Bram Stoker's Dracula

by Fred Saberhagen

  No doubt, though, that it was the count himself who lay face up inside the coffin of the dark mold, as an ordinary man might recline upon some soft and pleasant bed.

  Recovering moment by moment, breath by breath, from the initial shock of the discovery, Harker realized that Dracula must be either dead or asleep—he felt unable to say which, for the count's open eyes were without either the alertness of life or the glassiness of death. The cheeks seemed to retain the warmth of life through all their pallor; the lips were red, and bore stains of what appeared to be fresh blood, which had trickled from the corners of the mouth. Even the deep, burning eyes seemed set among swollen flesh, for the lids and pouches underneath were bloated. But there was no sign of movement, no reaction to the rude uncovering.

  Breathing quickly now, in little moaning gasps of fear and loathing, Harker bent closer, forcing himself to examine his find carefully. Indeed, it seemed to Harker that the whole awful creature was simply gorged with blood—like a filthy leech, exhausted with his repletion.

  Making a great effort of will, Harker bent still further over the man—the thing in the shape of a man—lying in the box of earth, and tried, in vain, to discover any sign of life. His hand on Dracula's chest could find no pulse, no breath, no beating of the heart.

  In a moment Harker had nerved himself to search the ornate robe for pockets, hoping to discover keys—but without success. Looking closely into the dead eyes, Harker saw in them, unfocused though they were and unconscious of the intruder's presence, such a look of hate that the young man recoiled instinctively.

  Even as he stepped back fear began to transform into anger.

  This, this was the being he, Harker, was helping to transfer to London, where, perhaps, for centuries to come he might, among the teeming millions, satiate his lust for blood and create a new and ever-widening circle of semidemons to batten on the helpless…

  To London, where innocent, trusting Mina lived…

  Reeling back from the open coffin, sobbing and moaning in his suddenly energized rage and fear, Harker grabbed up one of the shovels that stood handy, and was about the swing the metal edge with all his power against that pale, unliving face.

  But at that moment the eyes abruptly altered in the undead face; the gaze of the count fell upon the one who threatened him, and seemed to rob the young man of his full strength.

  The shovel dropped from Harker's hands to clatter on the broken pavement. Staggering back, he came up against the half-ruined mausoleum wall of individual burial vaults. Immediately he was caught at, pinched, by something—no, by several things—pale rootlike things that were attached to this wall, growing from it… They grew out from the wall, and they caught at Harker's clothing; first one snag and then another.

  Without comprehension he stared down at the fingers of a small, white hand that clutched his trouser leg.

  In a shock of horror the young man realized that he had once more fallen into the seductive grasp of the three vampire women.

  Now he could hear and recognize their sleepy, murmuring voices. Their six pale, bare arms were reaching out through the broken ends of their respective sepulchers to hold him. Their small fingers and their sharp nails were grasping drowsily, weakly, at his clothing, at his body.

  Quite clearly he could hear and know the sweet tones of the youngest bride, murmuring seductively from within the vault.

  "Don't leave usss—you want usss tonight—"

  The laughter of the three brides tinkled.

  He knew that he need only waver in his hard purpose for a moment, and all the wicked delight he had experienced upon that soft moonlit bed would once again be his…

  Groaning incoherently, making a tremendous effort, Harker tore himself free. Now running for freedom almost blindly, avoiding the main entrance of the chapel where the Gypsies toiled, he sought the dim fading daylight visible from another direction, low down on a broken wall.

  Squeezing his body through the narrow aperture, Harker ran, and fell, and crawled, and ran again.

  And now, at last, he reached a place where there were no more stone walls, and he could feel clean rain upon his face. And where the only laughter to be heard was human. Crazy laughter, but quite human.

  The laughter kept on and on. It stopped at last only because he needed all his breath to run.

  8

  Some weeks later, on a sultry day in early August, Renfield, the former lawyer in the firm of Hawkins and Thompkins, was growing increasingly uneasy in his cell in the asylum at Purfleet. Today even the cultivation of his many lives, his pets, the insects and arachnids and birds that he usually found completely fascinating, had ceased to hold the patient's interest.

