The Mammoth Book of Dracula by Stephen Jones Read Free Book Online Page A

banked down to an amber glow and the library is at its gloomiest. I can feel him standing silently at the windows (an impossibility, since they overlook a sheer drop of several hundred yards) but when I turn to catch a glimpse of this imagined figure it is gone.
     
    Last night the feeling came again. I had just finished cataloguing the top shelves of the library’s west wall, and was setting the iron ladders back in their place when I became aware of someone staring at my back. A sensation of panic seized me as the hairs stood on my neck, prickling as though charged with electricity, but I forced myself to continue with my task, finally turning in the natural course of my duty and raising my gaze to where I felt this mysterious watcher to be standing.
     
    Of course, there was nothing corporeal to see—yet this time the feeling persisted. Slowly, I made my way across the great room, passing the glowing red escarpment of the fire, until I reached the bank of mullioned windows set in the room’s north side. Through the rain that was tickering against the glass I looked out on the most forsaken landscape imaginable, grey pines and burned black rock. I could still feel him, somewhere outside the windows, as if he had passed by on the wall itself, and yet how was this possible? I am a man who prides himself on his sensitivity, and fancied that this baleful presence belonged to none other than my host. Yet the Count was still away and was not due to return for a further fourteen days, (I had been informed by Klove) having extended his trip to conclude certain business affairs.
     
    This presents me with a new problem, for I am told that winter quickly settles in the mountains, and is slow to release the province from its numbing grip. Once the blizzards begin the roads will quickly become inundated, making it virtually impossible for me to leave the castle until the end of spring, a full seven months away. I would truly be a prisoner here in Castle Dracula. With that thought weighing heavily on my mind I returned to my seat beside the fire, fought down the urge to panic, opened a book and once more began to read.
     
    I must have dozed, for I can only think what I saw next was a hallucination resulting from a poorly digested piece of mutton. The Count was standing in the corner of the library, still dressed in his heavy-weather oilskin. He seemed agitated and ill-at-ease, as if conducting an argument with himself on some point. At length he reached a decision and approached me, gliding across the room like a tall ship in still seas. Flowing behind him was a rippling wave of fur, as hundreds of rats poured over the chairs and tables in a fanned brown shadow. The rodents watched me with eyes like ebony beads. They cascaded over the Count’s shoes and formed a great circle around my chair, as if awaiting a signal. But the signal did not come, so they fell upon one another, the strongest tearing into the soft fat bellies of the weakest, and the library carpet turned black with blood as the chamber filled with screams ...
     
    I awoke to find my shirt as wet as if it had been dropped into a lake. The book I had been reading lay on the floor at my feet, its spine split. The gold crucifix I always wear at my neck was hung on the arm of my chair, its clasp broken beyond repair. I resolved to eat earlier from that night on.
     
    ~ * ~
     
    From The Journal of Jonathan Harker, 22 September —.
     
    The weather has begun to worsen, and there is still no sign of the Count. Klove has heard nothing of his master, and as the days grow shorter a forlorn darkness descends upon the castle. The skies are troubled, the clouds heavier now, ebbing to the west with their bellies full of rain. The library occupies my waking hours. It is like an origami model of Chinese paper, ever-unfolding into new configurations. Just when I think I have its measure, new delights and degradations present themselves. Yesterday, I started on a further set of shelves