Dracula's Demeter: The Vampire King's Stunning Sea Voyage

by Doug Lamoreux

  * * *

  In Purfleet, within sight of the dilapidated Carfax Abbey, within the cold stone walls of the sanitarium, the orderlies (whispering amongst themselves) shared a sense of relief. Renfield, still in a straight-waistcoat, had finally fallen asleep. It was the first time in forty-eight hours he'd ceased ranting. The calm was refreshing. Martin took one last look then, satisfied, closed the peep hole in the door, thinking, `It's about bleedin' time'.

  On the other side of the door, Renfield heard the hatch close… and opened his eyes. He could always fool ol' Martin! Now, quietly, quickly, in the same way he amazed his childhood friends with demonstrations of his `double jointed-ness', he pressed his confined shoulders against the hard wall and pushed. His arms slipped from their sockets with two barely audible pops. That accomplished, he sank his teeth into the waistcoat and tore at the canvas as a tiger would its prey.

  * * *

  With the lighthouses of Whitby harbor visible in the distance, Demeter had veered slightly off course; heading N.N.W. now when a westerly path was called for. Damn the ship's captain at the helm! And damn the crucifix in his cold dead hands!

  Dracula raised his hands again, summoning the most terrifying of all sea events; a massive squall. The schooner bucked and heeled over. A tremendous whistle roared through the sails and shrouds as a train of cold air raced off the North Sea following an upward gesture of his right hand. Then, to a sudden downward movement of his left, came a microblast that hit the sea east of the ship like a hammer.

  A twenty-foot wall of wind-driven water climbed angrily into the air and slapped the ship on her aft starboard side. Like a toy shoved across a park pond, Demeter was blasted hard to port, rolling on her beam ends and nearly cap-sizing. She rolled back to an even keel headed west; on course again for Whitby harbor.

  * * *

  The coast guard and his mates followed her with their searchlight, shouting in excitement and terror. It was nearly the hour of high tide and, unbelievably, the schooner was rushing straight at them with all sails set.

  Spellbound as the vessel bore down, one of the old seamen watching from the cliff behind the light was overheard to whisper, “She must fetch up somewhere, if it's only in hell.”

  * * *

  Draping her night coat, Lucy did not bother to tie it closed as she tried the door. She found it locked. Like always now – locked. She would not be a prisoner, not here, not now. She was being called. The meaning of the last weeks, the answers to her dreams, was at hand. She had to get out.

  Mina was still sleeping. Just as well.

  Lucy slipped to the window. She parted the curtain. She tugged for all she was worth and, with a great effort, threw up the sash. The window shrieked. The lightning flashed. The thunder rolled. Rain poured in, soaking her robe, the front of her sleeping gown. It did not matter. Nothing mattered now but escaping the confines of that room and reaching the cemetery over the sea. She forced the window open further, her saturated night clothes sticking to her breasts, her stomach. She ducked her head, determined to get out and away.

  “Lucy!”

  She froze, as she was, half-way out the bedroom window of their apartments. Mina had her by the shoulders, pulling her back inside. Rain water cascaded down her long black hair, her soaked gown, forming a puddle on the floor.

  “Oh, Lucy! Oh, Lucy!”

  Lucy offered no resistance, put up no struggle, said nothing. She was yet asleep.

  * * *

  “He is come!”

  All good things must come to an end, Martin thought. Renfield's silence among them. Sadly, the peace and quiet hadn't lasted long.

  “Looney's screaming again.”

  The lead orderly stared daggers at his assistant. “Ye think I'm deaf? Ye think I don't 'ear 'im?”

  Martin pulled the peep open and peered through. Renfield was there, at the window, staring out at the storm, yelling his head off. “He is come! He is come!” It took the orderly a moment to realize the patient was no longer bound up. His straight-waistcoat lay, in shreds, across his bed. More, the iron bars in his window were twisted away as if they'd been made of cheese. Renfield was climbing out.

  Martin swore an oath, wrestled his key in the lock, and yanked the door open. He and his partner rushed into the room. Ahead by a step, Martin grabbed Renfield as he sidled out between the twisted bars. Renfield growled and lashed out. Martin screamed as blood arced across his white jacket. He let go and the lunatic slid away, through the bars, and dropped into the dark outside.

