Vampire Of The New World

Jon felt like a giant trap had closed in on him. He remained standing by the staircase where Dante left him for a full minute before coming back to his senses. If the gardener gave the calling card to Dante, who knows what else he said. Jon searched his memory and tried to recall what he said to the gardener. Did he sound desperate? Did his words betray his own thoughts about Dante?

Jon shook his head in despair. Even if the gardener did not repeat their conversation, the calling card itself would be a telltale sign of his desperation to escape the island. Why else would he give it to the gardener with instructions to call Lisa and Gary?

Aside from this, Dante listened to his call as he talked to Lisa and Vicky. This meant that Dante wanted to hear for himself what the people on the other side of the call were saying. He obviously wanted to stop people from looking for Jon in the next seven days. At the same time, this meant that Dante already knew what Jon was up to and wanted to make sure that he stayed where he was.

Jon wanted to hit himself for his stupidity. Of course, Dante would have the gardener's loyalty as with the rest of the household. Only the newly-employed maid, Flora, seemed to be outside of Dante's complete control. And that could have caused her inexplicable disappearance.

Pablo appeared from the dining room and looked at Jon. "I had an early lunch prepared for you, Sir. I thought you would want to have lunch now."

"Thanks, Pablo," Jon said and he followed Pablo to the dining room.

As before, Pablo was present as Jon had his lunch. Another maid, who used to help in the kitchen replaced Flora. Pablo looked on silently, directing the maid with gestures and small movements of his head. Jon was glad of the silence. He wanted to think. Already, he was having his second cup of coffee for the day and he still could not come up with a solution to his problem. Then, the solution hit him. If the gardener was able to use his cellphone at the south side, perhaps Jon too could call someone at the area.

Jon rushed to finish his lunch as his mind started to race on what he should do next. Standing up, he politely thanked Pablo and the maid and walked slowly to his room lest his haste betrayed what he was thinking. When he reached his room, the rain had already stopped and the sun was again gloriously shining on the yard. Jon opened the curtains and felt the warm sunlight on his face. He snatched up his phone from where he left it on the bed and connected the charger to the outlet on the wall. He needed to wait to avoid suspicions and to make sure that he could make what could be the most important phone call of his life.

While waiting for his phone to charge, he sat on a chair and tried to rest. However, he could not get his mind to slow down. Already, he imagined how he would go cautiously to the south side avoiding the servants, especially Pablo. As for Dante, Jon hoped that he was already taking his daytime sleep.

Jon took a pen and paper and wrote two letters, one for Lisa and the other for Gary. He decided to write both letters in a cryptic manner just in case they get discovered by Dante, but the message for help should be clear to Lisa or to Gary. Jon then folded these tightly and hid the folded letters inside his luggage. He hoped that if the worse comes to worst, there would be someone to find his luggage and discover his letters.

After some time, Dante unplugged his phone and looked at the display. Satisfied with the full battery, he proceeded to walk out of his room quietly. As he went down the staircase, he tried to make as little noise as possible. Looking down, he saw Pablo at the entrance hall inspecting one of the antique vases. Jon wondered how long Pablo was going to be until a maid came and talked to Pablo. Both Pablo and the maid left the entrance hall and went to the dining area.

Jon looked around and made sure that no one saw him at the entrance hall before proceeding to the hallway towards the south side of the mansion. The carpet underneath his feet deadened his footsteps, but Jon was still careful not to make any unnecessary sound. He did not see anyone until he finally reached the corridor leading to the terrace.

Jon expected to find the gardener finishing the work that got disrupted by the rain, but the terrace was empty. Immediately, Jon took out his phone and looked at the signal strength. To his dismay, the display still showed no signal. Desperate, Jon went out to the edge of the terrace and searched for any signal that his cellphone could get. There was none.

Helpless, Jon sat on the seat at the side of the terrace. The breeze was cool and soothing and Jon felt his body relaxing. He rested his head on the wall and before he knew it, he was asleep as exhaustion and the stress of the past few days overtook him.

Jon did not sleep very well as disturbing images continued to assail his dreams. He saw Dante crawling on the wall towards his window and after a quick tap on the glass was magically inside his room. His red eyes glowed and when he smiled, Jon saw Dante's white teeth stained with blood. Jon then saw the Golden Krone and Captain Salazar. Flora and her daughter were being made to walk the plank across waters that were teeming with sharks. Both mother and daughter then fell into the water.

What happened next, Jon was not sure if it were still a dream.

Halfway between consciousness and sleep, he saw through partly closed eyes that he was still at the terrace and it was already dark. His eyelids were heavy and he found it really difficult to lift them. Then, he heard the hushed voices of women talking beside him. From what he could discern, there were three of them sitting next to him, all dressed in flowing white gowns.