The Pianist: A Tale Of Horror

Chapter9

During this time,Émilie wakes up and does not find Lisa. Worried, she takes the flashlight and leaves the room. As soon as she takes a step forward, she hears Lisa screaming from Theodore's room. She takes the same path Lisa did a few hours ago. She enters the room, rushes to the secret door and goes down the stairs with her heart pounding. Arriving at the bottom of the burrow, Émilie finds herself in total darkness. She hears horrible growls coming from the depths of this underground space. She walks towards the grunts, calling to Lisa in a trembling voice. She passes the light of the flashlight on the walls and suddenly falls on Lisa's face. She groans, her head to the side. Her body is covered in blood. She is in the arms of Théodore who is taking her while pinning her against the wall of the burrow. Lisa's fingers are clutched at Theodore's back. He looks at Émilie, smiling. Her eyes glow in the dark like a cat's. Émilie is in shock, she covers her mouth with her hand so as not to scream. But she hears animal grunts on the ground, she moves the light downwards and finds Nadia and Karine in their evening dresses on the ground, devouring something from the floor. Their mouths drip with blood while with their teeth, they tear pieces of flesh from Marie's disembowelled body like wild dogs. Stunned and feeling nauseous, Émilie tries to hurry back up the stairs. She almost crawls back up when she hears Nadia calling her. A shiver runs down her spine. She turns around and sees Nadia showing her the palm of her hand with long black bloody claws. She says to her: "You promised Émilie". On her palm, Emilie sees the same mark in the shape that appeared on her own hand. She continues to flee, leaves the cellar and rushes to the front door of the castle but it is locked. She runs through the rooms on the ground floor trying to find an open window but in vain. Every time she approaches a window, the dogs try to reach her from the outside, barking wildly. She ends up in the kitchen. She hears heavy footsteps approaching, so she hides under the table. Suddenly, a new epileptic attack seizes her and she collapses to the ground in convulsions. She loses consciousness, and into the black hole where she falls, She hears Theodore's voice whispering in her ear: "You are mine". A tear runs down Emilie's cheek. She feels like she is losing her dignity. The sun rises and she loses consciousness on the kitchen floor.

***

Émilie wakes up in the cellar. She is tied to a chair. Her whole body hurts. She sees the body of a naked woman covered in mud and blood lying on the ground. The woman is crying, it's Lisa. Émilie calls her. A sob distorts her voice. Lisa raises her head, her eyes are wild. She crawls towards Émilie. She stops at her feet and says: "I'm sorry Émilie. I lied to you." She shows her the palm of her hand. The same letter is marked there with a hot iron.

"It's Theodore's mark" says Lisa, "All his women wear it. It's the promise to only see, hear and say what he wants." Collapsed, Émilie listens to Lisa tell her secret: "Years ago, I fell in love with Théodore. He seduced me like many other women and I am, it seems, still under his influence. He can do what he wants with us, probably because of this virus that he transmitted to us. We have it in our blood. All the women he seduces become his slaves and end up being devoured... except those who he chooses to taste his blood, they turn into vampires and have eternal life without a soul with hell at the end. One day, he saw you with me and asked me to take you to his place. I... I can't say no to him. I had a child with him, Valentina. He keeps her with him so that I can bring him women supposedly to take care of her. But in fact they are for him... he feeds on their blood. Maybe Valentina is half like him but I'm afraid for her. One day he will be hungry and he will devour her too. Theodore is not human, he is a beast from hell."

Émilie is left breathless by the revelation. Lisa opens a crate and takes scissors from it. She cuts Emile's ties. She implores her to take her daughter Valentina out of the castle. "And you?" asks Emilie. Lisa replies that it's too late for her. She shows her a large rusty iron box. Lisa whispers: "This is native land, this is where Théodore Costine was buried and resurrected for the first time. He sleeps a little and tolerates daylight as long as there is no direct sunlight. He can only sleep in this dirt. Nadia too". Lisa suddenly shuts up. She seems overcome by a sudden terror. Indeed, she hears Theodore shouting in her ear: "You promised and now you must pay for having broken your promise". She takes the pair of scissors and cuts her tongue. She collapses to her knees, moaning, with a bloody mouth and signals Emilie to leave. Emilie is petrified. Lisa can no longer take the pain and humiliation, she pushes the sharp scissors into her neck and cuts her carotid artery. Blood gushes out and she collapses lifeless. Émilie runs away crying.

She runs to Valentina's room. The little girl is sleeping. She wakes her up and asks her if she knows how to get out of the castle. Valentina calmly says that she must kill her father, the master vampire. So she knew everything. Émilie tells her that he is very strong and that he will surely kill her before she can plant a spike through his heart. She admits that she doesn't have the courage to face him. She tells herself that in fact, she has always been a coward, and now, because of her cowardice, this child will live in constant danger of being devoured by a vampire. Valentina takes out an old folded sheet from under her pillow. She says she found it in Nadia's room. It is written in Romanian. Valentina translates for Emilie: "The evil that created the blood-drinking beast will kill it. It will return to hell, along with all the monsters it has spawned". Émilie immediately thinks of the black vial around Nadia's neck, it's the only way to kill Théodore Costine. but how to get it? She goes into the kitchen, chooses a long meat knife then goes back up the stairs and walks down the hall to Nadia's room. She enters slowly but finds no one there. She thinks for a moment then remembers the "native land". The old witch turned vampire must sleep there just like the beast she created. Émilie takes the path to the cellar determined and determined to fight to the end to save little Valentina and get out of this castle. She goes down the cellar stairs and walks towards the rusty metal crate, avoiding looking at Lisa's corpse lying on the floor, face in a pool of blood. She pushes the heavy lid of the metal box and manages with difficulty to uncover a part of the box. She looks inside and the terrifying sight of the sleeping vampire makes her blood run cold. Nadia is lying on black earth crawling with insects. Near her, there is a hollow in the earth, an empty place, surely Theodore's. Nadia is still dressed in her bloody evening dress. No breath, no heat emanates from her nose or her mouth, still stained with the blood of Lisa and Marie. Emilie is surprised to find that she instinctively knows exactly where Nadia's heart is. She points her knife at Nadia's chest and strikes her with all her might, but the knife is blocked by an iron hand. Nadia is awake. She grabbed the knife while staring fixedly at Émilie with her predatory yellow eyes. She pushes Émilie away from her with Herculean force, then gets up from the crate, as if she was being pulled by an invisible thread. She asks Émilie to be reasonable by promising her eternal life". Émilie replies that she doesn't want her life as Théodore's dog. Nadia is angry. She says she did everything out of love. She shows her fangs, her black claws reappear, she doubles in volume causing her black dress to burst under her enormous predatory muscles. Her white skin turns into gray dotted with hair. The beast lunges at Émilie to bite her but she plunges her knife into her heart. The vampire growls violently like a tiger. It writhes in a long convulsion. Émilie holds the knife down with all her strength, which seems to increase strangely. Finally, Nadia completely relaxes and falls to the ground. Her body seems to shrink visibly, emitting foul-smelling black smoke. Emilie takes a step back. She no longer feels as weak as she thought. She quickly snatches the vial from Nadia's neck and puts it in her pocket. The insects from the homeland suddenly all run towards the vampire's corpse. They devour it as if its long-delayed decomposition was finally beginning. But where is Theodore? Émilie wonders as she goes up the cellar stairs. She looks at the sky through a window and sees the sun setting.

Suddenly,she hears a piano sound coming from the room.music. A shiver runs through her body. She hearsTheodore's voice whispering in her ear: "Émilie, come my love." Emilie walks towards the music looking straight ahead.