In the Footsteps of Dracula

by Stephen Jones

  Marty was hugging his pillow and bawling for Mina.

  All for Hecuba, Kate thought. Mina wasn’t even in this movie except as a locket. God knows what Mrs. Harker would think when and if she saw Dracula.

  Francis told the crew to ignore Marty’s complaints. He was an actor, and just whining.

  Ion translated.

  She remembered what Francis had said after the storm, “What does this cost, people?” Was anything worth what this seemed to cost? “I don’t just have to make Dracula,” Francis had told an interviewer, “I have to be Dracula.”

  Kate tried to write the Harker that was emerging between Marty and Francis. She went into the worst places of her own past and realized they still burned in her memory like smoldering coals. Her pad was spotted with red. There was blood in her tears. That didn’t happen often.

  The camera was close to Marty’s face. Francis was intent, bent close over the bed, teeth bared, hands clawed. Marty mumbled, trying to wave the lens away.

  “Don’t look at the camera, Jonathan,” Francis said.

  Marty buried his face in the bed and was sick, choking. Kate wanted to protest but couldn’t bring herself to. She was worried Martin Sheen would never forgive her for interrupting his Academy Award scene. He was an actor. He’d go on to other roles, casting off poor Jon like an old coat.

  He rolled off his vomit and looked up, where the ceiling should have been but wasn’t.

  The camera ran on. And on.

  Marty lay still.

  Finally, the camera operator reported “I think he’s stopped breathing.”

  For an eternal second, Francis let the scene run.

  In the end, rather than stop filming, the director elbowed the camera aside and threw himself on his star, putting an ear close to Marty’s sunken bare chest.

  Kate dropped her pad and rushed into the set. A wall swayed and fell with a crash.

  “His heart’s still beating,” Francis said.

  She could hear it, thumping irregularly.

  Marty spluttered, fluid leaking from his mouth. His face was almost scarlet.

  His heart slowed.

  “I think he’s having a heart attack,” she said.

  “He’s only thirty-five,” Francis said. “No, thirty-six. It’s his birthday today.”

  A doctor was called for. Kate thumped Marty’s chest, wishing she knew more first aid.

  The camera rolled on, forgotten.

  “If this gets out,” Francis said, “I’m finished. The film is over.”

  Francis grabbed Marty’s hand tight, and prayed.

  “Don’t die, man.”

  Martin Sheen’s heart wasn’t listening. The beat stopped. Seconds passed. Another beat. Nothing.

  Ion was at Francis’s side. His fang-teeth were fully extended and his eyes were red. It was the closeness of death, triggering his instincts.

  Kate, hating herself, felt it too.

  The blood of the dead was spoiled, undrinkable. But the blood of the dying was sweet, as if invested with the life that was being spilled.

  She felt her own teeth sharp against her lower lip. Drops of her blood fell from her eyes and mouth, spattering Marty’s chin.

  She pounded his chest again. Another beat. Nothing.

  Ion crawled on the bed, reaching for Marty.

  “I can make him live,” he whispered, mouth agape, nearing a pulseless neck.

  “My God,” said Francis, madness in his eyes. “You can bring him back. Even if he dies, he can finish the picture.”

  “Yesssss,” hissed the old child.

  Marty’s eyes sprang open. He was still conscious in his stalling body. There was a flood of fear and panic. Kate felt his death grasp her own heart.

  Ion’s teeth touched the actor’s throat.

  A cold clarity struck her. This undead youth of unknown bloodline must not pass on the Dark Kiss. He was not yet ready to be a father-in-darkness.

  She took him by the scruff of his neck and tore him away. He fought her, but she was older, stronger.

  With love, she punctured Marty’s throat, feeling the death ecstasy convulse through her. She swooned as the blood, laced heavily with brandy, welled into her mouth, but fought to stay in control. The lizard part of her brain would have sucked him dry.

  But Katharine Reed was not a monster.

  She broke the contact, smearing blood across her chin and his chest hair. She ripped open her blouse, scattering tiny buttons, and sliced herself with a sharpening thumbnail, drawing an incision across her ribs.

  She raised Marty’s head and pressed his mouth to the wound. As the dying man suckled, she looked through fogged glasses at Francis, at Ion, at the camera operator, at twenty studio staff. A doctor was arriving, too late.