  All during the early hours of the warm afternoon Renfield had been riveted to the barred window of his cell, watching the sky, making no response to doctors or attendants who looked in on him, or to the occasional calls and outcries of his fellow inmates.

  Just now the summer air in the vicinity of Purfleet was heavy and quiet, but the former solicitor could sense—just how Renfield was able to sense such things he could not have explained—that a mighty storm was approaching from the Channel. In his mind's eye he could perceive the gray clouds, their masses tinged with sunburst at the far edge, hanging over the gray sea. The fringe of the ocean came tumbling in over the shallows and the sandy flats with a roar, muffled in the sea mists drifting inland. The horizon out there was lost in a gray mist, all was vastness, the clouds were piled like giant rocks, and over the sea hung a murmuring like some presage of doom. Dark indistinguishable figures, sometimes half-shrouded in the mist, moved on the beaches.

  What was stranger, much stranger, than the fact of the onrushing tempest, was that the tremendous storm was controlled. In Renfield's perception, it was as if Nature herself were being manipulated by a single, powerful hand. It was a hand whose identity the madman was sure he could recognize, that of the very Master whose coming Renfield had so long and eagerly awaited.

  Naturally enough the oncoming tempest was driving ships racing before its winds. That in itself was only to be expected. But—

  One ship in particular, a foreign sailing vessel, loomed up clearly in Renfield's perception. There was something very special about this craft; something in its cargo, yes, that was it—a kind of miracle all crated in the hold…

  But he dared not even think much about that now.

  Today the heavy air held glorious secrets, secrets that for the time being must be kept…

  Even after the passage of weeks, Renfield's bones still ached from the beating he had received at the hands of the attendants who had been trying to protect Dr. Seward from him. Poor Dr. Seward; he wasn't really Renfield's enemy.

  No… there was really no benefit to be derived from strangling Dr. Seward.

  The storm was coming. Closer now.

  Renfield's arms and legs moved stiffly as at last he retreated from the window. It was high time, he thought, that he reviewed his cultivation of small lives in all the corners of his cell. Small indeed, but when properly accumulated, they could still be important.

  Crouching on the floor, he murmured to his flies and spiders: "Gather 'round, my pets; the Master of all life will soon be at hand."

  Thomas Bilder, senior keeper at the London Zoological Gardens adjoining Regent's Park, and a resident, with his wife, of one of the small cottages behind the elephant house, was proud to have in his charge the whole collection of wolves and jackals and hyenas.

  Mr. Bilder's undoubted favorite among the animals was a huge gray wolf, called Berserker, more for its formidable size and appearance than for any actually demonstrated ferocity. On calm days, right after the wolf had finished feeding, the keeper would sometimes dare to scratch Berserker's ears. The beast had been captured four years ago in Norway, then had come to Jamrach's, a well-known London dealer in animals, and thence to the zoo.

  Today Bilder, looking from a window of his cottage, took note of the oppressive atmosphere and the impendi
ng storm. He also heard several distant but penetrating howls and yelps suggesting that his animals were alarmed. Sometimes visitors did things to torment them. Grumbling to his wife, the keeper conscientiously decided to make an extra trip to the cages some four hundred yards away to examine the condition of his charges.

  On arriving at the exhibit, Mr. Bilder observed that several wolves, in particular Berserker, were becoming increasingly excited by—as the keeper thought—the change of atmosphere. Given the ominous state of the weather, few visitors of any kind were present today, and none seemed to be bothering the animals.

  Berserker on this particular afternoon happened to be alone in a cage, where he was restlessly trotting back and forth, howling and yelping almost continuously. Bilder spoke soothingly to the beast and tried to calm him—on this occasion, as the keeper later testified, he would not have thought of putting hand or arm inside the cage. But Berserker was not to be pacified, and Bilder, with other tasks demanding his attention, soon abandoned the effort.

  Only moments after the keeper had turned away, the rain poured down, causing him to hasten his retreat in the direction of his cottage.

