Dracula Unbound

by Brian W Aldiss

  They contemplated the view without speaking for a while.

  “I didn’t imagine the future was going to look like this, sir,” said Spinks, with evident disappointment.

  “Bit short of trees and chaps,” Stoker agreed. “Rather a surplus of mangel-wurzels, though.”

  “You can’t say it isn’t silent …”

  They stared out at a wide expanse of land, supine beneath a sky of cloudless blue. A haze which might have been smog stretched across row after row of a green-leafed vegetable. The vegetable grew in furrows as far as the horizon, and showed no sign of stopping there.

  One by one, they climbed from the train and stood on the ground. Nothing moved in the expanse before them. No tree, no shade could be seen. No bird flew overhead.

  Their view of this monotony was obstructed by a building of spectacular dimension. The train had stopped beside it, so closely that they now stood in its shadow, although the sun was almost at its zenith. So tall was the structure they could not get a glimpse of its roof. It appeared to be without architectural feature. No window punctuated the flat gray wall with its glassy surface by which they paused, looking about alertly for signs of life. The wall, the flat land, the featureless sky: together they might have formed a simple diagram in a textbook.

  “The mangel-wurzels have taken over the planet,” said Stoker, as they surveyed the cheerless scene. “Mr. Darwin didn’t bargain for that.”

  “It’s hot and no mistake,” said Spinks. He rolled up his sleeves.

  Bodenland had the impression that he was searching in his mind like a blind man fumbling in a maze. Still the memory of what had happened in the crypt did not return, but he managed to grasp a recollection of Bella’s words to him on the terrace.

  “Is there any chance that this building, whatever it is, houses the super-bomb our friendly neighborhood lamia spoke of?”

  “Here’s a door or summat,” Spinks said, pointing. A few yards away was a slight indentation, gray like the wall, which the shadow of the building concealed. They went over to it.

  Nothing indicated that it was a door. No handle or lock showed. Stoker put a burly shoulder to it. Nothing budged.

  “There’s a panel here.” The plate was certainly inconspicuous and no larger than Bodenland’s hand. He placed his hand flat on it. Noiselessly, the door slid away to one side.

  They entered the building.

  The interior was so dark that they could see nothing until their pupils adjusted from the brilliance outside. Gradually they made out the full extent of it. The roof high above them covered acres of ground. Up there, suspended from metal beams, were gigantic bar-lights, at present switched off. The function of the lights could be to speed plant growth. But much of the ground space where the men stood was occupied by rows of a plant needing very little light, a kind of fungus shaped like an old-fashioned coolie’s hat, and at least a yard wide at the brim. It was mottled, and not particularly pleasant to their eyes. Bodenland broke a piece off one fungus and sniffed it suspiciously.

  “This appears to be an agricultural factory,” he said. “Maybe it needs no human attention. Isn’t that a machine of some kind working over there?”

  They watched. A large boxlike object was emerging from the distant gloom. It drew nearer, working slowly along the ranks of the repulsive fungus. Small fingers waved on the end of a flexible arm.

  “It’s tickling the toadstools, sir,” said Spinks, laughing, and the sound echoed hollowly. “Not what I’d call gardening.”

  “Is this all the future boils down to? What a swindle,” said Stoker. “Give me the good old nineteenth century anytime. I thought we’d be seeing flying automobiles and air balloons at the least.”

  “Not to mention super-bombs. Come on, this is nothing. Let’s have a look out of this other door.”

  Much of the light entering the agricultural factory came through a door opposite the one by which they had entered. It stood open. They crossed the floor space to it.

  From this second door, the view held more interest. The field of green vegetables still stretched almost endlessly in all directions, but there was also a road, running straight away from the factory through flat countryside. And in the distance, only a mile or so away, stood a city. Smog covering the field pointed like a finger in that direction. The city itself, semiobscured though it was by smog, looked like a number of irregularly shaped plastic containers placed on end.

  The men gazed at it in some awe.

  “If I fed the correct coordinates into the computer, that should be Tripoli, the capital of the great Libyan—or Silent—Empire.”

