by Joseph Rubas
CHAPTER ONE
As the majestic ship slowly pulled away from its large berth, Count Dracula gripped the cold metal railing and peered intently into the jovial crowd amassed on the dock. Through his smoked glasses, he saw no faces that he recognized from his previous stay in England, but there was still a queer, worried nagging in the pit of his stomach.
Paranoia, surely, Dracula thought as he gazed into the impeccable steely blue Southampton sky. The sun shone brightly down upon his cold face, and the salty sea breeze rippled through his long black hair. They weren’t coming. They couldn’t be.
Taking a deep, steadying breath, Dracula looked over the smiling faces lining the waterfront. Around him, the deck was jammed with people waving a hearty good-bye to their loved ones and to their precious England. The yells and bellows of the gay mortals caused Dracula to cringe. For a moment, he thought of Castle Dracula high in the rocky hills of Transylvania, and the perpetual silent still covering the wooded land like a blanket. He had forgotten how damned loud humans were.
A bit grudgingly, sure that at any minute he would see the familiar face of Harker or Holmwood, Dracula moved back from the railing and bled in with the jostling wave of humanity. A loud whistle, most likely attached to one of the large smokestacks, shrieked mournfully, stabbing Dracula’s ears.
With the tap-tap-tap of his metal-tipped walking cane meeting the hard wood deck, Dracula slowly strolled forward, letting the cold wind wash across his Roman face. The sickening onion reek of unwashed armpits, however, soon enfolded him, turning his stomach. A man in a well-worn pair of trousers, damn sound issuing forth from his goofy smile, backed from the rail and into him. He quickly turned, his grin gone. “Sorry, gov,” he ejaculated, his eyes wide. “I didn’t see ya there.”
Dracula looked the small man from head to toe. He was steerage, one of the cattle kept below decks like a dirty secret. His face was gaunt and pale and his eyes were dark red, as if he had only long ago seen a good night’s sleep. His hair was a dull brown, and his voice, with that Whitechapel-street-urchin quality…
“It is fine, my friend,” Dracula said, forcing a smile which must have appeared warm, for the young man’s face loosened and a small ghost of a grin widened his gray lips. “It is a happy day; we are a part of history now.”
The young man nodded eagerly. “Sure is, gov, I’m on me way to America, startin’ a new life.”
Dracula nodded, smiling and further sizing the man up. His face seemed to be permanently smudged with dirt, and his teeth were an unhealthy yellow. His thin throat was scarred and host to repulsive red and yellow bumps, something contracted from a prostitute no doubt. Dracula curiously wondered what it would feel like to sink his teeth into the pig’s neck, how the hot blood would taste as it poured into his mouth…and shuddered.
“It is cold,” Dracula lied, wanting the Brit to go away more than he currently wanted anything else. “I must go and find my stateroom, excuse me.”
The English youth smiled, tipped his tattered hat, and winked. “Alright, you ‘ave a good day, sir, and I’m really sorry for bumpin’ into you, I musta forgot me manners.”
“It happens to us all,” Dracula smiled.
The hoodlum, with a nod, hurried past Dracula, heading in the direction of the stern, moving through others of his like. Dracula watched him go, a sneer of disgust writ across his face.
With a thoughtful shake of the head, he turned and continued along the sunny deck, passing clustered Irish families and Welsh couples, garnering bits of disjointed conversation. Many were happy to be leaving for a supposed better life in America. Unlike their first-class counterparts, most of these lowly bugs were not on vacation.
Dracula passed a few rushing officers in blue topcoats closed against the cold by bright gold buttons and a few burly men in shirtsleeves and dirty trousers, stokers, he supposed.
As he put steerage behind him, he began passing more…enticing prey. A few ladies passed on the enclosed promenade, escorted by frail tuxedoed men. Dracula stole sidelong glances at these well-dressed ladies, but found none to his liking. They were all so porcelain and repulsive. He did pass a few maids trudging behind their tyrannical mistresses who caught his fancy. They were so young and fresh, flowers not much older than some of the children they minded. They wore simple dresses and coats, and looked straight ahead as they passed him, likely having been taught not to look unwarranted at wealthy, better, ladies and gentlemen.
Dracula felt hot desire rising within his parched throat.
For fear of losing his composure and exposing his true nature in a mad attack, he forced his eyes away from the other passengers and looked out at the receding dock. Above the stone and brick city skyline, sooty smoke billowed into the sky like prayers to Satan.
With a hearty sigh, Dracula turned and went on his way, making a concentrated effort to keep his eyes straight ahead.
Past a rush of well-dressed teenagers, made up mostly of young, golden-haired girls with slender waists and delicate throats, Dracula stepped through a gangway door and into a short hall adorned by tastefully wood-paneled walls; waves of heat struck him, and nearly stopped him in his tracks. For a moment he considered stepping back out onto the deck, for the heat was worse than the cold, but, chin jutted slightly out, he continued past bellhops, stewards, wealthy families, and officers.
