The Monster Trilogy. Brian Aldiss
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he was taking in these details, the doctor was checking the window catches and adjusting the chain of garlic across the panes.
On the wall by the door hung a map of the world in Mercator’s projection, framed by the flags of the nations, enlivened by pictures of battleships. The British Empire was coloured in red, and encompassed a quarter of the globe.
Pointing to the map, in the glass of which the gas light was reflected, Bodenland asked, ‘Would you suppose there was once a time when Hudson Bay didn’t exist, doctor?’
Van Helsing looked askance, as if he suspected a trick question.
‘Hudson’s Bay didn’t exist – until it was discovered by an Englishman in the seventeenth century.’
Bidding Bodenland a good night, he left the room, and closed the door quietly behind him.
Slowly removing his jacket, Bodenland tried to take in his present situation. He found the room, large though it was, oppressive. Oil paintings of Highland cattle in ornate gilt frames occupied much of the wall space. On the bedside table stood a carafe of drinking water and a black-bound New Testament. He sat on the bed to remove his shoes, and then lay back, hands linked under his head. He began to think of Mina and of his pretty new daughter-in-law, Kylie. But would he ever be able to control the time train and get back to them?
His eyes closed.
Without any seeming discontinuity, the processes in his mind continued, leading him to leave the house he was in and descend some steps. The steps were outside, leading down a rank hillside fringed by tall cypresses; then they curved, broken and dangerous, into a crypt. The air became moist and heavy. He searched for somewhere to put down a burdensome parcel he was carrying. The underground room seemed enormous. A stained glass window let in a pattern of moonlight which hung like a curtain in the waxy atmosphere.
‘No problem so far,’ he or someone else said, as he seated himself in a chair.
Three maidens in diaphanous robes stood in the moonlight. They beckoned. All were beautiful. The middle one was the most beautiful. The coloured glass threw warm gules on her fair breast.
It was this middle creature who advanced on Bodenland, drawing aside her white robe as she came. Her smile was remote, her gaze unfixed.
He knew her and called her name, ‘Kylie! Come to me.’
He saw – with shut eyes but acute mental vision – the pale and loving woman who had so recently become his daughter-in-law. For those beautiful features, those soft limbs, that sensuous body with its delectable secrets, lust filled Joe’s body.
As he opened his arms to her, she bent eagerly towards him, letting the long dress fall away. He caught her scent, like a forgotten dream.
Now her arms were almost round his neck. He felt them intensely, was filled with rapture, when a pistol shot rang out.
Kylie was gone. The stony structure of the crypt faded.
He was back on the bed, his arms tingling with cramp behind his head. The long-horned cattle stared at him from the walls of the room.
He sat up, sick, cold. Had he heard a real shot?
Rising, he padded over to the window and drew aside a curtain a little way.
Two moons shone over the haunting nineteenth-century landscape, one in a clear night sky, the other its sister, its reflection, in the ornamental pool. The gazebo was a ghostly thing, its Chinese chimes not stirring. On the terrace, the statues stood in their dramatic attitudes, casting their shadows towards the facade of the old house.
Among the statues was a human figure. It was Stoker, his ginger coloration made snowy by the moon.
Breaking the chain of garlic flowers, Bodenland opened the window and leaned out.
‘What’s the matter? I thought I heard a shot.’
Stoker looked up, his features made brutal in the diffused glow.
‘Keep your voice down. You aren’t going to be too bucked with this, Bodenland. I’ve had to perform a soldierly duty. As I was turning in I heard a bit of thumping, armed myself, and came out here to see what the devil was going on.’
‘The driver …’
‘That’s it – your driver. He emerged through the door. Like a ghost. One of the Undead, my boy! I put a silver bullet through him in self-defence. It’s the only thing that stops his kind.’
‘I’ll come down.’
The window next to Bodenland’s was thrown open and van Helsing thrust his head out into the night air. He was wearing a night cap.
‘Now we’re in trouble – real trouble, you understand? What are you going to do with the body? You’ll be charged with murder.’
‘I’ll come down, Bram,’ said Bodenland. It was the first time he had used his host’s Christian name.
‘Better stay where you are. There’s another presence out here.’
‘What?’
Stoker paused before answering, and glanced about.
‘A woman’s presence. I’ll be in soonest, don’t worry. I’ll heave this damned corpse back into the shed. We’ll worry about it in the morning.’
‘Are you frightened?’
‘Heroism, Bodenland, what we were talking about. Get to bed, and sweet dreams. And you, doctor.’
Bodenland withdrew his head and closed the window, but stood looking at the silent terrace. When Stoker disappeared, dragging the corpse, he returned to bed. But hope of sleep had been shattered.
Although he admired Stoker’s courage, he still could not persuade himself to believe in vampires. His experience told him they existed, his intellect denied it. Of course, that paradox played to the advantage of vampires, if they existed. But they did exist – and somehow below the level of human intellect.
He paced about the room, trying to work it out. The human intellect originated in the neocortex, the grey matter of the brain. Below lay deeper layers, much older on an evolutionary scale than the neocortex – layers of brain common to other mammals, the limbic brain, primed by instincts such as aggression and submission and sexual response: the very instincts which propelled the processes of life on the planet.
Suppose there was a type of creature which was subject to different processes. A creature like a vampire, without intellect, and therefore almost safe from human molestation. The human species would undoubtedly kill off all vampires, as they had almost killed off wolves, if they only could believe wholeheartedly in the idea. Once you got the idea, vampires were not particularly hard to kill – to exterminate. Were they? The silver bullet. The shaft of light. The religious symbol. The stake through the heart.
He stood and stared abstractedly at the pokerwork legend: Thou Shalt Not be Afraid for Any Terror by Night … Nevertheless, the human race was afraid, always had been …
Always had been …
Vampires – if they existed – he could not resist adding the saving clause – were older than mankind.
How much older? Really millions and millions of years older, as Clift’s discovery seemed to prove?
Why were they so feared?
They were a disease.
They brought death. Worse than death, the existence of the Undead. If legend was to be believed.
And they preyed on humankind by activating one of the strongest instincts below the neocortical level, the great archetype of sex.
As a flower attracts by its scent.
His dream … The incestuous dream of union with Kylie, dead or alive. Repugnant to his consciousness, evidently delightful to some more primitive layer of sensation …
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