  “And this should be 2599, about teatime.”

  “Well, Bram, I’ll go and see, shall I?”

  Just inside the door was a glass-fronted office-cum-cloakroom. It differed little from many Bodenland had had installed in his own offices. He entered, and came on a row of lockers containing work overalls, tin hats, and photochromic face masks. He waggled a mask at Stoker.

  “They have a smog problem in the twenty-sixth century. As bad as the twentieth.” He climbed into the overalls and put on the helmet, slinging the mask on top of it.

  “What we lack above all is information. The city’s the place. If there is a super-fusion bomb as rumored, I’ll try to find out where it is. Instead of the Un-Dead using it on humanity, humanity had better use it on them.”

  “Where?”

  “Lots to be figured out before we tackle that one. Keep yourselves amused. I’ll be back.”

  “Faith, don’t you know the difference between heroism and insanity?” He grasped Bodenland’s hand in admiration.

  Bodenland gave him a grin as he left. There was nothing to be done but visit the city.

  Tripoli was farther away than he had estimated, and the heat greater. It took an hour before he arrived at a low bridge crossing an almost dry canal. In that time, he had encountered no one. Now the outskirts of the city began, and soon he was in a busy thoroughfare.

  And there he had to rest, propped up against a blank wall.

  It was not that the walk had exhausted him. It was rather that he had fallen prey to black depression. Fighting it silently, he ascribed it to many things, to the melancholy of the scene in which they had arrived, to the forebodings he felt about his wife, to the horrifying encounter with the lamia, to his isolation from the rest of the known world. And finally to an idea that there might be a time-lag effect from traveling through millennia, equivalent to the jet-lag experienced after travel through multiple time zones, which writers on time travel had never bothered to mention.

  Only much later did he recognize that he had been overcome by a form of depression which attacks many active, inventive, and creative people. He was now among foreigners who could never love him or recognize all he had achieved in life. He hated that hollow sensation, so empty of the power drive from which his energies derived.

  He banished it by thrusting forward, dark mask in place to protect against the bitter tang of smog pervading the streets.

  Tripoli appeared to be a confusing mixture of Chandigarh, Houston, and old Baghdad. He realized he could recognize only the familiar aspects of an urban environment; developments since his time would take longer to sink in. This was the place where all the people had gone. He was jostled as he went forward, without hostility, without consideration. Most of the men—he saw no women—wore flowing Arab dress and antipollution helmets of ornate design, unlike his utilitarian model. Wheeled vehicles were absent. There were those who rode on what looked like little more than a rod, traveling less than a yard above the ground. Bodenland was reminded of the old witches’ broomstick.

  He allowed himself to be carried along by the crowd. After crossing another bridge, the throng surged into a wide square. Here people were organizing themselves into ranks, and shouting with much fist-waving. Banners were paraded. Police were in evidence, wearing green uniforms and well armed.

  Even as Bodenland realized how conspicuous he was, standing
out from the mob in his yellow overalls and basic tin helmet, an officer came up to him threateningly. Bodenland could see almost nothing of his face, shielded by his photochromic mask.

  The officer demanded his papers.

  Bodenland tried to dive into the crowd, but was grabbed by two more police. A truncheon smashed down on the back of his neck.

  The world receded. He was aware of a blur of faces, of shouts, and then the interior of somewhere, and more police. He recovered full consciousness to find himself alone in a small cell. A loud babble all round him told him that Tripoli had a booming prison population.

  Staggering to the cell’s one and only bench, he sat down and began gingerly to rub the top of his spine.

  Florence Stoker was in her garden early, and thinking about Heaven. She stood by her ornamental pool regarding the reflection of blue sky in the water. Perhaps Earth was just a distorted reflection of somewhere better. The Earth would be a better place if Bram were with her. She prayed for his safety.

  She walked calmly on her croquet lawn, surveying the long border that was her especial care, and noted that the delphiniums had suffered some damage during the night.

  Van Helsing appeared from nearby bushes and greeted her. She started at his silent arrival.

