Isobel Orlok
09/29/16
My Sweet Stephanie,
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I have found it! I have discovered where Isobel Orlok has been hiding! She has made herself a comfortable nest in the ruins of the Selma Plantation, not far from Natchez, Mississippi. I have lined the windows of my hotel room with garlic, and I have affixed a crucifix on every window, and on every wall. I have also constructed an elaborate set of fatal traps that will deter any thing, man or otherwise, from entering my room and disrupting my slumber. I must rest, for tomorrow morning, I shall confront Isobel in the daylight! Yes! She is clever...but not more clever than a Van Helsing!
Oh! And do you remember when I told you that I would tell you the stories of my father in his search for this monster? Yeah, I was thinking about it. He didn’t really have any good stories. He tracked her down, but before he could confront her he was abducted by werewolves, taken before the vamprye, and thrown out the window into the Elbe River. You know. That old chestnut.
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My darling! Soon we will be together forever! Tomorrow I will finally murder the evil creature that my family has been pursuing for the past one hundred, sixty-six years, three months, two weeks, four days, twelve hours, forty-two minutes, and nineteen, eighteen, sixteen sec...fifte..forty-three minutes. Or thereabouts. I know exactly what I will say to her. I imagine that I walk into the chamber where the foul creature sleeps. I will slide the heavy, stone crypt aside and pry open her coffin where she will sleep the sleep of the dead, with her eyes open...all creepy. Then, I will place my stake over her heart, and I’ll say, “Knock knock…”
Oh! My darling! Just as I wrote the words, “Knock knock”, there was a knock on my door! How delightful! I love moments of serendipity like these. I will be right back, my darling, to bid you a good night. I must see who is rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
One moment…
You will not believe how wonderful my hotel is! They have issued me my own gypsy! That’s right! A gypsy! He has invited to escort me to the Great Mississippi Hot Air Balloon Race! You KNOW how I love a hot air balloon race! I’m sorry, my dear, I cannot turn this opportunity down! Especially since I was invited by a gypsy! A real gypsy! You know how much I LOVE gypsies! They are my favorite thing, next to you and cocaine!
Well, my love, I am going to cut this short. I know that if you were here you would tell me to be careful, to stay in this room, and turn down the invitation because what if he is in league with Isobel Orlok?
And what if he delivers me to her? And what if she doesn’t just throw me out the window? What if she should use her far superior strength and drain me of my blood?
What if she should open her own vein and make me her ghoul...or even worse! What if she turns me into one of the living dead? What if I should be cursed to walk this world only at night, feeding on blood, and wearing black all the time?
But my darling, I tell you again: It’s a gypsy! Who ever ran into danger after travelling with a gypsy? Sometimes you are naive, my Stephanie, but I still love you. Good night, my love. Tonight, I dream of you. Tomorrow: VICTORY!!!!
Love,
V-Dawg
Name: Isobel Orlok
Born: Mid 19th Century, Carpathian Mountains
Died: Undead
Coming from a long and distinguished line of vampires, werewolves and ghoulish fiends alike, Isobel is the daughter of 1950's horror host royalty "The Cool Ghoul" Zacherley and his wife, making her a vampire with a lone wolf streak and fiendish tendencies.
After her father found fame on the American television show, "Shock Theater," in the middle of the last century, the secretive Isobel chose to change her name to that of an old relative and flee to a quieter life of seclusion, traveling through the old country and taking up residence in her families' abandoned estates. She remained content during this time of isolation: watching horror films new and old, haunting church graveyards and feeding on the same villagers her forebears enjoyed long ago.
In 2010, she arrived in a new village and settled into a crumbling castle high on a hill. After a few nights of skulking about and terrorizing local children, the no-longer superstitious townspeople chased her from the ruins with torches, pitchforks, and their iPhone flashlights. Isobel ended up on the banks of the Danube, soaking, muddy and defeated. Realizing the end of anonymity was upon her, she booked passage back to the States.
Upon arrival in New York City, she couldn't bear the noise, the stench or the overall lack of privacy, so she fled to the old cities in the South, where she resides today. Making her home in derelict mansions, she spends much of her time in front of an old television watching her favorite horror films or stalking through nearby cemeteries and, of course, feeding on the locals.
