Castle
by Ron Capshaw
They
had left
without any celebration. They felt strangely unsatisfied, even though their
mission was fulfilled. The Nosferatu was no more; literally reduced to dust and
his castle exploded. Harker had
slashed the Count’s throat, but it was Quincy who dealt the killing blow,
stabbing the Wampyr in the heart with his trusty Bowie knife.
But
at the cost of
Quincy’s life. With his corpse on the train now leaving the dark countries that
science and rationality had never penetrated, they would arrive in London, and
then take a ship to America, and finally to Texas to bury Quincy on his native
soil.
The
Professor was
strangely quiet. For some reason, he began to reread the ancient texts he
brought with him about the vampire.
Then,
suddenly, he
said, “We have to go back.”
After
he left to
consult the conductor, we looked at the books the Professor had been reading.
Underlined
in one of
them was how the vampire could only be fatally stabbed in the heart with a
silver blade or a wooden stake.
Then
in another
book, the Professor had underlined a passage that told of how the vampire could
transform himself into dust under a full moon.
Quincy’s
knife was
made of steel.
We
hoped the authors
of the texts had gotten it wrong, but that was dashed when we saw that the
castle had reconstructed itself.
Ron Capshaw is a writer based in Florida. His debut horror
novel, The Stage Mother's Club, came out in June from Dark Edge
Press.
https://www.amazon.com/Stage-Mothers-Club-Ron-Capshaw/dp/B0BWPN4GP8/ref=sr_1_1?crid=28E2C73KBSH1F&keywords=the+stage+mother%27s+club&qid=1680278727&s=books&sprefix=the+stage+mother%27s%2Cstripbooks%2C139&sr=1-1
