Dracul

by Dacre Stoker

  Thornley tensed and looked towards the stairs. “Emily is waking. The two of you must go. Meet me at the south entrance to the hospital in one hour. There is a bench there near the street overlooking the park. Nobody will question you for sitting there.”

  With that, my brother rushed us out of his home, and Matilda and I found ourselves in the chilly night.

  * * *

  • • •

  10 AUGUST 1868, 11:30 p.m.—The bells of St. Patrick’s rang promptly at thirty minutes past, a single strike to signify the bottom of the hour. I always found it odd how this tolling sounded so much louder in the still hours of the night. During the day, the chimes provided muted background accompaniment to the city’s bustle, but after dark they took on a sharper edge.

  As the bell rang out, Matilda jerked back, then shifted on the park bench we were sharing. We had arrived at Dr. Steevens’ Hospital ten minutes earlier and found our way to the bench at the south entrance that Thornley had mentioned. It looked out over a small pond, no doubt a view meant to comfort visitors. I, for one, harbored no desire to be near any hospital. The mere sight of such a place brought back all the suffering of my early childhood years—I could almost smell the various medicines and elixirs through its walls as easily as if I were sitting in the same room with them. When Ellen had cured my illness all those years ago, I swore to myself I would never return to such a sickly condition. I would do everything in my power to remain healthy. So I hoped visiting a hospital—regardless of the reason that brought us here tonight—wouldn’t undermine my resolve.

  “I feel like we should be feeding the pigeons,” Matilda said. “Something to help us appear less conspicuous.”

  “The pigeons are sound asleep at this hour. Even they have more sense than the two of us.”

  Swift’s Lunatic Hospital was clearly visible across a small field to my right. The tall stone walls stood dark and ominous. Unlike Dr. Steevens’ Hospital, the grounds were not manicured and landscaped with colorful flowers; the lawns were brown with death and neglect, and the only color to be found on the building came from a hardy growth of ivy creeping up the walls. Most of the windows were dark; I counted only three with lights burning from somewhere within the gloom, but the place was far from sleeping—screams rang out at random intervals. Some from men, others from women, and some that sounded like they didn’t come from people at all.

  I considered how my brother spent so much time in such a place, surrounded by these atrocities. Should a patient arrive at Dr. Steevens’ in a consumptive state or be harboring some other more traditional ill, such as heart failure, there were plans to follow, protocols in place, treatments to be administered. Such was not the case with mental illness. Thornley preferred illnesses of the mind over those of the body, perhaps thanks to his hunger to take on a challenge. How he dealt with the screams, though—

  “There is someone standing over there,” Matilda’s hushed voice interrupted my thoughts. Her fingers wrapped around my arm. “There, under that ash tree.”

  I followed her gaze and saw the shadowy figure, too. A woman in a black cloak stood beneath the branches, her face hidden under a hood. This was not traditional attire for a lady who found herself on the streets of Dublin, whether her business was legitimate or nefarious. I did not get the impression she was a lady of the night, for they tended to remain in the trafficked quarters of the city. The hospital grounds were deserted; we had observed no other soul since arriving.

  “Nanna Ellen?” said Matilda.

  Even though the cloak obscured much of her face, I was certain this was not Nanna Ellen. I could see only the mouth and chin, a little bit of the nose—her eyes were lost in the gloom of the hood. Her skin seemed to feed on the moonlight, absorbing the rays and creating a soft glow over her otherwise masked features.

  “It’s not Ellen,” I replied, standing away from the bench. “She’s far too short.”

  Matilda had risen with me, her grip tightening on my arm. I peeled away her hand. “Wait here.”

  But she was shaking her head. “You mustn’t.”

  “I’ll only be a moment.”

