Van Helsing's Diaries: Nosferatu

by Cawdron, Peter

  Jane wipes the blood from her gloves on a bunch of napkins from a nearby fast food restaurant. The customers are mortified by her callous indifference as she tosses the bloody napkins on an outdoor table. They cower, and I wonder if she revels in the fear she commands.

  Sirens sound. A fire engine turns into the market, driving half on the sidewalk to avoid the stalls clogging the road. Emergency lights flicker across the buildings. We join the crowd among the stalls, blending in with the other survivors, working our way toward the main street.

  Police set up an outer cordon, wanting to cast a wide net.

  “This way,” Jane says, and we slip down a narrow alley, through a back door, into a kitchen preparing French cuisine, out into an almost empty restaurant, then onto the main street.

  “I—I can’t believe I just watched you kill someone in cold blood.”

  “Cold? Oh, no. They’re always a little warm. Side effect of a high metabolism. Get them worked up, and they’ll break a hundred and ten in a fight.”

  “You—” I say. “You know what I mean. You just killed that man. I watched him die.”

  “We are at war,” Jane replies with a voice that matches the icy chill in the air.

  “Jesus,” I say, running my hands up through my hair. “Three people, Jane. I’ve barely been with you for three hours and you’ve killed three people.”

  “Technically, I only killed two of them,” she replies. “The bodyguard took himself out.”

  I shake my head in disbelief. “Alan—Jane. This isn’t you.”

  “It’s not always like this,” she says. “Normally, they don’t get so close. We had to send a message.”

  We? Message?

  “Well, I suspect you’ve got their attention."

  The bitter cold wind bites at my exposed cheeks.

  Jane buries her hands in her jacket pockets, saying, “They’re afraid. Can you believe that?”

  To which I say, “That guy back at the restaurant? How did you know he was a vampire? How could you be sure?”

  “You mean, before he leaped up on the bench like a jaguar, and tore his own hand loose? Because, at that point, I think it was pretty clear.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Before then.”

  “Like I said—they’re scared. They like to keep to the shadows, to ply their evil unnoticed, but we’re not playing ball, so they’re trying to get close to us—to figure out how much we know—to destroy us. For the first time in a long while, they feel vulnerable.”

  I say, “I don’t know that vulnerable is the term I’d use to describe vampires.”

  Jane laughs, punching me on the arm. “You’re funny.”

  Vlad and Anton are waiting for us on the street.

  “It’s done,” Jane says.

  “Good,” Anton replies with vapor forming on his breath. He rubs his gloved hands together in a feeble effort to get warm. Vlad hops into what looks like a brand new Mercedes S-Class. Jane and I climb in the back. She seems to know where we’re going. I don’t ask. At a guess, we’re heading east, but the old man said we were leaving tomorrow. I can’t help but feel unsettled, as though he’s deliberately misleading me, trying to keep me off-kilter.

  Anton drives. Vlad sits in the front passenger seat, talking in German to someone on a phone. He’s speaking far too quickly for me to pick up on anything beyond basic pronouns. Jane sits across from me in the back. The S-Class is more like a limo than a car: heated leather seats, plenty of leg room, and a fold-down tray table between us, stocked with a few mini-bar beverages and snacks. Jane pops open a bag of peanuts.

  There are TV screens in the back of the headrests. The sound is turned down, but they’re showing footage of the restaurant in flames.

  We drive at a reckless pace, running red lights and taking corners at speed. If keeping a low profile was important, we’ve blown that. Jane spends most of the trip looking at Instagram on her cell phone. I catch glimpses of pretty models in skimpy bikinis, and the occasional food porn shot of a meal someone’s about to devour. To me, it seems incongruous with what we’ve just been through, but I guess this is how she keeps herself sane. Eventually, we pull into an airfield, past security, and onto the tarmac. The car comes to a halt behind the wing of a private jet. Damn, Vlad has some serious connections.

  As we get out of the car, I speak quietly to Jane, saying, “I don’t have my passport. It’s back at the hotel.” Truth be told, it’s probably in an evidence locker by now.

  Jane laughs. “Where we’re going, you won’t need it.” Somehow, I doubt we’re staying within the borders of Germany, or the EU, for that matter.

