Terovolas

by Edward M. Erdelac

  Terovolas

  The Van Helsing Papers

  (1891)

  By

  Edward M. Erdelac

  JournalStone

  San Francisco

  Copyright ©2012 by Edward M. Erdelac

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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  ISBN: 978-1-936564-54-5 (sc)

  ISBN: 978-1-936564-55-2 (ebook)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2012949586

  Printed in the United States of America

  JournalStone rev. date: November 16, 2012

  Cover Design: Denise Daniel

  Cover Art: M. Wayne Miller

  Edited By: Norman Rubenstein

  For Adonai and my family

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  Forward

  I first met Professor Abraham Van Helsing in Natal in 1877 while doctoring for the army. By the end of that year I was best man at his wedding, which will indicate the regard with which we held each other. I loved and respected the old man dearly. We passed through hell together at Intombe, beneath the churchyards of London, and beyond the Borgo Pass. Thus it was with an outraged heart that I watched the deterioration of his private and professional life in the years following the publication of the Dracula papers.

  That this paragon of wisdom, so like a Faust in the totality of his learning, should have met with professional scorn to…I was about to write ‘to the end of his days,’ but that would be a lie. Abraham Van Helsing is mostly forgotten. The world turned away from him as a schoolyard bully turns at last from a righteous underdog who refuses to fight. He passed away quietly last year in his little cottage in Holysloot, and no ill-timed clamoring of detractors marked his passing. There was only a feeble local obituary reciting the string of titles after his name, hinting little of his exploits. Perhaps he would have thought this correct.

  Thanks to his portrayal on stage and in the motion pictures, most schoolchildren know the name Count Dracula, but are unfamiliar with Abraham Van Helsing, except as a footnote to that fiend’s story.

  This, I am sure, he would not have found correct.

  It is with this terrible loss to posterity in mind that I present the current volume, a collection of the late Doctor’s private papers detailing his heretofore largely unknown career. It was my honor to be assigned the task of publishing this work by the man himself, whose will stipulated that I, as his friend, edit his writings and that they not be submitted for publication until one year after his death. The reasons behind the former request I have already stated. As to the latter, I can only surmise. Was it to protect the identities of persons described within, or to save himself from further censure by the academic community whose universal scorn cost him his tenure? I do not know, so it is likely that no one ever will.

  In reading through the voluminous records Van Helsing kept, I have chosen to publish these particular papers first as I believe they may hold some interest to the public. They cover the period directly following the events of Dracula, which has seen print elsewhere and continues to enjoy popularity (albeit as fiction, which the parties behind its publication perhaps wisely, if falsely, touted it as). Although I myself was not personally witness to the events described here within, having been wholly engaged in my work in Purfleet at the time, knowing Van Helsing as I did, I believe every word of it. He was not the sort to record exaggerations, nor to give himself over to self-promotion.

  Personal endorsements aside, I have included with Van Helsing’s journal entries numerous accounts corroborating the Professor’s claims. Whether this work will bear fruit in the vindication of Van Helsing’s great and slandered name, I doubt. Like him, I have come to view today’s scientific community as a jackass who will starve for want of feed while standing in a field of tall grass. But that is another matter entirely.

  Instead, it is my hope that a reader astute enough to crack a book with Abraham Van Helsing’s name on it will glean some modicum of the truth the old man always sought to bring to light himself. That, and wonder as I do at the astonishing career of a man who by wit or by providence found himself again and again in the path of fantastic forces, and never flinched.

  It is to them, the seekers of truth, that I dedicate this volume.

  Dr. John Seward

  London

  May 19, 1935

  CHAPTER 1

  The following entries have been transcribed from a series of handwritten documents found among the personal effects of Mr. Buckner J. Tyree of Callahan County, Texas, United States of America. Any peculiarities of diction or deliberate omissions have been included in the interest of preserving the original source material. –J.S.

  Aug. 13th, 1891.

  Picker told me to say nothing about what we done, but I feel like if I don’t tell somebody I’ll bust. I know he’s probably right though, on account of he’s got a better head between his ears than I got, so I’m just gonna write down in this book what I swore by the moonlight and my Mama’s good name that I wouldn’t tell nobody.

  Picker and me was rangin’ out back of the Morris place, where we could see the light of the big house and the back porch real clear. Cole told us he didn’t wanna see us back there no more, on account of the trouble between him and the Norgies that bought the Judson spread after Old Man Judson went toes up. Cole told me one night he might come out and blow holes in us thinkin’ we was them Norgies tryin’ to steal his cows. But Picker said Cole and his boys was campin’ down on Busted Elbow Creek huntin’ up the mountain lion that’s been at their stock, and anyway it’d be alright so long as we didn’t make no trouble.

