Dracula: SHOP-stylee!

The greatest horror story ever written, with a soupcon of SHOP!

When the caleche stopped, the driver, BRETT, jumped down and held out his hand to assist me to alight. Again I could not but notice his prodigious strength. His hand actually seemed like a steel vice that could have crushed mine if he had chosen. Then he took my traps, and placed them on the ground beside me as I stood close to a great door, old and studded with large iron nails, and set in a projecting doorway of massive stone. I could see even in the dim light that the stone was massively carved, but that the carving had been much worn by time and weather. As I stood, BRETT jumped again into his seat and shook the reins. The horses started forward, and trap and all disappeared down one of the dark openings.

 

The Driver

I stood in silence where I was, for I did not know what to do. Of bell or knocker there was no sign. Through these frowning walls and dark window openings it was not likely that my voice could penetrate. The time I waited seemed endless, and I felt doubts and fears crowding upon me. What sort of place had I come to, and among what kind of people? What sort of grim adventure was it on which I had embarked? Was this a customary incident in the life of a solicitor's clerk sent out to explain the purchase of a London estate to a foreigner? 

"Welcome to my house! Enter freely. Go safely, and leave something of the happiness you bring!" The strength of the handshake was so much akin to that which I had noticed in BRETT, whose face I had not seen, that for a moment I doubted if it were not the same person to whom I was speaking. So to make sure, I said interrogatively, "Count CAT-ULA?"

Count Cat-ula

She bowed in a courtly way as she replied, "I am CAT-ULA, and I bid you welcome, MS. MARSHALL, to my house. Come in, the night air is chill, and you must need to eat and rest." As she was speaking, she put the lamp on a bracket on the wall, and stepping out, took my luggage. She had carried it in before I could forestall her. I protested, but she insisted. 

The Solictor's Clerk

I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt. I fear. I think strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul. God keep me, if only for the sake of those dear to me! 

Family Portrait