  Anton grabs a heavy duffle bag from the trunk and we board the plane. The interior is plush, with leather lounge chairs, bottles of champagne on ice, and a flight attendant offering canapés.

  “I just ate,” I say.

  “I’m famished,” Jane says, taking the tray from him. “Keep ‘em coming.”

  I start to remove my gloves, but Jane says, “No. Don’t. No fingerprints, and we were never here.”

  “Oh.”

  Jane and I sit near the rear of the plane, while Vlad and Anton talk with someone that looks like a military officer up by the cockpit. The plane taxis, so I put on my seatbelt. Jane doesn’t bother.

  “Get some sleep,” Anton says, dumping the duffle bag in the aisle. The zipper is partially open. Wooden stakes, crossbows, and a rocket propelled grenade launcher make for strange bedfellows. The lights dim for takeoff. Once we’re in the air, I recline the seat and take his advice. It’s been a crazy day.

  Chapter 3:04 — Russia

  I wake with the screech of tires touching down, and find that the day is well upon us. Feeling groggy, I look out the window, surprised to see we’ve landed at a military base. We taxi past fighter planes lined up on the side of the runway. A single red star high on the various tail fins leaves no doubt we’re in Russia.

  At first glance, the SU-27 fighter jets look similar to US F-15s, but there are subtle differences. The plane is longer, almost as though it’s been stretched, and the bubble canopy presides over a slightly hooked nose. The wings are thin, designed for speed. Dual tail fins speak of high performance and maneuverability.

  “Where are we?”

  “Rostov.”

  Our plane comes to a halt, and the door opens, folding out to become stairs. The military officer gets up, so I stand.

  “Oh, no, not us,” Jane says, pointing at the ceiling. “There are too many eyes in the sky. This is a bluff, a feint—dropping off a general for all to see. We’ll get out when the plane goes into the hangar.”

  “Oh,” I say, taking my seat again. Anton looks at me warily.

  We sit on the tarmac for almost an hour with the door open, patiently waiting as the temperature inside the plane plummets. Eventually, the pilot closes the door and we taxi into a nearby hangar.

  “What is this place?” I ask quietly.

  “Area 51,” Jane whispers in reply, “or at least, the Russian equivalent.”

  “So we’re here because—”

  “The Russians believe us,” she says, keeping her voice low as we follow Vlad and Anton off the plane. We walk across the vast empty hangar. “In the West, they don’t believe in superstitions, but here in the East, they know. They’ve lived with this scourge for hundreds of years. They grew up hearing of children being taken, villages being ransacked. For them, this is no myth.”

  We walk down a set of concrete steps and into a dark tunnel running beneath the airfield. Poor lighting hides the muck and grime, but I can hear a thin layer of water splashing with each step. Moisture seeps through my leather shoes. The stench of jet fuel is overwhelming. We walk for what feels like miles, following one straight tunnel after another, before emerging in distant hangar, hidden from eyes in the sky. We’re still inside the military base, but we’re at the far end of the airfield, close to where the planes touch down. Hundreds of Russian soldiers and technicians are at work in the vast hangar, b
ut absolutely no one ventures out into the light. It’s almost as though they’re vampires.

  Bombs sit mounted on racks, ready to load onto aircraft. Mechanics work on stripped down turbojet engines, replacing blades, and cleaning parts.

  It’s hard not to recognize a mobile nuclear missile launcher sitting in the middle of the hangar. In the USA, an eighteen wheeler like this would carry something practical, like combine harvesters or an industrial crane, but the hydraulics on this army truck support a massive tube spanning the length of the vehicle. The ominous red end cap has been opened, lifting off the front of the tube. The missile inside is surprisingly thin. This isn’t an intercontinental ballistic missile, but rather something for use within the European theatre. The nosecone, though, has been removed.

  Dozens of eyes watch as we walk past. Several technicians are working on an unmanned drone—moody grey with a bulbous head. The matte paint and angled panels are eerily similar to those I’ve seen on stealth aircraft at airshows in the USA. Russian soldiers are fitting the nuclear warhead from the missile in the open bay between the undercarriage mounts, hoisting it carefully into position.