  “Dr. van Helsing, you have a very secretive way of approaching a person. My late father, the lieutenant colonel, would have suspected something of the Pathan in you. Pathans can steal the sheets from under you while you sleep in your bed. Look what’s happened to my best delphiniums. Such a shame!”

  “There’s the culprit.” The doctor pointed to an immense yellow slug at full stretch, about to conceal itself under a stone. “Let me squash the beastly thing for you.”

  “Indeed you will do no such thing. Let it be, Doctor. The poor creature has as much right to its brief life as we have to ours. The fault is mine, that I did not get Spinks to sprinkle soot round the plants before he embarked on this adventure of Bram’s.”

  She looked back to where the house, with its conservatory and little spire topped by a weathervane, basked in the sun. She thought of Spinks. This afternoon, she would walk down to the village and see his mother. Probably take the old lady a ham and some raspberry preserve.

  “I did my best to persuade Mr. Stoker not to go, ma’am,” van Helsing said, perhaps attempting to mind-read.

  She looked down at the slug withdrawing under the stone, leaving a shining trail on the earth. “Yes, I know—you’re always doing your best, Doctor. I am troubled in spirit, that must be admitted.”

  “Well, then. Be assured there is no ‘spirit’ in the sense you imply, you understand, merely a response to a situation, as with animals. Mr. Darwin has proved that we are simply descendants of apes.”

  “As, I suppose, roast beef is a descendant of the cow.”

  He coughed. “Not precisely. Humans have the gift of intelligence.”

  “As beef has the gift of mustard.”

  “You do not take me seriously, ma’am.”

  “I’m sorry, Doctor. Perhaps if I were an ape I would. I do not mean to be impolite, but I believe I know a great deal more about my troubled spirit than does your Mr. Darwin. Please leave me with my flowers and my beastly slugs.”

  Van Helsing bowed and withdrew. The lady remained alone, pottering in her peaceful garden.

  The creature that had been Mina Legrand was in a fury of frustration and confusion.

  This is Joe’s doing. It’s some trouble he’s brought on us. I know it. It’s a plague. I burn like a thing from hell, yet I’m cold. Freezing, can’t eat. Where am I? It’s as if—I can’t understand it, as if I was dead. In some way dead. Everything’s gray.

  It’s that man’s doing. Yes, when was it?—the motel room. It’s some trouble he’s brought on me. I know it. It’s a plague, a pox. Probably AIDS. What was I thinking about? I can’t eat or drink. I long to drink. Wait …

  That terrible … No, surely I did not seduce my own son … Who was I with on that filthy bed? Larry, Kylie? Wicked. And those lumbering monsters. Oh, why can’t I think straight? I can feel my brain decay, run like coffee grounds from nose and ears.

  Filth … something’s in the bloodstream. Yes, must be AIDS, vengeance on me for sinning. No, out with it—let me die. I am dying of thirst.

  The world—I never dreamed it had this dreadful curse in it.

  Where’s this place I’m in? Save me, Joe, save me, damn you, I’m in hell.

  Drink I need, anything—blood …

  She had emerged from her drawer and was staggering about the funeral parlor. It was dark here, lit only by the signs outside and the headlights of passing cars. The shadowy elegant creature at the Moonlite Motel had gone, his duty finished, his disease passed on.

  Cursing and crying dry-eyed, the thing that had been Mina staggered against a coffin. The lid slid away, revealing the body of a woman in her sixties, made-up and beautified ready for her cremation first thing in the morning. A second lid, of glass, protected her from the air.

  Mina clung to the handles of the coffin. She stared through the glass at the dead woman, spoke to her cajolingly, threateningly. Spoke to her of love—love eternal. The corpse made no response: all that came back was the serene visage of death, eyes closed, face tanned by the resident beautician. Mortality had left not a tinted hair out of place. To all Mina’s shrieks and whispers no answer came.

  You’re just like Larry. You don’t respond. I’ll show you love …

  When she managed to claw away the glass lid, it slipped off the counter and shattered to pieces on the floor.