  We wasn’t doin’ nothin’ wrong back there. Maybe we had a jack of Injun whiskey between us, but it gets cold at night and Picker says a man has got to have something to keep the blood movin’ up and down his limbs, else they’ll ice up and drop off. I been sayin’ how it’s been real sparse for wolfin’- Picker has too - for the past couple years. You’d think somebody had gone and shot all the god____d wolves and coyotes, just like they done all the d___d buffalo. We needed the work, and Picker said even if Cole caught us on his land and run us off, we’d still be able to hawk any hides or bones we got.

  We’d left a couple chaws of jerky sprinkled with arsenic out on the range yesterday to catch some wolves whilst Cole and his boys was out on the north forty lookin
’ over some cows that got mauled by the lion. Well, me and Picker plain forgot about that pair of hounds Cole had just picked up on his last trip to Bastrop (he done it to keep varmints from settlin’ in under his porch), and Picker come by my place and said,

  “Hey Buckner, we ought to go and make sure we ain’t pizened them dogs.”

  I wish to the Lord he hadn’t.

  We was out in the dark feelin’ around for the spot on account of we didn’t dare use no light for fear of Cole’s Mex cook seein’ us from the house and maybe takin’ the scattergun to us, when right sudden Picker told me to stop movin’ and get quiet. I did, on account of Tonks got real good hearing - better than any white man’s. At least that’s what Picker says.

  At first I thought we seen one of Cole’s dogs go runnin’ across the yard, but Picker told me he’d got a look at them dogs earlier and they wasn’t near as big as whatever it was we seen. Well, I got real scared then, ‘cause right away I figured it must be that mountain lion that had been at all the cows. I figured it must’ve doubled back from Busted Elbow Creek to avoid the hunters and come back near the big house where there weren’t no men, but lots of calves to pounce on.

  Then the back door of the place banged open and we seen them two dogs of Cole’s come barkin’ and skitterin’ off the porch after the whatever it was, on account of they seen it too. I’d been afraid that maybe one of them dogs had been at our pizen jerky and crawled under the porch or back up into the house to die, but now I seen ‘em both, and Picker was right, they weren’t near as big as the whatever it was we seen. From inside the house I heard that Mex cook start to cussin.’

  Them dogs was mad as h__l and they made a bee line right for the lion. We couldn’t hardly see nothin’ in the dark, but we heard ‘em tear into somethin,’ and that somethin’ let out a noise that weren’t nothin’ at all like no mountain lion.

  Me and Picker stayed there where we was, listenin’ to the fight, and I seen Picker had with him that gun he bought from Old Alkali Firebaugh. Lord, I wish he hadn’t brung it, but sometimes when we come across a lobo that the pizen ain’t done for yet, it takes a bullet. I always told Picker it was a waste, and that we could’ve just as soon bashed it with a stick of firewood, but Picker always told me to stow it. I think he likes shootin’ that gun whenever he gets the chance.

  One of Cole’s dogs let out a yelp and I seen it go flyin’ just like it’d been picked up and throwed. It hit the corner of the house and lay there whinin.’ I don’t know what happened to the other one, but I guess it died, ‘cause the next thing I heard was a lot of cracklin’ and wet noises like it was being et. I asked Picker what we ought to do, and I thought I said it quiet enough, but Picker hushed me.

  Then the noises stopped, and we could hear the whatever it was we seen, plain as day, sniffin’ the air. I don’t know if we was down wind of it or up. I didn’t feel no wind at all, but all of a sudden the thing growled real low, and come tearin’ right towards where we was. I could hear it cuttin’ through the grass, and in a minute I seen it - or at least part of it. Big and dark it was, and the hair on its back was all up and it had long sharp ears laid flat against its head.

  Then Picker put up his gun and shot at it. I heard it make a noise, but it didn’t stop comin.’ I don’t know if Picker hit it the first three times, but he must’ve got it the last three, ‘cause it went nose down in the dirt and slid to a stop right in front of us.

  Me and Picker was right happy, and not just ‘cause we was alive, but ‘cause we figured Cole’d be pleased as all h____ with us ‘cause we kilt the critter that had got his dogs, and probably all the calves and cows that’d been turnin’ up missing too. Picker got out his skinnin’ knife and said he was gonna take the pelt. He handed the whiskey over to me, and in between swallows I got to wonderin’ aloud what we ought to do with the carcass till Cole got back. Then Picker stopped cuttin’ and he took out a match and lit it.

  To this very minute I can’t get it straight in my head. I don’t know if it was that Injun corn or all that dark and the blood pumpin’ in my ears, but when I looked, Picker had the hide peeled halfway back, and underneath there was a bare naked human man.

