Dracul

by Dacre Stoker

  “You’re assuming her words are actually meaningful, she spoke in a delirium. Most likely, she overheard part of our conversation last night and her subconscious twisted it into some kind of false memory, nothing more.”

  I knew by the expressions on my brother’s and sister’s faces they did not believe this; they thought her words to be more. And though I wasn’t sure what do about it, I agreed with them. When she spoke, I got the distinct impression her words rang true. Although cryptic, they weren’t of the garbled nature she usually spoke when her illness came upon her. There was a conviction behind them, one that carried hints of the strong woman I married, the woman I hoped still lived somewhere within that mind.

  I knew then what must be done.

  “Both of you, go to Clontarf. I will arrange for Miss Dugdale’s return to care for Emily, then I’ll go back to the hospital and revisit the body.”

  “Will the guard allow you back in?”

  “Money opens many doors, dear sister.” I turned to Bram. “How do you plan to get to Clontarf?”

  “We’ll walk,” he replied. “It’s but a few miles.”

  “Nonsense; take my carriage and driver.”

  They attempted to protest, but I told them this was a time for haste, and walking these streets in the dead of night was not the safest course of action. After rousing my driver (who preferred to sleep in the stables with the horses), they were soon on their way. I donned my overcoat and started for the hospital, stopping only at Miss Dugdale’s small home long enough to tell her I had an emergency that required attending, and ask her to stay with Emily until I returned. She wiped the sleep from her eyes and agreed.

  * * *

  • • •

  UPON RETRIEVING THE KEYS for Dr. Steevens’ Hospital from Swift’s Hospital for Lunatics, I crossed the open field to the south entrance and, like the previous night, let myself in. I then quickly made my way back to the morgue without spying a single soul in the hospital corridors. I found the guard post vacant. A book sat opened on top of the stool where we had found Appleyard the night before, but there was no sign of him now. Most likely, he had left to attend to his personal needs and would be back momentarily. I considered waiting for him before entering, then decided it would be best to hurry.

  I entered the morgue and rushed to the back corner where we had found the body thought to be Patrick O’Cuiv’s. The steel table was empty. The jars that held his organs were empty, too. There was something peculiar about the condition of the room, though. Blood and filth covered the autopsy table, and the workspace reeked of rancid meat, as if the mess had festered for a week rather than just for one day. Upon completion of an autopsy, it was standard practice to clean and sterilize the space in order to prepare for the next procedure. Leaving the table and accoutrements in such a state would surely land someone in trouble. As I circled the table, my shoes made a sick sucking noise with each step. At first, I dared not glance down, but I knew I must, so I forced my eyes to the floor—bloody footprints littered the marble, a number of them from bare feet. They seemed to encircle the table, then beat a path between the beds off to the right, fading as they went, until terminating at the third bed in. That bed bore a card numbered 28773—O’Cuiv’s—the same number that appeared on the bag containing O’Cuiv’s personal effects, a bag I now noted as missing.

  There was a body on the bed, covered by a white sheet.

  My heart tightened within my chest.

  You cannot let him put the man back together again.

  My wife’s words echoed through my mind, and I shook them away.

  Certainly O’Cuiv’s organs were returned to his chest cavity, and his body placed back in his bed, following the autopsy; that would be standard procedure. The bloody footprints were probably nothing more than a mess left by a careless doctor.

  Bloody, bare footprints, my wife’s voice whispered at my ear.

  He walked from the table and returned to his bed—the moment his heart was returned, he was whole again—with the heart came blood, with blood there is life. The blood is the life.

  * * *

  • • •

  SURELY THIS WAS NOT what she meant. It could not be what she meant.

  It was then the sheet moved.

  Not a sudden move, not even a major move, just a slight shift in the sheet; a bulge towards the center that came and went in an instant, as if the body beneath considered turning on its side, then thought better of it.

  Nonsense!