  Mina climbed into the coffin. She tore away the corpse’s funeral garment before easing herself down on it. Uttering endearments, she began to gnaw at the throat, just below the makeup line.

  The night was a restless one for Larry too.

  At midnight, compassion overcoming instinct, Kylie returned to the motel, to find her husband weeping on the floor in a pool of vomit.

  She could make no sense of his ravings at first, and was offended by the mess.

  Being a practical and compassionate young lady, she went out to the Chock Full O’ Nuts and bought two chiliburgers and a flask of decaff. With these, and with an analgesic, she ministered to her unhappy husband.

  When he was partly restored, Larry gave a shamefaced account of how his mother had entered the room and attempted an obscene act with him. At first Kylie tried not to laugh, but the story was spun out to great length, and the narrator shed tears over his narrative.

  “You know Mina is dead,” said Kylie. She located the empty Wild Turkey bottle under the sofa, to gaze sternly at him through it. “You have to go easy on the liquor, my friend. Booze is not the best way to get yourself through a period of mourning.”

  He clutched his head. “More coffee, Kylie. You’re kinder than I deserve, but I swear she was here. Oh my god, Pop’s going to blame me for all this when he returns, and honest, I’m not responsible …”

  She folded her arms and walked to and fro.

  “You’ll have to be responsible for something sometime, Larry. You know well that your mother lies in her last sleep in the mortician’s. We identified her, remember? You’ve been suffering hallucinations.”

  He stood up shakily. “I’ll have myself a shower. Honey, I will give up on the hooch. Promise. But I’ll stake my life my mother … What am I saying? Stake? That’s it—it’s the curse of Clift’s graves. You said there was evil and you were right. Mother has … become a vampire. She’s become a vampire. That’s it—she’s become a vampire.”

  Looking frightened, Kylie shook her head and attempted nonchalance.

  “They do not permit vampires in Enterprise City—bad for tourism. Go take that shower.”

  “Okay—and thanks for coming back to me, hon. I really appreciate it. My next model plane I’ll name after you. We’ll go to the funeral parlor in the morning and take a look … you know, at Mina. If there are any telltale signs, stigmata—and I tell you there will
be—I am going to act. You’ll see I’m not the wimp you think.”

  “Get in that shower, you brute!” Smiling, she made as if to kick him.

  They slept fitfully after that. Next morning saw them sitting in an ice cream parlor, Trix’s Licks, just off Main Street. Through the plate glass window of the parlor they could survey the mortician’s shopfront while gathering courage to go over. Trix herself brought their sundaes as they sat companionably at the counter. Kylie smiled her thanks, then looked gloomy again.

  As is frequently the case with young married couples, both of them had changed their minds overnight.

  “I’m frightened of your drinking, Larry, dear, that’s the truth. But I know you are no alcoholic. You had a bad experience. Why should I try to deny it? Maybe your mother did visit you. That note she left—‘Joe you bastard’—doesn’t that show she was in deep trouble of some kind? Maybe she has become a vampire.”

  Larry shook his head. “I can’t believe in vampires in daylight. It’s that novel you’re reading getting to you.”

  She laughed. “Now you sound like your father. The Church has a proper sense of the battle of Good against Evil. It’s a very ancient battle. Belief in devils and vampires goes way way back, and has to be well-founded for that reason.”

  When he made no response, Kylie watched him, sitting next to her, elbows on the counter, a colored straw at his pink lip. He was gazing calculatingly across the street at the stained glass in the mortician’s window. Maybe he’s planning to deliver his groceries there, she thought, then hastily retracted the treachery.

  But of course the unspoken question was, was their marriage always to be like this? Could she find in herself sufficient depth of character—of love—to stick with Larry Bodenland, to elicit responses that were more than perfunctory? Why was it she was always having to mop up his spew? And to tell him things? And to offer advice? Why couldn’t it be vice versa?

  Because when she looked at it coolly, she did not want a mother role. She liked playing the good obedient daughter. Was she not a shade fonder of Joe, bossy though he was, than of his son?