  “'e stabbed me!” Martin shouted in pain.

  “What with?” William asked in horror.

  “'ow the bloody 'ell should I know what wiff?” Martin bellowed, waving his crimson-splashed mitt. “ `e bleedin' stabbed me! Ain't that enuff?”

  William tried the window but realized there was no way he or Martin would make the squeeze. And it wasn't likely he could bend the bars further. Besides, they were too late. Renfield was gone, lost in the rain, in the pitch black of the garden.

  “I'll get an-ofer straight-waistcoat,” Martin said. He wrapped a handkerchief tightly about his hand, staring out at the grounds. “You get yer Wellingtons, mate. Got t' go after ole loony, yeah? Ye don't want t' get yer feet wet.”

  In the dark, beyond the reach of his tormenting warders, Renfield ran a straight line through the rain soaked grass into the trees at the edge of the sanitarium property. Without a ladder or the least hesitation, he scaled the wet wall separating the asylum grounds from those of the deserted Carfax Abbey. He flipped over the top like a circus performer and dropped on the other side into the grounds.

  * * *

  In what to men would have been blinding fog, Dracula moved between the main and mizzen masts, his cape billowing in the rain and wind, his eyes averted from the crucifix in the dead man's hand.

  In their turn, mizzen then main, he tore the restraining lines from the pinrails and let them fly to the winds. The great booms, unleashed, swung madly, sweeping across the deck to starboard. Dracula threw his hand into the air and knotted his fist. The booms halted their swing in answer to his silent command. Redirected, each billowed fat and the schooner veered to port, picking up speed.

  He returned to the foredeck, raised his arms like the maestro and, conducting the elements of the storm, wind, rain and raging sea, drove the vessel on. The mist began to thin and the lighthouse beacons at the mouth of Whitby harbor appeared dead ahead.

  * * *

  Moments before, the troubled schooner had disappeared within the shifting gray banks.

  Now the soaked crowd on the east cliff, and those near the harbor, saw and felt the wind shift to the northeast taking the fog with it. From that fading mist, like the legendary Flying Dutchman, the schooner emerged… running before the blast. Buffeted from wave to wave, the vessel miraculously found a line between the piers, coming on.

  “There's a flat reef there between her and the port!” The coast guard shouted to relieve his own terror. “A good many ships have suffered there. With the wind blowing from this quarter, she'll never fetch the entrance of the harbor. It's impossible!”

  He hit the ship with the light beam – and waited for destruction.

  The wind beyond the breakwater shifted. The booms on the vessel's main and mizzen masts swung, untended, grabbing the shifted wind gusts. The ship came round and skirted the edge of the murderous reef. The booms swung again, the sails flattened and refilled in the opposite direction.

  Another wave of dank sea-fog settled like a blanket and the crowd was forced to strain its collective ears for they could not see a thing. The tempest roared. The thunder crashed. The sails of the hidden ship snapped – booming like cannons! The coast guard fixed the searchlight on the harbor mouth and east pier where the shock of the impending crash was expected. Soaked and stunned, everyone on land waited breathlessly.

  The schooner reappeared!

  To shouts, gasps, and screams from the crowds, the derelict ship threaded the needle be
tween the lighthouses and their extended piers. Many thought they'd witnessed a miracle from God. They could not have known the exact opposite was true.

  The schooner raced through the beam of light as it passed into the harbor. For an instant, it showed the man at the ship's wheel. He flopped from side to side like a marionette, his head snapping, swinging with the motion of the vessel. He looked to be drunk and ready to fall over. Somehow he kept his balance, remained upright; teetering but never losing hold of the helm.

  In the southeast corner of the harbor, what the locals called Tate Hill Pier, was a beach of sand and gravel left by the tides over the years. The nearby residents were either asleep, ignorant of the excitement, or out of their homes and watching from the east cliff above, for the pier was empty. Thankfully so, for this was the target of the rushing schooner as the wind drove her across the harbor. The crowd shouted, exclaimed, watched in awe as, with a great swoosh, a crunch and an alarming explosion, the ship hit the sand and was driven aground…

  Harrington's books flew from their shelf like a cricket googly, bowling Smirnov's empty laudanum bottle from the desk top. Funar's oilskins tumbled from the upper bunk. A cask in Swales galley smashed the wall tossing limes like marbles. Petrofsky's marlinspikes sailed like darts. Amramoff's tools erupted. Popescu's chamber pots disgorged their contents. The personal effects of Eltsin, Olgaren, and Constantin heaved and crashed. Nikilov's death clock ricocheted off the cabin door and landed as broken and dead as the artisan who'd crafted it.