  A trick of the light, or perhaps a stray breeze had found its way to the basement from up above.

  The sheet moved again, this time accompanied by a soft moan.

  I took a step closer.

  I did not want to approach it—that was the furthest thought from my mind—but my feet shuffled closer anyway. First one step, then another, then another after that, following the bloody footprints from the autopsy table to the bed, towards whatever stirred beneath.

  In my mind’s eye, I saw O’Cuiv’s organs in the bowls, the heart somehow beating with life, beating so ferociously that its bowl vibrated on the table with each thumpity-thump, that steady double patter I heard so often through the stethoscope. Following each contraction came the expulsion of blood, thick and black, unhealthy blood, riddled with clots. The clumps reached the rim of the bowl, then somehow tried to climb out under their own volition, escaping the evil heart and oozing away, oozing towards me. In the bowl beside the heart, the lungs inflated like yellow mucus-filled sacs, sucking in the surrounding air, then exhaling it with a watery gasp.

  I forced my eyes shut and shook my head, driving these thoughts from my mind. I knew they were not real. I knew they existed only within my imagination, but they held fast.

  When I opened my eyes, the organs were gone, the bloody bowls were empty again, and I breathed a sigh.

  The sheet moved, I was certain of this. A small red dot appeared near the center.

  My feet took another step towards the bed, forcing me to follow.

  I heard the lungs again, the rough thump of the heart, only this time the sounds didn’t come from phantom organs in the bowls at my back; they came from under the sheet on the bed in front of me, only inches from me now as I somehow drew closer. I reached for the sheet and took it by the corner, pulling it away in one quick, fluid motion.

  I stifled a scream.

  On the bed lay Mr. Appleyard, his uniform shirt soaked in blood and his face whiter than any I had ever seen, nearly alabaster. Frothy blood dripped from the corners of his mouth when he tried to speak. His eyes were glossy, like fluid-filled marbles, but they still held life. They focused on me for a moment before rolling back up into his head. A gash in the man’s neck was spurting blood, the flesh hanging in a loose flap. When he drew a breath, I found the source of the sound. It wasn’t the lungs in the bowl; it was the air seeping through the gash. Red spittle was draining from it and seeping into the blood-soaked mattress beneath him.

  As a doctor, I would like to say I immediately began treatment to help this man, to save what little life still flowed through his ravaged body, but I did not. Instead, I froze, my eyes locked on him, my limbs unwilling to move. I stood motionless as his final breath escaped from that gaping hole in his neck and he finally found peace.

  The room fell quiet then, so quiet I thought I heard the mice as they scurried through the walls and my own heart as it continued to work at a fevered pitch. I stood there, one hand clutching the sheet, the other limp at my side, unable to look away from the wound at this man’s neck. It appeared to be an animal attack, but that was not plausible, not here, not in the basement of this hospital. Then what? Surely not a man, for what instrument would yield such a ghastly tear? It certainly wasn’t a knife, but the alternatives were unthinkable.

  A man it must be, though, for Appleyard hadn’t climbed up on the bed by himself and hidden under the shee
t on his own.

  At that moment, another thought entered my mind, one that I wished I could quickly expel, one that gripped me with an entirely new fear.

  Where was the man who had done this? The wounds were surely fresh, inflicted no more than minutes before I arrived. The perpetrator couldn’t be far; had he left, I would have passed him in the corridor leading to the basement. Yet I had seen no one.

  Could he be here now, watching me?

  This thought was enough to force my eyes from the body of the security guard to my surroundings, to the dozens of beds around me. I realized I wasn’t alone, not truly. There were bodies on many of those beds—twenty, if not more—each lying in perfect silence.

  Could the killer be amongst them? Waiting for the right moment to strike me down?