  I started towards the ash tree, towards the woman. She remained steadfast, her arms at her sides. I found it curious I could barely see her, even as I closed the distance between us. My night vision had improved substantially in the years since Ellen healed me. I could make out every grain of gravel paving the path, I could read signs marking the River Liffey, yet I could not seem to lock my gaze on this woman. Or was it a girl? Even a child? As I neared, I got the distinct impression she was younger than I first thought. Each time I honed in on a particular feature, she appeared to slip farther into the night, even disappearing from view. She accomplished this feat without moving; in fact, she had not moved at all since we first spotted her. Instead, the shadows engulfed her.

  “Who are you?” I finally found the courage to say. Though she was at least fifty feet away from me, I was certain she heard me. When her lips parted, her teeth caught the moonlight—the brightest of whites, nearly incandescent.

  “Bram!”

  The whisper came from behind me, and I spun on my heel to find Thornley standing at Matilda’s side. When I turned back around, the person was gone. I frantically looked up and down the street and across the lawns, but there was no sign of her. I gave Thornley and Matilda a frustrated wave, then quickly circled the tree, thinking perhaps she had hidden on the other side of the trunk, but I found nothing. The air around the tree felt cold where she had stood, cold and thick like an icy fog rolling in off the harbor.

  “Bram, we must hurry!” Thornley urged, doing his best to not raise his voice and attract unwanted attention.

  I raced back to them.

  Matilda asked, “Who was it?”

  “I don’t know. I lost sight of her.”

  “Who?” Thornley questioned.

  I nodded back towards the ash. “There was a girl standing near that tree.”

  “At this hour?”

  “She didn’t say a word, just stood there, watching us.”

  “Perhaps a nurse from the hospital? Many of the staff walk the grounds to clear their heads,” Thornley explained.

  “This was no nurse,” Matilda said.

  “You cannot be certain of that.”

  “It was Ellen,” Matilda insisted.

  I shook my head. “It wasn’t Ellen. She was too young.”

  Thornley eyed the building behind us. “We need to hurry,” he repeated. “The staff changes shifts at midnight. Follow me—”

  Thornley led us down a narrow gravel sidewalk to the south entrance of Dr. Steevens’ Hospital. The gas lamp positioned to light the small alcove either had not been lit for the evening or had somehow been extinguished—I was inclined to lean towards the latter. Tall hedges surrounded this side of the building, blocking the view of Swift’s Hospital for Lunatics, but they did not block the screams. They grew louder as we neared the door, as if the residents trapped in Swift’s sensed our presence and called out to us across the dark field. If Thornley heard the outbursts, he did not acknowledge them. He went to the door while glancing back over his shoulder with a wary eye. He twisted the knob and, finding it locked, pulled a large ring of keys from his pocket. “We keep keys to the hospital in our administration office. In return, they retain a set of keys to Swift’s Hospital for us. We have a fairly friendly relationship, sharing supplies and whatnot. In my early days at Swift’s, I was cross-trained on rotation over here and I am familiar with most of the layout. Should I be discovered in the morgue or elsewhere in the hospital, it most likely wouldn’t raise the alarm. But I’m not certain how they would react to the likes of you.”

  “If caught, we will just stick to our story,” Matilda replied.

  Thornley and I nodded in agreement.

  I watched as he tried several keys from the ring before finding the o
ne that fit. He inserted it in the lock.

  * * *

  • • •

  10 AUGUST 1868, 11:36 p.m.—The south entrance door opened into a narrow hallway lit by a single lamp at the far end. Judging by the dust raised with our every step, the corridor witnessed scant traffic. We closed the door behind us and followed Thornley. His shadow seemed to stretch out a dozen feet or more, then grew shorter as we neared the other side. Thankfully, we left the screams outside, although they still rang in my head.

  At the end of the hallway, we turned a sharp left, nearly running into a stout little man pulling a loaded cart covered with a brown tarp. I dared not think what was under that tarp, and the man’s blank stare offered nothing by way of information. I fully expected him to stop and question our being here, but instead he nodded at Thornley and passed by Matilda and me as if we weren’t there at all. We slowed our pace until he disappeared through double doors halfway down the corridor, then quickened again as Thornley led us in the direction from which the man had come. At first, I didn’t notice the slight decline in the floor, but as we progressed farther down the hall, the angle became more pronounced; we, in fact, were descending. Of course, it made sense that the morgue would be located in the basement, that stairs would prove too difficult to facilitate the rolling in of corpses, so the floor had been angled at an accommodating pitch, with just a single switchback, thus allowing for ease of access to the lower level.