  She looked at the blank round eye of the camera.

  “Turn that bloody thing off,” she said.

  The principles were assembled in an office at the studio. Kate, still drained, had to be there. Marty was in a clinic with a drip-feed, awaiting more transfusions. His entire bloodstream would have to be flushed out several times over. With luck, he wouldn’t even turn. He would just have some of her life in him, some of her in him, forever. This had happened before and Kate wasn’t exactly happy about it. But she had no other choice. Ion would have killed the actor and brought him back to life as a newborn vampire.

  “There have been stories in the trades,” Francis said, holding up a copy of Daily Variety. It was the only newspaper that regularly got through to the company. “About Marty. We have to sit tight on this, to keep a lid on panic. I can’t afford even the rumor that we’re in trouble. Don’t you understand, we’re in the twilight zone here. Anything approaching a shooting schedule or a budget was left behind a long time ago. We can film around Marty until he’s ready to do close-ups. His brother is coming over from the States to double him from the back. We can weather this on the ground, but maybe not in the press. The vultures from the trades want us dead. Ever since Finian’s Rainbow, they’ve hated me. I’m a smart kid and nobody likes smart kids. From now on, if anybody dies they aren’t dead until I say so. Nobody is to tell anyone anything until it’s gone through me. People, we’re in trouble here and we may have to lie our way out of it. I know you think the Ceausescu regime is fascist but it’s nothing compared to the Coppola regime. You don’t know anything until I confirm it. You don’t do anything until I say so. This is a war, people, and we’re losing.”

  Marty’s family was with him. His wife didn’t quite know whether to be grateful to Kate or despise her.

  He would live. Really live.

  She was getting snatches of his past life, mostly from films he had been in. He would be having the same thing, coping with scrambled impressions of her. That must be a nightmare all of its own.

  They let her into the room. It was sunny, filled with flowers.

  The actor was sitting up, neatly groomed, eyes bright. “Now I know,” he told her. “Now I really know. I can use that in the part. Thank you.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, not knowing what for.

  At a way-station, Swales is picking up fresh horses. The old ones, lathered with foamy sweat, are watered and rested. Westenra barters with a peasant for a basket of apples. Murray smiles and looks up at the tops of the trees. The moon shines down on his face, making him look like a child.

  Harker quietly smokes a pipe.

  HARKER’S VOICE: This was where we were to join forces with Van Helsing. This stone-crazy double Dutchman had spent his whole life fighting evil.

  Van Helsing strides out of the mountain mists. He wears a scarlet army tunic and a curly-brimmed top hat, and carries a cavalry saber. His face is covered with old scars. Crosses of all kinds are pinned to his clothes.

  HARKER’S VOICE: Van Helsing put the fear of God into the Devil. And he terrified me.

  Van Helsing is accompanied by a band of rough-riders. Of all races and in wildly different uniforms, they are his personal army of the righteous. In additi
on to mounted troops, Van Helsing has command of a couple of man-lifting kites and a supply wagon.

  VAN HELSING: You are Harker?

  HARKER: Dr. Van Helsing of Amsterdam?

  VAN HELSING: The same. You wish to go to Borgo Pass, Young Jonathan? Harker: That’s the plan.

  VAN HELSING: Better you should wish to go to Hades itself, foolish Englishman.

  VAN HELSING’S AIDE: I say, Prof, did you know Murray was in Harker’s crew. The stroke of ’84.

  VAN HELSING: Hah! Beat Cambridge by three lengths. Masterful.

  VAN HELSING’S AIDE: They say the river’s at its most level around Borgo Pass. You know these mountain streams, Prof. Tricky for the oarsman.

  VAN HELSING: Why didn’t you say that before, damfool? Harker, we go at once, to take Borgo Pass. Such a stretch of river should be held for the Lord. The Un-Dead, they appreciate it not. Nosferatu don’t scull.

  Van Helsing rallies his men into mounting up. Harker dashes back to the coach and climbs in. Westenra looks appalled as Van Helsing waves his saber, coming close to fetching off his own Aide’s head.

  WESTENRA: That man’s completely mad.