  The ship's timbers shook. Her shrouds strained. The lashings gave way as the torn top sail crashed down. Everything loose on the deck took flight, everything secured came loose. Captain Nikilov's body slammed against the wheel, slumped, but stayed on its feet.

  The ship climbed the sand, throwing up water and gravel, tossing jetsam. The schooner slid over the rocks and ground to a halt. Lightning flashed, thunder rolled in a crescendo! Demeter had arrived in Whitby, England.

  * * *

  Despite the storm and the crashing waves, the excited crowd shocked at seeing the ship run aground, moved back towards the harbor. Two, the coast guard, who left his spotlight, and a newspaper correspondent, from the west cliff, were good runners and rushed ahead of the rest.

  The technicians still working the light scoured the harbor entrance as if searching for the demonic forces that had driven the ship. Finding nothing, they turned the light on the derelict to see the coast guard and the newsman had gained the beach. They made their way quickly, carefully, towards the grounded ship, through broken spars, wreckage and jetsam scattered across the rocks and sand.

  The coast guard was nearly to the canted wreck when SOMETHING, a blur, leapt over the bow rail and landed on the beach before him. He pulled up, startled, and took a moment in the blazing light and long shadows of the search beam to see it was – a huge black dog! He signaled a warning and the news man, coming behind, swore an oath and stopped short too.

  The dog (or could it have been a wolf!) snarled. It bared vicious fangs, saliva dripping from red lips, then snapped a threat with heavy jaws. Neither man moved. The animal, its eyes red as fire, gave vent with a tremendous and spine-chilling howl, then raced away. The creature cleared the rocky beach and vanished into the dark.

  Epilogue

  The monstrous dog, vanished in the night, had scared the living hell out of the coast guard and the news man. Now, as they drew near the wrecked ship, the gloomy figurehead did the same. Gouges in her face, in the face of the fanged creature nestled between her breasts, and in her breasts, marred the sculpture and gave the carved image an aspect of menace. At one time the figure meant discovery and new life, now it only frightened, proclaiming a derelict's arrival to England's shores. They forced themselves past the eerie wooden maiden.

  A torn line from the collapsed foreshrouds hung down over the gunwale, a deadman, dragged through the water and lying on the sand. The coast guard grabbed it and climbed; the first living soul aboard the schooner in two days. The journalist was hot on his heels. They made their way aft, through the debris, and around the deckhouse. On the other side, past the mizzen mast, they pulled up together staring in shocked awe at the helm. Never had man seen such a sight.

  A seaman, the captain if his coat and cap told the truth, stood unmoving at the helm. His hands were tied, one over the other, with a crucifix and rosary in-between, to the ship's wheel. The binding cords had cut his wrists to the bone and the poor fellow was dead.

  The crowd had reached the pier hoping for a closer look; some, by the chaos, even a chance to get aboard. On one end of the pier, the coast guard's technicians and police personnel were stopping all who advanced and refusing them access to the ship. On the other, the harbor's chief boatman was letting friends and relatives climb aboard. The coast guard chased them back, hoping to keep to a minimum the number who saw the dead man.

  “Pay him no mind,” a toff told the crowd. “Jealous he is, as he's got no salvage rights. I'm a law student; I know what I'm on about. The right of salvage belongs to the first civilian entering a derelict. The coast guard, being official, has no claim in the Admiralty Court. And the rights of the owner are already sacrificed,” the would-be lawyer said (as if he knew). “His property being held in contravention of the statues of mortmain, since the tiller, as emblemship, if not proof, of delegated possession, is held in a dead hand.”

  The confused crowd nodded their complete understanding.

  “Dr. Caffyn,” a police sergeant called to a local surgeon in the crowd. “Would you be good enough to make a cursory examination?”