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09/27/16
My Dearest Stephanie,
I hope our being separated has not been as difficult for you as it has for me. Each night away from you has lasted an eternity...the vision of your face is never far from my mind. What a face! I love that face! And soon I will see that face every day. That’s right! I believe that I’ll be able to join you soon, as the goal is within my reach. I have told you of my family’s history and how we have all been tasked with ending the supernatural plague that has blighted the earth since well before my bloodline began. Does that make sense? Probably not. I’ll explain more later. I am exhausted and need rest. Within a few days time, Isobel Orlok will be dead, and we can finally be together. I cannot express here in words how much I miss you, and love you. Await my word, Dearest! Soon we shall be reunited!
Sent With All My Love,
Shawn Van Helsing
09/28/16
My Dearest Stephanie,
Having rested, I feel that I can tell you a little more about my task. I’m going to kill a vampire! On our first date, I told you that the Van Helsing family was placed upon this earth by God himself to end all supernatural blights, whether it be vampires or werewolves...the occasional rogue golem. Well, my final assignment, handed down to me by my father, handed down to him from his father, is to kill the vampire, Isobel Orlok. Should I spell that “vampyre” to note that she is a woman? You would think that after all of these years we would know how to tell a male vampire from a female vampire (yre?). Either way, you understand...she’s a vampire...a bloodsucker...a neck biter at the cotton pony buffet...you know. Fangs.
She has twice encountered members of my family, and she has twice heard them say, “F**k this, I’m going home.” And then they handed the assignment to me because I am young, and strong. And smart! So they have counted on me. Intelligent. I am intelligent. And handsome! I am handsome! It took me many years to accept that I am not a bad looking fellow. And I can cook. Do you remember when I cooked a turkey for you and your grandmother? We were so happy when we found out she’d died of old age that night and not because there was anything wrong with my cooking. I was happy. You were weeping...so I didn’t want to bother you.
The point is...I’m a very good looking man.
I love you. Goodnight.
With All My Love,
Shawn V.H.
09/28/16
My Dearest Stephanie,
While I still believe myself to be a very good looking man, that was not the point. The point is that I have been entrusted with this task...handed down to me from my Father and Grandfather. I have read what both of them have written on the subject of Isobel Orlok. My grandfather pursued her throughout the old country where she continued to travel from one crumbling estate to the other, throughout the Carpathian mountains. He had almost caught her once. It is impossible to say if he would have completed his mission, but he had finally found her. Gene Van Helsing was the first in his line to find Isobel Orlok.
After tracking her to the basin of the Carpathian mountains, under the shadow of Mount Kekes, he traveled from village to village. While the Hungarian peasants are usually wary of strangers, they came to quickly trust him...because we’re rich. He would come into town early, throw his money around, he would buy the drinks, he would rent the whole inn, he would bend over in the street and make fart noises, throwing money between his legs and into the street and the laughing children. By the time he sat down for lunch, he was a beloved guest of the town. There is a statue of him in Chechnoyez made of cheese.
When dinner came, he would begin asking subtle questions about what had been going on around the town lately. Had any strangers moved into an abandoned castle or mansion nearby? Had any children been snatched away in the night? Had any young women been left widowed, and, if so...was she feeling lonely? The standard questions people ask when they visit a small Hungarian village to hunt down and murder the living dead. In each town, he would hear stories of infants being carried away in the night by a shadow with red, glowing eyes. Or he would discover, in each village, that a strange woman, with skin like that of a porcelain doll, hair as black as a raven...sensous, pouting lips...yes...she was enchanting. Is. She still is. I don’t know that she is enchanting, I just...from the description my grandfather left...you understand, right pumpkin?!? :)
A strange woman would be seen, seducing the men, and the women, and then the men again, until my grandfather came and destroyed the army of vampires she left in her path as she continued from village to village. Okay, an army is probably overstating the number of vampires that she would leave behind in her wake. How many vampires does one need to leave in one’s tracks to ensure one does not get captured later on, uh...down the road? Five? Eight? Twenty? Probably somewhere between eight and twenty, I’d say. But still...my grandfather fought and murdered vampires, staying hot on the trail of the demon, vampire succubus lady.
