“Even the darkness is not dark to
you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you”—Psalm
139:12
FADE
IN
An
eagle looks down from a stormy sky, its cold eyes hunting for a tiny shadow breaking
from another shadow; debris kicked loose and rolling downhill; tiny heads
bobbing in a woodland pond.
But
the predator finds us instead, its eyes like needles through the heart.
We
back away, across the road from where it perches on a broken old roadside, covered
in cobwebs, teeming with dozens of spiders.
A
big hulking horse-drawn carriage rumbles by on this rough country road that
bumps and winds through the remote foothills of the Carpathian Mountains.
It
is the late 1890s, far away in space and time, from everything we know.
The
coach does duty as both passenger and goods wagon: Six passengers sit in perilous
discomfort on barrels, boxes, surrounded by crates of chickens and ducks, barely
hanging on as the coach rocks back and forth. They include a high-class Prostitute
(or high class for this part of the world); a pair of local Businessman; and two
Peasants, all of them rough and wise in the ways of their world.
Jon
Harker is the outsider here. He’s a peacock among these pigeons, dressed in a crisply
tailored English suit and Homburg; a boyish flower of the British Empire.
Good-hearted
and naïve, he bubbles with the thrill of his first trip abroad. Along with his
luggage, he carries a touch of smugness about him as he tries to make friendly chatter
with his fellow travelers.
“This is a bit crowded,” Jon says. “We have much bigger conveyances, much
nicer roads! In England, I mean. You should build more railroads. I took the
train to Bistritz. Our engineers could build you a line—”
The coach bangs through a deep rut,
tossing Jon into the lap of the fille de
joie. While he tries to regain his dignity, she cheerfully flirts with him,
making him blush.
“Sorry . . . my apologies. . . .”
“Next time it will cost you,” she
teases. Then she asks, “You have a Frau, mein young Herr?”
“Uh . . . engaged, I guess, I mean,
yes, I’m getting . . . here.”
He anxiously flips open a cameo
locket that hangs around his neck. Nestled inside is a small photograph of his
fiancé, Mina Murray, her face both pretty and bold.
“. . . married . . . getting
married,” Jon finishes.
“Pretty, yes,” the Prostitute
sniffs. She playfully draws the back of her hand under his chin. “Who knows? We
may have to share a room at the end, no?” She laughs again. “Do not fret, mein
Herr. We are far away from the world. Your secrets will stay in these hills.”
“But make sure you don’t, my
friend,” one of the Businessmen warns.
Jon gapes in embarrassment. Everyone
breaks into guffaws as he primly places his hat over his lap.
Finally, the second Businessman, a
plump, well-fed fellow, asks, “Your destination, mein Herr?”
“I’m a solicitor. Visiting a
nobleman. Vlad . . . Dracula?”
A cold hush falls, a silence so smothering,
we wonder if we’ve gone deaf as Jon shakes his head as though trying shake wax
out of his ears. The passengers’ eyes turn hard and bitter with fear and
loathing. Even the fille de joie withdraws,
as does the color in her face.
Only slowly do the sounds of the
world return: the rumbling of the carriage, the hoof beats of the horses.
“You know him?” Jon stammers. “I
understand he's an important chap. I hope I haven’t said anything. . . .”
But the chill remains, their faces averted
from him. One of the Peasants stops to give him the evil eye as he ducks under
his hat brim.
His eyes squirming, Jon turns his
gaze out the carriage window.
Outside, the pine forest rushes by,
a rippling green wall with bursts of brown, gray and sunlight. Then, slowly, through
the trees, grey light flickers as the foliage thins out. Now, it’s a forest of dead
trees, trunks shorn of their leaves, only stumps remaining. The countryside
opens up . . . .
Opens up into a vast gray and white
desert, a rugged wasteland of dead trees, drained and stripped of life, not a
speck of color anywhere, shrouded in a sterile, but mysterious mist. In the
distance, above the desolate mist, mountain peaks rise, a cold blue wall.
“Desert . . . .” Jon turns to his companions
for an explanation. “My guide book doesn’t. . . .”
But they won’t even look at him
now. They’ve spurned him completely, as though he were already dead, as though
they have gone to sleep in order to escape what might happen next. Even the fowl
huddle quietly in their cages. They’ll not speak to him again.
