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August 10, Journal of Mina Murray. \

"Mourning for Strangers"

August 10, 

In the days following the storm, the townspeople found time to mourn strangers. I watched a gathering of boats in the harbor and people standing knee-deep in the surf wearing their cleanest clothes. All decided to wear masks. It didn’t matter what kind of mask it was. Some wore old surgical masks, others had intricate wooden masks, and others wore rotten Halloween masks from before the war. We had a lovely view and saw the procession nearly all the way. The only body that was recovered was that of the captain. The poor fellow was laid to rest quite near our seat, so that we stood on it when the time came and saw everything.

Poor Lucy seemed very upset. She was restless and uneasy all the time, and I couldn't help but think that her dreaming at night is taking a toll on her. She is quite odd in one thing: she will not admit to me that there is any cause for restlessness; or if there be, she does not understand it herself. There is an additional cause in that poor old Mr. Swales was found dead this morning on our seat, his neck being broken. He had, as the doctor said, fallen back in the seat in some sort of fright, for there was a look of fear and horror on his face that the men said made them shudder. Poor dear old man! Perhaps he had seen Death with his dying eyes! Lucy is so sweet and sensitive that she feels influences more acutely than other people do.  Just now she was quite upset by a little thing which I did not much heed, though I am myself very fond of animals. One of the men who came up here often to look for the boats was followed by his dog. The dog is always with him. They are both quiet people, and I never saw the man angry, nor heard the dog bark. During the service, the dog would not come to its master, who was on the seat with us, but kept a few yards off, barking and howling. Its master spoke to it gently, and then harshly, and then angrily, but it would neither come nor cease to make a noise. It was in a sort of fury, with its eyes savage, and all its hairs bristling out like a cat’s tail when puss is on the warpath. Finally, the man, too, got angry, jumped down and kicked the mongrel, and then took it by the scruff of the neck and half-dragged and half-threw it on the tombstone on which the seat is fixed. The moment it touched the stone, the poor thing became quiet and fell into a tremble. It did not try to get away, but crouched down, quivering and cowering, and was in such a pitiable state of terror that I tried, though without effect, to comfort it. Lucy was full of pity, too, but she did not attempt to touch the dog; but looked at it in an agonized sort of way. I greatly fear that she is of too super-sensitive a nature to go through the world without trouble. She will be dreaming of this tonight, I am sure. The whole agglomeration of things—the ship steered into port by a dead man; his attitude, tied to the wheel with a crucifix and beads; the touching funeral; the dog, now furious and now in terror—will all afford material for her dreams.

I think it will be best for her to go to bed tired out physically, so I shall take her for a long walk by the cliffs over Butterfly Beach and back. She ought not to have much inclination for sleepwalking, then.

I wonder about the beach's name. I wonder if such animals still exist somewhere in the world.

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I don't think you're ready for the Jester chapter.

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The Daily Graph

Beachstruck!

August 8, 2287

By Kate Reed

One of the greatest sudden storms on record struck the beach town of St. Babs not four days ago, and work is still underway to get repair crews out to the relatively remote area. The coast guard on duty and the local fishermen had made repeated reports of a potential storm, but what transpired was double what was expected.  This was then coupled with the crashing of an airship that has been identified as The Demeter. The body of the ship was discovered miles off the coastline after the tempest broke, leaving this hulking form half-submerged in the water with only one crew member accounted for. The captain of the vessel was found tied to the steering wheel, and presently, the fate of his crewmen is unknown.  A clash between St.Babs residents and the owners of the cargo aboard the airship is underway, with the owners believing that their property ought to be returned to them and the residents claiming salvage rights over the airship.  NCR officials are seeking a mutually agreeable compromise over the two. They are mostly trying to warn residents against recent sightings of feral mongrels prowling the beach town in the wake of the storm’s destruction.

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August 6, Journal of Mina Murray

Still no news about Jonathan. My dread only grows with each passing day and I have little to abate it, save for my Lucy. Kate Reed made an appearance coming down to the coast via train and her very being has gotten Lucy to be as excitable as ever, despite present weather conditions. The fishermen and townsfolk say that we’re due for a storm, and the clouds do not disagree with them, hanging heavy in the sky and threateningly grey. Everything is grey except the green grass, which seems to shine like an emerald amongst everything. 

“Dark figures are gathering on the beach,” said Kate from the window of our motel room. “Men like trees walking.” 

She was referring to the fishermen marching up the sand and their boats making it across the horizon for home. Mr. Swales approached us, making a beeline for me.

I had been quite touched by the sudden change in the old man when he sat down beside me and said in a gentle way, “I want to say something to you, miss. I behaved like a fretful old scavver.”

