Stoker's Manuscript (10 page)

The storm had cleared and a late afternoon fog descended to the valley, crawling down the hillside from the north.

“How far?”

“A few kilometers.”

“Can I get there by walking the river?”

“This is not a place to go, Herr Barkeley. It is upriver, yes, but much danger. There are wolves, boars, and great bears in this forest.”
Zis forest.

I was perhaps the only human in the last century to have seen Stoker’s references to Dreptu buried in his notes. Even Internet search engines failed to unearth any such place, not even a legend, just a note on a GPS reading. Yet that was where the original phone call came from. I wondered,
If Luc’s right and the old man heads the oldest, wealthiest family in Europe, then why place a call from a nonexistent Dreptu? An elaborate precaution in the name of anonymity?
No, I was convinced otherwise.

I was certain there was something to the place, and recalling the words of Doug Carli, “You don’t leave things like this to chance. You wanna do big deals, you don’t leave the small stuff on the table. That’s why it’s called due diligence.”

Besides, to fall two miles short after having journeyed six thousand seemed cowardly to me. What would I think when I was back in Chicago, regretting that I was too timid to follow the central clue to understanding the missing chapter? This was going to be my only chance, perhaps in a lifetime, to see the place. I had several hours before nightfall. I went to pack for the walk.

“Herr Barkeley.” My host shook a finger at me. “Beware the dark.”

“I’ll be careful.”

“
Die Todten reiten schnell . . .
faster than you.”
The dead travel fast.

A
s I walked through the village, fog rolled along the ground as if being swept, and I did my best to avoid shoe-hungry mud puddles by walking atop long wooden planks that served as sidewalks in springtime. Droplets fell from spring’s early leaves as I passed under branches. The rain had cooled an already chilly day.

Dolls, the only life signs in some places, were displayed in windows to show potential suitors that an eligible girl lived there. Everywhere the smell of burning wood and cooking reminded me of my early childhood. And just as in my childhood, dogs barked and snarled and cats recoiled. Parents called their children and pets and hustled to close their gates at the sight of me. Another group of children bowed their heads and made signs of the cross as I passed. An elderly woman saw me and dropped the buckets she carried and began praying. I recall somewhere in the litany of my childhood superstitions that it was unlucky to be photographed holding empty buckets, and rural villagers associated strangers with cameras. I showed her my empty hands, but she still looked away.

At the east end of town, just before crossing the small river, there stood an old wooden church with a tall steeple topped by an Eastern cross. Inside a solemn priest stared through faded windows; he, too, blessed himself.

Once past the church and over the wooden bridge, I found a lone house that stood separated from the others, the only structure east of the water. It seemed an ordinary dwelling, notably more Western in design, all white with a porch and a simple cross on the front door. Its grass was neatly trimmed, and a healthy herb and vegetable garden flourished behind a wooden fence. Walking by, I saw a woman sweeping the porch. She had middle-aged Roma features and dressed in the traditional way of wool aprons, or
, over a black skirt and covered with a light wool jacket. I noticed her boots, the medieval
opinci
, leather laced to the leg around wool felt. Our eyes met, but rather than turning away, she did a double take and pushed her head scarf back behind her ears. I was far enough away that I could not read precisely her features, but she looked to be concentrating on me.

Suddenly uncomfortable, I turned away. As I did so, I heard someone call out,
Can you hear me?

Granted, I know I had not slept much the night before, but this spoken message seemed soundless. By that, I mean that it came into my head without entering through my ears. Without question it was a woman’s voice. I stopped and looked around for whoever spoke to me, but no one was within earshot.

Go back where you came from.

I looked back to the village. The street was deserted except for the priest who had come out of his church and stood praying as he looked at me. In my mind, an image flashed of looking back after crossing the Acheron. I wheeled and looked again for the Gypsy woman on the porch of her isolated house, but she had disappeared and her front window was now shuttered.

I had overstepped reality’s boundary. That voice you take for granted in your head is your welcome friend . . . right up until the time it has a companion. I stood waiting for another message, looking for some woman nearby. But finding no one, after a suitable silence, I turned toward the forest. Just two miles from my destination, I told myself, I could not turn back now.

On a two-rut path I walked, the absence of footprints in the mud suggesting this was not the locals’ direction of choice. As best as I could I stayed to the bisecting hump between the ruts. Deeper into the forest, the trees—beech, oak, and sycamores—clasped their tops together to form a canopy and filtered the leaning afternoon sun. Continuing east, I caught glimpses of the ambling river to my right, and took several side trips to the waterway to scout ahead. Across the water the land rose to a series of rocky cliffs obscured by fog.

Can the monastery be on the hill hidden by clouds?
I wondered.

My GPS suggested otherwise, and I continued east. An hour passed as the path steepened and the river churned from an elevation change. Finally I reached the end of the two-lane path as it circled back on itself like a cul-de-sac before confronting a rock barrier. Carved into the rock were a dozen steps, flanked with a flimsy wrought iron railing, suggesting civilization ahead. I figured the monastery must be close.

