In the bushes, Ellen sat sweating. She wondered why she had ever stopped running. Nothing could be worse than this. The man must know she was hiding. Was he going to wait it out — until she couldn’t stand to hide any longer? Then Ellen thought of a chance. Others might walk along the path. She would jump out of the bushes then and walk with them out of the park.

  She looked over at the man on the bench again. He sat calmly looking out at the lake. Something caught her eye. There was a small shadow moving along the water’s edge. It stopped. Silhouetted against the sky, Ellen could see the head of a large rat. She started to get up off the ground. That was always her reaction to mice — to stand on a chair, to get up off the floor in any way possible. But now, she couldn’t get up. And she couldn’t let loose the scream choking in her throat.

  As in a bad nightmare, three more rats joined the one by the lake. Ellen could see their fat shadows and their ugly rodent heads in the moonlight. And she could hear the clatter of their claws on the cement path. She wanted to scream, she wanted to run. But the bigger shadow on the bench scared her more.

  He sat still on the bench, the rats not more than five feet away from him. He must see them, Ellen thought. What land of man is he?

  She switched her eyes back to the rats. They hypnotized her with loathing fear. She heard a rustle in the bushes, not more than two feet from her. She had to gag her mouth with her sweater to keep from screaming. What if a rat came up to her? What if it jumped on her with its sharp claws?

  Then, with horror, Ellen saw that the four rats by the lake’s edge were coming toward her. Their sharp rodent noses were pointing at her. Their long tails were switching back and forth.

  Ellen screamed. She saw the shadow on the bench stand up. It started to come at her toward the bushes. She struggled to her feet. As she took a step backwards, her foot fell into a deep hole. It was a rat’s nest. Dozens of baby rats squealed in panic and crawled out of the hole around her foot. They were everywhere, scuttling away in desperation. Ellen jerked her foot out of the hole. As she stepped back again, her foot landed on the soft body of a baby rat. It squealed in agony, and Ellen screamed and screamed again.

  Then Ellen saw the shadow of the man moving closer and closer to her. She struggled to get out of the bushes, although her knees were weak with fear. Finally, she pushed her way through the thick branches and stepped onto the path going back up the hill.

  The man had seen her. He came nearer. There, in the pale moonlight, Ellen saw his face. Her body was filled with revulsion. It was the face of a huge rat, its whiskers twitching.

  Ellen ran. Terror, mindless terror, carried her down the path out of the park. She did not hear footsteps following behind her. All she heard was the high, unnatural squeal of rats.

  Ellen ran on and on until she escaped finally, from the park. But the rat, she never really escaped him. He is still there…. in her mind.

  THE TRAIN THROUGH

  TRANSYLVANIA

  The train jerked to a halt in the foothills of Transylvania. Inside one of the small compartments, Stephanie Archer looked nervously out the window.

  “I wonder what’s the matter?” she asked. Her mother and brother, sitting across from her, both shrugged their shoulders.

  “I’m glad it’s still daylight,” Stephanie said, looking out at the dense, green forest around them.

  “Scared of vampires?” her brother asked.

  “Oh, sure,” Stephanie answered sarcastically.

  “Well, then, you won’t mind if I read to you from Dracula, will you? I thought it was fitting — us riding through Transylvania.”

  Mrs. Archer sighed, “Really, Robert.”

  Then, the slow grinding of the wheels against the track began again. Soon the train had picked up its normal speed.

  Stephanie settled back against the old velvet seat and relaxed. Robert pulled a battered copy of Bram Stoker’s Dracula from his knapsack. Mrs. Archer went on reading her novel. The three of them had the compartment, which could sit six, all to themselves.

  Robert began to read aloud from Dracula.

  “There lay the Count, but looking as if his youth had been half renewed, for the white hair and moustache were changed to dark iron-gray; the cheeks were fuller, and the white skin seemed ruby-red underneath; the mouth was redder than ever, for on the lips were gouts of fresh blood, which trickled from the corners of the mouth and ran over the chin and neck.”

  “Oh, stop it, Robert,” Stephanie interrupted.

  “I was just trying to set the mood for our journey,” Robert protested. “Here we are in the heart of vampire country. We might as well enjoy it.”

