In the Footsteps of Dracula

by Stephen Jones

  “He had family, friends,” Kate said.

  Sheen’s eyes glowed. “Not in Transylvania. Nobody has family and friends in Transylvania.”

  Kate shivered and looked around. Francis was showing off martial arts moves with Ion’s staff. Fred Forrest was rolling a cigar-sized joint. Vittorio Storaro, the cinematographer, doled out his special spaghetti, smuggled into the country inside film cans, to appreciative patrons. A Romanian official in an ill-fitting shiny suit, liaison with the state studios, staunchly resisted offers of drinks he either assumed were laced with LSD or didn’t want other Romanians to see him sampling. She wondered which of the native hangers-on was the Securitate spy, and giggled at the thought that they all might be spies and still not know the others were watching them.

  Punch, which she was sipping for politeness’s sake, squirted out of her nose as she laughed. Duvall patted her back and she recovered. She was not used to social drinking.

  Ion, in a baseball cap given to him by one of Francis’s kids, was joking with the girl in the bikini, a dancer who played one of the gypsies, his eyes reddening with thirst. Kate decided to leave them be. Ion would control himself with the crew. Besides, the girl might like a nip from the handsome lad.

  With a handkerchief, she wiped her face. Her specs had gone crooked with her spluttering and she rearranged them.

  “You’re not what I expected of a vampire lady,” Duvall said.

  Kate slipped the plastic fangs into her mouth and snarled like a kitten.

  Duvall and Sheen laughed.

  For two weeks, Francis had been shooting the “Brides of Dracula” sequence. The mountainside was as crowded as Oxford Street, extras borrowed from the Romanian army salted with English faces recruited from youth hostels and student exchanges. Storaro was up on a dinosaur-necked camera crane, swooping through the skies, getting shots of rapt faces.

  The three girls, two warm and one real vampire, had only showed up tonight, guaranteeing genuine crowd excitement in long-shot or blurry background rather than the flatly faked enthusiasm radiated for their own close-ups.

  Kate was supposed to be available for the Brides, but they didn’t need advice. It struck her as absurd that she should be asked to tell the actresses how to be alluring. The vampire Marlene, cast as the blonde bride, had been an actress since the silent days and wandered about nearly naked, exposing herself to the winds. Her warm sisters needed to be swathed in furs between shots.

  In a shack-like temporary dressing room, the Brides were transformed. Bunty, a sensible Englishwoman, was in charge of their makeup. The living girls, twins from Malta who had appeared in a Playboy layout, submitted to all-over pancake that gave their flesh an unhealthy shimmer and opened their mouths like dental patients as fangs—a hundred times more expensive if hardly more convincing than the joke shop set Kate had kept after the party—were fitted.

  Francis, with Ion in his wake carrying a script, dropped by to cast an eye over the Brides. He asked Marlene to open her mouth and examined her dainty pointy teeth.

  “We thought we’d leave them as they were,” said Bunty.

  Francis shook his head.

  “They need to be bigger, more obvious.”

  Bunty took a set of dagger-like eye-teeth from her kit and approached Marlene, who waved them away.

  “I’m sorry, dear,” the makeup woman apologized.

  Marlene laughed musically and hissed, making Francis jump. Her mouth opened wide like a cobra’s, and her fangs extended a full two inches.

  Francis grinned.

  “Perfect.”

  The vampire lady took a little curtsey.

  Kate mingled with the crew, keeping out of camera-shot. She was used to the tedious pace of filmmaking now. Everything took forever and there was rarely anything to see. Only Francis, almost thin now, was constantly on the move, popping up everywhere—with Ion, nicknamed “Son of Dracula” by the crew, at his heels—to solve or be frustrated by any one of a thousand problems.

  The stands erected for the extras, made by local labor in the months before shooting, kept collapsing. It seemed the construction people, whom she assumed also had the door contract at the Bucharest hotel, had substituted inferior wood, presumably pocketing the difference in leis, and the whole set was close to useless. Francis had taken to having his people work at night, after the Romanians contractually obliged to do the job had gone home, to shore up the shoddy work. It was, of course, ruinously expensive and amazingly inefficient.

