Bump in the Night

Author's Note: Happy spooky season, dear readers! This is my entry for the 2024 Halloween Story Contest. I dedicate it to all my fellow horror nerds out there and cordially invite you to try to find the various Dracula-related nuggets (other than the ones that are obvious/explicit) that I've sprinkled throughout. As always, all characters engaged in sexual activity are over the age of 18. To paraphrase Bram Stoker, welcome to my story - come freely, go safely, and leave something of the happiness you bring.

***

Bump in the Night

The light had fled, banished beyond farthest sight. An oppressive darkness hung like a shroud as she warily picked her way across the chamber. Mist swirled at her feet, cast to the side in whisps with each step she took. A lone wolf howled mournfully in the distance.

She didn't see me hiding in the shadows.

She didn't hear me as I crept up behind her.

She didn't feel me as my fangs drew nearer to her neck.

"Children of the night..." I whispered in her ear.

She whirled around and fixed me with a glare. "Are you serious, Jon? That's the line you're going to go with?" She scoffed in annoyance. "Turn on the lights, Gerda."

"On it, Professor," the girl's voice called from behind one of the heavy black curtains that separated the haunted house we'd constructed in the basement of the campus theater from the "backstage" area.

I blinked and squinted as the lights flickered back on. I'd been wandering around in the darkness for so long that it took my eyes a while to adjust.

Mina Stribling, head of the university's theater department, pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration. "Jon, I get that you want to quote Dracula. Believe me, I get it. But people are paying us to scare them."

"Is me sneaking up behind people and suddenly breathing on their necks not sufficiently scary?" I asked, popping out my costume fangs to give my mouth a break.

She raised one grey eyebrow. "Creepy and scary aren't the same thing. You need to sound more like a threat to life and limb and less like some pervert hitting on women in a bar."

I rolled my eyes. When I'd volunteered to help out with the theater department's annual Halloween fundraiser, I hadn't expected directorial micromanagement on par with Stanley Kubrick. Still, the proceeds would support the local humane society, which was a cause near and dear to my heart as an aspiring veterinarian, so I put up with Professor Stribling's quirks. Besides, I loved Halloween and all things horror-related, so when I was given the chance to dress up like a vampire and scare the shit out of my fellow college students every night for the last week of October, I jumped at it. I'd even based my costume and makeup on Count Dracula as portrayed by Christopher Lee in the Hammer Studios Dracula films, complete with streaks of temporary grey dye to give my dark hair a salt-and-pepper effect.

I actually thought the premise of our haunted house was pretty ingenious: Dracula had defeated Professor Van Helsing and the other vampire hunters and his castle and the surrounding village had become a veritable madhouse of undead bloodsuckers running amok, a chaos into which our guests would be venturing. I'd even convinced Professor Stribling to add the words "enter freely, and of your own free will" above the entrance in a nod to Bram Stoker's novel, which just so happened to be my all-time favorite book.

"We open in half an hour, people," Professor Stribling pointed out to the collection of fake ghouls working the attraction. "Let's look alive. Or, well... not alive, I guess."

Rolling my eyes, I made my way upstairs to the dressing room to check my makeup.

Bloodshot eyes? Check.

Deathly pallor? Check.

Absolutely stupid amounts of fake blood covering my hands and dripping from my mouth? Check and check.

I was good to go.

"No one's gonna get your Dracula quotes, you know," my buddy Arthur pointed out as he took a seat next to me at the dressing table and adjusted the bite wound prosthetic on his neck.

"Cool people will," I countered.

He snorted. "You mean horror nerds like you will. I'll bet most people won't even get that I'm supposed to be undead Van Helsing."

"Maybe you're not giving our audience enough credit," I suggested.

He gave me a look. "It's Halloween. Our 'audience' is gonna be a bunch of our drunk classmates coming by for a laugh on their way to and from costume parties."

I considered his point. "Touche. At least we're raising money for a good cause."

Arthur hummed his agreement. He'd adopted his cat from the humane society, so he shared my affinity for the organization.

"Places, everyone!" Professor Stribling's voice sounded from downstairs.

