The Brasov Legacy

By Paul Emmet Carey

Where else could it have started but in Transylvania?

Two hundred years ago in Brasov, a city in Northern Romania, a mother was taking her son for a walk, an innocent walk in the woods that took longer than anticipated. Night fell before they reached open fields.

What happened to them eventually started a chain of events thousands of miles away in Los Angeles that still continues to this day.

The first time that it happened the authorities covered it up to avoid panic spreading through the city. In those days it was much easier to do as the media was far less intrusive.

Years later what happened in Los Angeles the day after nine eleven had a
resounding effect even though it was greatly overshadowed by the horrific events in New York. The deaths of an old lady and a twenty two year old student changed the lives of many other people in a way that no one could have imagined.

Pat and Danny, the two detectives assigned to the case knew, as did everyone else, that there were no such things as vampires and that they were nothing more than a figment of Bram Stokers mind because that was the only place where they even approached reality.

Now suddenly, here in modern day Los Angeles, some people were forming the opinion that perhaps there was some credence to Stoker's vampires.

Pat and Danny had seen with their own eyes things that had, in a very short space of time, changed from legend to reality.

Could they deal with it?

How could they deal with it?

Wherever they searched, whatever they did the vampire stayed one step ahead of them.

They had read books about vampires and were disturbed to find some instances of actual vampirism. These instances did not totally match the characteristics of vampire behaviour as they believed them to be but were sufficient to increase their growing beliefs of vampirism and were enough for them to carry wooden stakes in their cars.

That gave them something else to be afraid of- the ridicule that would follow should any of their fellow officers find out.

From then on none of the people involved in the hunt went out alone.

Pat and Danny also had the added worry of protecting their families and that was paramount in their minds.

When the vampire attacked someone they knew it brought home to them even more that their families were in danger.

Was the attack a coincidence or did the attacker deliberately seek the girl out? Did it happen as a warning to them to leave well alone?

They could not know for sure but had to assume that it was deliberate.

The one thing the attack did though was to increase their resolve to find the perpetrator before more bodies turned up and the city became enveloped in panic.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paul Emmet Carey
• Release date: Feb 17, 2012
• ISBN: 9781937698140

Paul Emmet Carey

Paul was born in Lincolnshire, England. His mother was English and his father was American from Kansas City, Missouri. His father died in 1975 without knowing that he had a son. Paul always knew about his father but only found confirmation when he was eighteen and his mother told him the full story. Never having met his father is something that he has never got over and is still a source of great disappointment to this day. Surprisingly it was probably that that started him writing. One day he decided to put his thoughts and feelings on paper. How long he had known of his father, how he felt about him and how not knowing him had impacted on his life. Imagining that it would take around twenty to thirty pages at the most he was amazed that it actually took two hundred and forty pages. Did it make him feel any better about not knowing his father? Sadly, not at all. However it showed him that he could write a book and that gave him something to be able to thank his father for. Perhaps his father had something to do with it. Perhaps! Whatever, it started Paul writing and writing quickly became a very important part of his life. The Brasov Legacy was written in Denver, Colorado in the shade of the magnificent Rocky Mountains mainly in the bar of the Old Chicago in Wheat Ridge that sadly closed it's doors on New Years Eve 2011. That was were Paul and his wife Therese lived during their time in America. Wheat Ridge that is not the Old Chicago – well not all of the time.

Book preview

Chapter One

It had hardly merited a mention in any newspaper except the Los Angeles Times. That was not surprising as it happened on the twelfth of September, two thousand one, the day after the atrocity at the Twin Towers in New York. All the newspapers were obviously concentrating on that, as were all the television and radio stations. Only the local ones mentioned it and then in no great detail.

A gas explosion in a five-story apartment building in Los Angeles just didn’t seem worthy of any air time or column space given the circumstances of the previous day. The fact that the building had totally collapsed didn’t give it the prominence it might have been given a few days earlier, although it was still a catastrophe in its own right.

It had happened during the early afternoon when, thankfully, the building was almost empty. Even so, five people were killed and two were still missing in the rubble. After five days they had still not been located and were presumed dead.

The missing people were a twenty two year old architectural student named David Sherwood, who lived on the first floor, and an elderly widow who lived on the floor directly above David.

The search and removal of the rubble had now been restricted to daylight hours only. For the first two nights the rescue teams had worked all through the night. After that they had worked until around midnight, but when they realized that there was no chance of finding them they had reduced their efforts to daylight hours only.

