Salt and perfume

Two little girls playing gently with a daddy long legs.

Girl 1: can it die?

Our twenty-seventh episode of Dracula: 2004 is out now!

Dracula: 2004 is a weekly found footage horror audio drama, based on the novel "Dracula" by Bram Stoker. Care to take a bite?

Dr. Seward, Dr. Van Helsing and Nurse Andy must attempt to save another life.

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"Chapter Twenty-Seven: Vampires Will Never Hurt You" will be available on all podcast platforms. Find out more about the show on our website.

This will be our last episode until Part 3 releases in August 2026!

Dracula: 2004 is a weekly found footage horror audio drama, based on the novel "Dracula" by Bram Stoker. Care to take a bite?

June 25, 1890, letter:

Dearest friend,

Before I start my recounting of the day, I ask that you not open the parcel with it yet! Won’t you humor your dear companion and wait until I ask you to during this letter?

The tale is not from my waking hours, which had been just more tedious packing, which I hope you do not tire of reading, but from my time dreaming. I had been lying asleep, unmoving, when Jonathan entered the room I was in. He was moving about; I believe he was sneakily searching my person for something. When I had left my resting spot, Jonathan was still in his room. Nothing had been taken from me. Despite all the evidence pointing to it being a dream, I found myself sliding my hands over the newly placed lock on his door in quiet consideration.

Do you think I have caught Jonathan’s hysteria? Does it spread like the common cold does among the villagers?

I found myself in a bit of a daze. I decided to pack one of the final things I had planned, my gift for you. Not the ring, but something more special. My recent writing recounting the story of the Englishman whose mind was lost to him being so far from his homeland's dirt has made me want to take some of my own over to England. The dirt is finer for growing any seeds I wish to sow over any England dirt.

The parcel contains some of the Transylvanian dirt wrapped in a silk cloth for you. It is an old tradition to send some of your home country's dirt to your friends so that when they visit them in the new place, it signifies this is their homeland now! It seems you simply must come to my housewarming then to share it with me again. The dirt belongs to the home.

I know it is not traditional of us to share such gifts in the mail, but I hope you will accept it.

Your dearest friend,

Dracula

Research Log: Is this why there’s dirt in the box???? I didn’t know I needed to add “collecting dirt to send to his friend” as an option on our recent poll. With this and the previous letter I’d have much preferred if he wrote about all of his outfits he packed for the Demeter like you all voted. My research assistant is very happy most of you selected her option, by the way. She made a long frivolous list of thank you’s as if she won an award, but I’m not going to be transcribing all that. Not when she spent most of the week not helping me transcribe, instead looking at 1800’s seafaring outfits to “accurately picture” what Dracula might have worn. I think she’s much too fond of the made-up man from the letters.

On a more clinical note, despite my research into many old and long-forgotten Transylvanian traditions, I have found nothing on this ‘tradition’ of friends giving each other dirt. If anyone has heard of tradition or similar ones, as usual, please contact the lead researcher.

June 24, 1890, Letter:

Dearest friend,

The events that transpired during this evening at the manor were so deeply contrasted from this morning to the night you would almost believe the sun had set and risen again anew during them. I had journeyed out into the town dressed up in the finest attire, once again borrowing Jonathan’s coat as all of my outerwear remains packed, to deliver my latest mail to you. The crawl over was rather uneventful in itself, but there was a tension while passing through the forests. As if there was a bloodthirsty calling to them that longed to hunt and find a new prey. It would not be found in me today.

A few of the townspeople still convening outdoors at the hour were in quite the uproar. Apparently, a child went missing last month. Every time I venture into town in the whisperings of dusk, it feels as if I hear news of another missing person. To a degree, they may be the masters of their ill-fated misfortune. One should not complain of the wolf when they have settled in their den.

You must imagine what wicked rage would consume me as I discovered a woman had followed after me! Is it not enough to see the contempt in their eyes when I am down there? They must forcibly persecute me from the community too? No. I must not speak of her that way. You’ll understand by the end of the letter.

A cacophony of howling fueled my frantic travels as I navigated the woods to be rid of her sight. With great speed I nearly flew up the hill to the castle to ensure I had made it to the castle long before she had the chance to even catch up to me. The door groaned as I wrenched it open with haste, slipped in, and immediately relocked it.

Then came her cries! Her yells! Her shouts! Banging on the door as if it would beat life into the castle itself!

I peered out the window and my voice came out in a whisper as I drunk in the sight below me. Any breath that could have been in my lungs was torn from me in that moment. The words I said remain forgotten after what would occur in the next moments.

As if the very sound of her yelling magically summoned them, a throng of wolves descended upon her form in the court yard. The raw forms of fur and skin became one and the same in the picture below. Her banging grew sharper-louder yet! Wails that may haunt the forest till every tree is laid to rest beside what would have been her body. It was a display I could not tear my eyes away from. Silence lingered where the pounding had once taken refuge.

The swarming in all its brutal details is something I must spare you from, just as I would if you were here. Your eyes deserve to be shielded from such sickening truths the worst must instead witness. I will let the red stain my eyes should you promise to never let yours see such a sight.

I picked up one of your letters from the post office and plan to read it tonight to rid such thoughts from my mind. Please, in turn, do not let them linger in yours.

Your friend,

Dracula