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Passages from, Based on Bram Stoker's Dracula
Chapter 1 1905 England MAGIC WICKED NIGHT The throb. Like a human heart, heard in the womb. All encompassing. So very loud and strong, as though this heart has beat for a thousand years, with the pulse of a million mortal beings! The sound reverberates through her, from her toes to her head, then circulates back down to her own heart, threatening, reassuring, pounding faster, harder, overtaking her simple heartbeat! She gasps. Her body jolts, as though struck by lightning. The air is moist and dense. She cannot breathe easily. Has the oxygen been depleted? It is as if others have taken it all, and left her with nothing. Only this heartbeat, lingering, summoning, demanding that she submit to its omnipotent power. She turns in fear. Darkness everywhere, blacker than endless night, pregnant with images threatening to burst forth. She is terrified of what she will see. Hungry for the sustenance such devastating images will bring. And then a mist emerges from the darkness, the pale vapor startling by contrast. It moves toward her feet, gliding, like a predator drawn toward prey, stalking, until wispy tendrils snake her ankles, crawl up her calves, and move higher, to areas of her body that are so private… She watches transfixed, incapable of movement. She wonders, how can what is amorphic possess substance? But that thought is annihilated as the preternatural mist swirls around her body, encasing her in a delicate, erotic cocoon, caressing her with cool, relentless fingers until she shivers uncontrollably and small cries escape her lips. As the vapor rises, she is blinded. Not only can she no longer see, but it is as though the mist has entered her ears and she cannot hear, and her mouth and nose, so that the sultry air before that was so suffocating, in memory, now seems refreshing compared to this icy fog. Her body trembles, locked in by the insubstantial clawing at her flesh like clammy hands, snuffing out all senses, leaving only thought and feeling divorced from the tangible. She wants to scream, but cannot utter a sound. Still, she opens her mouth and brings her full spirit to the fore, forcing a sound to coalesce within her and rise, as the mist rose, until it reaches her throat. With every effort of will, she thrusts the call from her, into the crystalized air. And when it returns to her deaf ears she hears not her own voice but a muted howl, quickly followed by another. And another. Like wolves calling, back and forth, from the right side of her body to the left and back again, their feral wail like bells tolling doom! Her body quakes, chilled to the marrow. If only she could catch her breath! If only she could escape this cloak of hopelessness. She would like to cry, but the tears freeze to her eyelids. Help me! She prays, expecting the deities to rescue her, yet somehow knowing that she is now beyond their aid. Then, suddenly, the mist begins to part. As her eyes adjust to this spectacle, she is traumatized anew by what appears before her. A graveyard. Stones, tall and peaked, quiet beds of rock, crosses and angels mourning, oil lamps flickering for the dead; Visions of the future?… All rushes toward her, but no, she is the one moving. Running. Into this land of annihilation. A willow branch whips her cheek, searing her flesh, but she values the pain which proves she is still corporeal. This is a place of the dead. She is not dead. She does not belong here. She must escape. Crypts loom before her, beckoning. From the corner of her eye she sees a chubby cherub. Suddenly it lifts its curly head. A tear like a diamond rolls down the marble cheek, but it winks at her seductively. The baby angel stretches out its tiny hands to her. "Join us!" it says, in a voice so plaintive she reaches out. But the baby has teeth, large ones, and a demonic light in its eyes. With a cry, she turns, racing through the bushes, the oaks, past the dark mausoleum with a name engraved in the stones, a name she knows but cannot remember… Just as the metal grating swings open, a cold wind blasts out and seems to chase after her like an insubstantial demon. She races this way and that, unable to think clearly, unable to find an exit in this land of the lost where the dead come to life in order to bring the living to death. Brambles tangle at her feet, tripping her. She stumbles and falls, injuring herself, but she rights herself quickly. Still, the flora torments her, gripping her like chains, and she struggles to move. Then, in an instant, she understands. She freezes to the spot and glances down. These are no longer vines entwining through the grave sites but skeletal hands. Bony, jointed fingers clutching at her feet, tear at the hem of her dress, pull her to her knees. "No!" she cries, struggling until she stands again, only to hear mocking laughter, dark and malicious as poison seeping through her veins. She fights her way through the cemetery, past open graves, decomposing corpses twisting and writhing out of their caskets, their remaining flesh food for the worms that squeeze through their marrow. Skulls grin at her. The skeletons shred their shrouds lewdly, and the rotting fabric is carried off by the wind, flapping like wings. A winding sheet slaps her face, stinking of putrefaction. Horrified, she shoves it away to see the decaying body of a child before her, only one eye left. Its hair is the color of her own, its features familiar. It stretches out its thin arms as it cries at her, "Momma! Don't leave me!" She races, leaping over headstones, across the open chasms of graves, and then, before her, stands a wall. The