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I’m
sure you’ve heard of Count Dracula, the evil vampire who could turn
himself into a bat at will. The creepy fellow who always dressed in
black and preferred a neckful of warm blood to a mug of milky tea any
day.
Yes,
everyone’s heard of Count Dracula. But how many of us know what he was
like when young? Before he grew tall, swept his hair back, and started
hanging round graveyards? Not many of us! And why? Because until now the
story of young Dracula has been a well-kept secret - a secret that I (a
very nosy writer) have at last unearthed.
Before
I tell you this secret story, however, you must learn something of life
at Castle Dracula before the lad was born. Pay attention now. This bit’s
important.
In
a remote corner of Transylvania there were once two rival vampires. One
was Count Dracula, the other Baron Gertler. The Count and the Baron
lived in tall black castles on opposite sides of the valley. Far below,
between the two castles, there was a village. Every night, very late,
village bloodmen (the Transylvanian version of milkmen) rode up to the
castles with bottles of fresh blood for the Count and the Baron. The
bloodmen collected a cupful from everyone in the village between the
ages of ten and eighty. The villagers had no choice in this.
Now
Count Dracula and Baron Gertler were the last of their line. Neither of
them had children to follow in their bloody footsteps. But one year the
Count brought home a wife, and the following year Countess Dracula gave
birth to a son, whom they called Wilfred. When Baron Gertler heard that
the Draculas had an heir he became very jealous. He turned himself into
a giant bat, flew to the castle across the valley, and snatched the babe
from his mother’s arms while the Count was clipping his toenails in
the bath. Then he flew off with the child under his arm.
The
distressed Countess rushed to the window to save her darling son, but
reaching for him she leant out too far and tumbled to her death far
below. Her scream brought the Count dripping from the bath. As soon as
he saw what had happened, the Count ground his vampire teeth with rage,
turned himself into a bat, and flew after the Baron. The Baron escaped,
but the Count managed to save baby Wilfred and bring him home. Some
nights later the Count sneaked into Castle Gertler before the Baron was
up, and hammered a wooden stake through his mean old heart.
Twelve
years passed. Count Dracula was now half the vampire he had been. He was
lame and could no longer turn himself into a bat. He never went out at
night. The villagers no longer feared him, and the bloodmen no longer
delivered. He had to content himself with the blood of the rats that
scampered around the castle.
One
dark and miserable midnight, the old Count sat gazing out from his high
tower. On the hill across the valley stood the crumbling ruin of Castle
Gertler. No-one had lived there since the Baron’s death.
‘Ah,
those were the nights,’ the Count sighed, with a tear in his eye.
He
missed having a real enemy. Missed being young enough and fit enough to
go out for a neck or two of human blood when the fancy took him. There
wasn’t even anyone to talk to now. No one that mattered anyway. It was
no use talking to Wilfred.
They had nothing in common, nothing at all.
‘Are
you all right, Father?’
The
Count jumped. He hadn't heard Wilfred come up the stairs. ‘Oh, it’s
you,’ he snapped. ‘What do you want?’
Wilfred
was worried about the old vampire. He was a kind and sensitive lad. ‘I
was wondering if you’d like a bowl of toad and tomato soup, Father.’
The
Count scowled. ‘No, Wilfred, I do not want soup. I want blood, gently
warmed, bit of froth on top, no sugar. If you had any thought for your
poor old father you’d go down to the village, drag a villager out of
bed, and drain his blood into a jug for me.’
‘But
Father, I hate doing that, you know I do.’
‘To
think,’ the Count said. 'One day you’ll be head of the House of
Dracula. Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if the first thing you do when I’m
turned to dust is put up pretty curtains and put flowers everywhere. You’re
not a vampire, Wilfred, you’re a wimpire!’
Wilfred
was badly stung by these harsh words. He so wanted to be like all the
Draculas before him. Was it his fault that he was different? He
went down to his room and climbed into his coffin, where he tossed and
turned sadly for a while. At last he fell asleep. Wilfred had always had
trouble keeping awake at night – another thing that upset his father.
The Count was old-fashioned. He believed that vampires should sleep
during the day and be up all night, sipping the red stuff.
The
good thing about sleeping at night, from Wilfred’s point of view, was
the dreams. Night dreams were sweeter than day dreams. Tonight, for
instance, he dreamt that he didn’t have to live in a cold and gloomy
castle and file his teeth at coffin-time. In the dream he didn’t feel
a wimp for preferring milk to blood either. He had a cow all of his own.
Lying beneath her in the straw and dung, he could drink fresh warm milk
to his heart’s content. In this wonderful dream Wilfred ran through
open fields in broad daylight, singing at the top of his voice. Sunlight
didn’t make him cry out in pain the moment it touched his skin, as it
would in real life. In the dream he was the Wilfred he longed to be.
But
when he woke the dream vanished and the gloom of the castle settled
about him once more. The Count’s unkind remark came back to him: 'You’re
not a vampire, Wilfred, you’re a wimpire.'
Wilfred
sighed. ‘I so want Father to be proud of me,’
he said, and resolved to go out and prove that he was a true vampire
after all.
He
waited indoors all day, hiding from the sunlight which would do him no
good at all. Then, as night fell yet again, Wilfred, heir to the noble
House of Dracula, slipped out of the castle. He took with him a jug to
bring back his father’s favourite tipple: human blood.
Wolves
howled in the distance as Wilfred descended Bram Hill. He trembled, but
on he went, down and down into the valley. He
had no idea that his life was about to change – forever.
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