Giving myself a final once-over in the mirror, I headed back downstairs and took my place in the part of the attraction meant to be the banquet hall of Dracula's castle. The fog machine was pumping away, carefully hidden below the long dining table in the center of the room. Fake blood filled the goblets at each place setting, with more splashed around the room for good measure as several of my victims (read: co-workers) lay moaning on the ground. Electric candles (the university wouldn't let us use real ones) flickered away in elaborate candelabras. A soundtrack of wolf howls and other creepy nighttime sounds played softly in the background.

Satisfied that a sufficiently macabre tone had been set, I found a shadow in which to lurk as the first guests of the evening entered my lair.

Three freshman girls made their way around the table, emitting nervous whispers as they warily eyed the bloodied actors writhing on the floor around them.

"Beware!" one of them moaned, reaching for the girls. "He is coming! He is coming!"

Taking that as my cue, I leapt out from my hiding place with a loud hiss, baring my fangs and scaring the absolute shit out of my prey, who screamed and ran out of the room as fast as their legs could carry them. Jump scares may have been overused in horror films, but damn were they effective in haunted houses.

The next hour passed in much the same way. I'd vary my technique, sometimes popping out with a snarl and other times sneaking up behind unknowing patrons and whispering sinister intentions in their ears. Everyone reacted in their own unique way, and it was honestly the most amusing part of the job to witness their freakouts. Some shrieked, some bolted, some jumped and then laughed once the initial shock wore off. One guy even took a swing at me in what I assumed to be a knee-jerk reaction to perceived danger. He missed, thankfully.

The most memorable reaction of the night by far was the one emo-looking guy who responded to my line of "I want to suck your blood" with the immortal comeback "I want to suck Bill Skarsgård's dick, but you can't always get what you want." I had a hard time staying in character after that one.

Since I couldn't exactly wear a watch with my costume, I had no idea how late it was getting. We would wrap up for the night at ten. As best I could tell, it was around nine when she entered the room like the most radiant of sunbeams, brightening the gloom with her mere presence.

Lucy Marsh. The girl of my dreams.

I'd met Lucy during the first week of our freshman year. We were both biology majors, though she wanted to go into cardiology rather than veterinary medicine like me. We'd had several classes together during our two-and-a-bit years in college, but they'd all been large lectures and labs, so our direct interactions had been minimal. I wasn't sure she even knew I existed.

Why was I so fixated on her, then? Quite simply, it was impossible not to be.

First off, she was brilliant. She made the dean's list every semester. The questions she asked in class were smart and well-considered, and the answers she gave to the professors' questions equally so. Her cleverness also leant itself to a delightfully witty sense of humor.

Secondly, she was drop-dead gorgeous. She had a radiant smile that made her grey eyes sparkle and brought my entire world to a screeching halt whenever she flashed it in my presence. Her light brown hair was enticingly soft-looking, the curves of her body no less so. Her features were delicate and her expression always warm and open, occasionally tinged with just a hint of mischief.

What drew me to her most, though, was that she was absolutely fearless. She didn't take shit from anyone, and I'd never seen anything so much as rattle her. That fascinated me. During our first ever lecture together, back when we were wee baby freshmen, our professor had made a mistake. I couldn't recall what it had been exactly, something to do with the RH factor in blood, but Lucy had raised her hand and politely asked if he were sure what he'd said was correct before supplying the correct answer as an alternate possibility. I'd been impressed with how tactfully she'd handled the situation. Professor Holmwood, a notorious hardass, had stiffened and demanded to know just who this little pipsqueak freshman thought she was, pointing out that he had three doctorates while she was just a "silly young girl" with less than a week of a bachelor's degree program under her belt.

Most undergrads would have cowered in fear after receiving such a dressing-down from a tenured professor. Not Lucy Marsh. She had calmly, but firmly, stood her ground. If my memory served me right, her exact words had been "my age and gender have no bearing on objective facts, Professor Holmwood."

I'd been hooked ever since.

That of course begged the question of why I'd never made a move on her or even so much as properly introduced myself. Simply put, I was a coward. Sure, I devoured horror novels the way some people devoured potato chips and watched the likes of The Exorcist and Alien as a way to unwind, but actually talking to my crush? Now that was a terrifying prospect.