  The doctor did and, in little time, declared, “The man must have been dead for quite two days.”

  “There's no crew!” The harbor boatman shouted, interrupting. He'd stepped from the deckhouse with three men behind him, a brother and two nephews, drawing the attention of the crowd.

  The sergeant tried to quiet them. “What's that?”

  “We've searched the ship. There's no crew. Nobody. There's not another soul aboard.”

  The murmur started again. This time the officer let it play.

  “He must have tied up his own hands,” the coast guard whispered to the doctor. “And fastened the knots with his teeth.”

  The doctor searched the body and removed Nikilov's corked bottle. He held it to the sergeant's light, seeing note paper and pencil inside. “Hallo. Unless I miss my guess,” the doctor said. “That ought be an interesting bit of scroll.”

  The ropes were cut (they'd sliced too deeply to be untied) and Nikilov's corpse removed from the wheel. His honorable watch, from this world and the next, had lasted nearly five days. A makeshift litter was fashioned from the debris and, on the magistrate's nod, the captain was reverently carried away. An inquest and burial with honors, in Mina Murray's clifftop cemetery, were all that remained of Nikilov's voyage.

  The fierce storm was abating, the crowd scattering, and the sky beginning to redden over the Yorkshire wolds.

  * * *

  Martin and William, soaked by the storm and dry again now the sun had risen that bright Monday morning, had searched the grounds to the Thames and back, all night long, with no sign of the escaped lunatic. Headed back, in weary defeat, the pair were startled by a distant howl of idiotic glee; the laughter followed by… singing. The orderlies shared nervous looks of surprise. “Blow me down dead,” Martin said. Someone was singing a rousing rendition of `The Roast Beef of Old England'.

  “When mighty Roast Beef was the Englishman's food,

  It ennobled our brains and enriched our blood.

  Our soldiers were brave and our courtiers were good

  Oh! the Roast Beef of old England, And old English Roast Beef!”

  The stanzas were disordered and the song off-key, but Martin wasn't surprised. Renfield was the singer and his enthusiasm made up for any lapses. The ballad danced happily on the air.

  “But now we are dwindled to, what shall I name?

  A sneaking poor race, half-begott
en and tame,

  Who sully the honours that once shone in fame.”

  They followed the music through the trees to the high wall separating the sanitarium property from that of the deserted Carfax. But, as the orderlies closed in, they found the song coming, not from the wall or beyond, but from the branches of an old English Oak tree on their side. Renfield was nestled, out of reach, in the saddle between the top of the trunk and the base of the branches. He was facing Carfax and singing with all his heart.

  “Oh! the Roast Beef of Old England, And old English Roast Beef!”

  Having heard him long before seeing him, and certain he was off his top, the orderlies moved in slowly. William had the straight-waistcoat ready; Martin carried only determination.

  “When good Queen Elizabeth sat on the throne,

  Ere coffee, or tea, or such slip-slops were known,

  The world was in terror if e'er she did frown.”

  “Renfield!” Martin called up. “Wha' in the name o'…” He paused, mouth agape. Horror halted the orderly's question.

  “Oh! The Roast Beef of old England…”

  The lunatic turned in his seat. “Hello, Martin!” He was clutching a cat (with its throat torn out), his mouth and chin awash with blood. His fountain pen protruded from the animal's neck.

  “Lor' 'ave mercy…” the orderly whispered. Not wise, that, giving a dangerous lunatic a fountain pen! Martin withered as he looked from the stabbed cat to his own bandaged hand.

  For what it was worth, the lifeless body did NOT belong to Tabby. The calico cat, long a target of the lunatic's bloodlusts, had survived the storm (and Renfield) intact. This one wore a mangy striped coat of gray and black, probably a stray that passed the gloomy Carfax at just the wrong moment. Still, by his grin, his gore-splashed face, and his song, Renfield thought he held a delicacy.

  All night they'd feared this moment would be a violent confrontation, but nothing could have been further from the truth. Renfield was delighted with everything; the sunny morning, the request he vacate the tree, the notion of returning to the sanitarium. All was right with the world and he happily came down from his perch. The straight-waistcoat, unnecessary for this amiable patient, was instead employed to wrap the poor cat. (Renfield's offer to carry the bundle was politely turned down.)