David had an important examination coming up in a couple of weeks’ time and was spending the afternoon studying, something he had been doing for many afternoons and evenings in the last few weeks. He knew the work well and, as he had put in so much effort, he felt that he could gain a really high percentage if he stuck with it for the last few weeks. In the long run it would be well worth it.

If there had been a smell of gas, no matter how strong, he had been so engrossed in his studies that he had not been aware of it. The first he knew of anything being amiss was when a huge explosion surrounded him. The lights went out, the floor collapsed and he was aware of falling. Everything was falling—the walls, the ceiling, the floor, the furniture, with him in the middle of it.

Initially fear was not in his mind, he had not had the time to be afraid. There was just a feeling of surprise and vagueness. His mind did not immediately grasp the seriousness or the reality of the situation. After what was probably only a couple of seconds a searing fear engulfed him. He screamed for help and flailed wildly to try and catch on to something secure.

He continued to fall, surrounded by debris.

He wasn’t aware of how far he fell. It seemed forever, and the thought of finishing up in hell passed through his mind.

It ended with a sudden surge of tremendous pain as his body was impaled on a length of floor board that had broken away from a lower floor and had somehow stuck upright in the rubble of the basement car park. It had snapped, leaving a splintered point that became even more splintered as David’s body was completely impaled, leaving about two feet of wood sticking out through his back.

The two feet of wood was not protruding for long as a second body, that of an old woman, became impaled on it directly above David.

Neither one of them had a chance to call out as all the breath and life had been knocked out of them instantaneously.

Blood was pouring out of the huge wound in David’s chest and was being soaked up by all the dust and rubble beneath him. The woman’s blood, which was strangely a much darker red and much thinner, was running out of her chest and down the wooden floor board straight into the hole in David’s back.

Rubble and debris was still falling on top of them when the residual sounds of the collapsing building were exchanged for total silence. There were now five stories of wreckage above them.

All that moved outside was dust as the wind sucked it upwards, not giving it the chance to settle.

The dust was still thick in the air when people started to emerge from the neighboring buildings. Within minutes the sound of sirens could be heard. First to arrive was a police car. The officers jumped out and at once started to move the crowd back. Very soon there were five more police cars, which meant that the crowd had been moved well back before the fire engines and paramedics arrived. Any fires that may have been there seemed to have been put out as they had been covered and smothered with the remains of the building. Although no flames were apparent, some smoke could still be seen squeezing its way through several areas of the debris. All gas supplies to the area had been quickly turned off. The firemen hosed the rubble down, just in case any fires had managed to continue burning beneath it, and to prevent the wind from igniting anything that might still be smouldering. The paramedics were immediately busy tending to the walking wounded of which, thankfully, there were only a handful. The police quickly found out how many people lived in the building and then set about tracing the whereabouts of as many as they could to give themselves an idea of how many might still be buried. In less than two hours it appeared that they were still looking for around ten people.

The clean-up work had been underway for a few hours when the first two bodies were found. Shortly after that two of the missing people turned up after having been out for lunch. This left them with six still unaccounted for.

They found three more bodies the following morning and one man turned up having been on night shift. He immediately went into shock as his wife had been home at the time of the explosion. The three bodies were in ambulances about to be moved. One of them was his wife. The man was distraught and was helped away by one of the policemen, whilst another one tried to find someone who could look after him.

There were still two people missing.

The searchers had worked diligently but had not come across the other two bodies. Tons of rubble had been removed, which had been even more difficult because the apocalyptic happenings in New York had been so much on everyone’s mind. Considering that, they had done exceptionally well in their efforts.

Another two or three feet of rubble would have brought them to the remaining two bodies but darkness was almost upon them and all clean-up efforts were over for the day, to be renewed the following morning. There would have been no point setting up lights and working through the night as anyone still buried could not possibly have survived.

Chapter Two

Beneath the rubble all was not as it should have been. David Sherwood’s eyes were open. He was conscious yet could feel no pain. His back was covered in dirt, not just the dirt that had come from the collapse of the building, but also a much finer, greyer dust. There was a space where a second body could have fitted, but all that was there was a tattered dress, clearly one that would have been worn by an old woman.

David was aware that something was holding him down. He moved his hands and felt what seemed like a wooden stake that was sticking through his body. It didn’t seem to be causing any problem to him so he snapped it off and pulled it out of his body. He was surprised with the ease in which it snapped in two. He pulled the rest of it out of him. Amazingly it came out readily and without any pain whatsoever.

He had, by now, rolled over on to his back. It was pitch black, but his instinct told him that he had to dig his way out and he had to do it now. He scraped away with his hands and was, again, surprised at how easy it was, and that yet again it caused no pain or discomfort.