Again I walked to the river’s edge to scout ahead, but only saw dense forest lining the banks and an impassable canyon wall beyond. I looked up at some commotion and saw flocks of birds flying straight east. With the incline came more dense fog, now hiding the treetops. I caught sight of my first pine trees and realized it must be a thousand feet higher than the village. No wonder I was tired, for I had been climbing. The GPS coordinates now told me I had reached my destination.

Just a little more,
I thought,
then get back before dark.
As soon as I stepped foot on the first rock I heard the sound of an animal scurry above. Momentarily I froze and looked around. Though isolated, I did not feel alone.

Continuing up at a mild climb, the path emerged after a hundred yards to an open field. There was just enough light to see a footpath across its mildly undulating terrain that reentered the forest a quarter mile or so across. I picked up my pace across the open field and into the forest. With every turn in the woods the terrain closed in on three sides, until I found myself in the shadows of canyon walls. I looked at my GPS again, touched the backlight button, and realized it had become dark outside. Just a quarter mile more and I vowed to turn around.

From higher ground came a yipping noise: a single dog. Or possibly a wolf.

I was just about to retreat—with intentions of returning at sunup—when a breeze momentarily lifted the fog, revealing another clearing ahead, and within it the outline of a massive structure, a fortress with huge stone walls at least twenty feet high. I stood stunned. It was a side wall so long, I had to twist my neck to see its length. Corner towers stood at both ends of the wall, supported by a flanking tower at the halfway point, connected by an uncovered parapet wall. All seemed dark within the structure.

A howl descended from the fog above. Canine in origin again, but sounding more urgent than before, much closer than the first, and not a yip.

From where I stood, the wall looked to be at least two hundred feet in length. Another breeze lifted the fog long enough to allow me sight of the structure inside the walls: a single tower several stories taller than the wall. I walked toward the corner tower and saw that the wall joined at ninety degrees.
Must be a rectangle,
I reasoned. Another corner tower stood equidistant at the far end and it occurred to me they looked like giant chessmen, with bishops in the corners, rooks as the flanking towers, and a king in the courtyard. Gray dominated its appearance; dark, lifeless gray. Yet the structure did not fit the description of ruins, which suggest a certain abandoned disrepair. No, this did not feel empty.

As I walked around the front, there were what appeared to be a set of wooden doors, shaped like the pointed-arched equilaterals at Castel Bran. I approached.

A twig snapped behind me and I quickly turned my head toward the forest. Nothing.

Continuing toward the door, I noticed it was set under a Roman arch of stone. There was no writing on the corbels or front door, and if this was a monastery, then why were there no crosses?

Suddenly it fell upon me, some sort of animal. Before my senses perceived it, I was knocked to the ground and on my back with my arms trying to shield my face from blows. My first thought was a grizzly bear. Claws scraped my front, and it bit my arm. Its strength was overwhelming. A horrible growling sound and the smell . . . awful. Another scrape across my front, and suddenly the beast stopped.

I dared open an eye, but only saw a mouth of snapping teeth. It made a most unhappy sound, a growl mixed with a hiss. And as suddenly as it had ambushed me, so it rose to its feet, two feet . . . and disappeared into the fog.

What was
that
?
I thought. Its jaw looked inhuman, but what little glimpse I got of its body did appear human. It was not canine, as the previous sounds suggested. Was it some kind of bear that I had startled? Could my adrenaline have caused my eyes to deceive me?

Terror replaced my curiosity, and I grabbed my backpack from the ground and stood to leave. It was then that pain registered across my arms and torso, and I checked to see if I was intact. That’s when I heard noises coming from all directions. I could not see far in the fog, but I did see red eyes. Several pairs. Nor could I make out their features, but they looked the size of adult men, standing erect, with their hands moving, flexing as if stretching their fingers. Almost imperceptibly they moved in closer.

Instinctively I took the crucifix from around my neck and held it up, turned in a circle, and heard them react as if disgusted. A couple of them spit.

Then, from back in the forest, a voice boomed:
“Tu nu
aici!” You do not belong here!

“Don’t worry, I’m leaving.”

Quickly I walked the direction I had come, crucifix held high overhead and darting my eyes side to side into the woods. From the cliffs above I heard several canines howling, deliberately betraying my position. Back across the open field, down the steps, and onto the two-rut path, my legs kept pumping.

If the men were pursuing me now, I did not hear them, but I did hear the howls in the distance and several phantom noises in the woods. I hit a dense patch of fog and could barely see the path at my feet, bumped into a couple trees, and continued on. I kept stumbling on the uneven ground and prayed I was going the right way. Nothing looked familiar in the dark.

When the last turn of the path revealed the village, I broke into a run, crossed over the bridge, and did not stop until I reached the front of the church. There I fell to my knees on the front step to say a prayer of deliverance.

“Thank you, God, thank you.”

A hand touched my right shoulder.