  The permits to film at Borgo Pass had still not come through. An associate producer was spending all her time at the Bucharest equivalent of the Circumlocution Office, trying to get the trilingual documentation out of the Ministry of Film. Francis would have to hire an entire local film crew and pay them to stand idle while his Hollywood people did the work. That was the expected harassment.

  The official in the shiny suit, who had come to represent for everyone the forces hindering the production, stood on one side, eagerly watching the actresses. He didn’t permit himself a smile. Kate assumed the man dutifully hated the whole idea of Dracula. He certainly did all he could to get in the way. He could only speak English when the time came to announce a fresh snag, conveniently forgetting the language if he was standing on the spot where Francis wanted camera track laid and he was being told politely to get out of the way.

  “Give me more teeth,” Francis shouted through a bull-horn. The actresses responded.

  “All of you,” the director addressed the extras, “look horny as hell.”

  Ion repeated the instruction in three languages. In each one, the sentence expanded to a paragraph. Different segments of the crowd were enthused as each announcement clued them in.

  Arcs, brighter and whiter than the sun, cast merciless, bleaching patches of light on the crowd, making faces look like skulls. Kate was blinking, her eyes watering. She took off and cleaned her glasses.

  Like everybody, she could do with a shower and a rest. And, in her case, a decent feed.

  Rumors were circulating of other reasons they were being kept away from Borgo Pass. The twins, flying in a few days ago, had brought along copies of the Guardian and Time Magazine. They were passed around the whole company, offering precious news from home. She was surprised how little seemed to have happened while she was out of touch.

  However, there was a tiny story in the Guardian about the Transylvania Movement. Apparently, Baron Meinster, some obscure disciple of Dracula, was being sought by the Romanian authorities for terrorist outrages. The newspaper reported that he had picked up a band of vampire followers and was out in the forests somewhere, fighting bloody engagements with Ceausescu’s men. The Baron favored young get; he would find lost children, and turn them. The average age of his army was fourteen. Kate knew the type: red-eyed, lithe brats with sharp teeth and no compunctions about anything. Rumor had it that Meinster’s Kids would descend on villages and murder entire populations, gorging themselves on blood, killing whole families, whole communities, down to the animals.

  That explained the nervousness of some of the extras borrowed from the army. They expected to be sent into the woods to fight the devils. Few of them would come near Kate or any other vampire, so any gossip that filtered through was third-hand and had been translated into and out of several languages.

  There were quite a few civilian observers around, keeping an eye on everything, waving incomprehensible but official documentation at anyone who queried their presence. Shiny Suit knew all about them and was their unofficial boss. Ion kept well away from them. She must ask the lad if he knew anything of Meinster. It was a wonder he had not become one of Meinster’s Child Warriors. Maybe he had, and was trying to get away from that. Growing up.

  The crowd rioted on cue but the camera-crane jammed, dumping the operator out of his perch. Francis yelled at the grips to protect the equipment, and Ion translated but not swiftly enough to get them into action.

  The camera came loose and fell thirty feet, crunchin
g onto rough stone, spilling film and fragments.

  Francis looked at the mess, uncomprehending, a child so shocked by the breaking of a favorite toy that he can’t even throw a fit. Then, red fury exploded.

  Kate wouldn’t want to be the one who told Francis that there might be fighting at Borgo Pass.

  In the coach, late afternoon, Harker goes through the documents he has been given. He examines letters sealed with a red wax “D,” old scrolls gone to parchment, annotated maps, a writ of excommunication. There are pictures of Vlad, woodcuts of the Christian Prince in a forest of impaled infidels, portraits of a dead-looking old man with a white mustache, a blurry photograph of a murk-faced youth in an unsuitable straw hat.

  HARKER’S VOICE: Vlad was one of the Chosen, favored of God. But somewhere in those acres of slaughtered foemen, he found something that changed his mind, that changed his soul. He wrote letters to the Pope, recommending the rededication of the Vatican to the Devil. He had two cardinals, sent by Rome to reason with him, hot-collared—red-hot pokers slid through their back passages into their innards. He died, was buried, and came back . . .