After about fifteen minutes an eerie glow that turned out to be the street lights filtered through into the blackness. It wasn’t long before he was able to stand.

Now that he was out the light was brighter, much brighter. He could see almost as well as he could in daylight.

He looked at his watch. The glass was smashed and the hands were missing. He thought that it felt to be around two o’clock. Everything around him was absolutely quiet. He was standing in a mound of building rubble, which he was instantly aware was all that was left of his apartment block.

It was then that he remembered the explosion and falling with everything around him. He recalled falling onto something sharp and a fleeting second of excruciating pain. After that there was nothing.

He looked down at his chest through his torn shirt. There was no wound. He reached up with his hands to feel, not believing his eyes. There was still nothing. He knew that there should have been a hole of some kind, but the skin was as smooth as it had ever been.

It was then that it hit him.

He wasn’t breathing.

My God, he thought, I’m dead.

Chapter Three

The following morning the fire service, police and volunteer workers were back at the site. The first thing they noticed from the previous day was a hole in the remaining rubble that hadn’t been there the night before. It was as if someone had been digging their way out rather than digging down.

Even so it was dismissed and put down to opportunists trying to find something of value that might have been buried. It seemed a good place to start working. It wasn’t long before they dug their way down to a woman’s dress that was liberally covered with blood. There was no body, but they did find hair and three rings—wedding, engagement and eternity. Just below the hair was a genuine pearl necklace.

One of the firemen called over a policeman.

Strange, we’ve found clothes, hair, rings and a necklace lying in such a way that they look as if they were being worn, yet there’s no body and nobody could have got there to leave them like that.

The policeman looked down. He could immediately see what the fireman was talking about. It certainly did look strange to say the very least.

Leave them there. I’d better call someone over to take a look.

Okay, we’ll move over there, replied the fireman pointing to the far end of the mess, and carry on.

The policeman nodded and went back to his vehicle where he made a call to the precinct. Less than twenty minutes later an unmarked car pulled up and two men got out and approached the policeman who had made the call.

Morning Mark, what’s this strange thing you’ve turned up?

Hi Pat, Danny, he greeted them, best come and look for yourselves.

He led them over and pointed down into the hole.

You’re right Mark, that is strange. It looks as if the body had melted and everything that it was wearing was left in place. What do you think Danny?

I agree with you. The only other odd thing is that dust. It’s unlike any of the other dust anywhere around it.

Isn’t it? Let’s get some pictures and we’ll take a sample of the dust and bag up the other things.

I’ll get the camera, Danny said, turning and walking back to the car.

Pat continued looking into the hole as if hoping for some divine inspiration. It never came.

He only withdrew his gaze when Danny came back with the camera and only then because he did not want to have his shadow appear on the photographs.

Danny always took any photographs they needed. Photography was his thing and he knew, or so it appeared to Pat, everything there was to know about the subject. That wouldn’t be hard as Pat had never got past the holiday snapshot level. Danny, however had had quite a few of his photographs published in the Los Angeles Times and various other newspapers and magazines nationwide. He could probably have made an excellent living at it but was so dedicated to police work that he had never tried. When he retired, that would be a whole different proposition.

Pat and Danny had met at Police College and had become good friends there. The friendship had persisted to this day and they had developed an absolute trust in each other. They had been partners now for almost twelve years.

They had always found it easy to play ‘good cop, bad cop.’ Pat was six feet, two inches and weighed around two-hundred-ten pounds, while Danny was a few inches shorter and weighed in consistently at one-eighty. That was the only thing that had ever annoyed Pat about him. He could eat anything and in any quantity and his weight would never go up or down by even a pound. Pat had to watch his weight all the time and exercise regularly to maintain it. Years ago Pat had been arresting a drunk at a bar, in the days when he was still in uniform, when the drunk had pulled out a knife and slashed his right cheek, narrowly missing his eye and mouth. He had needed around fifteen stitches , he couldn’t remember exactly how many, and the scar still showed. He kept his hair short which made him look a little bit like Arnold Schwarzenegger. The scar, however, made him look a lot fiercer. All this made him a great ‘bad cop’ when it came to interviewing.

Danny, however, had a completely unmarked face. It was the type of face that anyone would instantly trust. His hair was a little longer than Pat’s and was dark, almost black, as compared to Pat’s almost blonde. Looking at both of them together made it obvious why they played the roles. It had become very successful and almost legendary to such an extent that occasionally their colleagues, when having little or no success, would call on them for help.