  HARKER: In Wallachia, that just makes him normal. To fight what we have to face, one has to be a little mad.

  Van Helsing’s saber shines with moonfire.

  VAN HELSING: To Borgo Pass, my angels . . . charge!

  Van Helsing leads his troop at a fast gallop. The coach is swept along in the wake of the uphill cavalry advance. Man-lifting box-kites carry observers into the night air.

  Wolves howl in the distance.

  Between the kites is slung a phonograph horn.

  Music pours forth. The overture to Swan Lake.

  VAN HELSING: Music. Tchaikovsky. It upsets the devils. Stirs in them memories of things that they have lost. Makes them feel dead. Then we kill them good. Kill them forever.

  As he charges, Van Helsing waves his sword from side to side. Dark, low shapes dash out of the trees and slip among the horses’ ankles. Van Helsing slashes downwards, decapitating a wolf. The head bounces against a tree, becoming that of a gypsy boy, and rolls down the mountainside.

  Van Helsing’s cavalry weave expertly through the pines. They carry flaming torches. The music soars. Fire and smoke whip between the trees.

  In the coach, Westenra puts his fingers in his ears. Murray smiles as if on a pleasure ride across Brighton Beach. Harker sorts through crucifixes.

  At Borgo Pass, a small gypsy encampment is quiet. Elders gather around the fire. A girl hears the Tchaikovsky whining among the winds and alerts the tribe.

  The gypsies bustle. Some begin to transform into wolves. The man-lifting kites hang against the moon, casting vast bat-shadows on the mountainside.

  The pounding of hooves, amplified a thousandfold by the trees, thunders. The ground shakes. The forests tremble.

  Van Helsing’s cavalry explode out of the woods and fall upon the camp, riding around and through the place, knocking over wagons, dragging through fires. A dozen flaming torches are thrown. Shrieking werewolves, pelts aflame, leap up at the riders.

  Silver swords flash, red with blood.

  Van Helsing dismounts and strides through the carnage, making head shots with his pistol. Silver balls explode in wolf-skulls.

  A young girl approaches Van Helsing’s aide, smiling in welcome. She opens her mouth, hissing, and sinks fangs into the man’s throat.

  Three cavalrymen pull the girl off and stretch her out face-down on the ground, rending her bodice to bare her back. Van Helsing drives a five-foot lance through her ribs from behind, skewering her to the bloodied earth.

  VAN HELSING: Vampire bitch!

  The cavalrymen congratulate each other and cringe as a barrel of gunpowder explodes nearby. Van Helsing does not flinch.

  HARKER’S VOICE: Van Helsing was protected by God. Whatever he did, he would survive. He was blessed.

  Van Helsing kneels by his wounded Aide and pours holy water onto the man’s ravaged neck. The wound hisses and steams, and the Aide shrieks.

  VAN HELSING: Too late, we are too late. I’m sorry, my son.

  With a kukri knife, Van Helsing slices off his Aide’s head.

  Blood gushes over his trousers.

  The overture concludes and the battle is over. The gypsy encampment is a ruin. Fires still burn. Everyone is dead or dying, impaled or decapitated or silver-shot. Van Helsing distributes consecrated wafers, dropping crumbs on all the corpses, muttering prayers for saved souls.

  Harker sits, exhausted, bloody earth on his boots.

  HARKER’S VOICE: If this was how Van Helsing served God, I was beginning to wonder what the firm had against Dracula.

  The sun pinks the skies over the mountains. Pale light falls on the encampment.

  Van Helsing stands tall in the early morning mists. Several badly wounded vampires begin to shrivel and scream as the sunlight burns them to man-shaped cinders.

  VAN HELSING: I love that smell . . . spontaneous combustion at daybreak. It smells like . . . salvation.

  Like a small boy whose toys have been taken away, Francis stood on the rock, orange cagoul vivid against the mist-shrouded pines, and watched the cavalry ride away in the wrong direction. Gypsy extras, puzzled at this reversal, milled around their camp set. Storaro found something technical to check and absorbed himself in lenses.

  No one wanted to tell Francis what was going on.

  They had spent two hours setting up the attack, laying camera track, planting charges, rigging decapitation effects, mixing Kensington Gore in plastic buckets. Van Helsing’s troop of ferocious cavalry were uniformed and readied.