  “Jesus,” I whisper to Jane. “Is that what I think it is?”

  She doesn’t reply.

  “They could fly that thing up the Hudson.”

  “Better the devil you know,” she says, which isn’t in any way reassuring.

  “Is there a problem?” a Russian military officer asks without any hint of accent in his English. He could be from London, for all I know.

  “No problem, Alexei.”

  “Good,” Alexei replies, taking an uncomfortably long look at me. “Strangers. I don’t like strangers.”

  “He’s a friend,” Vlad says. “He helped us against the Vourdalak in Romania.”

  The soldiers accompanying us hold AK-47s with bayonets attached. Six inches of polished chrome extends below each barrel, threatening to eviscerate us for any wrong move. Maybe I’m being paranoid, but I feel as though they’re all looking exclusively at me.

  “Do you have it?” Vlad asks.

  “I do,” Alexei replies. He makes eye contact with a subordinate, who opens an aluminum cylinder and rolls a map out on the hood of what looks like a knockoff of a Hummer—although I’m not pointing that out to anyone. We gather around. I have no idea what we’re looking at, as the names on the map are in Cyrillic.

  “You were right,” he says, pointing at the map. “Brasova is here, Cetatea Poenari down here, and this is Mănăstirea Boia in the west. The whole region is riddled with caves.” Alexei draws his finger over the map, tracing the path of a river winding between the mountains. “Zvezdnyy svet went live last week.”

  “So it works?” Anton asks.

  “Better than you thought,” Alexei replies. “Your design has allowed the K4 class satellites to verify the location of nuclear silos across the United States Midwest.”

  My eyes go wide. I look at Jane. She raises her fingers ever so slightly, wanting me to remain silent. I’m feeling distinctly uneasy, almost queasy at the thought of being hunted down by the US military and tried as a traitor. In the movies, it’s about now bombs begin exploding and the good guys come sailing down heavy ropes, storming the villain’s lair.

  “And Vâlcea? Argeș?”

  “Oh, do not worry my friend. We found what you’ve been looking for. Less than a mile from Poenari.”

  “You found it?” Vlad says with unbridled excitement in his voice.

  “Yes.”

  The aide standing beside Alexei pulls out a transparent sheet of plastic and lays it over the map, lining it up with the grid markings.

  “This is the density measure,” he says, adding a second overlay, “and this is the result of the cavity analysis.”

  A hazy brown oval sits over a blue smudge, which looks meaningless to me, but Alexei says, “The craft is almost two hundred meters long.”

  “Craft?” I say in alarm, nowhere near as excited as everyone else.

  “Yes, yes,” Vlad says, clapping his gloved hands together. “This is brilliant, general. You have exceeded our expectations.”

  “Wait a minute—what craft?”

  “This is how they got here,” Jane says.

  “You don’t know that. That could be—it could be anything.”

  Alexei rolls another transparency over the map—a thin yellow crescent sits above the brown haze. “Positron emissions—well above background radiation levels.”

  Another transparency leaves a thin blue line above the yellow half-circle. “Gamma rays. They’re faint, but they follow the same arc.”

  “Coming from what?” Vlad asks.

  “It could be a power supply, a reactor, engines—it’s difficult to say.”

  Vlad is excited. He taps the map, saying, “This is proof—incontrovertible. There is no more hiding in the shadows.”

  Jane says, “This is good, but we need to secure physical evidence.”

  “Jane’s right,” Anton says. “The strigoi hold senior positions in the French, Italian and Polish governments. They’ll use their influence with Romania, and shut this down if given the chance.”

  “We can do this,” Vlad says. “We can end this once and for all.”

  Alexei says, “My dear van Helsing. Romania is a sovereign country, a member of the European Union, and a participant in NATO. I cannot simply send Russian shock troops in to secure an ancient spacecraft buried under a mountain. ”

  “Get us to Bucharest,” van Helsing says. “We’ll find the entrance to the cave.”

  “You should wait for spring.”

  “We cannot wait,” Vlad says. “We cannot give our enemy any quarter.”

  “I can get you as far as Odessa.”