I walked out and took his necrotic hand in mine, “I’m afraid, my dear that I have shocked you by saying all these wicked things about the dead for the past few weeks, but I didn’t mean them…I want you to remember that when I’m gone. I tend to forget, being nearly as old as the wastes that it’s not always the wise who live forever. I’ve only lived as long as this out of sheer luck, which is why I guess I find it so easy to make light of the dead…but I’m scared. I’m terrified that one day I’ll look up and see the Angel of Death with it’s trumpet blowing for me.”

He looked up at me and smiled, patting my hand, “Don’t be getting all dreary on me, girl.” 

He could see that I was crying. “If that mangy bitch should come to me this night, I’d not refuse to answer its call. For life is, after all, only waiting for something else than what we’re doing. And death is all we can depend on. I’m content for it now…”

He turned his head and I could see what had caught his attention, he drew his hand up and pointed at the horizon. Thunder clapped and lightning danced in the grey clouds and we could see the silhouette of an airship.

Alarms sounded because an airship could mean only a few things. It meant that those Brotherhood bastards were skulking near the coast was what sat at the front of my mind. 

He hobbled off as fast as he could manage with his brittle feet. Kate tore out of the hotel and started down for the beach where a coastguard was trying to usher people to their homes as he glanced at the shape using a telescope.

I followed after Katie and missed the first part of her question to the military man, but I could hear his response.

“I can’t make it out…But she’s not BOS, she’s not big enough. She’s knocking about weirdly. She’s unmoored. I will keep you posted, Miss Reed.”

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Log of the Demeter August 2-3

August 2st, midnight, no sign of man on watch. Compass continues to spin in circles and the wind has picked up, blowing us around the fog. Made sick in a bucket. 

3 August .—At midnight I went to relieve the man at the wheel, and when I got to it found no one there. The wind was steady, and as we ran before it there was no yawing. I dared not leave it, so I shouted for the mate. After a few seconds, he rushed up on deck in his flannels. He looked wild-eyed and haggard, and I greatly fear his reason has given way. He came close to me and whispered hoarsely, with his mouth to my ear, as though fearing the very air might hear:

 “ It is here; I know it, now. On the watch last night I saw It, like a man, tall and thin, and ghastly pale. It was in the bows, and looking out. I crept behind It, and gave It my knife; but the knife went through It, empty as the air.” 

And as he spoke he took his knife and drove it savagely into space. Then he went on: 

“But It is here, and I’ll find It. It is in the hold, perhaps in one of those boxes. I’ll unscrew them one by one and see. You work the helm.” 

And, with a warning look and his finger on his lip, he went below. There was springing up a choppy wind, and I could not leave the helm. I saw him come out on deck again with a tool chest and a lantern, and go down the forward hatchway. He is mad, stark, raving mad, and it’s no use my trying to stop him. He can’t hurt those big boxes: they are invoiced as “clay,” and to pull them about is as harmless a thing as he can do. So here I stay, and mind the helm, and write these notes. I can only trust in God and wait till the fog clears then, if I can’t steer to any harbor with the wind that terrible. 

He tore screaming from below deck and leaped flailing off the edge of the ship…I am alone now, and I don’t know how to find a safe place to land.

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You know that scene at the beginning or Coraline, where the unseen hands fill the doll with sand?

Mina and Quincy are gonna do that to Count Dracula.

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Mina's beach holiday continues, but unfortunately, life isn't a beach. Life's a stone cold bitch.

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August 1, Journal of Mina Murray

 August 1st. 

I came up here an hour ago with Lucy, and we had the most interesting talk with my old friend and the two others who always come and join him. He is the Oracle of them, and I think he must have been in a rather tyrannical fashion most of the time. He will not admit anything and down-faces everybody. If he can't out-argue them, he bullies them and takes their silence for agreement with his views.

Someone had propped up an old radio on a gravestone, and I could vaguely hear someone strumming along the lyrics, "Play It Again, my Johnny, maybe you're cold, my Johnny.”

Lucy was looking gorgeous that day,  she was dressed in a white collared shirt and these tight black slacks like an old businessman, but she made it look ever so dashing. I noticed that the old men did not waste any time coming up and sitting near her. When we sat down, she is so sweet with old people, even ghouls. I think they all fell in love with her on the spot, even my old man should have come and did not contradict her, but instead gave me a double share. I got him on the subject of the Legends, and he went off on a sort of sermon I must try to remember to put down:

“It's all a bunch of fool talk, lock, stock, and three full smokin’ barrels; That's all it is and now else, These girls will be wafting and talking about ghosts and boggles and all them ancient monsters, as if there aren't enough real ones. God damn, mirelurks are monsters. Then there are these tombstones. A pack of lies carved in stone is what they are. As if judgment day didn’t come and go, and they’re still here.”

I could see from the old fellow's self-satisfied air and of course his expression and the way he looked around for the approval of his even older cronies, that he was showing off, so I put in a word to keep him going.

“Oh Mr. Swales, you can't be sure serious. Surely these two sounds are not all lies.”