  Harker looks out of the coach at the violent sunset. Rainbows dance around the tree-tops.

  Westenra cringes but Murray is fascinated.

  MURRAY: It’s beautiful, the light . . .

  Up ahead is a clearing. Coaches are gathered. A natural stone amphitheater has been kitted out with limelights which fizz and flare.

  Crowds of Englishmen take seats.

  Harker is confused, but the others are excited.

  MURRAY: A musical evening. Here, so far from Piccadilly . . .

  The coach slows and stops. Westenra and Murray leap out to join the crowds.

  Warily, Harker follows. He sits with Westenra and Murray. They pass a hip-flask between them.

  Harker takes a cautious pull, stings his throat.

  Into the amphitheater trundles a magnificent carriage, pulled by a single, black stallion. The beast is twelve hands high. The carriage is black as the night, with an embossed gold and scarlet crest on the door. A red-eyed dragon entwines around a letter “D.”

  The driver is a tall man, draped entirely in black, only his red eyes showing.

  There is mild applause.

  The driver leaps down from his seat, crouches like a big cat and stands taller than ever. His cloak swells with the night breeze.

  Loud music comes from a small orchestra.

  ‘Take a Pair of Crimson Eyes,’ by Gilbert and Sullivan.

  The driver opens the carriage door.

  A slim white limb, clad only in a transparent veil, snakes around the door. Tiny bells tinkle on a delicate ankle. The toe-nails are scarlet and curl like claws.

  The audience whoops appreciation. Murray burbles babyish delight. Harker is wary.

  The foot touches the carpet of pine needles and a woman swings out of the carriage, shroud-like dress fluttering around her slender form. She has a cloud of black hair and eyes that glow like hot coals.

  She hisses, tasting the night, exposing needle-sharp eyeteeth. Writhing, she presses her snake-supple body to the air, as if sucking in the essences of all the men present.

  MURRAY: The bloofer lady . . .

  The other carriage door is kicked open and the first woman’s twin leaps out. She is less languid, more sinuous, more animal-like. She claws and rends the ground and climbs up the carriage wheel like a lizard, long red tongue darting. Her hair is wild, a tangle of twigs and leaves.

  The audience, on their feet, applaud and whistle vigorously. Some of the men rip away their ties and burst their collar studs, exposing their throats.

  FIRST WOMAN: Kisses, sister, kisses for us all . . . The hood of the carriage opens, folding back like an oyster to disclose a third woman, as fair as they are dark, as voluptuous as they are slender. She is sprawled in abandon on a plush mountain of red cushions. She writhes, crawling through pillows, her scent stinging the nostrils of the rapt audience.

  The driver stands to one side as the three women dance. Some of the men are shirtless now, clawing at their own necks until the blood trickles.

  The women are contorted with expectant pleasure, licking their ruby lips, fangs already moist, shrouds in casual disarray, exposing lovely limbs, swan-white pale skin, velvet-sheathed muscle.

  Men crawl at their feet, piling atop each other, reaching out just to touch the ankles of these women, these monstrous, desirable creatures.

  Murray is out of his seat, hypnotized, pulled toward the vampires, eyes mad. Harker tries to hold him back, but is wrenched forward in his wake, dragged like an anchor.

  Murray steps over his fallen fellows, but trips and goes down under them.

  Harker scrambles to his feet and finds himself among the women. Six hands entwine around his face. Lips brush his cheek, razor-edged teeth drawing scarlet lines on his face and neck.

  He tries to resist but is bedazzled.

  A million points of light shine in the womens’ eyes, on their teeth, on their earrings, necklaces, nose-stones, bracelets, veils, navel-jewels, lacquered nails. The lights close around Harker.

  Teeth touch his throat.

  A strong hand, sparsely bristled, reaches out and hauls one of the women away.

  The driver steps in and tosses another vampire bodily into the carriage. She lands face-down and seems to be drowning in cushions, bare legs kicking.

  Only the blonde remains, caressing Harker, eight inches of tongue scraping the underside of his chin. Fire burns in her eyes as the driver pulls her away.

  BLONDE WOMAN: You never love, you have never loved . . .