With each town, my grandfather got closer and closer to her. In the first village in Hungary, Jeghideg, she had last been seen nine months before his arrival. When he had reached the last village in Hungary, Melegszik, she had last been seen seven months before his arrival. By the time he arrived at the first village in Romania, Maicald, after having crossed the border from Hungary, he was shocked to discover even more horrifying stories about this hellish creature. Not only had she snatched away children from their beds in the middle of the night, her hungry eyes glowing red, and not only was she seducing the men and the women and everybody, and not only was she turning people into vampires and slaves and fiendish creatures, but she was up to something far more insidious. What she did was unheard of. Unheard of by my grandfather, or my father, and I have certainly never witnessed an act so vile, so...mean.
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Isobel, I guess growing weary with simply feeding on the townspeople, had begun using her charms to get people to invite them into their homes. She would tell them she had to use the bathroom, or that her carriage had broken down, or that she used to live in that hut as baby...or something lame. Then, she would ask for them to show her around the hut, or whatnot, until she ended up in the kitchen. When she was in the kitchen, she would speak mentally to the wolves or bats or spiders or snakes or something like that to cause a diversion. While the people who owned the hut would be distracted, Isobel would take a rubber band and tie it tightly around that spray thing on most faucets, and then turn to smoke and leave out the kitchen window. The people who lived there didn’t know it would spray them!!! They didn’t know it would spray them the next time they used the spray thing!!! What kind of monster does such a thing to a human being?!? Why would God allow that?!?!?!?!??
Finally, after murdering several new vampires, village after endless village, killing vampires, seducing widows, collecting rubber bands...he crossed into the Transylvanian region of the Carpathian mountains. He could feel that he was close to tracking down the fiendish vampyre (yay!), when he found himself standing at the peak of Vistea Mare as the shadow of Moldoveanu loomed over him. This is where it had all began five hundred years ago, when Count Dracula had been instrumental in driving out the Turkish from Moldavia. He had arrived at the birthplace, the breeding ground, for all vampires. He knew it would take more than his wits and strength to find, and defeat, Isobel Orlok. When he arrived in the village at the base of the mountain, Rosuaprins, he found it to be almost deserted. He asked the remaining townspeople what had happened? Had everyone been murdered? Drained of their blood? Those he spoke with said that when Isobel moved into the castle, many of the elders in the town said, “Nu ma pune cu rahatul asta dain nou.” My grandfather asked the man what that meant and he said, “I am not putting up with this shit again.” I looked it up on Google translate. It’s true!
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My grandfather, Gene Van Helsing, prepared his room with strands of garlic, crucifixes attached to each wall and window, and slept one more night before confronting the creature in her own lair the following morning. But the clever Isobel had foreseen my grandfather’s arrival. She sent several of her ghouls to fetch him from his slumber and bring him before her. Unbeknownst to the ghouls, my more clever grandfather had foreseen her foreseeing of his arrival and had set up an elaborate series of deadly traps for the ghouls...none of which worked, and he was dragged away from the safety of his room at the inn to the great castle overlooking the valley below. He was taken to a great chamber where Isobel Orlok lie in wait...believing completely, as did my grandfather, that she had the upper hand.
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She began by welcoming him to her home and beckoning him to rise. Isobel informed my grandfather that this meeting could be as civilized as he allowed it to be. She then asked him why he had hunted her with such vehemence. Then he spat some rude words at her. She then asked him why he pursued her so far, knowing in his heart that he was doomed to fail? Then he spat some more rude words at her. She then asked him why, on top of the highest mountain in Carpathia, could she not get a halfway decent television signal. And that, he could not answer, so she threw him out the window and into the Olt River, hundreds of feet below. He survived, but only barely, and if not for his discovery upon the shores in Varsag, he certainly would have been lost to us forever. Fortunately for him, and me...and you, my darling...wink ;)...elbow nudge...do you understand that I am saying you are fortunate for his having sired my father who sired me, the man you love? Yes. You do. I can feel it!
When my grandfather arrived at his family home in Amsterdam, he collected the tools of his trade, placed them in a closet, and retired from the family business.
When my father was old enough, grandfather Gene took him under his wing and, as my Father had done for me, taught him how to become a master of eradicating supernatural blights. But alas, my dear, that is but one of my grandfather’s many stories. It is late. I must rest. Tomorrow I will discover the location of the vampyres lair. Afterwards I will tell you one of the stories my father told me when he was embarked on his own adventures in hunting down Isobel Orlok. Until then, sleep well, my love, and know that I am constantly thinking of you...whenever I’m not killing vampires.
My Love,
Shawn to the V to the H