“There you go with more foolishness, girl. There may be a few poor fools here who aren't liars in death. There might be a rare few there who are as good as they say. Take this for example,” he said before leaning down to read what was on a tombstone.

“Edward Spencelagh, master mariner, murdered by pirates off the coast of Olimpic. April 2188 at 30. Now, how do you suppose anyone can account for that? Spencelagh dying so far north? Then there’s the matter of god. Should a proper judgment day turn and face us, what’s the good lord to do when he casts his eyes here and finds not a body?”

“Perhaps someone brought him home. I believe you're starting on a flawed assumption. The poor people here need a body to be here to memorialize him. That’s all the point of public memory, isn’t it?” chimed in Lucy.

“That's not what tombstones are for,” said Swales. 

“It's as Lucy said, it's to please relatives and the mourning,” I said.

“To please the relatives!” he shouted with intense scorn. “How will it pleasure the relatives to know that lies are written over them, and that everybody in the place knows that they are lies?”

He pointed to a stone at our feet, which had been laid down as a slab on which the seat rested close to the edge.

“Read the lies on that one,” he said. The letters were upside down from where Lucy and I sat, but gradually we reoriented ourselves to read them.

“Sacred to the memory of George Cannon, who died in the hope of Glorious Resurrection on July 29th, 2173,” I read. “This tomb was erected by his sorrowing mother to her beloved Son. ‘ He was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.’ Really, Mr. Swales, I don’t see what you’re hoping to accomplish here.” 

“You don’t see it and that’s what’s damned funny about it. I was there when this all happened. The mother was a hellcat and hated the boy something fierce. That bit about the glorious resurrection was a pack of lies he dreamed up while in a chem-induced haze before he shot himself.” 

He punctuated that with his horrible howl of laughter. 

“Oh son of a bitch,” said Lucy. “Why’d you go and tell us that? This was my favorite seat, and now I’m worried that I’m sitting on the grave of a suicide victim!” 

“Not for nothing, miss, but I don’t think old Georgie would have minded a pretty girl sitting on his lap even in death,” he cackled before hobbling off again. 

Lucy and I sat for a while, it was all so beautiful before us that we took hands as we sat, and she told me over and over about art and everything around her other lovers. I must admit it made me a little heart sick. I haven't heard from Jonathan in over a month.

Later. I came up here alone, for I am very sad. There was no letter for me. I hope there is nothing the matter with Jonathan, the clock has just struck nine. I can see lights scattered all over the town below, in neat rows. Sometimes, it almost seems like the lights sing to me. In a field, I can hear bighorners and brahmins bleating and mooing all the livelong day and slepnir hooves on the paved roads below. There’s a band playing somewhere below on the boardwalk. Again playing that Johnny Guitar. I wonder if Jonathan is thinking of me wherever he is. Play it again…my Johnny.

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Log of the Demeter, August 1st

August 1st, fog surrounds us, and we’re unable to press on. The compass is spinning and going weird. I cannot find the land. For all we know, we’re floating over the ocean, too far away from the shore to see anything.

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Log of the Demeter, July 30th

July 30th, we’re nearing St. Babs, and the weather is fine. Retired and worn out. Slept soundly, woken by my first mate telling me that two men were missing. Only self, mate, and two hands left to work the ship.

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Log of the Demeter, July 29th

July 29th, another man is missing.

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Log of the Demeter July 28

July 28th, four days in hell. We’re trapped in some kind of maelstrom, and the wind is a tempest. No sleep for anyone. Men are all worn out. Hardly know how to set a watch, since no one is fit to go on. Second mate volunteered to steer and watch, and let men snatch a few hours of sleep. Wind abating. 

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Log of the Demeter, July 24

July 24th, there seems to be some doom over this ship. Already a hand short, and entering on the San Pablo Bay with wild weather ahead, and yet last night another man lost—disappeared. Like the first, he came off his watch and was not seen again. Men all in a panic of fear; sent a round robin, asking to have a double watch, as they fear to be alone. Mate angry. Fear there will be some trouble, as either he or the men will do some violence.

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using his evil old man powers on the weather.

The thing is that this weather is most likely caused by Dracula himself, it's one of his powers to create a storm at night

I KNOW FOR A FACT Dracula was smirking deviously in his coffin while the storms raged on. He was rubbing his grubby little claws thinking “you know I had to do it to em” like the white guy he is

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My comic has been out for months now so I can finally post one of my favourite pages 🫣🪦🥀

Dracula's Guest is a prequel to Dracula based on Stoker's excised material, you can read it here:

ComicFury ♥ Webtoon ♥ Tapas

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Spoilers for Fallout Dracula:

I don't do a sex scene with the characters.

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Mina Murray

S - 2 + 1

P - 6 + 1

E - 1 + 1

C - 6 + 1

I - 7 + 1

A - 2 + 1

L - 4 + 1

Traits: Good Natured, Gifted

Tagged Skills: Lockpick, Barter, Speech