UNIVERSAL STUDIOS DRACULA take IX

While the Nurse and the couple converse, Professor Lumpkin concerned for MJ started climbing the bottom segment of the stairwell in the parlor. Hearing steps, he turned to find Doctor Jarvis coming up and meeting him on the stairs. Neither man knowing what to say.

“Jarvis, that which I feared from the beginning has happened,” the elder man informed the father.

“What?” inquired Edwin, fearing it had to do with his daughter.

“Dracula boasts that he has fused his blood with that of Mina Jane,” continued Willie, “In life, she will now become the foul thing of the night that he is.”

“But Lumpkin—” started the balding Doctor but the Professor cut him off.

“No, no, come, Jarvis, come,” hurried Willie as he ushered Edwin up the stairs, “There’s not a moment to be lost.”

******************

Back on the bedroom terrace, the young couple sit quietly on the loveseat. Neither has any idea on just what to say until the sight of the change in weather.

“Oh, but I love the fog!” exclaimed MJ as she watched fog roll in, “I love nights in the fog!”

“But only yesterday you said you were afraid of the night,” Jason reminded her, confused by what changed her mind.

“But darling, I could never have said something so silly,” she denied, “I couldn’t!”

The beauty let out an amused chuckle. The young woman felt so giddy, but the reason was lost on her. There was something about the night that made her feel...restless.

“I love the night,” Mina Jane claimed as she looked around and sighed, “Why it’s the only time I feel really alive.”

“There’s that bat again!” the blonde man complained as he jumped up and started swinging at a large, black bat that just flew over them.

Hoping to drive the mammal away the man continued to swing at it but to no avail. The bat began letting out several screeches. Almost as if it was trying to communicate.

“Yes?” MJ acknowledged, she does not understand why but it was speaking to her, and she understood.

“Look out,” warned Jason as he continued to swing, “It’ll get in your hair.”

“Yes?” the red-haired beauty acknowledged again after it released another screech.

“My, that’s a big bat!” observed Mr. Harker as he watched it fly off.

“I will,” agreed Mina Jane after the bat's final screech was made.

Her fiancé, Jason, dusted his hands, then turned his attention back to her.

“You will what?” he asked confused.

“Why, I didn’t say anything,” the beauty denied with a laugh.

“Yes, you did,” Jason reaffirmed, “You said, ‘I will’.”

“Oh, no, I didn’t,” she continued in her denial, “Jason, come, sit down.”

Confused, Mr. Harker did as she asked. Just then, Edwin and Willie walked into the room and to find the bed had obviously not been slept in.

“There must be some way…,” Doctor Jarvis pushes, “…some way to save her.”

Professor Lumpkin seeing the couple, then turned to the young woman’s father, "There is only 1 w—.”

Willie started but he was stopped when he heard MJ’s voice out on the terrace, “Jason, that funny little old Professor.”

Funny is right, some of the things that geezer said sounded ridiculous. But he could not take the chance if Dracula wanted her, she was his.

“He has a crucifix,” MJ stated as she looked directly at her lover’s face with a serious expression, “I want you to get it away from him and hide it.”

“But why, dear?” asked the blonde man.

“Oh, he’ll be wanting to protect me again,” replied the young woman with a flustered continence, “from the night or Count Dracula or whatever it is.”

“Well, I don’t know,” Mr. Harker countered, he may not agree with the old man but like hell he would let another man take her, “He may be right, MJ.”

The 2 men look on in anticipation and concern of the couple on the terrace. Mina Jane’s brow furrows a bit in annoyance, how dare he deny her.

“Your eyes!” Jason observed, he sees the beauty’s eyes take on a hungry gleam, “They look at me so strangely.”

MJ does not know why but she feels the urges again, the urge to bite his neck and so she started to lean in toward him and—

“Mina Jane!” the blonde’s called concerningly as she started to latch on to him, “MJ, you’re—”

"No, Mina Jane, no!" cried her father as Professor Lumpkin then rushed and whipped out his crucifix, then shoved it into the young woman’s face.

The moment it was in her face, she screamed and reeled back, almost in fear. In that moment MJ felt her urges disappear…at least for the moment. Terrified at what she was about to do, the beauty turned and buried her face in the crook of her left arm.

“GIMMIE THAT!” Mr. Harker demanded as he tried to pry it from Professor Lumpkin’s fingers, “WHAT’S THE IDEA?”

After the younger man finally wrests the cross from the shorter man, he glares at him. He does not know why but for whatever reason, he was not going to let this thing near MJ again.

“Are you crazy?” Jason asked, accusingly, “What are you trying to do…frighten her to ****?”

“No, I was trying to save her,” explained the Professor.

“Save her?” the younger man asked annoyed, almost by the absurdity, “That’s a fine way.”