  The ring of a little bell came from my left, and I spun to meet the sound. I was faced with nine occupied beds. My eyes quickly followed the strings tied to the hand of each body to the little bell hanging above each bed, but none betrayed the stillness. Another bell sounded, this one behind me, and I spun yet again only to find more motionless beds, more bodies lying in wait. Another bell rang out at my right, then two more on my left, more yet behind me. Within moments, the room came alive with dozens of chimes, all ringing out louder and louder. I threw my hands upon my ears and spun in circles, for the sound grew horribly loud; bells, bells, all around.

  In the bed to my left I spied movement. Subtle at first, a small shuffle of the sheet over the body, but enough to catch my eye. The arm twitched slightly, which tugged at the string and rang the attached bell, a high ping that joined in the chorus of others.

  Could this be the killer?

  My eyes searched the room for a weapon and found a bone saw on the shelf behind the autopsy table—bloody, unclean, like the table itself. I crossed the room in haste and scooped up the tool, then made my way back to the bed where I had seen the sheet move. I held the saw in a firm grip, raised it above my head, and yanked away the sheet.

  An enormous black rat peered up from the hole it had gnawed in the body’s thigh, a thin strip of flesh hanging from sharp little teeth. It glared at me without fear before returning to its meal of fresh corpse. I fought the urge to vomit as the foul rodent tore away another piece of meat with enough force to send the bell tied to the arm jingling wildly.

  All around me, dozens of other bells rang, and I watched in horror as rats poured out from under the various sheets with mouths full of carrion, only to disappear under the beds and into the shadows bathing the walls. These vanishing predators were replaced by reinforcements darting out from the same hiding places and quickly scurrying up the sides of the beds and disappearing under the sheets in an endless cycle of dreadful defilement. With each stolen meal of flesh from the dead came the ringing of a bell, and with all the bells ringing so, I could only imagine the carnage taking place beneath the white linens.

  I ran. I ran as quickly as I could from the morgue, from the basement, into the dark cavern of night, leaving Dr. Steevens’ Hospital in my wake. I finally paused to catch my breath when I reached the Grand Canal.

  I considered going back, if only to warn the staff of the unimaginable horrors taking place, but then I remembered the missing body of O’Cuiv and the mutilated body of Appleyard. If I were to return, blame may be cast upon me. After all, I was not authorized to be in the morgue. For that matter, I had no business in the hospital. It would not be a stretch for the police to suspect me of committing the guard’s murder. The fact that I had no motive would hold little weight against my trespassing. I had seen men hang for less.

  Until that very moment, I did not realize I was still holding the bone saw. The bloody blade shimmered in the moonlight, black streaks upon the silvery metal. Without so much as another thought, I tossed it into the canal and watched it sink beneath the surface.

  This was such a careless act, for I didn’t consider whether or not I was alone until after I lost sight of the blade; it was only then that I looked up and down James Street in search of prying eyes. Although I found none, I felt the eyes of a stranger upon me. I pulled the collar of my coat up tight around my neck and began walking with haste in the direction of my home. I headed towards St. Stephen’s Green, hoping to draw out anyone on my tail. When five minutes passed and I spotted no one, I hoped the anxiousness would leave me, but it did not. Instead, an intense malaise crept over me, and the hairs on the back of my neck pricked up. When I reached the corner of Thomas and Francis streets, I stopped suddenly, whirling around in hopes of catching sight of whoever followed at my back. My eyes landed on the silhouette of a very tall man dressed all in black with a cane and top hat. He stopped as I did and stood motionless about thirty feet behind me. Although gas lamps burned all around, this man was nearly lost within the shadows, so much so I could not make out any details of his face. His hair, too, was long and black, framing the near white of his pale skin, what little was visible.

  “I see you, sir!” I said in the most authoritative voice I could muster. “Why are you following me?”

  No reply came, only the slight tilt of his head.

  “Should you continue, I will summon a constable!”

  Had he seen me throw the bone saw?

  Had he seen me flee the hospital?

  I could not be sure.

