Three Days of Night (18 page)

Here’s an excerpt from Dracula: In the Flesh by T.K. Hardin

Chapter One

Dracula’s Journal

January 8, 1895

I stood there for several minutes and all I could do was stare. She was just as lovely as I remembered. So many long years had passed since I had seen my love, my angel, that I had begun to think of her as a dream. A longing. A memory. An unfulfilled desire that I had kept close to my heart. But, a dream nonetheless.

“Do you find the paper interesting, Count?”

I cleared my throat for I found upon my first attempt that I could not speak.

“Not the paper, Renfield. The woman.”

And so it began. The newspaper which Renfield carried with him was by this time a few months old. Though it carried the news that my beloved lived, it also told of her recent engagement. It has been many years since I have feared any mortal man, and this one who stood in my way was no different. Losing her again, however, that thought terrified me.

When one has lived as long as I, there comes a time when no words shared with another soul can come close to expressing the depth of what you feel. It is for this reason I keep a journal. That, and if my beloved turns from me when she knows my true self, perhaps she will read these words. If she will not hear me speak, perhaps she will know through this how much I love her.

I forced myself once more to look at the man pictured beside her and despite my attempt to control my emotions, I felt my lip curl with disgust. The thought of him touching her, of his thin lips pressing against the full redness of her mouth, was an abomination.

I thrust the paper back toward my servant. “I want to know everything about him,” I said to Renfield, “what he likes, what he dislikes. Find me his vices so that I may tear him apart.”

Renfield bowed his gray head as he took the paper back from me.

“I thought your interest was with the woman.”

“It is.”

Later that evening, I sat alone in my room nearly overcome with memories I had pushed aside for centuries. The ritual was a success! Always, I had kept the hope alive that I would see her again, for eternity without hope is Hell on Earth. Though many believe I should eventually end up there, I see no reason to suffer now.

Images flooded my mind. Finding the body of my wife in the river, the crushing pain in my chest as a part of me died with her. Only the gypsies and I know what happened after that. I would do anything to be with her again … and so I did. I sacrificed my blood and a part of my immortal soul for the return of my love. A gruesome bargain was made that night. A bargain for which I have paid the price nightly.

Just as my despair was so acute, as loneliness was at last beginning to overtake me, she appeared. In a newspaper of all things. Just as lovely as the day I laid her to rest. Now that I know she is alive, I will reach out to her. Though there are miles between us, some part of her must know me. She and I are bound by much more than love; she is a part of my soul.

In the absence of my flesh she shall know me, in the only way I know how to reach her.

My heart breaks for the touch of her skin, and the smell of her hair.

Dracula: In the Flesh is available now at Amazon

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About the author:

This multi-published author has been writing stories for her own entertainment since she was a child. Tracey has always been drawn to the macabre, with a fondness for anything with fangs. She writes what she enjoys reading in the hopes that others will enjoy her stories as well. Her main goal as a writer is to put emotions into words. She wants people to feel something when they read her work.

T.K. Hardin is the name she uses for her erotic horror stories.

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