We’ve been out here all day. We’ve pissed and moaned at each other over it, so why not at least investigate it before we turn tail and run. We’ve seen our fair share of bad spirits, no use thinking this place is any different.”
Danny looked at Brian, and then at the house. Something about this place unnerved him, and he couldn’t put his finger on what it was. His curiosity was killing him though, and he really did want to see what it looked like inside. Against his better judgement, he turned from the house to look at Brian. “Okay, Mr. Headstrong. Lead the way.”
“We won’t be too long. Just a quick look and back to the RV we go,” Brian replied, and started to move forward with Danny reluctantly following after him.
They made their way towards the large home, which they could now tell wasn’t exactly a traditional looking home. This was a legitimate castle, perfectly placed in the English countryside, but an oddity this close to the Tennessee border. The castle was protected by a large stone wall that wove its way around the massive structure in a square like design. The stone wall was made up of granite that was aged and weathered by the years, and at each corner of the square sat a tower with a steeple roof and one window. The glass in each window was of the stained variety.
Set into the center of the wall was one large, tall gate. It looked like it was made of wood that was so thick and strong Mother Nature would be powerless against it. Brian and Danny stopped when they reached the gate.
“Would you look at this thing?” Brian asked, running his hand over the polished wood, which was smooth and shiny, splinter free. “It looks brand new, like it’s just been replaced.”
Danny shuffled nervously behind him, as the sun sank a bit lower in the sky. He noticed that the shadows around them were now taking up most of the light, and there was something else grabbing his attention. The trees nearby seemed to have movement inside of them, and what sent shivers up his spine was that he thought he saw red eyes glowing inside the darkness. These eyes went from two to four while he stood there, trying not to pee his pants.
“Hey, you okay?” Brian asked, touching his partner’s shoulder. Danny nearly leaped out of his skin when he was knocked out of his frozen trance. “Easy, don’t have a heart attack on me.”
“I just thought I saw something back in the trees,” Danny replied, pointing in the direction where he had seen the two sets of eyes.
“Seems ordinary to me,” Brian replied, scanning the spot Danny was pointing towards.
“I swear it wasn’t a second ago.”
“Come on. You just got the jitters. Let’s see if this gate is locked or not. It might be nice to get behind some walls for a bit.”
“That, I agree with,” Danny replied, letting his eyes drift away from the trees even though he felt uneasy about doing so.
Brian stepped up to the two black handles set inside the gate, and slipped his hands into them. He pulled forward and the gate split down the middle, opening up, revealing what it held behind it.
The men were now staring into a roughly rounded courtyard that was simple and sparse. The ground was filled with sand and dirt, no grass, no trees, and there was a sports car sitting in the middle of the bare uneven circle. The sports car looked rare, like one of those million dollar numbers that are among a fleet of only five or six in the world.
Brian walked over to the car, ran his hands down its blue side, and peered inside. He saw nothing out of the ordinary hidden within its interior. He stood there a moment and looked around. He noticed that it was parked with its tail lights pointing towards another gate. He walked over to the gate, and pulled it open. A paved road opened up before him, and the road twisted off into the distance and disappeared inside the forest of trees that were pressed right up against the edges of the asphalt.
“Brian, someone lives here. We should leave now?”
“Do you see any lights on?” Brian asked, pointing up to the house. The windows on all five floors were dark and lifeless.
“This is a new car.”
“So.”
“If the house were abandoned why would there be a new car here, or a paved road for that matter? Or, why would the house look like it’s been taken care of? Someone lives here.”
“Let’s do this,” Brian replied, about to get his way again. “Check out a tower or two, and then ring the doorbell. If no one answers, we can explore the house, and then head back to the RV. Sound good?”
“Fine,” Danny replied with a reluctance so heavy it nearly made him throw up. “But if there’s any sign of an owner, any sign of anyone coming home, we bolt. Got that?”
“Sure. We’ll just shimmy out a window like a common cat burglar.”
“I’m serious, Brian.”
“I know you are. Believe me, I know. I’m going to close up the gates while you get our flashlights and our g
host hunting gear,” Brian replied, and then moved off to do his task.
Danny dropped the back pack onto the ground, unzipped it, and started going through their stuff, all the while keeping his eyes and ears open for sounds of the house’s owner. He heard no one returning, just the sounds of the mountains coming alive with the oncoming night.
Brian did his task and made his way back to Danny. “Ready?” He asked. “Gates are secure.”
“Which tower first?” Danny asked, looking at the cylindrical structures looming large and high in the sky.
“How about that one?” Brian replied, pointing to the one closest to them.
“Okay. Let’s do this.”
Brian led them across the courtyard to the tower and stopped in front of it. It looked weathered and worn, but showed no signs of disrepair.
“Let’s see if she’s locked,” Brian replied, as he reached down and gripped the gold door handle. He turned it and the door (which was at least 10 feet tall and made of solid wood), opened up. It swung towards them on well-oiled hinges, and gently came to a stop.
Danny shined the flashlight inside the dark space. The beam revealed a small circular floor made of dirt, and round walls that were empty and bare.
Brian turned on the audio recorder as he stepped into the rounded space. “Is there anyone in here who wants to talk to us?”
Danny stepped in a second later, and shined the flashlight around until he found the stairs. He pointed the light upwards, and followed it for as far as it would travel. The stairs were made of the same stone that created the tower, and they were wide enough to support at least two people side by side.
Brian tapped Danny on the shoulder and pointed towards the spiral stairs with the audio recorder still running. Danny gave him a thumbs up, and then followed after Brian with the light.
Both men ascended slowly, taking their time on the railless stairs, knowing one wrong step on either side would send them tumbling down to the ground below.
“Is there anyone here who would like to say something to us? What is your name? Why do you haunt this tower?” Brian asked, as the darkness embraced them tight.
It Sleeps at Dawn Page 2