stones are piled high like the bones in catacombs. She cannot leap over this barrier, nor crawl underneath, nor dig out chinks in this sepulchral gate fast enough, although she shreds her nails trying until her finger tips ooze bloody pulp. She runs along the wall, struggling to find the exit, but the wrought iron she finally reaches is even higher, the grillwork intricate, the chain and padlock bolting it heavy and impossibly strong. She grabs onto the chain anyway, and rattles the gates, shoving, pulling, desperate, even as the finger bones dig at her heels again, and the wind blows a sound that says, "Don't leave us! You cannot leave." And then behind her, she senses a presence. It is from the dark mausoleum. How do I know this? she thinks. It is death personified, what she longs for most, what she fears most. Before such a mighty essence she can only stand paralyzed as terror ripples through her. The darkness draws close and she is transfixed in time, stunned by the inevitable, even as she denies it. The bones that clutch her ankles release her, giving way to this more dominant force. And then it touches her. Her entire body. All at once. Invading. It is as though the vast universe, the dark side of heaven, the plagues of eternity, all have found her. She can do nothing but stand helpless as this entropy slides up the backs of her legs, over her buttocks, her back, moves around her body like thousands of insects with a million arms, circling her throat, up her head, and over her face. Entering every orifice. The cloak of the mist was moist and living compared to this emptiness. Her body has moved beyond cold to numbness. Slowly, she is dying. She can feel it, spreading like a disease, each bit of her extinguished as the vermin corrupts healthy flesh and takes hold forever. This black void brings utter silence; So painful. Her heart beats too hard and loud, and she fears it will explode in her chest. The black entity invades her heart, turning the red, living organ black and the blood it contains inky. All sound and feeling cease. She has become deader than any corpse. But she can still feel herself being bent backwards, as if over a strong arm, forced to submit to a power greater than any she has encountered, any she could have envisioned, and one from which there is no escape. With a last vestige of despair, she screams, the sound high and long, like the breath of life departing her body.
Lucy's eyes snapped open to the sound. It took her moments to recognize the violin, a very sharp and high note, repeated over and over, produced by the cat gut. The familiar three-four time of the waltz fell into place, and slowly her heart quieted down. She glanced around the gilded ballroom. Revelers in masks swirled across the polished hardwood. The ladies sparkled in satin and brocaded dresses with seed pearls and tulle bodices, their magnificently coiffed hair crowned by tiaras or feathered ornaments. They were led to the melodious strains by gentlemen dapper in ascots and formal woollen suits with tails, and those starched collars Lucy had always found so appealing. And the masks! How exotic! Animal and human, mythological beings and the supernatural. The vivid colors of the sequins glinted in the candlelight… Startled, Lucy suddenly became aware that she was dancing with… well, who? He wore a crimson devil mask, not one she found particularly attractive, and at the moment it felt a bit frightening, yet it was still conventional enough to reassure her. "Back to the land of the living?" he teased in her ear, and Lucy was disconcerted for a moment, not quite recognizing the patronizing voice. "Just daydreaming. And what a horrible dream it was!" "Well, surely I can't be that bad a dance partner, Miss Westenra." "Jack. You are such a silly man!" she laughed, relieved to recognize him at last. "Don't you realize that if you were a terrible partner I should have abandoned you by now?" His body stiffened slightly, but she laughed again as they twirled about the floor, swept up by the swell of the instruments. "Oh Jack, isn't this event spectacular?" "Lucy, you're shameless! Have you no humility?" "How chiding you are! Well, why on earth should I be humble? After all, how many soirées are as extravagant as this one? Mina and Jonathan will remember tonight all their lives! It's so utterly, devastatingly romantic." "Decadent, some would say. Imagine, a masked engagement party!" "Oh, posh! You are such a stick in the mud, you know. And here I've worked myself to the bone, planning this for weeks and weeks—" "Now Lucy, don't take offense. You know I was only teasing you." "You're horrid, Dr. Seward! Simply horrid!" "And you're exhausted. Come, let's sit down." "Oh, all right. But not until you admit that this is an amazingly elaborate event? And so special. And that I'm truly clever, planning a masquerade!" "Of course you're clever." Jack Seward looked deep into her eyes, as if struggling to find the courage to say words different from those which came out of his mouth. "And… and… a perfect… hostess." His voice became a bit husky, which amused her, and she only giggled at him. Men are so silly, she thought. So easily tongue-tied. And this one especially. "Yes, let's do sit down. Go and fetch us some champagne and we'll sip to our continued health." But she did not feel healthy. If anything, the daymare had left her even more exhausted than before, and she was grateful to sit for a moment, even if it meant having to listen to the narcissistic Bernice Croft natter on about her rose garden!
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10 January, 2008
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