The Unholy Night

Chapter I

As he was about to leave the next day, an old woman he recognized as the landlord's wife came to his room and started hysterically pleading with him. "Herr, must you go?" she asked, near tears. "Do you know what day it is?"

"The fourth of May," Jonathan replied in a very straightforward manner. 

"Tomorrow is Saint George's Day!" the woman cried, wringing her hands in the air. "Tonight, at the stroke of midnight, all the evil things in the world will have full sway! Do you know where you are going?"

Jonathan attempted to comfort her, but this is the sort of thing he was really very bad at.  

She fell to her knees. "Do not go! Wait a day or two at the very least!" 

Jonathan could not help but note how very ridiculous this all seemed to him. "I must go," he told her. "But thank you."

She took a crucifix from around her neck and pressed it into his palm. "Then take this."

Jonathan, being Protestant, did not hold such things in very high regard as this woman might, but it seemed wrong to further upset the old lady, so he put it around his neck. 

"For your mother's sake," she told him. 

As he walked to the stagecoach, he heard whispers of unfamiliar words, and he took out his dictionary and did the best to translate them. 

Ordog.

Satan.

Pokol. 

Hell.

Stregoica. 

Witch.

Vrolak.

Vampire. 

Another might have considered these whispers ominous, but apparently not our brave hero. (Just kidding. He's not the hero. That's me.)

Many people also made the sign of the cross, and several also made a sign to ward against the evil eye, which Jonathan concluded by asking a fellow passenger about it. 

They all seemed sorrowful and sympathetic, which Jonathan found odd - he wasn't doing anything very dangerous. 

He was distracted from the whispers as soon as the coach started moving, and he was back to cataloging the landscape. His curiosity might not have been so easily abated if he had been able to speak the same language as his fellow passengers. 

They began travelling towards some tall mountains that were still capped with snow, even so late in the year. 

When they arrived at their destination, the carriage was not awaiting him. The driver checked his pocketwatch, and then informed all of the passengers, in terrible German, that, "The Herr is not expected at all. He will return tomorrow," when all of the sudden, a carriage pulled by four horses arrived, to the screams of his fellow passengers. 

"You are early tonight, my friend," said the man driving the carriage.

"The English Herr was in a hurry," replied the coach driver quietly.

"I suppose that is why you were going to take him to Bukovina?" asked the new man. "You can not deceive me, my friend. I know too much, and my horses are quick."

"'Denn die Todten reiten schnell,'" whispered one of the other passengers, quoting a ballad. Jonathan recognized the line. For the dead travel fast, from something by Burger.

The new driver smiled at this, and then hoisted Jonathan's luggage into the carriage. Jonathan entered the carriage, and then he saw the coach leave as quickly as they could, racing toward Bukovina. They clearly did not want to lurk around there much longer. 

The new man offered Jonathan some plum brandy and a cloak, and then they, too, were traveling through the night. 

Before long, Jonathan checked his watch. It was only a few minutes till midnight, and if the old woman's superstitious beliefs had been correct, soon all hell would break loose. He thought it was all a load of nonsense, but he noticed a feeling of suspense as his heart started to speed up. 

At exactly midnight, a dog began to howl in the distance, and its long, lonely song was joined by that of others, until the wailing seemed to surround the carriage. The horses were beginning to get anxious, when the baying of the dogs was broken by a sharper form of the same thing - wolves had joined the sinister choir. 

Jonathan was struck by a sudden, odd feeling that something wretched was going to happen, that he should jump from the carriage and run now to avoid whatever fate awaited him. Evidently, the horses had begun to feel similarly. 

The driver descended from the carriage to comfort the horses by petting them, and soon enough they were off again. 

Trees now surrounded them on all sides, giving Jonathan a rather claustrophobic feeling of being trapped. Snow began to fall in delicate, powdery flakes. The sound of the wolves became nearer and nearer. 

Suddenly, a blue flame appeared, taking Jonathan entirely by surprise. The driver disappeared into the darkness, and this is when Jonathan surely fell asleep, because the whole matter kept replaying in his head, over and over. 

In this dream, the flame was far too close to the road for comfort. The driver went right to it, and some peculiar, optical illusion took place. When the driver stood in front of the flame, the flame was still visible, although it was faint and didn't illuminate the area around it. It gave Jonathan the peculiar feeling of a bright blue eye looking out from the darkness. 

But soon they were travelling again, with the wolves still howling as if they were following, as if they were hunting the carriage. 

The wolves stopped howling not long after, but then the horses began to scream. It was a powerful shriek that Jonathan had previously not known horses could make. 

Jonathan looked out the window to find they were surrounded by wolves. They were shaggy, gray, terrifying creatures, with white teeth and eyes that looked nearly red. The silence was somehow more frightening than the noise, but then the wolves started to howl in a perfect unison, and it became all too clear that they were, indeed, hunting.

The horses were going mad now, rearing and jumping, while Jonathan sat inside the carriage, paralyzed with fear, unable to look away from this dreadful scene. 

The driver calmly stepped down from his post and held up a hand. He did not speak. It was an order, that was clear. But the wolves obeyed. They were gone. 

They traveled once again, and Jonathan fell asleep. He only woke when the silhouette of the castle pierced the sky, a dark, jagged form on the horizon. 

But me? I'm not a wolf. Not one of those wolves, anyway. 

Although considering what I've done, it might be a good term for me. 

I'm certainly no innocent, either.