  I turned back around and continued down Francis Street, my ears keen to the sounds behind me. I heard the click of the man’s cane but not his shoes; they made not a single sound on the cobblestones. Now I wished I had kept the saw; I had no weapon on my person, and while I could hold my own in a fight, this man was half a head taller than me and broad in the shoulders. At such a distance, and under these brooding conditions, discerning his age proved impossible. But he stood tall and firm, lacking the telltale slouch of an older man, so I imagined him to be no older than I, and a formidable opponent.

  I hastened my pace, not to the degree that I would appear to be fleeing but just enough to increase the distance between us. He moved slower than I; I could tell from the steady click of the cane. At this point, I suppose I moved at a speed nearly twice his, yet there was something abnormal about his gait—at such a clip, I should have noticed a diminishment in the sound of the cane clicking behind me as the distance between us increased, but instead the click of his cane grew louder, as if he were gaining ground on me despite only taking half the number of steps.

  As I neared St. Patrick’s Cathedral, I stopped and turned around again and found my fear confirmed. When I first spotted him, he had been maybe thirty feet behind me, yet somehow he managed to close that gap by more than half. He stopped moving when I did and again stood stock-still, aside from the slight tilting of his head a moment after my eyes fell on him. He was close enough now that I could make out his face and it caused a chill to rush over me. His skin was nearly translucent, lined with tiny red veins that seemed to absorb the light from the streetlamp and glimmer with the dancing flame of the gas. His nose was best described as aquiline, with a prominent bridge and slight curve at the base, yet perfectly in proportion with his other features. His eyebrows were of the thickest black, and his long hair flowed out from his top hat to nearly his shoulders. He had a light beard, not thick enough to be considered unruly but enough to aid in the concealment of his face, for it seemed to grasp at the shadows around his head and pull them in a little bit closer. Those eyes, though! My God, those eyes. His sloe-black eyes were death’s own and yet they teemed with life. As his head tilted, I swear on my soul they flickered bright red before returning to bottomless black pools. His lips were a ruby red, enhanced by the dark hair and pale skin, and they were parted ever so slightly, as if he were sucking in a breath, yet he made no such sound.

  I daresay his teeth frightened me most, for when his lips opened, I saw them protruding; they were profoundly white and appeared to be filed to points, resembling the teeth of a canine more so than those of a man.r />
  “I have money, if that is what you want.” The words escaped my lips before I realized I uttered them. I felt so completely alone, vulnerable in the open street, for there was not another living soul in attendance. What I would not give for a knife or a gun, anything I could use to defend myself.

  “I do not want your money,” the man said. Oh, and that voice! His voice was rich with bass, thick, each word pronounced with deliberate care. There was also an accent I couldn’t quite place other than being Eastern European in origin, the accent of one well traveled over many years.

  “Then be on your way. I have had a very long day and wish for nothing but the comfort of my own bed and a cup of hot tea,” I replied.

  “And I am only out for a late-night stroll. Imagine my surprise at finding another out at this hour, particularly someone leaving the hospital with such haste. I could not help but find such a man intriguing.” His fingers flexed around the knob at the top of the cane that served as its handle. Long fingers, the carefully manicured hands of a musician. I thought of O’Cuiv’s cold, dead hands with the nails fashioned in long points. “I, too, recently left the hospital; I was visiting an old friend.”

  I found myself lost in his eyes, simply gazing into them. They were mesmerizing; I felt as if I were staring into a hole in the earth that had no bottom, a pit so deep it passed through the realms of Hell and continued out the other side. They were made up of the roiling sea, hard, raw waves crashing into one another on a moonless night. A fascination, a wonder. I’m not sure how long I stood there in such a state before getting my wits about me.

  “I wish you and your friend nothing but the best,” I told him, glancing down at my shoes. “Now I must be on my way.” At this, I turned and continued down Camden Row towards my home, all the while feeling those eyes on my back, listening for the click of his cane.

  “Perhaps you know my friend as well?”