Later that afternoon, the coach rolls
into Lugos, a poor and tiny village on the edge of the creeping desert, whipped
and worn by dust and sand. Once it was a farm community and waystation. Then,
as the desert took over, it became just a waystation. And now. . . .
There are no children here, no
young people; only the middle aged and the old, a pale and sullen people with handkerchiefs
decorating their necks, like brightly colored collars.
The coach pulls up at the inn, a sagging
two-story shack.
The last one off, Jon motions to
the Driver to take down his huge trunk from the luggage rack.
Meanwhile, one of the Businessmen confers
in whispers with the gimlet-eyed Innkeeper.
Jon turns to find himself eye to
eye with the Innkeeper whose wife hovers behind. The Villagers gather around in
a tense circle.
“Your destination, Herr. . . ?” the
Innkeeper begins.
“Harker. Jonathan Harker.
Solicitor—”
“I do not care about your name,
English. State your business.”
Jon squares his shoulders: “That’s confidential
I’m . . . .”
He blinks as silver light flashes
in his eyes, reflected off a knife blade held by one of Villagers.
Jon tries to disarm the threat with
a harmless but nervous smile.
“Vlad Dracula,” the Innkeeper
sneers. “Vlad Dracula.”
Jon struggles to recover his wits:
“Uh . . . yes. Property. He's buying a house . . . in my country. England.”
The Innkeeper tilts his head, his
eyes widening with surprise. He translates for his fellows. The atmosphere
changes as they murmur among themselves.
“Then he is leaving?” the Innkeeper
asks with a smile both astonished and cautious. He nods, turning it over in his
mind. “Of course. What is left for him to take?” He points at Jon.
“And you have come to
take him away!” He turns to his friends, addressing them in Hungarian, then
turns his eyes to heaven, raising his fists.
“He is leaving us! For good!”
The Villagers erupt in cheers. The
Innkeeper, smiling with amused pity, slings his arm around Jon and walks him to
the Inn as though he were a hero.
Later that afternoon, Jon is
sitting in the Inn’s dining room enjoying a sumptuous meal at the end of a long
table. Behind him, a large window opens out onto the desert. The Villagers
lounge about, watching him eat with great and grinning curiosity.
The Prostitute sits alone in a
corner, ignored.
As the Innkeeper’s Wife sets
another plate in front of him, Jon waves it away.
“Oh no! No more please!”
The Innkeeper claps him on the
shoulder: “Keep your blood rich, my friend! For us!”
“Why do I get the notion you’re all
fattening me up?”
The Innkeeper translates. Again,
the people laugh heartily.
Then Jon asks, “Um, is there any
brandy? Wine?”
“We never drink wine,” the
Innkeeper says quietly, after a pause. “It pollutes the blood.”
“Ah, good sober Christian folk! There
are many in my country who would strongly approve.”
“Then they will enjoy having our Lord
among them.”
More laughter from the Peasants.
And then Jon asks, “Where are all the
children?”
The Innkeeper’s eyes turn hard as another
grim silence falls, broken by a woman bursting into tears. The Innkeeper looks
like he’s about to turn on Jon—
But then, from outside, the sound
of thundering hooves rises like a storm.
Jon turns to look out the window
behind him.
Out of the grey misty desert comes
a line of heavily armed men on horseback, bearing down on the village:
Dracula’s Men.
Jon turns back. His hosts are even
more fearful now, cringing as though anticipating a beating.
Seconds later, the door flies open.
The Leader of the band strides in, a group of hard violent men behind him. The
Villagers avoid their cruel stares as they take over the room.
The Leader glares at the Innkeeper’s
Wife. She hurries out to the kitchen. Then he struts over the Prostitute and grabs
her by the chin, studying her with a hungry grin. One of his Men whispers to
him. His smile vanishes. He nods, says something probably obscene and roughly
lets her go.
Then he turns on Jon. The Villagers
back away. Jon looks up, fear and defiance running through him. The Innkeeper
speaks Hungarian to the Leader. Somewhere in the garble there come the words
“Vlad Dracula . . . Dracula.”
The Leader frowns, shakes his head
in disappointment, backs away.
The Innkeeper's Wife hurries from
the kitchen with a large basket of food. The Leader roughly takes it from her
then knocks her to the floor. No one makes a move to stop him.
