Short Story: The Crossroads

The road parted and it was hard to know which way to go. The rain was coming down hard now, and I was soaking wet. I glanced towards the map in my hand, but the raindrops speckled all over the lenses of my glasses made it impossible to see anything more than blurs and colours.

I recalled that Esmeralda had described the path as "dark and overgrown", so I headed towards the left, the one that fitted Esmeralda's description best. I didn't see the ominous black gates opened widely like the doors of one of the rat traps used back home in England.

I headed down the unlit path, occasionally walking head-first into an unruly tree branch. I finally came to a dark old castle. Was this the inn? It looked well kept, so I approached the castle and knocked loudly on the large oak-wood doors.

A tall, pale man, who's skin was contrasted drastically by his black clothes and jet-black hair, opened it. "Good evening, sir. Is this the - err - Inn," I asked, unsure of the name. The man chuckled, revealing a set of sharp, white teeth. "This is indeed the Boroslov Inn, sir," he said.

I relaxed, remembering that 'Boroslov' was indeed the name of the inn Esmeralda had told me to find, although I was unsure of the location of the rest of the village, but I thought it may just be concealed in the darkness of the moonless night.

I was shown inside the castle-like inn by the man, who introduced himself as Vladimir. He lead me up a giant stone staircase and into a round room decorated simply with a king-sized bed, a bedside table and a small lamp. The last thing I remember from that day is the feeling of pure bliss as I sank into the warm sheets of the soft, old bed.

I woke up the next day fully invigorated and ready for the long day ahead. At what my watch proclaimed as eight o'clock I was led down the staircase and into a dining room by a stiff-moving servant. I gave a start out of astonishment.

The table was laden with a feast that would have been fit for the mightiest of kings. I immediately tucked in, hungry after the previous night's adventure. An hour later I finally could eat no more, so the servant cleared my plates. I asked him of the location of Vladimir, and whether I was supposed to have saved any food for him.

The next thing the servant said sent shivers down my spine. He stared at me blankly and spoke in a toneless, lifeless voice, "You will be enough." "Excuse me?" I asked. "You will be enough." Then I heard the creak of a floorboard just behind me. The last thing I ever saw were the bared teeth of Count Vladimir Dracula.

It is now a hundred years after I breathed my final breath. I share this castle not only with Dracula, but with a thousand other ghosts too. I never made it to the actual inn, never met up with my dearest sister, Esmeralda, and I am a living - or rather dead - example of why, since childhood, we as humans fear the darkest of of stormy nights.