The Mammoth Book of Dracula - [Anthology]

by Edited By Stephen Jones

  Westenra and Murray are dejected, gloomy. Harker is still groggy.

  Harker’s Voice: A vampire’s idea of a half-holiday is a third share in a juicy peasant baby. It has no other needs, no other desires, no other yearnings. It is mere appetite, unencumbered by morality, philosophy, religion, convention, emotion. There’s a dangerous strength in that. A strength toe can hardly hope to equal.

  ~ * ~

  Shooting in a studio should have given more control, but Francis was constantly frustrated by Romanians. The inn set, perhaps the simplest element of the film, was still not right, though the carpenters and dressers had had almost a year to get it together. First, they took an office at the studio and turned it into Harker’s bedroom. It was too small to fit in a camera as well as an actor and the scenery. Then, they reconstructed the whole thing in the middle of a sound stage, but still bolted together the walls so they couldn’t be moved. The only shot Storaro could take was from the ceiling looking down. Now the walls were fly-away enough to allow camera movement, but Francis wasn’t happy with the set dressing.

  Prominent over the bed, where Francis wanted a crucifix, was an idealized portrait of Ceausescu. Through Ion, Francis tried to explain to Shiny Suit, the studio manager, that his film took place before the President-for-Life came to power and that, therefore, it was highly unlikely that a picture of him would be decorating a wall anywhere.

  Shiny Suit seemed unwilling to admit there had ever been a time when Ceausescu didn’t rule the country. He kept looking around nervously, as if expecting to be caught in treason and hustled out to summary execution.

  “Get me a crucifix,” Francis yelled.

  Kate sat meekly in a director’s chair—a rare luxury—while the argument continued. Marty Sheen, in character as Harker, sat cross-legged on his bed, taking pulls at a hip-flask of potent brandy. She could smell the liquor across the studio. The actor’s face was florid and his movements slow. He had been more and more Harker and less and less Marty the last few days, and Francis was driving him hard, directing with an emotional scalpel that peeled his star like an onion.

  Francis told Ion to bring the offending item over so he could show Shiny Suit what was wrong. Grinning cheerfully, Ion squeezed past Marty and reached for the picture, dextrously dropping it onto a bed-post which shattered the glass and speared through the middle of the frame, punching a hole in the Premier’s face.

  Ion shrugged in fake apology.

  Francis looked almost happy. Shiny Suit, stricken in the heart, scurried away in defeat, afraid that his part in the vandalism of the sacred image would be noticed.

  A crucifix was found from stock and put up on the wall.

  “Marty,” Francis said, “open yourself up, show us your beating heart, then tear it from your chest, squeeze it in your fist and drop it on the floor.”

  Kate wondered if he meant it literally.

  Marty Sheen tried to focus his eyes, and saluted in slow motion.

  “Quiet on set, everybody,” Francis shouted.

  ~ * ~

  Kate was crying, silently, uncontrollably. Everyone on set, except Francis and perhaps Ion, was also in tears. She felt as if she was watching the torture of a political prisoner, and just wanted it to stop.

  There was no script for this scene.

  Francis was pushing Marty into a corner, breaking him down, trying to get to Jonathan Harker.

  This would come at the beginning of the picture. The idea was to show the real Jonathan, to get the audience involved with him. Without this scene, the hero would seem just an observer, wandering between other people’s set-pieces.

  “You, Reed,” Francis said, “you’re a writer. Scribble me a voice-over. Internal monologue. Stream-of-consciousness. Give me the real Harker.”

  Through tear-blurred spectacles, she looked at the pad she was scrawling on. Her first attempt had been at the Jonathan she remembered, who would have been embarrassed to have been thought capable of stream-of-consciousness. Francis had torn that into confetti and poured it over Marty’s head, making the actor cross his eyes and fall backwards, completely drunk, onto the bed.

  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 smouldering 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 rumour 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 sabre. 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 addition 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 sabre, 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 sabre 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. Tchaikowsky. 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 Tchaikowsky 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.