Within the walls of my "castle," however, I could be someone else. It was my literal job to say creepy things to Lucy rather than something I'd probably do accidentally while trying to be suave out in the real world. I decided to take advantage of that fact.

Lucy and the three friends she had with her began to make their way around the dining table. While her friends were exhibiting the sort of jumpiness I'd come to expect from the patrons of our haunted house, Lucy looked like she was having the time of her life. She gazed appreciatively at the décor and seemed to get a kick out of the other actors' over-dramatic moaning.

I doubted that anything I could do would actually scare her, but dammit if I wasn't going to try my best.

As her group passed the spot where I'd hidden, I crept silently along behind them until I was literally breathing down Lucy's neck.

"The blood is life... and it shall be mine!" I hissed in her ear.

I'd expected her to jump at the very least. Maybe even scream a little if I were lucky.

Instead, she just turned around calmly to face me. She studied me before what seemed like recognition set in and she raised an amused eyebrow.

"You and I both know that's not the original quote from the novel, Jonathan Cushing."

It took literally every ounce of acting talent that my amateur ass possessed to stay in character in that moment. My mind raced to process the two extraordinarily distracting pieces of information it had just received - first, that Lucy knew enough about my favorite novel to differentiate its actual text from its movie adaptations (the quote I'd used being from Coppola's version), and second, that she knew who I was.

Adapting on the fly, I bared my fangs at her. "You dare contradict me, mortal?"

She grinned mischievously. "Oh, I dare. What're you gonna do about it?"

"You have wandered into the jackal's lair," I growled, digging deep and trying to formulate sufficiently threatening phrases. "This will be a night you will never forget, mortal. I will suck you dry and you shall become my thrall."

Giving myself a mental pat on the back for my improvisation skills, I lunged menacingly at the group to punctuate my point.

Lucy's friends shrieked and ran out of the room, leaving her behind.

She just smiled brightly at me and cocked her head to the side. "That sure sounds like you're asking me out, Jon. If so, the answer's yes. I'd love to meet up with you when you get off work."

My heart skipped a beat.

Her smile turned devious and she winked at me. "I also think I'd very much enjoy you sucking me dry. I might even return the favor."

Before I could do anything other than stare slack-jawed at the woman in front of me, my blood all rapidly flowing southward, Arthur flung himself between us in what I assumed to be an attempt to startle her into moving along instead of flirting with the actors.

"Be not hypnotized by his honeyed words, madam! Look what I have become!" he wailed, gesturing to the fake bite wound on his neck. "Run for your life! Run before you succumb to the darkness!"

Lucy gave him an amused shake of her head. "Way to cock-block your co-worker, undead Van Helsing guy," she laughed before stepping around him and turning her attention back to me. "I'm having a Halloween party at my house tonight. You should come by in your costume - you make a very sexy Christopher Lee."

Outwardly, I hissed at her. Inwardly, I was over the moon that she knew what I'd been going for with my outfit and, more importantly, that she seemed into it.

She pulled a pen out of her purse and grabbed my hand. Giving it a once-over and apparently deciding there was too much fake blood on it for her purposes, she shoved up the sleeve of my costume and began to write on my arm.

"Here's my phone number. Text me when you're done with work for the night and I'll give you my address." Putting her pen away, she flashed me a smile that almost made me melt. "I'm Lucy, by the way, in case you didn't know."

Like I hadn't been saying that name over and over again in my mind for two years... admittedly sometimes with my last name following it.

With a flirtatious little wave, Lucy finally made her exit.

"Dude," Arthur whispered. "What the fuck was that about?"

I just shrugged, channeling all of my willpower into acting like a normal human instead of jumping up and down and shouting in triumph.

Lucy Marsh was flirting with me.

Lucy Marsh was flirting with me.

Repressing the sudden urge to do cartwheels around the room, I hid myself in the shadows once more to await the next group of patrons. Staying in character for the next hour was going to be a challenge.