  When we reached the door, Thornley motioned for us to stop. “Wait here. I want to check if anyone is inside.” He pushed through the door, closing it behind him.

  “It’s cold down here,” Matilda said.

  I had to agree. The temperature dropped noticeably as we followed the hallway, so much so my breath was steaming visibly. “We won’t be long.” I could think of nothing else to say. We both should have been sound asleep in our beds at this hour, yet here we were in the basement of the hospital, preparing to identify the body of a man who had died not once but possibly twice, the first time being almost fourteen years prior.

  Thornley returned moments later and beckoned us to follow him back inside. He held the door open as we passed.

  I was immediately taken by the enormity of the room; I believe it occupied the entire footprint of the hospital. I found it unnervingly quiet, too, only the hiss of a gas lamp intruding on the silence. There was row upon row of tables. The room smelled sickly; a cloud of vinegar hung heavily in the clammy air, so much so that my eyes began to water. It was the underlying scent, though, that gave me pause: a sweet scent with a distinctly metallic edge.

  “This way,” Thornley said as he started towards the back of the room.

  “Why so many beds?” Matilda asked.

  “The morgue was originally upstairs on the second floor. The administrators moved the dead down here to the basement during the cholera epidemic years ago. At one point, this building overflowed with the dead, and not only down here; bodies lined the hallways, filled the courtyard, and even occupied the roof. Today, though, there is little use for all of them.” He smacked one of the old beds as we walked past, and a large puff of dust rose through the air. “They store all these old beds here in case we are subjected to another epidemic. Emergency overflow is handled out here, with the morgue at the back. I once heard it said that ‘Should the deathbeds of Steevens’ fill, surely the Apocalypse will be upon us.’”

  “Let us hope it never comes to that,” I mumbled. I counted thirty beds in this one aisle alone before I finally stopped counting.

  Thornley went on. “There is one more level beneath this one, housing the boilers and other workings of the hospital. Considering the structure is over one hundred years old, it is quite a marvel of modern technology. You won’t find a more knowledgeable staff in all of Dublin, perhaps in all of Europe.”

  He led us past the beds, turning right at the last row. We came upon these movable walls—each section at least eight feet wide, and went from a wheeled base at the bottom to a height of nearly ten feet, brushing within inches of the ceiling supports. I saw no door to speak of; instead, an opening of about five feet stood between two of the movable walls. A small sign hung on the left side that simply read MORGUE—HOSPITAL STAFF ONLY.

  An older gentleman was perched upon a stool near the entrance, a book in hand. His face was stamped with the years, and indeed he seemed frail, too frail to be posted on sentry duty, yet there he sat. He looked up warily as we approached, setting the book down on his lap. “Not much call for visitors at this late hour. What can I do for you three?”

  Thornley smiled at him. “Ah, Mr. Appleyard, I didn’t realize you were working here now. I trust you remember me from Swift’s? My sister feels she may know the unidentified man from yesterday’s paper. We hoped to view the body when few others are present, in case she is mistaken.” He lowered his voice. “We need to be discreet about such things, you know. May I escort her inside?” He concluded by pulling a pound sterling note from his billfold and handed it to the man.

  Appleyard hesitated, then took the bill and quickly tucked it in his pocket. “With circumstances as they are, I thank you for your kind generosity,” he said, his eyes drifting over my sister, then me. They were milky gray in color, cloudy with developing cataracts, but he still seemed to see with more clarity than the glistening eyes of some children. He nodded towards the entrance, motioning for us to enter.