  Then Shiny Suit whispered in the ear of the captain who was in command of the army-provided horsemen. The cavalry stopped being actors and became soldiers again, getting into formation and riding out.

  Kate had never seen anything like it.

  Ion nagged Shiny Suit for an explanation. Reluctantly, the official told the little vampire what was going on.

  “There is fighting in the next valley,” Ion said. “Baron Meinster has come out of the forests and taken a keep that stands over a strategic pass. Many are dead or dying. Ceausescu is laying siege to the Transylvanians.”

  “We have an agreement,” Francis said, weakly. “These are my men.”

  “Only as long as they aren’t needed for fighting, this man says,” reported Ion, standing aside to let the director get a good look at the Romanian official. Shiny Suit almost smiled, a certain smug attitude suggesting that this would even the score for that dropped picture of the Premier.

  “I’m trying to make a fucking movie here. If people don’t keep their word, maybe they deserve to be overthrown.”

  The few bilingual Romanians in the crew cringed at such sacrilege. Kate could think of dozens of stronger reasons for pulling down the Ceausescu regime.

  “There might be danger,” Ion said. “If the fighting spreads.”

  “This Meinster, Ion. Can he get us the cavalry? Can we do a deal with him?”

  “An arrogant elder, maestro. And doubtless preoccupied with his own projects.”

  “You’re probably right, fuck it.”

  “We’re losing the light,” Storaro announced.

  Shiny Suit smiled blithely and, through Ion, ventured that the battle should be over in two to three days. It was fortunate for him that Francis only had prop weapons within reach.

  In the gypsy camp, one of the charges went off by itself. A pathetic phut sent out a choking cloud of violently green smoke. Trickles of flame ran across fresh-painted flats.

  A grip threw a bucket of water, dousing the fire.

  Robert Duvall and Martin Sheen, in costume and makeup, stood about uselessly. The entire camera crew, effects gang, support team were gathered, as if waiting for a cancelled train.

  There was a long pause. The cavalry did not come riding triumphantly back, ready for the shot.

  “Bastards,” Francis shouted, angrily waving his staff li
ke a spear.

  The next day was no better. News filtered back that Meinster was thrown out of the keep and withdrawing into the forests, but that Ceausescu ordered his retreat be harried. The cavalry were not detailed to return to their filmmaking duties. Kate wondered how many of them were still alive. The retaking of the keep must have been a bloody, costly battle. A cavalry charge against a fortress position would be almost a suicide mission.

  Disconsolately, Francis and Storaro sorted out some pick-up shots that could be managed.

  A search was mounted for Shiny Suit, so that a definite time could be established for the rescheduling of the attack scene. He had vanished into the mists, presumably to escape the American’s wrath.

  Kate huddled under a tree and tried to puzzle out a local newspaper. She was brushing up her Romanian, simultaneously coping with the euphemisms and lacunae of a non-free press. According to the paper, Meinster had been crushed weeks ago and was hiding in a ditch somewhere, certain to be beheaded within the hour.

  She couldn’t help feeling the real story was in the next valley. As a newspaperwoman, she should be there, not waiting around for this stalled juggernaut to get back on track. Meinster’s Kids frightened and fascinated her. She should know about them, try to understand. But American Zoetrope had first call on her, and she didn’t have the heart to be another defector.

  Marty Sheen joined her.

  He was mostly recovered and understood what she had done for him, though he was still exploring the implications of their blood link. Just now, he was more anxious about working with Brando—who was due in next week—than his health.

  There was still no scripted ending.

  The day that the cavalry—well, some of them—came back, faces drawn and downcast, uniforms muddied, eyes haunted, Shiny Suit was discovered with his neck broken, flopped half in a stream. He must have fallen in the dark, tumbling down the precipitous mountainside. His face and neck were ripped, torn by the sharp thorns of the mountain bushes. He had bled dry into the water, and his staring face was white.

  “It is good that Georghiou is dead,” Ion pronounced. “He upset the maestro.”

  Kate hadn’t known the bureaucrat’s name.

  Francis was frustrated at this fresh delay, but graciously let the corpse be removed and the proper authorities be notified before proceeding with the shoot.