I quicken my steps past a place called the Mad Mine, one of those spooky rides where it’s all bathed in darkness inside, where anything could be waiting around the next corner. There’s a banner hanging out front. OUR MONSTERS WELCOME ALL VISITORS!

If only every monster was so accommodating.

At last, I see him up ahead. Renfield, lingering in front of a fun house, the neon marquee gone dark for the night, a giant clown head smiling above us, though I don’t see what he’s got to be so happy about.

Another voice coming up the boardwalk, and Renfield takes my hand, his skin withered and strange, like antique papyrus stretched taut.

“Hurry now,” he whispers, as he pulls me through the door.

Inside, the fun house opens into a maze of mirrors, every angle glinting like diamonds, even in the dark. Already, I want to turn back, but Renfield holds tight to me, guiding me through. My head down, I won’t glance up and see us there in the reflections, Renfield looking like a shadow, me looking like nothing at all. A blur where a girl should be.

We keep going through the maze until the narrow corridor spits us into a vast room, the ceiling vaulted, our footsteps echoing back to us. The place is filled with small wooden rides, christened with odd names. The Joy Wheel and the Barrel of Fun and the Human Laundry, each of them resembling medieval torture devices. If the power was turned on, I imagine they’d be rotating wildly, garish lights flashing, discordant music tinkling to life. But it’s long into the night, long after hours, and the rides sit sullenly in the dark, waiting for patrons that one day won’t return.

“We’ll be safe now,” Renfield says, as though he and I are ever truly safe.

I shiver, even though it isn’t cold. “How long have you been hiding here?”

“Forever,” he says. “Or maybe just a day.”

Together, we pass by giant rocking horses, my fingers tracing the words on a faded sign, everything fading here. Of course Renfield would end up in a place like this. Somewhere that’s slowly being forgotten.

“I’m nothing to him now,” he says, and doesn’t even speak his name. He doesn’t have to.

I wish I could tell him he was wrong.

“The least he could do,” Renfield says, crinkling his nose, “is snap my neck like the last time. Now that was a proper goodbye.”

A grin cracks across his desiccated face, like he’s genuinely savoring the memory. Like having Dracula break him into pieces was the closest he ever came to finding true love.