Brian Aldiss - The Monster Trilogy

‘Time has been expanding ever since. In light of later perspectives, sixty-five million years is no great length of time. We understand better than Lord Kelvin the source of the energies that power the sun.’

‘Possibly you Americans might be mistaken? Do you allow that?’

With a short laugh, Bodenland said, ‘Well, to some extent, certainly. This bullet, for instance, proves how little we have really been able to piece together the evolution of various forms of life in the distant past.’

Turning the bullet over in his palm, Stoker said, ‘I would swear it is one of my manufacture, of course. You’d better tell me about this extraordinary grave, and I’ll strive to take you at your word.’

‘It’s pretty astonishing – though no more so than that I should be here talking to you.’

He ran through the details of Clift’s discovery, explaining how the dating of the skeleton was arrived at.

During this account, Stoker remained impassive, listening and smoking. Only when Bodenland began to describe the coffin in which the skeleton was buried did he become excited. He demanded to know what the sign on the coffin looked like, and thrust a carpenter’s pencil and paper into Bodenland’s hand. Bodenland drew the two fangs with the wings above them.

‘That’s it! That’s it, sure enough – Lord Dracula’s sign,’ said Stoker in triumph. He seized Bodenland’s hand and shook it. ‘You’re a man after my own heart, so you are. At last someone who believes, who has proof! Listen, this house has drawn evil to it, and you brought more evil with this feller in my tool shed, but we can fight it together. We must fight it together. We’ll be heroes, the heroes we dreamed of —’

‘You’re a great man, Mr Stoker, but this battle’s not for me. I don’t belong here. I have to get back home. Though I certainly invite you to see the vehicle I use, parked down in your woodlands.’

‘Listen, stay another day.’ He grabbed Bodenland’s arm lest he escape at that very minute, and breathed smoke like an Irish dragon. ‘Just one more day, because tomorrow’s a special one. Come on, we’ll join that old fool van Helsing and have a glass or two of port and talk filth – if the wife’s not about. Tomorrow, that great actor whom I serve as manager, Henry Irving, bless his cotton socks, is to receive a knighthood from Her Majesty Queen Victoria at Windsor Palace. It’s the first time any actor has been so honoured. Now what do you think of that? Come along too – it’ll do your republican Yankee heart good to witness such a deed. After that you can high-tail it back to Utah or wherever you want. What do you say?’

Bodenland could not help being affected by the enthusiasm of the man.

‘Very well. It’s a deal.’

‘Excellent, excellent. Let’s go and toast ourselves in some port. And I want to hear more about your adventures.’

Lethargy was a deep snow drift, chill yet at the same time warm, comforting, inviting you down into even more luxurious depths of helplessness, down, to a place before birth, after death.

Mina saw her own death like the snow drift. When she opened her eyes, there were long muslin curtains billowing in the draught from the window. She was too weak to rise. She saw the curtains as her life – the gauzy life that was to be, after the consummation of death.

Dreamily, she recalled remote times, remembered the name of Joe, her Joe. But now there was another lover, the dream lover of legend. He was come again, he was in the chamber, advancing towards the bed.

She tried to rouse herself, to lift her head from the pillow. Her hair spilled about her but there was no strength in her neck. He was bending over her, elegant, powerful, distilling an aroma she drew in through her nostrils like a narcotic. When he opened his red mouth, she found strength enough to open her legs, but his attention was on the flesh of her throat. She felt the lechery of it, breathed deeper, swooned, fidgeted with desire to experience again the bite of those fangs, that sweet evacuation of life.

He in his black garb was something different. The insanity of his fantasy spilled over through their linked alleyways of blood. She saw, felt, lived the secret world of the Undead to which she would soon belong.

It was being transferred, his bridal gift to her —

The great sweltering herbivorous beast dashed from the river bank, sounding alarm to other hadrosaurs grazing nearby. It was a mottled green in coloration, yellow and white on the tender belly, with an elaborate headcomb. It balanced its ponderous body on graceful legs, and gave its melancholy call as it ran. Mina heard herself scream, saw her companions scatter, and white birds sail up in alarm from the Cretaceous marshes.

She took evasive action, running from side to side, yet still hearing the hot breath of pursuit.

‘What’s your name, and where’s Joe gone?’

‘You must forget Joe. You now have an immortal lover.’

Indeed, she heard his footsteps close. Thud thud thud. Screaming, she ran into a gingko grove, thinking to evade the heavier predator that way. Behind her, too near her tail, the wretched sound of branches being snapped like teeth breaking from a bottom jaw.

‘Where did you come from? Tell me who you are, so I can know you.’

‘Beyond your imagining lies the ancient burial site in a once-green land. It was destroyed. Remote ancestors there have been disturbed in their rest.’

‘What’s this to me? Why can I not breathe?’

‘The Living have desecrated those graves, causing a crisis among us, the Undead. You might say a religious crisis.’

She heard the ghost of something too desiccated to call a laugh. It came again, from the sky. It brought a new alarm. For she had left the carnivore behind. She had been driven from the family. Now there was a new threat. As a shadow fell over her, she looked up, craning her neck, her throat. A pteranodon was swooping down upon her, wings closed to speed its dive.

‘Why don’t you take me? Why delay so long? Will I be immortal in your embrace?’

‘You will be immortal in my embrace.’

‘It’s all I ever dream of …’

And as she looked up at those fangs, she fell and sprawled among ferns and it unfolded its spectacular wings —

And with the last of her strength she threw back the bedclothes to expose herself utterly —

And it closed its jaws about her neck —

And as his mouth tasted her flesh and the current flowed —

And as she fought with death —

And Mina began to writhe and moan and come at last —

Through —

‘Yes, Mr Bodenland, that was when we were staying with the duke. And later we were so proud, because the Prince of Wales came backstage and shook Bram’s hand.’

‘It was during the run of The Corsican Brothers .’

‘Edward. HRH. He’s such a dear – and rather a one for the ladies, I’m given to understand.’ Florence Stoker fanned her cheeks with her hand at the thought of it.

‘HRH works hard, and so I suppose he feels entitled to play hard. Do you work hard when you’re – at home?’

‘Some would say, too hard. But a man’s work is one way in which he establishes his identity.’

She sighed. ‘Perhaps that is why we poor ladies have no identity to speak of.’ And she shot a glance at her husband.

Bodenland would have preferred to be alone to think over the implications of the day’s events. He listened with only half an ear to Mrs Stoker’s chatter. They were at the port and cigars stage, sitting about the log fire, under the Bronzino painting, with van Helsing saying little.

Stoker jumped up suddenly, to give his impression of Henry Irving as Mephistopheles.

‘Oh, this is so wicked! Bram, desist!’ cried his wife.