Who Is Dracula's Father?

by John Sutherland

  After venturing past brigands, wolves and blue flames, I at last arrived at the castle where I was met by the Count. His long, sharp, canine teeth were somewhat disconcerting. For some reason I forgot to ask him about vampires. After a troubled night’s sleep I awoke to find that Dracula was nowhere to be seen, so I made myself busy walking round the scary castle. As a solicitor, I am being paid by the hour so it was no skin off my nose how long the job took; besides, I was also acting as an estate agent for the property so I wanted to make sure I got my 2 per cent of the final sale price.

  Once the formalities were complete, I discovered to my horror that Count Dracula was crawling down a vertical wall in the manner of a lizard. Unless I was very much mistaken there was something sinister afoot. I tried to escape the castle, only to discover I was locked in. Only nearly escaped being attacked by three weird sisters who seemed rather sexually predatory. Then tried and failed to kill Dracula who was asleep in his coffin with fresh blood on his lips. Upset at being awoken, he left the castle with 50 boxes of dirt. Fell into a deep sleep.

  Letter, Lucy Westenra to Mina Murray

  24 May: Would you believe it? After not receiving a single offer of marriage in all my nineteen years, I today received three proposals on the same day from people who appeared to know each other better than I knew them. The first was from an American adventurer, Quincey Morris. I turned him down. The second was from Jack Seward, a doctor in charge of a lunatic asylum. I turned him down, too. The third was from Arthur Holmwood, heir to Lord Godalming. For some reason, I accepted this last offer. Can’t think why.

  Mina Murray’s Journal

  25 July–3 August: It has been so pleasant having Lucy and her mother to stay with me in Whitby, though I am most concerned not to have heard from Jonathan since he left for Transylvania. Went down to the harbour where an old fisherman, Mr Swales, engaged me in conversation in a dialect I barely understood.

  Dr Seward’s Diary (kept in phonograph)

  5 June: I am most concerned about one patient, R.M. Renfield, who suffers from zoophagy. He spends all his days consuming flies, spiders, sparrows and cats. I am still gutted Lucy turned me down.

  Mina Murray’s Journal

  3–8 August: There has been a big storm that blew a Russian schooner, empty apart from her captain tied to the helm and quite dead, into the harbour. Some locals did say that a large dog was also seen leaping ashore. I am most perturbed by Lucy’s behaviour, for at night she has taken to walking round Whitby in her sleep. After one walk she returned looking quite pale and with two small puncture marks in her neck. She must have slipped over and fallen on a brooch that I couldn’t remember dropping the day before. I decided against mentioning the puncture marks, as Lucy’s mother is so ill she is liable to die at any moment. Not that Lucy knows about her mother. In other news, Mr Swales has dropped down dead.

  Letter, Mina Harker to Lucy Westenra

  24 August: Joyous news. Jonathan was found alive and well and I travelled to meet him in Buda-Pesth where we immediately got wed. He has had a strange time at the castle of Count Dracula and knows not whether the events that passed were real or came to him in a dream. In any case, I have written it all down so I dare say we will all make sense of it sooner or later.

  Journal of Lucy Westenra

  24 August: I have still not been sleeping well since I returned to London. Last night a bat tried to get in through the window.

  Letter, Arthur Holmwood to Dr Seward

  31 August: I am very worried about Lucy. Please come urgently to look after her. I have to go and see my father who is dying.

  Dr Seward’s Diary (kept in phonograph)

  2–6 September: If it isn’t one thing, it’s another. First Renfield is more disturbed than usual and tries to bite me and then Lucy takes another turn for the worse. I send a telegram to Dr Van Helsing, asking him to come urgently from Amsterdam to attend to her. ‘Mein Gott,’ says the Dutch doctor, bizarrely choosing to talk in German. ‘The girl is in a bad way. We must protect her with a bouquet of garlic and flowers and we must give her a blood transfusion.’ Arthur arrives back in the nick of time. Luckily, although we didn’t know it, Lucy and he are a perfect blood match and the transfusion goes perfectly. For a while Lucy appeared to get better, but then deteriorated rapidly with her breathing becoming most stertorous when her mother removed the garlic as she couldn’t stand the smell.

  ‘There is something very strange going on,’ said Van Helsing, one afternoon. ‘But unfortunately I can’t yet tell you what it is or it will spoil the suspense. In the meantime we must do three more blood transfusions as Lucy is perniciously anaemic. I will go first, then Dr Seward and lastly Mr Morris who has conveniently turned up out of nowhere.’

  It was with great fortune that all three of us were also perfect blood matches and for a few days Lucy seemed to grow in strength. But then a wolf escaped from London zoo and jumped in through the window, killing Mrs Westenra, and fatally wounding Lucy. Alas, despite our ministrations, she died some days later.

  ‘That’s a coincidence,’ said Arthur. ‘My father also just died; call me Lord Godalming. Can I kiss her goodbye?’

  ‘That wouldn’t be a good idea,’ Van Helsing replied.

  Later that evening, once Arthur had left, Van Helsing explained to me that Lucy was a vampire and must have her head cut off and a stake driven through her heart before she was buried.

  ‘If you’d told us all that earlier, we might have been able to save her,’ I said.

  Van Helsing apologised, explaining that he hadn’t thought that one through.

