He stood in the shadows just beyond the reach of the monitors pale, yet insistent glow, and frowned. There were doing it again. For the umpteenth time since the 1950s, they were making another movie about him. He wanted to feel honored, or at least pleased that they were continuing to think about him. But all he felt was… disappointed.
“I hope they can at least get it right this time.” The timber of his voice echoed in the empty stone room. This chamber in the bowels of his home was tucked away, secret. Even from his beloved Mina. She would not enter this place and intrude upon his brooding.
Neither the rats scurrying along the ground outside, nor the soft mournful howls of the Carpathian Great Wolves registered as he contemplated this “movie preview” that had been playing in a seamless loop for the last few hours. The chirp and the chitter of early morning bugs, he had tuned those out as well.
“It was nearly the end of the 1890’s,” The narrators voice was deep yet failed to capture anything akin to mysterious or haunting or even potentially horrific. It sounded like the voice actor was either high and trying to sound alluring or he was trying to talk his partner into getting him off. Either way, it was terrible.
He wanted to shut it off. Unplug the blasted laptop. He really wanted to pick it up, vaporate onto the roof of the East tower and fling the stupid contraption into the Argeș River. He fumed, pacing the small and secret room. “If you break it, you’ll have to ask Mina to set another one up for you, stupid fool. Let it alone.” He squinted at it from the corner of his vision, daring it to leap across the worn tabletop and attack him. Then it wouldn’t be his fault.
Rage broke free in the form of a violent howl that made even his own throat hoarse when it had ceased.
But it calmed him enough. He reached out with his mind and slowly closed the lid to the lap-top, silencing the failure of a human being that would be on point to seduce a new generation of viewers to him.
He left the small and secret chamber and felt the door close with a gentile click before he locked the silver locking mechanism from within. A second door clicked closed. This one was up above. It was the front door to his home, and someone had just entered.
Julie M Anderson 