SNAP: The World Unfolds

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

When the clouds scudded by the full moon, enough light came into the forest to make out the tallest trees, but no light penetrated the thick underbrush and that was where the snuffling was coming from.  The wind pushed the clouds, whipped the tops of the trees and they cast a flittering play of light and shadow.  Roots poked up and hollows filled with slippery leaves made the ground treacherous.

There wasn’t a path, just some areas that were a little more open from the strangling brush, where the snuffling came from.  I tried to run but was grabbed at from all sides.  Brush and brambles tore at my clothes.  I slipped and slid over roots and leaves.  I reached a small clearing where the moon silvered the tall grasses.  The snuffling grew louder and now there were grunts.  As I moved into the clearing the howls began.

I realized that I was now in the open, I could now be seen as well as smelled and heard.  The hunters were closing in.  The brush at the edges of the clearing began to shake with the passage of something large and fast.  The snuffling and grunting almost paralyzed me. I threw my hands over my ears but the howls penetrated into my head.  Then suddenly a huge shadow blotted out the moon.  As I looked up, several more winged shadows swooped overhead, then dived down into the clearing.

The cacophony of howls, grunts, beating wings was deafening.

“”No, NO, NO,” I shouted, doing my best to make my legs obey the run signals from my brain.  I gasped for breath, flailing around with my arms, trying to chase off the unseen.  Panting, I grabbed a large stick and whipped it toward the sounds.

“Oof,” was the next sound.  As I caught my breath and the panic lessened, I opened my eyes.  The “oof” was from the guard, who I’d belted across the face with a bolster as he was trying to wake me.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I managed to get out.  “I was having a nightmare.”

The guard nodded at me.  “If you’re all right, I’ll go back out,” he said, his heavy Eastern European accent making him hard to understand.

“Thank you for waking me.”  The room was still dark but a lamp spilled a pool of pale yellow across my bed.  I’d switched the lamp off when I’d gone to sleep.  Apparently the guard demon had switched in on to wake me.

My heart was still doing time-and-a-half but at least I was getting oxygen in.  I leaned over, picked up the bolster I’d smacked the guard with and stuffed it behind my head.  I might be breathing OK, but I for sure didn’t want to go back to that forest.  If I tried to sleep now, I’d just be slammed back in to the nightmare.

The nightmare.  There was just too much stuff going on and I wasn’t assimilating it well.  The attacks from the Huszars, both in L.A. and here.  The stories of Vlad.  The strangeness of my surroundings.  The remoteness of the castle and the density of the forest.  The lack of towns and modern conveniences nearby.  Once you wandered beyond the Kandesky property, you were back to a world lit only by fire.  My modern senses were working overtime to fit all this together and they knitted a nightmare that was striving to kill me.

The vampires may have not needed to keep time, but I was still a product of the 21st century and knowing time helped me get centered.  Seeing it was only 6:30 in the morning and realizing I’d slept less than two hours made me profoundly tired.  I couldn’t go right back to sleep; every time I closed my eyes the clearing was there and I heard the snuffling.

I got up, went to the bathroom, took a couple of pain relievers and ransacked my bag for one of the books I’d brought; there were books in the room but they were local histories and guides to the Carpathians.  I’d had enough of those for tonight so I opened a light mystery.  When the book fell out of my hand, I reached up and switched the light off.