  The driver slaps her, dislocating her face. She scrambles away from Harker, who lies sprawled on the ground.

  The women are back in the carriage, which does a circuit of the amphitheater and slips into the forests. There is a massed howl of frustration, and the audience falls upon each other.

  Harker, slowly recovering, sits up. Swales is there. He hauls Harker out of the mêlée and back to the coach. Harker, unsteady, is pulled into the coach.

  Westenra and Murray are dejected, gloomy. Harker is still groggy.

  HARKER’S VOICE: A vampire’s idea of a half-holiday is a third share in a juicy peasant baby. It has no other needs, no other desires, no other yearnings. It is mere appetite, unencumbered by morality, philosophy, religion, convention, emotion. There’s a dangerous strength in that. A strength we can hardly hope to equal.

  Shooting in a studio should have given more control, but Francis was constantly frustrated by Romanians. The inn set, perhaps the simplest element of the film, was still not right, though the carpenters and dressers had had almost a year to get it together. First, they took an office at the studio and turned it into Harker’s bedroom. It was too small to fit in a camera as well as an actor and the scenery. Then, they reconstructed the whole thing in the middle of a sound stage, but still bolted together the walls so they couldn’t be moved. The only shot Storaro could take was from the ceiling looking down. Now the walls were fly-away enough to allow camera movement, but Francis wasn’t happy with the set dressing.

  Prominent over the bed, where Francis wanted a crucifix, was an idealized portrait of Ceausescu. Through Ion, Francis tried to explain to Shiny Suit, the studio manager, that his film took place before the President-for-Life came to power and that, therefore, it was highly unlikely that a picture of him would be decorating a wall anywhere.

  Shiny Suit seemed unwilling to admit there had ever been a time when Ceausescu didn’t rule the country. He kept looking around nervously, as if expecting to be caught in treason and hustled out to summary execution.

  “Get me a crucifix,” Francis yelled.

  Kate sat meekly in a director’s chair—a rare luxury—while the argument continued. Marty Sheen, in character as Harker, sat cross-legged on his bed, taking pulls at a hip-flask of potent brandy. She could smell the liquor across the studio. The actor’s face was florid and his movements slow. He had been m
ore and more Harker and less and less Marty the last few days, and Francis was driving him hard, directing with an emotional scalpel that peeled his star like an onion.

  Francis told Ion to bring the offending item over so he could show Shiny Suit what was wrong. Grinning cheerfully, Ion squeezed past Marty and reached for the picture, dexterously dropping it onto a bed-post which shattered the glass and speared through the middle of the frame, punching a hole in the Premier’s face.

  Ion shrugged in fake apology.

  Francis looked almost happy. Shiny Suit, stricken in the heart, scurried away in defeat, afraid that his part in the vandalism of the sacred image would be noticed.

  A crucifix was found from stock and put up on the wall.

  “Marty,” Francis said, “open yourself up, show us your beating heart, then tear it from your chest, squeeze it in your fist and drop it on the floor.”

  Kate wondered if he meant it literally.

  Marty Sheen tried to focus his eyes, and saluted in slow motion.

  “Quiet on set, everybody,” Francis shouted.

  Kate was crying, silently, uncontrollably. Everyone on set, except Francis and perhaps Ion, was also in tears. She felt as if she was watching the torture of a political prisoner, and just wanted it to stop.

  There was no script for this scene.

  Francis was pushing Marty into a corner, breaking him down, trying to get to Jonathan Harker.

  This would come at the beginning of the picture. The idea was to show the real Jonathan, to get the audience involved with him. Without this scene, the hero would seem just an observer, wandering between other people’s set-pieces.

  “You, Reed,” Francis said, “you’re a writer. Scribble me a voiceover. Internal monologue. Stream-of-consciousness. Give me the real Harker.”

  Through tear-blurred spectacles, she looked at the pad she was scrawling on. Her first attempt had been at the Jonathan she remembered, who would have been embarrassed to have been thought capable of stream-of-consciousness. Francis had torn that into confetti and poured it over Marty’s head, making the actor cross his eyes and fall backwards, completely drunk, onto the bed.