  As the two men talk, I glance around. The soldiers have formed an outer perimeter, hedging us in. They eye me with suspicion—the outsider. One wrong twitch and I’m sure they’ll shred us with their bayonets and mow us down in a hail of lead.

  We walk back to our plane, following the maze of darkened tunnels, with what feels like an entire battalion of soldiers following us. After boarding, the plane taxis and lifts smoothly into the air. I’m not too disappointed at leaving Russia behind, but I’m worried by what I’ve seen and heard. We pass over the Black Sea. Container ships and Russian naval vessels dot the water beneath us.

  Jane spends most of the flight talking with Vlad and Anton, leaving me in the rear of the plane. I could join them, but whenever I’m in earshot, the conversation seems strained. As we start to descend, Jane joins me at the back of the plane. I’ve been stewing for hours now, rehearsing what needs to be said, anticipating her replies and honing my responses.

  After landing, the plane taxis to yet another obscure, isolated hangar. Vlad and Anton follow the pilot down the stairs, but I hang back. I hold up my hand, signaling for Jane to wait. I need to talk to her—alone.

  Under my breath I ask her, “What the hell was all that about? You’re helping the Russians track down American nukes? Are you insane?”

  “We haven’t given them anything they didn’t already have,” she replies. “Most, if not all of those sites, were exposed in the 70s. All we did was give them a means of confirming which silos are occupied.”

  “And that doesn’t bother you?” I ask. “You realize that treason’s a capital offense, right? Jesus, we’re both implicated.”

  “We have bigger problems.”

  I shake my head. “Bigger problems? Jane—Alan—whoever. Listen to yourself. This is crazy. You’re going on a witch hunt, and for what? To live out the fantasy of an old man?”

  “You’ve seen them.”

  “I—I don’t know what I saw. One moment, I’m swept up in the adventure, the next I find myself doubting. I want to believe you. I really do. Then reality hits. You’ve killed people, murdered them, and on what? On the testimony of a frail old man.”

  Jane shakes her head. “You know me.”

  “You? I’m not even sure who you ar
e! Are you Alan? Jane? Are you even sane? Maybe you’re suffering from acute schizophrenia. At times, I think I know, but then I find myself in Russia selling out the United States of America—a country I love. How the fuck did that happen, Jane? How did we get to this point?”

  “Joe. It’s me.”

  “You? Oh, yes, I’ve seen you,” I say. “I saw you standing there drenched in the rain—spooky as hell. Then I saw you nailing boards over a cottage as that old man poured gasoline on the timber. Your husband burned to death in there.”

  “You know what happened.”

  “Do I?” I ask. “Honestly, this could all be some psychotic episode gone wrong—and it only ever seems to go from bad to worse. You’re unhinged. You’ve got to see that.”

  Jane looks at the floor of the plane. She speaks softly, saying, “If you feel you need to leave—then go, but I can’t. I owe this to Jane. I owe it to myself.”

  “Why did you call me here?” I ask. “Why drag me halfway around the world again?”

  “I—I can’t do this alone,” she says. “I need a friend. I need someone I can trust.”

  “What if there’s nothing up in those mountains? What then?” I ask.

  Jane is quiet.

  “You see, this is the problem. There’s no end in sight. You’re on a crusade, only you’ll never reach Jerusalem.”

  I peer out the window of the plane. “We’re not in Odessa, are we? Or Bucharest.”

  Jane shakes her head softly. “Brasov.”

  “I’m guessing that’s in Romania?”

  She nods. A solitary tear runs down her cheek. She wipes it away quickly with the back of her glove.

  Anton sticks his head in the open door of the plane, interrupting us. “Are you coming?”

  Jane looks me in the eye, and asks the same question. “Well, are you?”

  “Against my better judgement.”

  Chapter 3:05 — Transylvanian Alps

  “We’ll drop you as close as we can,” the helicopter pilot says over the noise-cancelling headphones. Wind swirls in the open back of the chopper, chilling my face. We’re dressed in snow gear—thick boots, heavy canvas pants, thermal underwear, down-filled jackets, ski gloves and woolen hats. My nose is so cold it stings.