He stopped for a moment at the top of the grand staircase, a breathtaking testament to man’s progressing knowledge and taste. A massive glass dome topped the polished wood railings and the marble floor. A clock framed by sculpted angels, or some other such, sat embedded in the wall of the wide landing.
For a brief minute, Dracula was awed by the ship’s sheer beauty, but then regained himself and, with a glance at the people flowing by on either side of him, went on.
Blind now to the majesty of the steamer, Dracula strode down steps and along narrow corridors, from beauty into increasing unattractiveness, like strolling on a breezy evening from the good part of the city and into the bad, until he had reached his “stateroom”.
Deep in the cargo hold of the ship, quiet so not to alert anybody to his presence, he slipped into a long wooden box containing his native soil. He pulled the top closed, blocking out the intense light and noise of the world, and was enshrouded in cool, blissful black.
***
Doctor John Seward and Arthur Holmwood, the latter also known as Lord Godalming, helped Dr. Abraham Van Helsing to his stateroom. The old man limped painfully along, never uttering a word of dissent or complaint, even though he hadn’t been feeling up to much since his battle with pneumonia the previous year. Seward stole a sidelong glance at Van Helsing, and was inspired by the old man’s eager attitude. Even though he had been in bed for the better part of a year and a half, he had not hesitated when he was sent for. Seward had only meant to inform Van Helsing of Dracula’s possible presence, but three days later, Van Helsing had been at his door; sick, weak, and ready for war.
“I am sorry,” Van Helsing said, his soft German accent soothing. Seward had not realized that Van Helsing’s eyes had met his as they slowly but surely made progress. “But being old is tiring.”
“I was just thinking of your willingness to fight Dracula again,” Seward assured his mentor.
Art, on the opposite side of the frail intellectual, nodded, and added, “As young as I am, I almost didn’t want to come.”
That was a lie. Seward remembered Art’s reaction when he first brought up the possibility of Dracula’s return. They were playing cards late one night, and when Seward spoke the fiend’s name, a strange and fearsome fire ignited in his eyes.
Seward knew all too well how Art felt about Dracula. Once upon a time, Dracula came to London and fed upon Lucy Westenra, to whom Art was engaged. Over the span of several days the once vibrant beauty withered and perished. After death, infected with the vampire�
�s cruse, she rose from her grave and stalked the night. It was Art who finally freed her from the dark spell: He drove a stake into her heart.
Therefore Seward was loathe to bring up the beast, especially on such flimsy evidence. But he made himself; it was too important a matter to ignore.
Presently, after passing a gaggle of teenaged girls, they reached Van Helsing’s stateroom. Art and Seward’s stateroom was directly across the hall.
Reluctant to leave Van Helsing’s side for fear that he would fall and hurt himself, Seward removed the key from the watch-pocket of his trousers and moved to open the door.
Inside, Seward was taken aback by the cabin’s splendor. A four poster bed sat in the middle of the grand room, its canopy lacy and white. A wash basin sat between a closet door and an end table. A sofa faced the door, before it a small table, flanking it two wicker chairs.
Golden spring sunlight spilled through the window and onto the tan carpeted floor. The walls, like most on Titanic, were polished wood.
“Come on, old boy,” Art said from the hall, “I want a look-see, too.”
“Such beauty,” Van Helsing marveled as the two younger men helped him to the sofa.
“Finest ship to ever sail, the papers say,” Art said, removing a silver case from his coat pocket. He took out a cigarette and lit it with a light emblazoned with his initials. “Not that you can believe everything the papers say, though they seem to have been right this time.”
Momentarily leaving Van Helsing, Art and Seward went across the hall and examined their own room. It almost identical to Van Helsing’s, only with two beds instead of one.
Back in Van Helsing’s cabin, Art dropped into one of the chairs. Seward remained standing in case Van Helsing needed something.
“Please, John, sit down,” the old man said wearily.
Nodding, he sat in the other wicker chair. The sunshine falling through the window was hot on his shoulders.
Slowly, almost arthritically, Van Helsing sat his crinkled black leather bag upon his meager lap, and pulled it open with a snap. His liver spotted hand dipped into the dark abyss, and proceeded to feel around for something. Seward thought of asking if his assistance was needed, but presently Van Helsing removed a large wooden cross supporting an iron Jesus in a T, and sat it on the sofa beside him. Once again his hand disappeared into the bag, and once more came back clutching a holy object: a black leather-bound book with HOLY BIBLE writ across the cover in gold.
“Here, John,” Van Helsing said as he reverently held the book out; Seward nearly tipped his chair over in getting the book.
Van Helsing looked queerly at Seward, a small smile on his lips. “John, please learn to contain yourself, I wouldn’t want to pay the White Star Line for something you broke.”
Seward nodded. “Certainly, forgive me.”
“I am only joking,” Van Helsing said. “You have been acting very strange lately, is there something wrong?”
There was. He held Dr. Van Helsing in the highest regard. The man was a fierce intellectual, a brilliant person, and a kind soul. But...he was getting on in age. His physical condition was unsuited to the battle ahead...if indeed there was a battle. He was not as strong as he once was, and was more at risk of coming to harm. The prospect sickened Seward.