Both of them claimed to be of Irish descent and were proud of their ancestry. Pat’s parents had both been born in Galway on the west coast of Ireland, but had immigrated to the USA before he was born. His elder brother, Donal, could lay genuine claim to being Irish as he had spent the first two years of his life on Irish soil. He frequently goaded Pat on the subject calling Pat his American brother. When they were kids there were frequent fights over it, but now it was nothing more than good-natured ribbing.

Danny’s parents had been born in Los Angeles, as had his grandparents, so the whole family was pretty much Americanized although every one of them was as proud of being Irish as were Pat and his family. Both families knew each other well. Donal extended his humor to them by always referring to them as the Americans.

Danny’s father had in fact traced the family tree and discovered that the family originally came from the city of Cork. No matter what was said, Danny considered himself as Irish as Pat. Pat allowed him to.

The ‘good cop, bad cop’ act was in fact someway off the truth as Pat had far more patience than Danny. It was just that their physical characteristics forced them to play it the way they did.

Danny took about a dozen pictures from several different angles before he was satisfied. When he had finished, Pat stepped back and looked once more into the hole. Inspiration was still not forthcoming. He took some sample bags and stepped into the hole. He scooped some of the dust into one bag and the hair into another one. The rings went into a third one and the necklace into a fourth.

He climbed out with all four bags securely fastened and handed them to Danny. Hang on to these Danny, he said and walked back to the car. Half way there the thought passed through his mind that it would have been easier to have brought the bags with him and put them straight into the car. He shook his head to himself. Opening the trunk of the car he took out a larger bag and went back for the clothing.

As Danny drove them away from the scene Pat turned towards him.

You know, I have a strong feeling that we are going to have a lot of trouble in finding the two missing people—whether alive or dead.

That remark concerned Danny as he had, over the years, learned to respect Pat’s intuition.

Chapter Four

The clean up took another two weeks to finish and all that was left was a huge hole in the ground where the underground car park had been. Everything had been removed and the hole looked as if it had been there for many years. Pat’s intuition was proved to be right as the two missing bodies were not found and neither one of them had turned up anywhere else.

David Sherwood’s family had been questioned but they said that they had heard nothing from him since well before the explosion. Pat wasn’t too sure. Again, it was more intuition than fact.

The woman had turned out to be an old woman of East European descent who, as far as they could ascertain, had no living relatives.

Pat had dropped his sample bags off to be tested but had not demanded any urgency in the testing, as they had no reason to suspect that anything untoward had happened. They had painstakingly tried to locate the missing two by making telephone calls, but were not too worried when nothing positive showed up. People were going missing all the time for a multitude of reasons.

They were more concerned about the woman, primarily because of her age, but there was nothing that stated categorically that either or both of them had actually been at home when the explosion occurred. Pat had decided that it would be a good idea to follow up with David Sherwood’s immediate family. He really was sure that there was something that they were holding back on. What it was he had no idea, but he did have the impression that David was still alive. What he couldn’t figure out was why the family, especially the brother, wouldn’t tell him what they knew. It niggled him—there was something, he knew there was.

It was half way through the week after the clean up when things really started to turn odd.

There was nothing strange or abnormal about the jewelry or the clothing, but the dust was a completely different matter. According to the report it was of human origin, at least as far as they could make out, and was at least one-hundred-seventy years old.

Here, read this Danny. Either we’re going mad or forensics is.

He passed the report over to Danny.

I’m gonna give them a call. I’m sure it’s only a typing error.

What is?

You just read on. You’ll know when you get to it.

As Danny started reading Pat picked up the phone. When the phone was answered he asked to be put through to the name that was signed at the end of the report, a Thomas Machin.

I see what you mean.

Danny had reached the part of the report that related to the age of the dust.

Uh?

Pat had been waiting for a voice to come on the other end of the phone.

A hundred-seventy years old.

Oh, yeah. Sorry, I didn’t get you for a minute.

Danny smiled and read on.

Yes, Mr. Machin, this is Pat Downey. You recently did a report for me relating to the collapsed apartment building.

Yes, I remember it well. I suppose you’re calling me about the dating of the dust.

Pat at once realized that it had not been a typing mistake.

Yes, I am.

I knew you would. Believe me, we couldn’t believe it either. We checked it several times. Each time it came up the same. I realize that it’s unbelievable but our findings are accurate.

I don’t know what to say. I mean, apart from the dating, how did the dust get where it was and how was it that, considering the mess, it was still lying in a neat human-length pile? The destruction should have scattered it all over the city.

I understand what you are saying and I agree. To say the least, it’s odd, but I’m sorry to say that I’ve got nothing else for you.

