Dracula vs. Hitler Read online

  Another horrible scream, this one clearer and louder, as the rear door of the wagon flew open and a man was propelled out that door. It was one of my hirelings. He tumbled onto the road behind us, his body rolling in that familiar limp and loose tumble as only the dead perform. There was more thrashing and yelling from the open door, then another scream from the depths of hell, this one abruptly truncated mid-note, quickly followed by the appearance of the second man’s body, obviously thrown from the carriage’s open back doors. There was something peculiar about the fall of this body, but I had no time to ponder. My other two hirelings looked at me in consternation.

  Then a hand appeared over the wagon roof just above the open rear door. We all craned our heads to watch as a face rose into view, like a pale moon over a dark horizon.

  The Vampire. His red eyes burned like hot coals; a matching scarlet smeared his mouth. His smile was depraved, the gruesome fangs shining brightly.

  The two men on either side of me, so full of bravado and manful bluster when I engaged them, blanched and leapt from the wagon at this sight of the Un-Dead. I do not blame them. My first instinct was the same.

  But I felt the debt owed to Morris and the lady Mina, how brave they had been in crisis, and so I reached down to retrieve the reins so that I could regain control of the horses before they ran us off a cliff or into one of those stone walls.

  The Vampire rose and stepped upon the carriage roof. He clutched something in his left hand. I could not make out the object, as the darkness and a sudden ceiling of overhanging trees had plunged my view into a complete penumbra. He threw this object at me. It struck me in the chest and by reflex I let loose of the reins to catch it, clutching it to my breast. When I once again had enough light I saw that I was cradling the dismembered head of my hireling. I have to admit that, even with all of my experience at the dissection table and my familiarity with the human anatomy, I was momentarily paralyzed with shock.

  I quickly tossed the repulsive visage into the night and, rousing myself from my stupor, regained my senses in time to see the Vampire stride across the wagon’s turbulently rocking roof as easily as if he were on a stroll down a park path. I turned just in time to see his foot rise to kick me in the chest and send me flying off the wagon. I bounced off one horse and fell between the pair, catching myself on the braces. Not a conscious act at all, I assure you, but some kind of desperate survival instinct.

  The horses, sensing some atavistic threat above them, no doubt, became wild with fear. I was barely holding on to the leather straps, flying hooves inches from my face, my hands. I knew I was but a hairbreadth from being trampled to death or crippled by an ironclad hoof. My back hung low enough to scrape and bump against the rock-hard pinnacles of mud protruding from the road. Each stab and abradement was a vicious blow that almost knocked me loose.

  The Vampire leaned down from the driver’s seat and planted a foot on my chest. He said something to me but I heard it not, as the clatter of the horses’ hooves drowned out all sound. With a sardonic sneer he applied pressure with his boot until I had no choice but to release my grip. I fell onto the harsh road, the horses’ hooves pounding so close that I felt the wind of their passing upon my face.

  I bounced a few times, my forehead striking the undercarriage with a brutal blow. The spinning wheels barely missed my limbs. I do not know how, but once more some primal survival instinct caused my hands to desperately reach out, and I found purchase on the rear axle.

  I instantly suffered a beating as I was dragged behind the wagon at full gallop. If only to escape further battering, I painfully hoisted myself up and into the wagon interior. The inside walls were painted with blood. I could see that the casket had been flung open. Slinging one of the ropes over my shoulder, I proceeded to climb to the wagon roof as had the Vampire before me. I confess that my short trek across the jittering roof was not as surefooted as that of my foe.

  But I had the advantage: He was unaware of my approach as he urged the horses on at a breakneck speed. When I was a pace behind him I threw a loop of the rope around his neck and hauled him out of the driver’s seat. With all the strength within me I twisted tight the rope.

  He fought the improvised noose, clawing at the rope that bit into his neck. The struggle was so vigorous that it caused us both to roll around on our precarious perch. I held on, knowing my life was forfeit if I failed. I knew I could not strangle the Vampire, as he did not breathe. My hope was to haul it off the carriage and, if the Almighty was smiling upon my efforts, thrust it under the wheels. I think that the Creature’s previous battle, days before, had weakened it, if not the wounds and submersion in freezing water, because otherwise I would have had no success against his prodigious strength.