Except for Jon, who angrily rises
to his feet, his fists clenched. But as the Horseman draw their weapons and the
Innkeeper shakes his head, he realizes he is outmatched and sits back down.
The Leader signals his men. They
leave.
The Innkeeper helps his wife to her
feet. They all watch through the window as Dracula’s Men ride off into the
desert, into the mist.
“So,” the Innkeeper sighs, “who of
us here will die this night? No, not you, English.”
Jon follows the Innkeeper’s gaze to
where it lands on the Prostitute who remains in her corner, vulnerable and
alone. She looks to Jon for some kind of reassurance, but he can only shrug.
Hours later, night has fallen. Jon
sits at a table in a shabby first floor room in the back of the Inn, scribbling
in his diary by the light of both lamp and the full moon shining through the
window.
“This village is such a sad place,”
he writes. “The air is laden with misery and oppression. The people have food,
but nothing else. Not even children! They have lost the will to live. They
laugh without smiling, without joy. Even their tears seem drained away. The
desert slowly overtakes them. But this desert is not a dead place. I feel a
life, a power underneath it all—”
He stops writing and wearily sits
back, eyes closed, searching for the right words.
And when he opens his eyes, he
finds a large muscular spider sitting on his diary, its eight eyes glittering
at him.
Yelling, Jon jumps up and falls
back over his chair. White as a sheet, he rises gingerly picks up the diary and
dumps the spider out the window. He clutches his chest, gasping, leaning on the
table.
Then he looks closely at his dairy.
Underneath what he’s just written, there is another entry, in another elegant,
lovely hand:
“Welcome. You will be met tomorrow
evening at Borgo Pass.”
D
Later that night, Jon slumbers
restlessly under silver-blue moonlight. On his bed table sits his locket with Mina’s
photo, a small photo of Queen Victoria and a larger one of Mina.
Jon twists and turns as something stirs
under the blankets, crawling up his midsection, over his chest, toward his
throat.
A huge clawing hand slides from
under the covers, grabs onto his face.
Jon awakens with a yell. Frightened,
he kicks off the covers. But there is nothing there but his own flesh. Confused
and scared, he rubs his hands over his face. Then he looks at his left hand: “My
hand,” he says with a nervous laugh. “Just my hand.”
He looks up at the silver dollar
moon shining through the window. From somewhere upstairs, a man and woman are laughing
together.
Now wide awake, Jon gets out of bed,
crosses to the window, looks out over the moonlit desert. The laughter and the moonlight
seem as one. It even draws a smile to his tired face as he gazes up at the
moon.
Then the laughter slowly dwindles.
That heavy silence falls again.
Suddenly, the silence is ripped by
a tearing scream.
The Prostitute falls upside down in
the window from the floor above, dangling by her heels, inches away, her eyes
staring, her throat torn open.
Jon staggers back with a scream, as
the woman’s lifeless body swings like a clock’s pendulum.
Though dead, her voice still pleads,
a hollow sound, like bells ringing from a cave.
“Help me . . . help me . . . help
me . . . .”
A graveyard on a nearby hill that
following morning. No tombstones, crosses or monuments, only mounds of dirt.
The Innkeeper is digging a grave for the Prostitute, who now lies wrapped in a
blanket. Jon watches from nearby. They are the only mourners.
“Is this all you're doing for her?”
Jon asks
“This is all we do for anyone,” says
the Innkeeper.
“I don’t understand. You can't
throw someone in a hole like this. Where’s your priest? Someone must pray for
her. You don't even have a headstone!”
“What good is all that? Best to bury
and forget, English. We never think about yesterday. Until you came, we had no
thoughts for tomorrow.”
“Who is Vlad Dracula?” Jon asks. “Tell
me!”
The Innkeeper stops digging and
leans on his shovel.
“We have lived always under the
fists of big men. He is the biggest, the greatest of all. For a time we thought
him a hero, for driving off the Turks, at least the stories say. Go to him,
English. Set us free. That is what you do for us.”
Jon shakes his head,
uncomprehending: “How can you live like this? Why don't you fight back?”
“He who bows his head keeps it,”
the Innkeeper says. He rolls the corpse into the grave.
(re-edited 10/14/16)
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