The civilized world which he has invaded—our world—is far less deferential, as he is already discovering. If he alone were involved, we would not devote a moment of time to his plight. If he wished to draw attention to himself and himself alone, I would wish him well and quietly await his demise, which would surely soon be upon him. But his antics, his foolish attempts to “live” as he had “lived” in that welter of mindless superstition that is Transylvania, will call attention to us all. Here in the civilized world our strength—and our safety!—lies not in our modestly superhuman powers but in our anonymity, in the fact that our kind is rarely believed to be more than the fevered imaginings of superstitious fools and that when one of us is found to exist, he is easily destroyed if only you follow certain arcane and nonsensical rituals. If ever we lose that advantage, our already meager numbers will quickly dwindle to nothing.
Tonight it begins.
Sept. 1, 1893.
It is with considerable relief that I record the fact that our elaborate preparations have not been in vain. Dr. Seward, one of many who benefited from our recent ministrations, questioned none of his recently acquired memories when he was called in to examine the unfortunate young woman the Count has become enamored of. Nor did he hesitate to immediately contact our chosen accomplice, ostensibly his “old friend and master” from school days and, fortuitously, an expert in the very maladies of the blood from which the young woman is suffering.
Dr. Van Helsing arrives tomorrow, and I am confident that, with our clandestine assistance, he will meet with spectacular success in ridding the land of this creature that menaces us all.
Berserker
Nancy Kilpatrick
Here, it is so unlike your homeland. The land where your blood and that of your father and his father before him rusts the soil. Where you can rest untormented, and be at peace.
But this place! Even the brilliance of daylight cannot disguise an obscenity: the parody of life. Around you swells a perpetually flowing, ever-renewing river of unawareness from which you intend to slake your thirst at will. But rampant mindlessness offends you. Do they not deserve your scorn?
Such pathetic trees! Scrawny as the Cockney children racing by. Feeble roots cling to the island’s soil. So bare, as if stripped of life’s nourishment. These denizens of the modern have cleared and clipped the bushes as though natural, wild beauty is repugnant. What a society! What a mockery! Cutting vegetation into the shape of animals! These mortals have too much time on their hands! Time is their enemy, even as it has become your friend.
So this is what you have read of, what the British call “civilization.” A “park.” You came to this place for several reasons, not the least of which is that you seek refuge, a temporary respite, a few moments where you may recapture for refreshment’s sake the comfort of nature’s calming familiarity. But it is a sham! An illusion. You have been tricked. This is not the verdant growth of your homeland. The tight green carpet beneath your feet screams in distress. These short hairs resemble the preposterous mutton-chops stuck to the cheeks of the mortal males surrounding you. They look ridiculous, foolish, and yet these beings have the nerve to call your countrymen barbarians! Madmen! Once you have supped on their blood, and they have tasted your wrath, truly they will come to know what the word “barbarian” means.
“Good day!”
“Good day,” you reply to the just-so gentleman in the summer frock coat, accompanied by a timid, plain woman and two frightened children.
He and his family stop, wanting to continue this pointless exchange with a stranger. “The weather has turned for the better,” he remarks.
“England possesses a most fortuitous clime,” you comment.
“Yes,” the wife responds nervously, glancing furtively at her husband as though seeking approval for her vocalization.
She is plainer, that is certain, yet she resembles Lucy—fair hair and eyes, arched brows, high cheekbones, long, slim throat…
The man leans upon his ivory-tipped cane, content with his lot in life, the world his oyster, it seems. “I take it you are from Europe.” His face smiles, yet you are keenly aware of the distrust beneath this facade. He has encountered a foreigner. One alien. He must assess you rapidly, fit you neatly to a slot in order to “know” you.
“Indeed,” you say, “you are correct. I am Transylvanian.”
The woman, eyes dulled by incomprehension, stifles a gasp. The girl child a yawn. The boy his urge to run with the pack of children from the lower class, their shirttails flying, short breeches dirty. Children his mother looks on with disapproval.
The man repeats, “Transylvania…” scanning a mental map. You see that he has pegged you. “Eastern European,” he now says confidently. “Northeastern Balkans, correct me if I am wrong.”
“You are not wrong,” you inform him, although the satisfied nod is annoying. He feels he now has you classified and can rest. He wears the mask of intelligence laced with safety and certainty. A veil of correctness that hides control. Control born of fear.
Perhaps you should inform him that this meaningless exchange will not assure that blood remains in his veins. That if you had a mind to bleed him dry like an enormous leech, you would do so, could do so. His destiny rests in your hands.
“James Holbrook,” he says, extending a hand. “Barrister-at-law.”
You shake his hand, the current custom here, adopted from North America apparently, and revel in the warmth of this mortal’s flesh and the throbbing cauldron ablaze beneath that epidermis. These sensations cause you to tremble slightly with anticipation. “Count Dracula,” you inform him.
His thin eyebrows lift. He is impressed with your station, as he should be, and yet more relieved. Here he is, in the presence of what he deems to be his own class, no, a class to which he aspires. “My wife Elizabeth,” he says informally, adding, “my son John junior, and my daughter Caroline,” and he pats the little girl on the top of her head of yellow curls. Caroline stares up at you with large eyes that provide no challenge, since she is already under the natural spell of childhood.
“It is a pleasure,” the wife says, beginning a curtsy, which she curtails because of indecision. She is not quite certain what to do with foreign royalty.
In the distance, a familiar howl, one you recognize. The sound sends a shiver through the woman. She is as one entrapped behind a glass prison, a prison whose panes you could easily crash through and shatter—
“I take it you are a visitor to our England,” the man says crisply. “Am I correct?” He asks questions as if they are statements, as though he is in a courtroom, before a judge, arguing a case rather than engaging in a dialogue.
“I am.”
“We are very proud of our city of London. And the gardens here. I hope you’ve been enjoying your stay in our fair land, taking in the sites, the marvels of the modern, civilized world.” His hand sweeps with a gesture of ownership, as though he not only possesses but has created all of which he speaks.
You have been on this unfamiliar soil but a short while and yet you far prefer the ruggedness that is your heritage to the cultivated “marvels” he so obviously idolizes. In Transylvania, the harsh beauty reminds you that survival is always a struggle. The environment itself forces a warrior to be alert to danger, rather than lulling him into a torpor which leads to demise. This man is surrounded by a hundred dangers yet has convinced himself he is invincible. Your attitude, the one you were born with, the one you died with, the one you continue to rely on in this existence is in tune with nature— for are not the animals, even the insects, on guard always, alert to predators? That is nature’s way. What is wrong with these Englishmen that you can walk among them, speak with them, touch them, and their every sense is dead to danger?