  “Robert, stop reading aloud if it bothers Stephanie,” Mrs. Archer insisted. “We’ll be meeting your father in Bucharest tomorrow, thank goodness. Then I’m turning both of you over to him.”

  Robert picked up Dracula again and started to read, silently. Stephanie gazed out the window. The train was climbing out of a valley into the mountains.

  “Listen to this!” Robert exclaimed and started to read aloud again:

  “It seemed as if the whole awful creature were simply gorged with blood. He lay like a filthy leech...”

  “Mother, make him stop it.”

  “I’ll stop, I’ll stop.” Robert said hastily. “I didn’t know you were so sensitive, Stephanie.”

  Just then, the train came to another halt. All three of them looked out to see where they were. A station sign read “Mehadia.”

  “Quite a few people are getting on…” Robert said, craning his head out the window.

  “I hope no one comes in here,” Stephanie said.

  But a minute later, they heard footsteps in the corridor, and the door to their compartment slid open. A short, well-dressed, elderly man stuck his head inside.

  “May I join you? I’m afraid the other compartments are full.”

  “Of course,” Mrs. Archer said. “Please come in.”

  The elderly man sat down by the door, beside Stephanie.

  “My name is Dr. Maurer. You are Americans, are you not?”

  “Yes, that’s right. I’m Mrs. Rita Archer. This is my daughter Stephanie and my son Robert.”

  The old man beamed a smile at everyone. “Very happy to meet you.”

  The train jerked forward and then began to pull out of the station.

  “Where do you….” Mrs. Archer began to say to the doctor. But she stopped as the compartment door slid open again.

  A tall, middle-aged man walked into the compartment. He didn’t say a word. Without hesitation, he walked to the window and sat down on the other side of Stephanie.

  Stephanie glanced at the new man sitting beside her. She saw his black hair, white skin… and red lips. They were red, those lips, ruby-red.

  Stephanie looked over to Robert. Robert met her gaze and raised his eyebrows. The second stranger’s presence invaded the entire compartment. No one seemed to know what to say.

  Stephanie moved over on the seat, closer to the old doctor. It had suddenly seemed to her that the dark stranger’s body was cold — unnaturally cold. She started to shiver and couldn’t stop.

  “Robert, could you get me a sweater?”

  “Ah…. sure, Steph.” Robert stood up to get a sweater from the overhead rack. As he did, the copy of Dracula fell from his lap onto the floor, at the stranger’s feet.

  Robert stooped to pick it up. But the stranger already had it in his bony hand. He gave it back to Robert. There was a smirk on his face and his hard, black eyes looked deep into Robert’s.

  Robert sat down again, forgetting about the sweater. Mrs. Archer handed over her sweater to Stephanie. Then she said to the doctor, “It’s always nice to have a doctor around.” The old doctor smiled kindly.

  Everyone settled back into an awkward silence. The strange man sat perfectly still beside Stephanie. As the light began to fade in the sky, his white face took on a greater contrast to his black hair and black suit. Stephanie cast quick glances at him as she pretended to stare intently out the window. She couldn’t get the words from Dracula out of her mind. This man was so strange… and they were in Transylvania.

  “Robert,” Mrs. Archer said, softly, “Could you switch on the light, please. It’s getting difficult to read.”

  As Robert reached up to flick on the light switch, the doctor reached over and touched his arm.

  “Please, Mrs. Archer, wait a few more minutes with the light, if you don’t mind. As a frequent traveler through these parts, I can recommend watching the countryside now. It is twilight, near sunset. The sky will be full of beautiful colors in the next half hour. You really shouldn’t miss it.”

  “Of course, Doctor,” Mrs. Archer agreed.

  Stephanie leaned her head against the seat back. If only she could enjoy the countryside, she thought. But with that man so close to her….

  The train took a sharp turn and everyone was thrown to the right. The stranger’s body pressed against Stephanie. She tried to move away, but her body was wedged between him and the doctor. The train straightened its course, but the man didn’t move away from Stephanie. She turned to him. He was looking deep into her eyes. Just as she felt herself about to scream, he moved away from her.