  Meanwhile the horses had gone wild, mad with fear. Unfettered by the reins, they raced in a fright-fuelled frenzy, straying from the road. The carriage scraped rough-hewn walls, sparks spitting where its steel wheels struck stone. The Vampire was getting the better of me, and I tried to concentrate on the task at hand, but my pummeling beneath the carriage had taken a toll on me. I never saw the great oak ahead of us.

  I did feel the collision as the carriage struck. The impact was tremendous, a great smashing that sent the Vampire and me sailing through the air. I struck the ground so hard that I was rendered insensible for a brief moment. Regrettably, the Vampire recovered immediately and was instantly at my throat, one hand on the crown of my head, pushing it aside to bare my neck. I came to my senses, finding his face inches above me, mouth open and fangs on full display. I kicked out with my legs, knocking his out from under him, causing him to sprawl and simultaneously freeing me from his deadly embrace.

  I rose to my feet and so did the Creature. We rushed at each other and collided like two battling elk. We grappled, and even in his current weakness the Vampire was able to overcome me. I struck him a few blows that had no effect upon him. He struck at me, and those clouts did indeed have a disabling result upon my own vigor. I could not continue for long in this sort of combat.

  A strike at my head caused a bit of vertigo, and I began to search desperately for some source of salvation, any sort of deliverance. I spied behind the Vampire the wagon, listing to one side where a wheel had broken. The rim and steel-clad wheel was gone, the hub sprouting only a few naked and shattered spokes, which splayed out like the fingers of an opened hand.

  “Now I will be rid of you once and forever,” said Dracula as he approached me with dire intent.

  Once again he grasped the top of my head with one hand and pressed the other upon my shoulder to bare my throat.

  I ducked my head, freeing myself, and pressed my shoulder into his mid-section. Digging my feet in, I charged ahead, propelling the Vampire backward. I gave all my remaining strength to this drive until we came to a sudden stop.

  I backed away and saw that the Vampire had become impaled by one of the wheel spokes. His eyes glared at me in fiery rage and emitted a horrid screeching, and then that malefic light faded and his writhing body went slack, as if he had died. I was not fooled—after all, he was the exemplar of the Un-Dead.

  I watched the Vampire until I could catch my breath again. He did not move.

  When I had recovered sufficiently I went in search of my hirelings. The two survivors had reunited and were sitting under a great pine, smoking and huddled against the cold. I spied the flare of their cigarettes before seeing them. We backtracked in a search for the bodies of their compatriots. Both of those men were quite dead, the neck broken on one, who had also been drained of his blood, the other dead from multiple injuries, his entire rib cage stove in like a busted crate. It took us another hour to locate and reunite the poor fellow with his head.

  We marked the road where they lay with hastily created crosses, something to poke out of the gathering snow so that we could collect them on our return. The wind came now in fierce bursts, and the snow was driven with fury as it swept upon us in circling eddies.

  The two men still liv
ing seemed not overly affected by the death of their companions—a statement on the hard life in these lands, I suppose.

  They were more skittish when we came upon the Vampire. Even in his deathly repose Dracula had a viperous air. We set about removing the broken wheel, carefully making sure that the impaling spoke remained in his body. I was confident that this was the cause of his demise and immobility—such as it might be—temporary or otherwise.

  Mounting the spare wheel was a dirty, strenuous affair. That done, we went in search of the horses. They had broken free but not wandered far, and they did not resist being hitched back into harness. Dracula was restored to his coffin, and this time the lid was secured by multiple turns of our rope.

  And we returned to our journey. The snow was now falling heavily and angrily swirled about, for a high wind was beginning to blow. I advised the driver to go slow for fear of the jostling that might have freed the Vampire before. We actually had no choice in the matter, as one of our other wheels and perhaps an axle were impaired from the collision.

  Finally we passed through the tiny village that was my destination.