  The match went out, and I guess I must’ve had one of my spells, ‘cause the next thing I knowed Picker was shakin’ me, and that Mex cook was in the light of the back door, holdin’ up his britches with one hand and totin’ the scattergun in the other, and hollerin.’ Picker got me up, and we set to runnin,’ whilst the cook yelled after us and let loose with the shotgun over our heads.

  When we struck the old road that goes by my place, I was near out of my head for fright, but Picker shook me and made me promise not to tell nobody - not Alkali, not Cole, not nobody, what we seen or done. I don’t remember how I got here back in my little shack. I guess Picker must’ve brung me. I just knowed I had to write it all down before I forgot. It’s near daylight now and I’m real tired and drunk. I can hear my birds scratchin’ on the roof wantin’ to be fed. Maybe it was a dream I had. I got to ask Picker when I see him...

  * * *

  From the Journal of Professor Abraham Van Helsing (translated from the original Dutch)

  5th July.

  Thank God I am sane.

  Those were the last words I wrote concerning my previous expedition to the Carpathian Mountains. How much has happened since I wrote those words, and in such a short time! Eight whole months have passed. Where to begin?

  I will tell of how I came to be diagnosed with lycanthropy.

  Following the series of events which took me away from my teaching at the University in Amsterdam to London, and at last to the mountainous region of Wallachia, I deemed it necessary that I should submit myself to the observation and care of my old friend Dr. John Seward in his asylum in Purfleet. The particulars of my stay I will not here recount. If John has learned anything from his old mentor it is the value of copious notation, and thus it would be mundane to relate here what has probably been more thoroughly documented on his phonographic records.

  I know now that the specific reasons behind my decision were conceived in certain deeds which I was forced to commit in my pursuit of Count Dracula. In particular, I believe that the seed of my instability was planted by his wives - those three beauteous ladies with whom I dealt so harshly whilst they lay in their ghastly repose. I do not know how much of my current mental state is the product of whatever preternatural bewitchment almost stayed my hand in their execution, and how much is the perfectly logical after-effect of prolonged mental stress and fatigue.

  Whichever, not long after the funeral for our heroic Mr. Quincey Morris, I privately confided in John that I had begun to harbor some very unsettling, violent fantasies centering around our beloved Mrs. Mina Harker.

  I was possessed of an unusually keen paranoia concerning her safety. I could not sleep for wont of assurance that she was at all times secure. I was at the Harkers’ nearly every day, and I am sorry to say I made quite a nuisance of myself. When at last Jonathan spoke frankly to me about my peculiar habit, I took to visiting the Harker home unannounced by night, watching from the silent shadows of the courtyard until the last lamps in the house were extinguished.

  I would find myself passing cemeteries, which were not on my usual route. A ghoulish compulsion began to grow within me, that I should enter the graves within and subject the innocent corpses to the same maschalimos treatments I had prescribed for the vampires. I took to carrying my implements with me: my mallet and stakes, vials of blessed water, and garlic cloves. I knew the bodies in those plots were not the creatures that my imagination was telling me they were, and yet I was overwhelmed with a desire to do them violence.

  I also had terrible nightmares in which I would pry open the tomb of Miss Lucy Westenra-Holmwood, thinking to find Dracula’s favored bride there - the very lovely, dark haired one whose coffin had commanded such a special place in his ossuary. When I flung aside the sarcophagus however, it was always Miss Mina who would leap from the casket
, slavering and hungry for my blood. Sometimes these terrors ended with my death. Quite a peculiar thing, for is it not speculated that those who die in dreams die in life? Other times, they ended with her’s - and if it was her’s, it was always a prolonged, bloody end, and my phantasmic alter ego would perform acts of lustful malice upon her too vile even to recount here.

  In a moment of clarity I saw that it would not be long before I was apprehended in the midst of some atrocity that would bring myself and my loved ones much shame. It was with no small relief that I surrendered the care of my body and mind to my friend John.

  I have been on extended leave from my teaching for far too long, but I am grateful to the understanding of my colleagues, who have written me with assurances that I can return whenever I am able. It is good to feel needed.

  I also take comfort now that I am once again the man that I was, and am pursuing an active role in my emotional convalescence. I feel that my return to these notes, which are evolving into a kind of journal, is somehow a part of it. John tells me that there was a time when I would place this book within a circle of holy water and bury it in sprigs of fresh cut roses, and cower in the corner of my room, not daring to look at it, fearing the entries scrawled within. I have no memory of this, and it seems humorous to me now that I should have been so foolish. I hope that John will share his documentation of my case with his grateful patient one day, if only to amuse an old man.

  It was John who diagnosed me with melancholic lycanthropia. I was of course already familiar with the condition. It has been in the physician’s lexicon since the fifth century, though with the advent of modern medicine and the eradication of humoral theory, the melancholic has been mostly done away with, leaving the lycanthropy (the Greek lykos –‘wolf’ and anthropos - ‘man’) alone intact.