unholy beast!”
This does nothing.
The shadow pauses at a large ornate mirror in the corner, then continues across the room, brushing every surface and object. When the wraith reaches the roses, it hesitates and shrinks back, carefully avoiding the blooms, before moving on to the chair and Bram’s Snider–Enfield rifle lying on the ground beside it. Bram watches in awe as the shadow’s molten blackness rounds the corner and continues along the wall—an impossibility, Bram knows, for the light of the moon can do nothing more than shine through the open window. Yet the creature stands there, a shadow amongst shadows, continuing to explore the chamber. Then he recalls the oil lamp and realizes the creature has somehow abandoned the concealing shadows of the moonlight and taken up its investigation by the light of the flickering oil lamp without so much as a pause between the two, a dance amidst the gloom. As it reaches the final corner, having come full circle, the shadow leaves the wall and oozes over the floor, expanding, until it comes upon the large oak door, where it then stops and falls still.
This isn’t right, Bram.
The voice startles him, for Bram thought he was alone, and with renewed vigor he scans every inch of the room, the cross held up high as he rotates slowly in place, his own reflection staring back at him from the many mirrors adorning the walls.
“Show yourself!” Bram commands.
At his feet, the shadow stirs, rising from the floor to the door, growing until it nearly touches the ceiling.
“This is sorcery, nothing more. I will not stand for it!”
The shadow spreads its massive arms until they embrace the walls on either side, then grow longer still as they stretch around bends, encircling the room.
If you let me go, you won’t have to die.
It is then Bram realizes the words came to him not from the large shadow before him or the creature trapped behind the door, nor from anywhere within the chamber; instead, the words echo within his mind as if his own thoughts had found voice.
The voice is neither male nor female but something in between, a strange mixture of high and low tones, sounding more like many voices than one in particular.
The hands of the shadow return to the door and trace its edges, translucent black-clawed fingers slithering over the frame and thick metal locks with the fluidity of molasses. When they reach the roses at the bottom, though, they carefully go around, rather than passing over them; either afraid or unable to touch them, like the roses in the basket.
Bram crosses the room, snatches another rose from the basket, and thrusts it out at the black specter. The shadow melts to a point of light as Bram finds the wood of the door with the rose clenched in his fist. When he pulls back, the point of light disappears, swallowed by the shadow.
“I am not afraid of you!” Bram says in a voice that doesn’t sound as strong as he hoped it would.
With that comes a laugh, a laugh of ungodly volume, a laugh composed of the screams of a thousand tortured children, and he steps back, nearly tripping over the chair.
I will gut you from groin to gullet and dance in your ruins as the blood bubbles from your lips if you do not open this door!
The shadow’s hands again begin to spread over the walls, wrapping around the entire room, encircling him. The pointed nails of its talons lead the way as the shadow spreads over the room, creeping over every surface, mirrors and crosses alike, until it fills nearly every inch of space.
Bram runs to the window and slams the shutter. Then he goes to the oil lamp and blows out the flame, plunging the room into total blackness, a room so dark no shadow could live.
THE JOURNAL of BRAM STOKER
October 1854—Matilda and I left my room and descended the stairs with as much stealth as we could muster, pausing only at Nanna Ellen’s room to open the door and ensure she was, in fact, gone. We found her window to be open wide and the room empty, save