Scared and horrified by her actions, the young woman sobbed into her arms. Mr. Harker concerned knelt down and embraced crying red head then asked, “Are you all right, darling?”

The cross forgotten in his left hand as he tries to hold her. Mine Jane slowly turned to him with a worried look on her face.

“Oh, Jason, darling,” she warned her beloved as she clasped his hand that held the crucifix, “You MUST go away from m—.”

It’s all she has time to say before the sight of the cross in his hand causes her to fill with revulsion and fear, “Jason, the cross!”

She pulled her hand away with fear etched on her beautiful face, then she turned to continued sobbing into her arms. Jason then looked down at the cross in his left hand with confusion before he nodded, as he had come to understand where the fear was coming from.

"Put it away,” MJ demanded, “After what’s happened, I can’t bear to look at it.”

Mr. Harker quickly slipped the crucifix into his blue suit jacket’s left pocked before he put his hand back on to her own.

“What’s happened?” queried the blonde man out of concern for his woman.

“I can’t tell you, I can’t,” sobbed the young woman as tears flowed from her green eyes.

“Oh, you must; you must tell me,” Jason urged her and gently squeezed her upper arms then further demanded, “I have a right to know.”

“Oh, Jason,” she wept, then she turned herself to him, “You got to believe everything he says.”

Her fear caused Mina Jane to weep a little more before calming herself down and while holding back tears admitted, “It’s all the truth; Dracula, he…”

“DRACULA?!?” snarled Mr. Harker angrily, before he bent down, hugged his woman as she sobbed, “Oh, wh-what’s he done to you, MJ?”

The blonde man felt rage burning in him, how DARE he hurt his woman, “Tell me.”

“He came to me,” MJ explained as her tears came back, she then continued in between sobs, “He opened a vein in his arm, and he made me drink.”

A gun shot ring out and the young woman immediately brought her left hand to her neck. Professor Lumpkin started to investigate by looking out over the terrace wall. He finds the brown-skinned orderly, Randy and a portly maid. He sees Randy carrying a gun.

“What is it?” the old man questioned the orderly, “Who is it, Randy?”

“It’s that big grey bat again, Sir,” Randy replied with a sharp nod of his head, while the maid held her head in her hands in fear of the flying creature.

“It’s of no use wasting your bullets, Randy,” warned the Professor, “They cannot harm that bat.”

The duo below, look at 1 another and then up toward the elderly, mustached man. Randy did not know what to say.

“No, Sir,” Randy simply replied with 3 turns to his head.

The 2 look at each other again as Willie left them. Randy could only sigh next to his co-worker.

“He’s crazy,” said the nurse.

"They're all crazy, " commented Randy with a shake of his head, then he glanced at the maid suspiciously.

“They’re all crazy, except you and me,” Randy concluded, as he emphasized the ‘you’ with a tap to her butt with the rifle’s stock, “Sometimes ah have me doubts about you.”

She nodded her head, “Yes.”

The dark-skinned young man looked to his companion then slowly backed away as he faded into the darkness, and everything faded to oblivion.

******************

Mina Jane opened her eyes to feel herself in bed and then she reached up and pulled off the wreath of the wretched herb from around her head. Dracula smiled as the ending of the dream was coming, and so he peered into the bedroom at the beauty lying within. MJ meanwhile watched Nurse Briggs walk slowly to the double doors to the terrace and remove the wolfbane.

******************

While his daughter slept, Doctor Jarvis used this time to do some work and was currently examining papers on a clipboard with 1 of his nurses near to him. Edwin heard a noise and turned around to see Nurse Briggs putting something in a drawer. He watched her turn and leave, assuming she was returning to Mina Jane’s room. And so, thinking nothing of it he turned his attention back to the papers.

******************

The young woman heard the door close and witness the return of Nurse Briggs as she walked back to the double doors and opened them. Vlad’s lips curled as he entered the room and bent over the red-haired beauty and presses his lips to her slender throat. MJ released a gentle moan at his kiss and yet she felt a tinge of fear at the presence of the Count.

******************

Tonight, Professor Lumpkin and Jason Harker carrying a lantern at the sanitarium gate. As they looked about, they spotted a figure in the dark sneaking toward Carfax Abbey. The figure they recognize as the mad woman, Betty Renfield. Mr. Harker turned to the old man, hoping he could answer him.

“That’s that Renfield woman,” Jason pointed out, “What’s she doing at the Abbey?”

Willie watches the younger man turn his attention back toward the abbey again. He knew it was time to find the Count’s crypt. The wiry, old man then touched his younger companion's back to alert him he was going around him.

“Come, Mr. Harker,” said the old Professor as he took Jason by the arm and guided him forward.