  The hamlet had been abandoned after a series of floods, the houses buried up to their hollow-eyed windows with sand and rock, bush and saplings thrusting out of roof and open room. A solemn and sad sight, what was once so full of life and hope now a monument to the fragility of man and his feeble efforts to create some permanence.

  A distance farther from this sad, empty town was a hill where a church once lorded over the land, safe from the raging waters below but not protected from the parishioners. There was something wild and uncanny about the place. It is told that the priest, after a succession of plagues ravaged his flock, had lost his faith in God and in a scheme to prove His existence attempted to raise the Devil: the priest’s perverted logic that if Satan existed so too must his God. To summon the Dark Prince the priest performed sacrifices in some black rite—human sacrifices, infants, stolen from the surrounding villages. He became a wolf preying on his own flock.

  Suspicions led to action by the townspeople, and the skeletons of his victims were discovered in an old hideaway dug under the rectory. The villagers set fire to the church with the blasphemous priest trapped within.

  The burned-out husk of the house of God was now overgrown with weeds and inhabited by bats that flew up in a ghostly flutter as we approached. The church itself was of no interest or purpose to my aims. It was the adjacent cemetery I needed. In my research to find the home of my enemy, the Creature in the casket, I had come across this profane site and a certain tomb related to the Dracula family.

  We found it without difficulty. Huge it was and nobly proportioned, the structure surpassing all other vaults in size and bearing. A large mausoleum of black stone dominated the graves, which clustered around it like chicks to their hen.

  The casket was manhandled, with some bother and hardship from the wagon into the tomb, there being just the three of us: I was injured from my battle, one of the other men had a useless arm, and we were hampered by the loss of the two others who had helped load the coffin. But we managed and then secured the door from the outside. My hope is that this desolate and cursed place will serve as security until I can return and seal it even further. I might find a way to also bind the coffin in a more impenetrable manner.

  Why do I go to these lengths instead of destroying the King-Vampire? I am not sure. I tell myself that it is pure scientific curiosity, the why and how of such a being, that we could learn things that might be of immense value to humankind. I do hope this justification is not some vainglorious enterprise. It could be the doom of me—and the world.

  We return home, to gather our dead and proceed with our lives. My own future is a mystery to me, as it should be, I suppose.

  So, it is now upon the shoulders of you, dear reader, to decide what is to be done with this creature. The future, if my own era is any exemplar, I am sure will be witness to scientific miracles. It will no doubt be a better world, and I hope that in those better times people will be able to solve the rebus I have left you.

  Good luck, and God help you.

  Abraham Van Helsing

  11 November 1896

  DATED: 15.4.41

  TO: SS-OBERGRUPPENFUHRER REINHARD HEYDRICH, REICH MAIN SECURITY OFFICE

  CC: REICHSFUHRER-SS HEINRICH HIMMLER

  CC: ALLGEMEINE-SS WALTER SCHELLENBERG, CHIEF AMT VI, SD—AUSLAND

  FROM: DESK OF MANFRED FREIHERR VON KILLINGER, GERMAN CONSUL, BUCHAREST, RUMANIA

  (BY DIPLOMATIC POUCH)

  MOST SECRET

  On the dawn of the bold Operation Barbarossa, against our great enemy the Soviet Union, and the long-awaited eradication of the Communist poison, our Rumanian allies are not as prepared as we would prefer. Conducator Antonescu is eager to attack his historical enemy, but the Rumanian armoury is still non-standardised, obsolete, and foreign-sourced. They are making great strides--as usual, with our aid. The influx of German instructors and advisors has made a major impact in modernising their program, but they have still a long way to go and, alas, will not be fully prepared for the coming offensive.

  They are hampered by over twenty years of French-inspired defensive operational philosophy. Even so, we have witnessed a considerable gap between French theory and Rumanian practice.

  Still there is the fact that peasant soldiers such as these are generally able to subsist on lower-scale rations and worse conditions than typical German infantry. They can be hardy and uncomplaining in harsh circumstances.

  A saving grace: There is sufficient manpower to throw against the Russian line. Enough to do some damage, divert Soviet resources, consume the enemy materiel, and decimate enemy forces, rather than sacrificing good German resources and soldiers.

