TWISTED TALES
The Last Day of Quincy Harker, MD
Out of the night creeps humanity’s deadliest foe, ready to pounce. One must be wary to survive, especially against the deceit of this hunter of the damned.
I sit at my desk, squinting to decode an ancient text. Pages discoloured from age, half rotten from neglect, almost indecipherable. My library’s lighting is poor, but my eyesight is also no longer what it was when I was a youth. An upgrade to electricity from oil might help remedy the darkness, but if the truth be told, my soul craves the darkness. It shuns the bright and festive, and I may only feel at home in the murky glow of an oil lamp and the pungent smell of rot. Whether the rot be of old texts, or old upholstery, or of an old soul, injured and dismissive of its future. Accepting of its fate to wander the dark streets of regret and rue.
I attempt to sit straight and stretch, to ease the pains in my bones, but to no avail. The years bound to my desk have done my spine no favours. Opiates dull the driving pain, but they dull my senses too markedly. The pills and the smoke and the liquids transform me into a hideous beast, best left to wither away in some sordid alleyway than to be amongst proper, God-fearing people.
The text eludes me, as I cannot concentrate fully. An envelope from the morning post mesmerizes me. With great care and trepidation, I pick it up, not willing to entrust the delicacy of the fine, vintage paper to the indelicate tremblings of my arthritic fingers. Once a fine surgeon, perhaps the best in London and the entire kingdom, but now afraid to hold a simple linen envelope.
The envelope is bare of postage mark, and from this I conclude it was hand delivered. But I had heard no deliveries other than the postman. It simply bore my name on its exterior — Quincy Harker, MD — and naught else. An ornate wax sealed its contents from prying eyes, and it was from this seal I understood from whom this note was from.
With a deep breath and a sense of dread and foreboding, I take the envelope in my left hand, and with my right, I choose my favourite letter opener — an ornate silver dagger — and slice open the evil seal of wax binding the document. My once steady hand, instead of slicing the seal cleanly, has trembled and shaken at the wrong moment. Not only have I opened this mysterious envelope, I have also opened up a sizeable gash across my inner wrist.
My crimson blood flows freely as I attempt to stop the hemorrhaging. The single, thin page of parchment that was nestled inside the envelope flutters to the tabletop, landing open for my dying eyes to read:
November 1st, 1954 Castle Dracul, Borgo Pass, Transylvania
My dearest Quincy,
The world is a maddening place, and much has changed since I met your mother, Mina, so many years ago. My usurper, Jonathan Harker, promised you the full story, but as with so many mortals, his words were empty.
I sense your mortal time ending soon, my son.
With my greatest love, Your father, Vlad Țepeșz
P.S. I have missed you so, but I have always been there for you. As was then, so shall it be now. When you wake from this mortal slumber, I will be there to explain our life and ways to you. To guide you as the father I could never be while your life was still theirs.
Not fully comprehending what I had read, my mind drifted away, and my head dropped with a sickening thud to the table as my precious life blood drained out of my body. As the light flickered from my eyes, I could almost see, in the shadows, a figure approaching me. Smiling. As I slipped away, I saw him run his finger through my blood and taste it.
My true father…
The ideas in Jann Christoph von der Pütten‘s story, Dracula Greets the Sun, intrigued me. An older man, nearing the end of his life, receiving a letter from Dracula, and having it change everything for him captivated my imagination.
Paul Mansfield is a writer, a photographer, a guitar player, a philosopher — some he does well, some not so well, but he still tries them all. You can follow him on Twitter @pmansfield.
Another dark story by Paul.
