This essay is a short fiction story of a trip through Rumania
We were on a short trip to Bucharest in Rumania and having passed Sighisuara and Dracula’s castle, we were caught in a storm. We passed through a thick woodland that was shrouded by the rain, with trees dripping like raincoats, when my companion saw the large white house through the mist.
“That big house over there; they may let rooms," Anne said. It was worth a try, so we drove up the twisting track. Weeds and brambles were growing everywhere and it looked deserted.The place was creepy.
“We don’t have much choice,” I said as I reluctantly opened the car door. I climbed up the concrete steps and knocked a couple of times on the big wooden door. A badly dressed woman in a long black skirt and with yellow uneven teeth appeared and looked at me suspiciously. Pale faced as if she had no blood left in her cheeks, she muttered some strange words at me.
“Do you let rooms?” I asked. She hesitated, then saying nothing to me she turned and called a man who appeared and who spoke some English. I repeated my question and he frowned but he nodded, and agreed to give us a room for one night.
This place had seen no guests for a long time. It was sparsely furnished and rather cold with patches of discoloured paper on the walls. In the circumstances, it was as good as we expected to find in a place like this. The room was large with a big bed and a chest of drawers and a cupboard. There was a porcelain pot full of water on the drawer top. We looked around and out of the window. The garden in the back looked neglected but then we were not going to pass our honeymoon here.
Anne took out her bag and went off to the bathroom at the end of the corridor, while I turned up the gas fire to get rid of the damp. It wasn’t long after, when I heard an unholy scream; a woman’s scream!
"Lord all mighty, it’s Anne!" I rushed out as fast as I could and opened the door to the bathroom, and Anne ran up and grabbed me. She clung on to me. The blood her drained from her face. I held her tight for a while.
"It’s alright sweetheart. You look as if you’ve seen a ghost. What happened?” She looked back just to make sure there was no one there.
“There was a man in here... He had a gruff voice, I heard a grunt then I looked in the mirror and I saw him; he’d come out and seen me.”
“What did he look like?”
“I didn’t stay to find out, I ran out as fast as my legs could carry me.”
“Strange! I didn’t see anyone come out.”
“No, no, he appeared out of nowhere and maybe he’s still in there.”
"What did he do?"
“He had this weird coarse voice as he bellowed a laugh.”
"Did he speak?"
"No, he was laughing!"
"You poor dear, you must have been terrified."
"Terrified? I wet myself. Couldn’t find my voice at first, like in a nightmare, then it came out in a scream."
“ Let’s get out of here; there’s still time to get to the nearest village.”
The front door was fortunately unlocked and I din’t think that they minded us leaving; they had their own activities to occupy them. It was still early evening and as we found out, the village was only a few kilometres down the road. As soon as we reached the centre, we saw the tavern. There was a sign. They had accommodation.
We went in, and were welcomed by a friendly barman. “What brings you to these parts?” he asked in good English. Relieved to be in a safe place, we told him our experience at the big house.
“You're not the first ones to have had an “experience” at that place. Rumour has it that the place is haunted. All nonsense of course, but people believe it. We’ve tried so hard to live down the stories of Dracula but now there’s a renaissance, some people are fascinated by the mysteries of the past.”
“There were some strange goings on there, but I don’t think that it was haunted. I got the feeling that we were not wanted" I said.
After getting us to fill in a registration form, we were introduced to a man who we were told was the local mayor.
“It’s time we put an end to this. It’s all very well for tourists to visit the sites and see the castles and torture chambers, but we don’t want to scare people off. The local people are very superstitious and they won’t go near the place because they think that it's full of demons,” the mayor said.
“Back in the old days, no one paid attention to nonsense about demons, but nowadays...” the inn keeper said.
“The village priest will be very interested in your story. He’s wanted to exorcise the house for some time,” the mayor said.
Next morning at breakfast, we saw a group of men gathered together, and the party included the priest and his deacon as well as the police chief and three of his men. The priest was in his element. He was the centre of attraction, all dressed up in his golden robes with all the vestments carried along by the deacon ready to drive out any evil spirits that may be floating about the building.
We all marched to the large house, and we were joined by more people on the way. The policeman knocked at the door and the same sinister woman appeared. This time, little was said as she was pushed out of the way by the group that walked into the large reception area. When the priest entered, he was greeted by a deep throated voice that bellowed. "Go away priest you are not wanted here." He ignored the "voice", and proceeded with the exorcism burning incense and sprinkling holy water over the floor and walls.
I had to admit that the priest was very courageous in ignoring the noises as he proceeded with his chants. The deacon raised the holy cross and the priest cried out.
“In the name of Jesus Christ I order you demons to leave this house.”
Suddenly a mighty racket of strange voices was heard coming from above, followed by steps and then silence. People cringed and closed their eyes in fear, including the hardened ex communist officials, but true to his mission, the priest declared the house free of evil spirits, and the dignitaries all sighed with relief. With congratulations being offeredall around, no one noticed the two policemen who entererd and and spoke with their chief. The police chief then went and spoke to the mayor.
“I have to tell you sir, that we caught two men running away from the house. The others managed to escape but they won’t get far on foot.”
“Well done, good work Captain” the mayor said, as he turned and looked at the priest smiling.
"We’ve suspected this for sometime. This place has been used as a clearing house for cross border smuggling," the police chief said.
"Yes. It all makes sense now, it looks as if our two young guests were allowed to stay and be scared off, with high tech gadgets to provide convincing evidence that the house was haunted," the mayor said.