***

The moment we closed down for the night, I practically bolted upstairs to the dressing room to grab my things. Shoving up my sleeve to read off Lucy's number, I added it to my contacts list and opened up a new text message. I had a brief staring contest with my phone while I tried to come up with something clever to say before throwing in the towel and keeping it simple:

Hey Lucy, this is Jon.

I gave myself a once-over in the mirror while I waited for a response and made a few touch-ups to my makeup. She didn't leave me hanging long.

Hi, Jon! Still up for coming to my party?

Like I'd ever turn her down for anything.

Definitely! Sorry for hissing at you when you invited me. I was just trying not to break character.

She sent me a crying-while-laughing emoji. You did an admirable job. I know I wasn't making it easy.

I snorted. She had no idea how true that statement was.

I stayed in my costume like you asked, I told her.

Good, she replied. As I said, you make a very sexy Christopher Lee. I think you'll like my costume as well. ;)

My mind immediately whirled with possibilities, most of them wildly inappropriate.

Looking forward to it, I answered, keeping those thoughts to myself.

She responded with a smiley face and her address, rounding off the conversation with a see you soon!

I forced myself to walk the six or so blocks to Lucy's house at a normal pace, wanting to avoid seeming overly eager. It was a large colonial that I assumed she shared with friends as many students who lived off campus did. Pumpkin-shaped lights were strung across the large porch and fake cobwebs adorned the bushes in the front yard. I could hear muted music coming from inside.

My heart began to hammer against my ribcage as I climbed the steps to the porch and rang the doorbell. Someone had cleverly replaced the usual chime with a cartoonish scream, and I chuckled to myself.

After a few moments, during which I wrang my hands nervously, the door swung open.

My jaw dropped.

Standing there like a vision straight out of my deepest fantasies was Lucy, dressed as the sexiest possible version of her namesake character from Hammer's Dracula. She had absolutely nailed the look, complete with a cross-shaped burn on her forehead, but her flowy light blue nightgown was far lower-cut than the high-necked affair from the film. Though this may have been to allow for fake blood and an incredibly impressive stake wound prosthetic over her left breast, it had the added benefit of displaying some positively mouth-watering cleavage.

"Hi, Jon!" she greeted me with a smile that showed off her costume fangs.

"Holy shit, you look amazing," I blurted out.

She giggled. "I thought you'd appreciate it. You're probably the only person here who gets the specific reference."

I was impressed. Lucy seemed to be as big of a horror nerd as I was. "Did you somehow pull this together during just the last hour?" I asked.

She shook her head. "No, I was always planning to wear this costume. It just worked out really nicely that you decided to base yours on the same film. Great minds think alike, huh?"

I nodded, giving her a lopsided smile. "Yeah, definitely."

There was a pause.

Lucy raised an eyebrow. "You gonna come in or are you gonna stand there on my porch all night?"

Fuck.

I mentally scrambled for a way to cover up my awkwardness and found a clever solution. "I'm Dracula, Lucy," I reminded her. "You have to invite me in or I can't cross the threshold."

She laughed and the melodious sound set my heart aflutter. "How silly of me! Please, come in."

Grinning, I followed her into the foyer of her house. To the left stood the darkened dining room, full of costumed twenty-somethings dancing the night away to a soundtrack of spooky-but-still-danceable songs like "Superstition" and "Disturbia." What I took to be the living room was on the right, featuring several inviting-looking couches upon which other guests chatted while sipping beers and cups of punch.

"You want a drink?" Lucy asked me.

"Sure," I replied, following her down the hall to the kitchen. A large bowl of blood red punch sat on the counter along with various kinds of snacks while Teen Wolf and Magnum, P.I. leaned against the cabinets flirting shamelessly with Wonder Woman.

Lucy handed me a cup of punch before pouring one for herself. "I'm so glad you were able to come, Jon. I know I was being pretty forward earlier when you were in character and I'm sorry if it freaked you out at all."

I shook my head. "Not at all. I actually really like that you're forward. I was just shocked you knew who I was."

"Of course I know who you are, Jon!" she laughed, her grey eyes twinkling merrily. "We've had classes together for two years now and you're a hard guy not to notice with all the smart things you say in class and how passionate you get about the things that matter to you. I've also seen you doing volunteer work at the humane society, which is really sweet."