  They also have a cavalry of decent quality, but I do not see much use of such in the era of the blitzkrieg.

  The Rumanian populace was initially rebellious at the Soviet annexation of Basarabia and Northern Bucovina and the awarding of Southern Dobrogea to Bulgaria and Northern Transylvania to Hungary. These were offered as an appeasement against the threat of our military might. Antonescu seems to have accepted the state of things and now has become an ally, after we supported his government against the attempted coup by Sima and the Iron Guard. I do recommend that we keep Sima and his cohorts alive and under our thumb in German territory as an inducement to keep Antonescu cooperative.

  Meanwhile, the Rumanians have been purging all non-Rumanian ethnics from their current borders. The loss of which makes their army more homogeneous and, therefore, more reliable. How reliable that may be is yet to be determined. The battlefield will tell the tale.

  On a note of caution, we must be circumspect with Antonescu, who is acutely aware that his Ploesti oil fields are vital to our war efforts. He has positioned a large cordon of his troops around the petroleum facilities.

  We can be sure that, besides forming a protective ring around Ploesti, the Rumanians are prepared to sabotage the oil fields (as the British did in the Great War) if ever the tide turns against the Reich. I am clear on your directive that we must do everything possible to maintain this vital resource, and we will act accordingly. With this in mind, the assignment of our elite Brandenburg Battalion to abet the 18th Security Detachment in Ploesti will serve our purposes very well.

  Recent oil shipments to Germany have been disappointing, I know, below the level you desire, but a shortage of tanker cars has made rail transport difficult. As soon as the Danube thaws completely, we can resume full capacity with barge shipments.

  There is one fly in our ointment. Recently the area around Brasov has been the focus of targeted resistance. If this rebellion continues and bleeds past the Carpathian Mountains, Ploesti may be in jeopardy. I am forwarding to Captain Lobenhoffer and his detachment instructions to work with the local militia and suppress and destroy this spark before it starts a fire of resistance and terrorism that could spread across the country.

  Any furt
her suggestions would be appreciated.

  Heil Hitler.

  Dnr.--Manfred von Killinger

  TO: MANFRED VON KILLINGER, GERMAN CONSUL, BUCHAREST, RUMANIA

  FROM: CAPTAIN GEORGE LOBENHOFFER, MILITARY ATTACHE, BRASOV

  MOST SECRET

  SUBJECT: INCIDENT REPORT

  4.4.41--Rumanian Military dispatch rider travelling via motorcycle on the road N of Arnesti encountered piano wire stretched across road. Decapitated. Documents regarding Rumanian troop movement missing. Also sidearm and uniform.

  No arrests made.

  Assailant(s) unknown.

  6.4.41--Three SS Auxiliary Police, formerly local Volksdeutsche, eating lunch at an outside cafe in Rasnov killed. Shot at their table by assassin bicycling past.

  Cafe owner and staff detained and interrogated. One detainee died under questioning.

  Assailant(s) unknown.

  7.4.41--Troop transport vehicle in queue at roadblock outside Sacele destroyed by grenade inserted into gas tank. Twelve occupants, Rumanian conscripts wounded, three killed, including one officer.

  Various witnesses describe perpetrator as woman, man, child.

  No arrests.

  Assailant(s) unknown.

  11.4.41--Outside Codlea. Convoy ambushed. Was able to speak to the lone survivor in the hospital. Statement follows:

  “My name is Radu Lepadatu. I am Private in First Mountain Division. Was on patrol through farm country evicting Jews, gypsies, troublemakers. Last stop this day is farm of Leibu, Jew. Raised corn, hay, peppers. We confiscate what we find. Not looting. Re-allocation. Leibu family have no need where they are going. Put Leibu, wife, two children on truck with others. Maybe twenty prisoners. Take chickens. Take cow. Find good boots for me. Many socks, hand-knitted. Gets cold in mountains. Everyone angry at Private Lazar Tuca. He is dead now. Lazar shoots cow before we put in truck. Takes six men to load dead cow onto truck. Dead weight. Alive cow walks onto truck. Tuca stupid. Sergeant calls him village idiot. Farmer’s daughter weeps at death of cow.