  And only seconds after the onset of the rain, the storm's first bolt of lightning to strike in the vicinity of the zoo came ripping and rending its way down through the cage's iron bars and gate.

  By great good fortune neither people nor animals were injured, but all restraints upon Berserker's freedom had been instantly and violently removed, the bars of the cage left twisted and melted open. Seconds later the gray shape of the wolf was seen bounding out and disappearing into the rainy park.

  Despite the downpour, Bilder turned back when the lightning struck and was among the first to see the blasted cage. He attempted for several minutes to pursue the escaped animal, but again his efforts proved completely futile.

  At the time of the wolf's escape in central London, the storm was still some minutes away from reaching Hillingham. This afternoon, Mina Murray and Lucy Westenra were seated together on a stone bench just below the formal garden, right along the border of the family cemetery, which formed a peaceful and familiar part of the estate's enormous park like grounds.

  The day had been sleepy and quiet, except for the occasional peacock's cry. Early morning had been bright with sunshine, but since midday the sky had grown increasingly cloudy, until now the weather in the east seemed downright ominous. But at the moment neither young woman was paying much attention to the sky.

  Lucy, drawing a deep breath, taking in the familiar scene, announced to her companion: "Oh, this is my favorite spot in all the world—"

  Mina thought that she could detect a false note in this cheerful assessment. "But something is bothering you?"

  "Not really. No." Lucy's gaze became remote. "It's just that I've lately begun sleepwalking again—you know, as I did when we were girls. And, Mina, I have the strangest dreams!"

  "You're not having a sordid affair with a tall, dark stranger?"

  Lucy smiled. "What a delicious suggestion—but no. The truth is that I love him! I love him! There, it does me good to say it. I love him and I've said yes!"

  "Oh, Lucy, finally!" Mina's happiness for her friend was tinged with jealousy. "You've made your choice, then. Is it to be the Texan with the big knife?"

  Even as Mina asked her question thunder began a distant rumbling in the east.

  Lucy shook her red curls. "No. I'm afraid Quincey's now disappointed, just as Jack was. Arthur's the one I've chosen. Oh, Mina, eventually Arthur and I'll be Lord and Lady Godalming, and next summer you'll visit us at our villa in France. You and Jonathan, I mean.

  And of course you are to be my maid of honor—oh, say yes!"

  "Of course I will, Luce… but I really thought you loved that Texas creature."

  Lucy looked around, surprised, as at a misunderstanding. "But I do—and I shall continue to love him."

  "And Dr. Seward also, I suppose."

  "Yes, brilliant Doctor Jack, who so nicely asked for my hand—why not? Don't look at me that way, Mina. If, after I am married, the chance should arise for me to be with one of them… honestly you can be so naive about these things! So uncivilized. You've been an absolute bore ever since Jonathan went abroad—oh, I'm sorry, dear! Forgive me?"

  Mina was suddenly weeping.

  Lucy, her own affairs momentarily forgotten, was all sympathy and concern. "But you're worried about Jonathan. Of course you are!"

  "It's just… just that I've had only two letters in all this time. One from Paris, and one from—where he's staying. And his last letter was so unnatural, so cold. Not like Jonathan at all."

  There came a vivid split of lightning in the east, and thunder crashed again, louder this time. During the last few minutes the sky over the river had become quite threatening, and now a chill wind began to stir from that direction.

  "Mina—are you sure you really know him?" Flash and crash in the sky again. "All men can be like that, you know, untrustworthy—"

  Lucy's last words were lost in thunder. By mutual consent the girls arose from the bench and began to move toward the house.

  "Not Jonathan—" Mina was shaking her dark curls.

  "Jonathan, too, believe me, dear." Lucy nodded wisely. "But if he's turning cold, it could be that you're in love with the wrong man—"

  The rain came drenching down, soaking the young women's dresses as they ran. The storm with its unnatural power drove them helplessly before it.