  We passed through the opening and found ourselves standing amongst the land of the dead. The air was still in here, no movement at all, and any sound seemed to be swallowed by the walls, so silent that I heard the catch in Matilda’s breathing.

  I counted forty-eight beds in total, eighteen of which were occupied, each occupant carefully covered in a white linen sheet. A string protruded from under each sheet and was connected to a small bell on a hook at the top left post of the bed. I approached the nearest bed and ran my finger along the string.

  “The string is tied to the hand of the deceased. In the event someone believed dead in truth is not, movement of the hand will sound the bell and alert the staff,” said Thornley.

  “How ghastly,” Matilda said.

  Thornley went on, “It happens more often than one would expect. I have witnessed patients with no hint of a breath or a heartbeat in them suddenly sit up in bed and scream hours after it was thought all life had abandoned them. When a body is brought here to the morgue, the bell must remain attached for twenty-four hours without sound before an autopsy may commence. My good friend Dr. Lawrence had just such a patient only two weeks ago. He believed she passed away due to failure of the heart, there was no sign of life. Her bell was mute for nearly thirty hours before he began the autopsy. As he applied his scalpel to her breast, he heard a small gasp. He requested a glass of water, then forced open her mouth and began to pour water down her gullet. When she choked it back out, one of the nurses, overcome by fright, fainted where she stood. In a minute, the patient’s eyes opened and she looked out for the first time in days, unaware of where she was or how she had arrived.” Thornley flicked his finger across the string of the nearest bell and the bell softly chimed. “Like life, there is much we do not understand about death.”

  Matilda’s face was ghostly white. I watched her eyes as she glanced over the shrouded bodies.

  “If her doctor believed her heart failed her, why the autopsy?” I asked.

  “She was young, only twenty-three years of age, far too young for such an ailment to be expected. In such a case, an autopsy is always ordered. The same holds true with suspicious and accidental deaths, such as our friend Mr. O’Cuiv.” Thornley nodded towards the clock mounted on the far wall; it read quarter to midnight. “The third shift arrives in about fifteen minutes. Start checking the cards; we are searching for a male without a name noted.”

  The three of us spread out amongst the bodies and systematically began reading the cards posted at the foot of eac
h bed. I had never beheld a dead body before, and knowing that so many were close at hand was unnerving. My memory brought back the hand Matilda and I discovered in the castle tower all those years ago, the fingers groping at the air and flexing. A hand that should have been dead but was not. A cursed hand.

  I shuddered and focused my attention on the cards, doing my best to not look at the sheets or consider what lay beneath them.

  “Here—” Matilda said.

  She was hovering over a body at the far corner, on a table with a large drain at one end; the sheet had been folded from the bottom up and covered only the face. I wasn’t sure if Matilda moved the linen or found the body that way. I quickly crossed the room to her with Thornley a pace at my back.

  Matilda covered her mouth and nose and simply pointed at the body in front of her. As I followed her finger, I shuddered.

  The deceased lay before us with his legs and arms spread wide; there was no modesty to speak of, for he was utterly naked as the day he was born. His chest was open, a long cut initiated below the navel and intersected at the lower part of the sternum with two incisions extending to each shoulder joint, forming a large Y. The rib cage was split down the center, cut with some kind of saw. A pair of wooden braces held them apart.

  “His organs have been removed,” I said, staring at the empty cavity.

  “Over here.” Matilda pointed at a series of bowls on a table at her side.

  Thornley ignored her; he was busy examining the body. “This is fresh; perhaps an hour or less.”

  “Look at the arms,” I said quietly. The cuts were there; six scars on the right arm and four on the left, just as detailed in the documentation found in O’Cuiv’s file that Matilda had shown to me back at Marsh’s Library. It was clear these were old wounds, long ago healed. The flesh was rough and dark in color, which contrasted with the pale white of the surrounding skin. His fingernails were long and filed to points. I found this noteworthy, for surely I would have remembered such a detail had I observed it as a child. I could think of no practical reason for keeping one’s nails in such a condition.