“No,” he lied, opening the book and leafing through it so that he would not have to make eye contact with the old doctor. “I suppose I’m just on edge. Having to do this all again. I just hope I was wrong about Becker.”
Charles Becker, a middle aged accountant, had been admitted to Seward’s asylum in February, after constables discovered him in London’s East End, devouring the still-warm entrails of prostitute Katharine Hill. He was promptly committed, and was suspected as Jack the Ripper, but that was disproven when it came to light that he had been in Germany on all of the nights on which Saucy Jack plied his savage trade. Seward had taken no special interest in the man until he began to rave about the “Master” in a manner similar to Renfield. But unlike Renfield, Becker was petrified of this elusive being. He would sing and chant in his room at all hours of the night, jumping on his thin mattress and howling in terror whenever a stiff breeze shook the building. In late March, Becker hanged himself with a noose fashioned from sheets strips. Before damning himself to hell, he had used a piece of his metal cot rigging to gash his wrist, and with the red blood he had splayed TITANIC across the cinderblock wall.
“I am sure that you are not,” said Van Helsing as he snapped his bag and sat it on the couch next to him. He picked the crucifix up and turned it over in his hands. “There are truly no such things as coincidences, John. That he used almost the exact words of Renfield, that he once called this being “Drakuli” is proof that he knew something.”
“I suppose,” Seward replied thoughtfully, “I just…I desperately hope that Becker was wrong and that we are just jumping at the shadows of his dementia.”
“I do, too,” Van Helsing said softly, comfortingly, “but I know that Dracula is back, I can feel it in my bones. And, because he is back, we must stop him once more.”
“He had better hope he’s not back,” Art said, stubbing his cigarette out in a glass ashtray he had found somewhere. “For his own sake.”
An uneasy silence hung over them.
“Well,” Art said, “on to happier matters. Did you see that grand staircase?”
“It was beautiful,” Seward said, thinking back to the ornate woodwork, the clock, the gold trimmed treads, and the massive glass dome through which sunlight poured and dispersed.
“Such extravagance, though,” Van Helsing said. “Who needs this much?” He lifted his hands to indicate the room around him. Van Helsing had long ago taken a virtual vow of poverty. “It is not things that matter,” he had once told Seward, “it is actions.”
He lived in a small stone house overlooking a wide European courtyard with few possessions; his books were his world, as were his studies, which he confined to a small barn Seward and Art had helped him build around 1899; he had long since retired from the medical field, but he had made several important discoveries pertaining to blood that had earned him praise across Europe in 1905 and 1909. Aside from God, books, and medicine, nothing much mattered to him.
“I would normally agree with you, Doctor,” Art said, “but this isn’t a private residence. It’s a floating resort. Something meant to be enjoyed on holiday and then moved on from.”
“That is true, I suppose,” Van Helsing replied. “But I cannot help to feel that it is gluttony.”
Silence once again enveloped them.
“Well, if you gentlemen will excuse me,” Art said, standing, “I have a bit of business to see to.”
“What business?” Van Helsing asked.
“Visiting the Captain.”
Art was personal friends with Titanic’s captain, Edward Smith. From what little Seward knew, Art’s father, the original Lord Godalming, had been close with Smith, and Art had known him since childhood.
“Well, have at it,” Seward said. “Watch your step on deck; I hear it’s quite slippery this time of day.”
“Yes, go and have fun while we languish away down here in the dark,” Van Helsing added. “We wouldn’t want to embarrass you in front of your friends.”
Art laughed out loud. “Fine then, I was going to bring you gentlemen back some gruel, but you have just proven yourselves unworthy even of that.” With an exaggerated flourish, he quitted the room, softly clicking the door shut behind him.
“I think that I, too, need a few private moments, John.” Van Helsing said as he stiffly stood. Slowly, creakily, he made his way over to the wash basin. “I will call you in a few moments.”
“Take your time,” John stood and moved over to the door. “I’ll be in my stateroom.”
Alone at last, Van Helsing studied himself in the mirror above the sink; his eyes were bleary and bloodshot, his skin resembled leather, and his white hair was wispy and thin.
Sometimes he got short tempered with others, including Art and John (both of whom he loved dearly). John especially. John was always there, waiting for him to fall down or turn to dust. Van Helsing appreciated his concern, but each time poor John hovered nearby, it reminded him of what he had become.
Maybe he should have stayed in England. He was little more than a liability to the others. Instead of focusing their entire attention on Dracula they would be forced to worry about him as well.
But could they do it on their own?
Van Helsing didn’t know. Maybe it was pride, maybe it was selfishness, but he didn’t trust not being here...so here he was.
Sighing heavily, he turned away from the mirror and hobbled back to the sofa, where he sat slowly and tentatively down. From his bag he withdrew a leather bound book. There was spidery sliver writing on the cover: Leben und Tod des Vampirs. He opened the book and carefully flipped through the yellow, age-brittled pages, thinking of how lucky he had been to find this tome in London; it was a rare book even in Europe.
He found his place, marked by a bit of paper, and read and re-read the chapter name: Reserection des Vampirs.