  Out in the Channel, the schooner Demeter, of Russian registration, had been for many hours running before the high wind under full sail. This apparent recklessness on the part of captain and crew, marveled at by some observers on shore who saw the vessel's approach, was later partially explained in a most gruesome way.

  The ship, after being driven violently into the mouth of the Thames, finally ran aground near Greenwich, and investigators on going aboard found all hands but the steersman missing. And that individual, later ascertained to be also the captain, was mysteriously dead, his hands lashed to the wheel.

  In the corpse's pocket was a bottle, carefully corked, empty save for a little roll of paper, which, when later translated—rather clumsily—by a clerk at the Russian embassy, proved to be an addendum to the ship's log, the remainder of which the clerk also rendered into English. The translation created a stir when it was printed in several of the more sensation-oriented London newspapers.

  Another twist to the Demeter's most peculiar story, soon picked up by the newspapers, was provided by several witnesses of the grounding. These all agreed that a giant dog, springing up from somewhere below-decks, had been seen to leap ashore from the prow of the vessel the instant after she had struck the dock. A search was soon instituted for this animal, but it could not be found.

  As for the dead man at the wheel, he was simply fastened by his hands, tied one over the other, to one of the spokes. Between the inner hand and the wood was a crucifix, the set of beads on which it was fastened being looped around both wrists and wheel, and kept fast there by the binding cords.

  A surgeon, J. M. Caffyn, upon making an examination, declared that the man must have been dead for quite two days; and a coast guard declared it possible that the victim might have tied up his own hands, drawing the knots tight with his teeth. Needless to say, the dead steersman was soon removed from the place where, as the newspaper accounts described it, "he had held his honorable watch and ward till death," and was placed in a mortuary to await inquest.

  Of course the verdict at the captain's inquest was an open one. Whether or not he himself, in a state of madness, might have murdered his entire crew, there was no one to say. Popular opinion held almost universally that the captain of the Demeter was simply a hero, and he was given a public funeral.

  The cargo of the Demeter was found to consist almost entirely of fifty large wooden boxes containing earth, or mold. These had been consigned to a London solicitor, Mr. S. F. Billington, who on the morning after the ship's grounding wen
t aboard and formally took possession of the goods. Billington's client, doing business by mail, had already paid him well, for privacy and efficiency, and instructed him as to where the boxes were to be shipped next. Most, though the newspapers never discovered this, were bound for an apparently abandoned estate called Carfax.

  A good deal of interest was abroad concerning the dog that bounded ashore when the ship struck, and more than a few members of the SPCA, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, wanted to befriend the animal. To the general disappointment, however, it was not to be found.

  At the height of the storm, near the hour when the Demeter had run aground, many of the inmates at Seward's asylum grew violently restless, and their keepers employed a high-pressure water hose to subdue the most rebellious. For once Renfield was not among the malcontents—ignoring the outcries of his fellow patients in their cells, he remained, for the time being, seemingly content to cultivate in peace his multitude of small subhuman lives.

  By midnight, the rain at Hillingham had almost entirely ceased, but great gusts of moaning wind still hurled clusters of ragged clouds across the sky, set trees dancing all across the park like grounds, and rattled windows.

  At that hour Mina, roused by some gust or crash of weather louder than the rest—or perhaps by some more subtle cause—got out of her bed and, feeling instinctively uneasy, went into Lucy's bedroom, which adjoined her own.

  Nervously she whispered: "Lucy—are you all right?"

  In the heavy darkness, the bed just in front of Mina was almost invisible.

  She tried again, a little louder. "Lucy… ?"

  Still no answer.

  Moving forward, the young woman groped over and among the disarranged sheets and coverlet and pillows. The bed was certainly unoccupied, and the bedclothes felt cool; Lucy had evidently been out of them for some time.

  Suddenly the octagonal window that gave on the terrace blew open, and the curtains were dancing. In the act of closing the window and fastening it again, Mina to her astonishment caught a glimpse, in one of the faint flashes of the now-receding storm, of Lucy's small figure, unmistakable in her red nightgown, moving away from the house and already at a considerable distance, descending the broad low flight of steps that led to the family cemetery.