Well thanks anyway. We’ll just have to try and sort something out, although what or how I have no idea.

He put the phone down to find Danny staring at him.

He confirmed a hundred-seventy then?

He did.

Pat looked bemused.

So not only do we not have a body, we don’t have a one-hundred-seventy- year-old body.

That’s about it.

Should be a piece of cake then.

Any ideas?

Twice as many as you.

So we’ve got nothing?

That’s about it.

Yet we’ve got to do something. I’m sure David Sherwood’s folks were holding something back so that’s one direction we can take. The old lady had no family that we know of, so all we can do there is to ask her surviving neighbors if they knew anything about her.

Danny looked at his watch.

Tomorrow looks good in my book.

Pat copied Danny and looked at his own watch.

I think a couple of beers would go down well at this moment in time.

Danny stood up and put his jacket on.

You’ll get no argument from me. It’ll give us a chance to get our heads around all this.

Chapter Five

David Sherwood’s first instinct was fear. He wasn’t breathing, yet he was fully aware of everything around him. He remembered removing a stake from his body, yet there was no mark on his body. The proof that the stake had penetrated his body was evidenced by the holes in his shirt where it had both entered and exited. He had checked his arms and legs and there were no marks or bruises anywhere, yet he knew that there should be. He couldn’t see his face, he would check that later.

He knew that he had to get off the street before anyone turned up and started asking awkward questions. He only had one place to go where he would feel safe—his parent’s house.

At that time of the morning the streets were very quiet and there was very little public transportation apart from the occasional taxi. He didn’t want to get one and in any case he didn’t have a cab company number with him. He knew that the public phones were likely to have cab numbers pinned to them but he thought that it would be safer to walk. That way he could avoid any contact. It would only take him about an hour and it would afford him the most safety.

With it being so quiet at that time of the morning he would likely hear anyone approaching and would have time to hide until they had passed. He was standing across the road from his now flattened building and could hear voices in the blocks behind him. He could hear them well enough to make out some of what they were saying. He wasn’t worried about what was being said, it was just that his hearing seemed, for some reason, greatly enhanced. His eyesight was also much improved and more penetrating. The street lights were on, but he could also see into the unlit alleys—not clearly, but well enough to know whether anything or anyone was there.

Satisfied that he was alone, he set off. He was most concerned about running into a police car because of the tattered and torn state of his clothes. He kept as close to the buildings as he could and walked as quietly as he could without looking suspicious. All the time he was listening intently. The side streets were no problem but he was concerned when he had to cross well lit main roads. It was here where his improved hearing and eyesight really paid dividends. When he was sure it was clear he ran, surprisingly quickly. It went through his mind that all his natural attributes seemed to have gone up a notch or two.

He had no idea what was happening to him. He needed to get to his parent’s house. He needed some friendly faces around him. Someone who could help him make sense of it all.

Sam Harmon had always been somewhat of an insomniac and this night he had been unable to sleep at all. He had made himself a hot cocoa and was sitting at the street window of his apartment with a book, a magazine and a crossword. He had finished his cocoa, given up on the crossword, put the book down and was glancing at the magazine when he saw a movement out of the corner of his eye.

He looked up immediately as any movement at that time of the morning, apart from the occasional vehicle, was unusual.

It was a man crossing the road. He had never seen anyone move so fast, not even in the Olympics. Not only that, but the man’s clothes looked to be disheveled and torn.

He stood up and opened the window. Sticking his head out he saw the man run into a side street and disappear. He looked towards where the man had come from expecting to see some pursuers. None appeared. He picked up the phone and called the police. They said that a car would be sent to check the area.

Sam went back and had a last look out the window. Seeing nothing he closed it and went back to make himself another cup of cocoa.

Chapter Six

David’s furtive trip to his parent’s home took him a lot less time than he had anticipated. Dawn was starting to break as he arrived. It was just after five-thirty when he pressed the doorbell. There was no light on inside so he knew that he was going to have to persevere with ringing the bell. It took a good five minutes before he saw the upstairs hall light burst into brightness to be followed almost immediately by the light in the downstairs hall.

Who is it?

He could see his mother’s face through the glass.

It’s me.

David?

Both relief and joy were in her voice.

He heard the security chain being released and the sound of two locks being opened. The door swung inwards.

He quickly stepped inside.

David, where have you been? The police told us that you were missing and presumed dead.

They were half right.

Could I still have a sense of humor, he thought to himself?

You’d better wake Dad. This is going to be hard enough without having to go through it twice, he said,