  The train was puffing to a slow stop at a small village called Orsova. Suddenly, unbelievably, the dark stranger got up and left the compartment — as quickly as he had entered it.

  They watched him as he stepped onto the station platform and walked toward a young woman who was waiting there. As the train drew away from the station, they could see the two kissing.

  Robert and Stephanie looked at each other and then started to laugh hysterically. Mrs. Archer smiled as she rearranged her things on the seat. The old doctor continued to smile at everyone.

  “You too are ridiculous,” Mrs. Archer said to Stephanie and Robert. “Stop giggling.” But then she laughed herself.

  “I think I’ll go and wash up now,” Mrs. Archer said. She stood up and turned around to reach for her bag on the overhead rack. After she got it down, she stopped to check her face in the mirror. In the reflection behind her own face, she saw Stephanie sitting alone on the opposite seat.

  “Why… where did the doctor…” she began to say. But when she did turn around, to her surprise, the doctor was still in his seat.

  How odd, Mrs. Archer thought as the train plunged into another dark mountain tunnel. She sat back down again.

  The shrill train whistle pierced through the air. The rattle of the wheels on the tracks echoed throughout the tunnel. No other sound could be heard in the pitch-blackness of the compartment.

  Three minutes later, the train shot back out into the velvet blue twilight.

  “Stephanie!” Mrs. Archer shrieked.

  Stephanie was slumped across the seat, her head thrown back. Blood dribbled from two small holes in her neck. An unnatural smile played on her lips.

  “Doctor,” she sighed.

  But the doctor was gone.

  And a full moon shone brilliantly in the Transylvanian sky.

  THE ATTIC DOOR

  She pushed open the creaking, cast-iron gate in the fence that surrounded the house. It banged shut behind her as she walked up to the front door. Thick clumps of lilacs hung over the doorway; the air was laden with their suffocating sweet odor.

  Rosalyn lifted the heavy brass knocker and then let it fall. A hollow thump echoed inside the house. A few seconds later, the door opened.

  “Rosalyn, it is you, isn’t it? You’re so grown up, I hardly recognize you.” Then she was smothered in the lilac-perfumed embrace of her aunt.

  “Hello, Aunt Harriet.”

  “Come inside, dear, out of this humidity. The house always stays cool inside.”

  Rosalyn followed her aunt into a large, dark hallway that was as cool as an underground cave.

  “Here you are, finally visiting me after sixteen years. How was your train ride?” But Aunt Harriet didn’t wait for an answer; she chattered on. “I’ve been after your father to let you come for years. Well, it isn’t any secret that your father didn’t like my husband, is it? But now that dear Arthur has been dead for four years…” Aunt Harriet paused and then sighed. “It has been four long years since Arthur killed himself.” Rosalyn stared down at her feet. She didn’t know what to say. Her mother had warned her that Aunt Harriet might be a little strange. She was right.

  “This is an enormous house, Aunt Harriet,” Rosalyn finally said.

  “I’ll take you on a tour once you’ve had time to unpack. Now you must want to see your bedroom.”

  “See your bedroom,” a strange voice croaked out.

  “Who was that?” Rosalyn asked uneasily. Aunt Harriet laughed her high, tittering laugh and walked over to the end of the hallway. She pulled off a green, velvet cover, revealing a large parrot in a cage.

  “That was Polly, wasn’t it, Polly?” Aunt Harriet made bird noises to the parrot.

  Rosalyn didn’t go over to the birdcage. She hated parrots. “Aunt Harriet, I think I’ll go to my room now. If you could show me where it is….”

  “Of course, Rosalyn…. I’ll be right back, Polly.”

  Aunt Harriet led the way up a curved flight of stairs leading to the second floor. She walked down to the room at the end of the hall.

  “Here is your room, Rosalyn. I hope you like it. It used to be my sitting room when I was first married.”

  Rosalyn peeked inside. The entire room was done in lilac. The bedspread was bright lilac; the wallpaper was a design of pale lilac flowers on white. Even the furniture had been painted lilac.

  “Oh, Aunt Harriet.” That was all Rosalyn could think of to say.