  Journal of Jonathan Harker

  23–28 September: A great deal has happened since I last wrote. My employer, Mr Hawkins, has died, making me the new head of the solicitors’ firm, and I also thought I saw Count Dracula wandering around Hyde Park looking a great deal younger than a couple of months ago. Mina has been in touch with Van Helsing, who has summoned us both to London to meet him, Dr Seward and Mr Morris.

  ‘No doubt you have read the newspaper stories of children being abducted on Hampstead Heath and later found with puncture marks on their necks,’ Van Helsing began. ‘That was Lucy.’

  ‘I thought you said you were going to cut off her head and shove a stake through her body,’ said Dr Seward, not unreasonably.

  ‘I forgot,’ Van Helsing replied grumpily.

  ‘But aren’t there now loads of little kiddies running around London who will grow into vampires?’ Seward continued.

  ‘No. Because they haven’t had enough blood taken.’

  ‘How do you know? You haven’t examined them.’

  Van Helsing gave Seward a look of such withering contempt that it brooked no further argument, and suggested we go out to Lucy’s grave to complete the grim business. For two nights we waited but were unable to act for reasons that, I must confess, were none too clear to me as on one of the occasions she was lying in her grave with fresh blood dripping from her lips.

  But on the third night, as we saved a child from her grasp she did let forth a blood-curdling scream while her eyes turned red.

  ‘It is I, who was to have been her husband, who must do the act,’ cried Arthur, thrusting a wooden stake through her heart. Lucy’s face did rage with fury, but Arthur was not to be denied. With one cut, he removed her head. ‘She is at peace now,’ he declared. And, in truth, she was, for her expression did once more resemble the one we all had known in happier times.

  Dr Seward’s Diary (kept in phonograph)

  29 September–4 October: Together we have managed to track down all 50 of the wooden coffins and sterilised them by placing a Holy Host in each. All save one: that which Dracula keeps about his person. ‘Till we have found this last one, the world can ne’er be safe from the Undead,’ said Van Helsing.

  It was while we were looking for the wooden coffins that I realised that the house that Dracula had bought in Purfleet was right next door to my lunatic asylum. Perhaps this, then, explained the strange beh
aviour of Renfield!

  ‘I do declare that Renfield did always behave with great decency to me on the one occasion I met him,’ said Mina. Just then there was a commotion. Renfield was in his cell, his back broken and his head stove in. He groaned piteously, before dying. We rushed back to my office to find Dracula plunging his teeth into Mina and forcing her to drink copiously of his blood. Hard as Morris tried to kill the evil Count, he was unable to prevent him escaping from England.

  Mina Harker’s Journal

  5 October–4 November: It is now incumbent on me to record the next part of this adventure. ‘We must follow him even unto the jaws of hell,’ said Van Helsing.

  ‘Why?’ said I. ‘Surely now he is gone I have nothing left to fear?’

  ‘Because he can live for centuries and you are but mortal woman. Time is now to be dreaded, since once he put that mark on your throat.’

  ‘Then how come all the kiddies that Lucy bit aren’t in great peril?’

  Van Helsing made no answer, leaving me to assume there must be degrees of severity of vampire bite. Truly vampirology is most confusing, for ’tis hard to distinguish between someone being fully Undead or just a little bit Undead and hence able to be made once more alive.

  ‘Let me try to help you,’ Van Helsing said, placing a Holy Host on my forehead. I felt a rush of burning pain and my breathing became more stertorous. And yet more stertorous. And more stertorous still.

  ‘Perhaps it would be better if I tried to be of help to you,’ I said, glancing in the mirror at the ugly scar that had formed on my head. ‘For if I am now under Dracula’s command, perhaps I can lead you to him if you hypnotise me at sunrise and sunset when I am least Undead.’

  ‘Truly you have a man-sized brain,’ Van Helsing replied. ‘Let me put you under.’

  ‘He is going to Varna. No, wait. It’s Galatz after all. Actually …’

  Dr Seward’s Diary (kept in phonograph)

  4 November: Van Helsing and I exchanged worried looks. It was possible Mina was more of a vampire than we had thought and not even her man-sized brain was powerful enough to fight Dracula’s control. ‘We must no longer tell her anything in case she were to relay our movements back to the Count,’ said Van Helsing. ‘It is clear he is headed for his castle.’

  Mina Harker’s Journal

  9 November: All is well. We made it to Dracula’s castle where Jonathan and Van Helsing managed to put wafers in the three sisters’ coffins while Morris blazed away with his Winchester, before killing the Count with a bowie knife, rendering his body into naught but dust. Sadly Morris died of the wounds that were inflicted on him in the battle. But never mind, I’m feeling a lot better as my scar healed immediately.

  Note from Jonathan Harker

  Seven year later: Jonathan and I have a son called Quincey. Arthur and Jack are both married and everyone has quite forgotten Lucy. Though, if truth be known, she never appeared to be much remembered while she was alive. Anyway, no more vampires have turned up so far. Touch wood!

  Copyright

  Published in the UK in 2017

  by Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre,

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  ISBN: 978–178578–298–5

  Text copyright © 2017 Icon Books Ltd

  Except ‘Dracula Digested’: text copyright © 2017 John Crace

  The author has asserted his moral rights.

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  Typeset in Photina MT by Marie Doherty

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