DRACULA OF THE APES
Book Three: The Curse
G. Wells Taylor
Copyright 2014 G. Wells Taylor
Smashwords Edition
All rights reserved. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Cover Design by G. Wells Taylor
Edited by Katherine Tomlinson
More titles at Smashwords.com and GWellsTaylor.com.
Table of Contents
Dedication
African Coast 1912
Chapter 1 - The Castaways
Chapter 2 - The Mutiny
Chapter 3 - Dark Moringa
Chapter 4 - Better than Steerage
Chapter 5 - Gazda
Chapter 6 - Weight of the Crown
Chapter 7 - Fire and Smoke
Chapter 8 - Savage Breast
Chapter 9 - Passion and Pulse
Chapter 10 - Out of the Black Fog
Chapter 11 - A Day of Toil
Chapter 12 - The Winding Trails
Chapter 13 - Theories and Shadow
Chapter 14 - Survivor in the Sand
Chapter 15 - Thief in the Night
Chapter 16 - Action at Sunrise
Chapter 17 - By Vine and Branch
Chapter 18 - Forest Rescue
Chapter 19 - Huntress and Savior
Chapter 20 - Jungle Bower
Chapter 21 - Ship of the Trees
Chapter 22 - Miss James’ Dilemma
Chapter 23 - Hunter and Huntress
Chapter 24 - Salvation of Science
Chapter 25 - Dark Discovery
Chapter 26 - Death and Dreams
Chapter 27 - The End Considered
Chapter 28 - Signum draconis
Chapter 29 - Prey in Sight
Chapter 30 - View of the Kitchen
Chapter 31 - March to the River
Chapter 32 - A Mother’s Vigil
Chapter 33 - When She Rises
Chapter 34 - Attack
Chapter 35 - Fire and Death
Chapter 36 - Nothing but Revenge
Chapter 37 - Salvation by the Sea
Chapter 38 - Cast Away
Chapter 39 - Lords of the Jungle
Chapter 40 - The Order of Things
Chapter 41 - The Crew’s Fate
Sample more Vampires of the Kind in Bent Steeple by G. Wells Taylor
Other titles by G. Wells Taylor
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Connect with the Author
Acknowledgments:
A special thanks to the irreplaceable Katherine Tomlinson who edited these books.
This trilogy is dedicated to the authors of the classic novels that inspired its creation.
Bram Stoker
Dracula
&
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Tarzan of the Apes
African Coast
1912
CHAPTER 1 – The Castaways
A savage roar rose out of the dense jungle and charged toward the beach like a hungry carnivore after blood. Too terrified to do more than shudder, the seven castaways remained in place in the shadow of their stranded lifeboat, paralyzed by their fear.
As the last echo died, they returned to the task of unloading cargo and as a group stared wide-eyed into the dense foliage that edged the pale sand and gradually climbed east into the highlands. They had seen the distant mountains before they’d been put ashore.
A heartbeat later, another feral call sounded from a point much farther south, and all eyes turned to a member of their group, a man of some 50 years of age who was silently studying the treetops with keen scientific interest.
“What the devil was that?” someone asked in a high-pitched voice.
The scientist remained silent, his gaze focused on the high branches.
Beside him young Phillip Holmes hissed in frustration, his pale blue eyes desperately whipping back and forth as he searched the heavy jungle’s leading edge for whatever so captivated his older companion.
The clean-shaven Holmes was dressed in fashionable tweed Norfolk jacket, matching breeches and knee-high leather boots. A brown derby hat covered short hair of the same color.
An Englishman in his mid-20s, he had been aboard the S.S. Dunwich which was steaming from London to Cape Town and the captain of that ship had invited him to join him and the Quarrie family for dinner. Young Lilly Quarrie’s charms had kept Holmes near her ever since.
“It is an ape,” answered Dr. Joseph Van Resen finally, adding a curt nod that caused the thick iron gray curls atop his head to quiver. His rumpled green sack suit had tears in the left shoulder and along the seam of one arm. “Though, I have never heard such a variety of call—which was very strange, I’m sure you will agree. By the volume and power, I suspect it was a large animal—a gorilla most likely.” He spoke with a German accent.
“Sounded more like a madman. What an awful racket to make!” cried Abigail Quarrie, and her husband, Clive, quickly agreed. The pair were in their mid-60s and barely managing to contain their fright where they clung to each other upon the savage shore.
Like the other women in the group, Mrs. Quarrie had chosen a tailored suit for travel. Hers consisted of matching blue jacket and skirt set off by a silk scarf and broad-brimmed hat. Her husband wore a black sack coat and embroidered gray vest with brown trousers and shoes.
He had lost his hat in all the commotion, but would never mourn it. The narrow-brimmed Homburg was a weak imitation of the ten-gallon Stetson he wore back home, and it had only been at his wife’s insistence that he wore the ridiculous thing at all.
The Quarries hailed from a very dry part of Texas, so the vast Atlantic at their backs did nothing to sooth their nerves.
“That was an animal?” Virginia James, the Quarrie’s governess, offered with a well-polished drawl. “It sounded human enough to give me goose bumps!”
Miss James had the formidable task of turning the rambunctious and headstrong teenaged Lilly Quarrie into a lady. It was a full-time position that Virginia had held since the girl was a mere child, and was expected to continue for years to come, especially now that she’d reached her mid-30s and had no reasonable prospects for marriage.
Her companions thought it a shame for there were no external indications as to why she was headed for the spinster life. Virginia was beautiful, with milk-white skin and long brown hair that she kept tied up under her gray hat, the headgear held in