  “You get yourself settled in, Rosalyn dear. Then come down and we’ll have tea together.”

  Twenty minutes later, Rosalyn came down the curving staircase to join her aunt for tea. Aunt Harriet was waiting in a sun-lit room off the main hallway. Tea and cake were already sitting on a small table by the sofa.

  “Have some of my delicious cake, Rosalyn. It’s so nice for me to have company. Polly and I have to eat alone, usually, don’t we, Polly?”

  “Alone,” croaked Polly. Rosalyn saw that the window had set the parrot’s cage.

  Rosalyn ate some of the cake and sipped her tea. Her eyes slowly surveyed the room. The furnishings were very old-fashioned. The lamps had crystal beads hanging from the shades. Old velvet cloths edged with fringe were thrown over the chairs. Little statues and knickknacks and pictures were everywhere. One picture, in particular, caught Rosalyn’s eyes. “Is that my cousin Herman?” she asked.

  Aunt Harriet made a choking sound in her throat.

  “I’m sorry, Aunt Harriet; that was rude of me.” Rosalyn blushed. She knew that Aunt Harriet must feel awful about losing her son Herman when he was so young. And Uncle Arthur had killed himself just a month later. Rosalyn tried to make up for upsetting her aunt. “You know, Aunt Harriet, I always wished I had known Herman. We were born in the same year. I cried when I heard that he had died — even though I had never met him.”

  Aunt Harriet had regained her composure. “Yes dear, that is a picture of Herman. Now, let’s not talk about the past. I want to show you the house.”

  Rosalyn followed her aunt out of the room and into the dark hallway again.

  “First, I want to show you your Uncle Arthur’s study and laboratory. Arthur was a great scientist, you know. He was just ahead of his time. The people at the university were jealous of his superiority. That was the only reason he had to leave and carry on his experiments at home.”

  They had walked into a huge book-lined room. Rosalyn looked around it in awe. So this was where Uncle Arthur worked. She had always known he was a scientist. But her father refused to talk about his work. She knew there had been some sort of scandal and Uncle Arthur had been dismissed from his university post.

  “And through this door,” Aunt Harriet said as she walked on, “is his laboratory.”

  The next room was even more awesome. It was filled with labeled jars of chemicals, test tubes, and other scientific equipment.

  “Just what did Uncle Arthur study?” Rosalyn asked.

  “He was a biologist, a great biologist,” Aunt Harriet said in a reverent tone. “He studied human mutations.”

  “Oh,” Rosalyn said. She looked around the walls. There were pictures of apes and monkeys hanging beside photographs of human bodies.

  “You understand, don’t you, Rosalyn, that you mustn’t touch anything in these two rooms. They are a monument to my husband’s greatness. Some day science will come to understand his genius. These rooms must be preserved exactly as they are.”

  “Yes, Aunt Harriet,” Rosalyn said as she followed her aunt back through the study and into the hallway again.

  “The rest of the house you can explore on you own, Rosalyn,” Aunt Harriet said. “But I want to make one thing very clear to you,” Aunt Harriet’s voice hardened, “I never want you to go up into the attic. Do you understand that?”

  “Do you understand that?” the parrot mimicked from the next room.

  “I’m very serious, Rosalyn. Never open the door that leads to the attic. Or you’ll be sorry.”

  “You’ll be sorry,” Polly croaked out.

  Rosalyn felt a strange sensation come over her. “I understand, Aunt Harriet,” she promised.

  Rosalyn spent the next days wandering about the house, leafing through the old books she found, and sitting out in the garden at night with her aunt. Aunt Harriet asked a lot of questions about Rosalyn’s father and mother. But she changed the subject whenever Rosalyn asked more about her cousin Herman.

  The time passed pleasantly enough for Rosalyn, but after a few days she became restless. There was no one else to talk to but Aunt Harriet. Rosalyn was ready for something to break the tedium.

  The fourth day she was there, Aunt Harriet announced that she was going to a friend’s house for afternoon tea. Rosalyn could come along if she wanted.

  Rosalyn thought it over and decided she would probably be bored. She told her aunt she would stay home by herself, perhaps go out into the garden and read.

 

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