Dracula Lives (6 page)

“Finally I swallowed my pride and made the rounds again—this time to the poverty row studios. I reached the bottom of the barrel and persuaded Midnight Pictures to let me make it. They gave me two weeks and thirty thousand dollars. It was barely released in 1947. My
magnum opus
. And, until now, my swan song.”

“I would love to see it.”

Markov seemed to be deciding how much of his life to reveal. “We shall see. That film is so painful for me that I haven’t watched it since the initial screening.”

“I understand.”

“I kept waiting to see if it would bring me any offers, but none came and I was pushing fifty. I’d had enough of Hollywood, and New York’s film industry was taking off, so I moved my family there. More promises that were never kept. My monomania drove us to Boston, thinking I might be a bigger fish in a smaller pond. More lies.”

Maybe you just weren’t good enough
, Quinn thought. Whatever the reason, Markov couldn’t be telling him the whole story.

“Finally I decided to do what Carl Laemmle had done: create my own studio with its own backlot. A self-contained world for making movies. Of course, mine is much bigger. He started Universal on a 230-acre lot. My property here is almost 7,000 acres.”

“But why here? It’s virtually inaccessible. The long, harsh winters would make outdoor shooting difficult. There’s no talent pool—”

“I had my reasons. I wanted to be left alone to do things my own way. As for talent and accessibility, I wrote treatments that wouldn’t need a big cast and could be shot mostly indoors. I did my casting in Boston and brought everyone here. For them it was a chance to go on location. And the price for the property was right. The state was practically giving land away when I bought it in 1955.

“Five years and two million dollars later, I moved in with my second wife and two grown children. I had been grooming them as filmmakers and actors since they were little, even teaching them things like swordplay and horseback riding for the action scenes we might one day shoot. My hope was that they would eventually take over whatever I was able to build, but, alas, only one of the projects I planned has ever gotten off the ground. There were … family problems. I will not burden you with those. They are my cross to bear.”

He waved the topic away, but Quinn remembered the son who had been charged with attempted murder in Boston in 1954.

“I have many treasures and secrets I will reveal to you,” Markov continued. “Some are quite dark.”

A weariness had settled onto him that went beyond merely physical. Beneath his polished air, Quinn had gotten glimpses of something troubling him deep down in his soul. Markov closed his eyes and tried to massage it away. When he opened them again, a slight tremor rippled across his face. For one flicker of an instant, Quinn thought he glimpsed Lon Chaney Jr.

There was much more going on here than the nostalgia of an impossibly old eccentric. Quinn’s curiosity about the supernatural and the occult sprang to life. He needed to know more. “I would like to learn as much as you care to tell me about your ‘treasures and secrets.’ Even the dark ones.”

Markov leaned forward, alert. “Your visit has gotten the blood flowing in these old veins. When I read your background in your initial inquiry, I realized you could be the perfect person to assist in culminating my cinematic legacy.”

“How so?”

“You and I are kindred spirits. You said you once harbored the dream of becoming a great horror director. The same dream I have harbored all my life. It is too late for me to have a career, but I am almost finished making the ultimate horror film. A monster rally to end all monster rallies.”

“With all of the classic Universal monsters?” Quinn asked.

“Yes, but with all of the hokiness removed. I have had to work like Orson Welles did on some of his ill-fated projects, shooting scenes off and on for years. All of that footage has been edited and is ready to go. All that remains is to shoot the climactic sequence. If it comes off as planned, it will secure my cinematic immortality. The moment my life’s work has been aiming for. My Rosebud.”

He leaned closer. “You have walked into the ultimate reality show, Mr. Quinn. Cinéma vérité. With special effects far beyond 3D. My house and grounds are the set. Before the digital revolution, shooting our scenes was slow and cumbersome, because I had to hire a crew to drag all the equipment around for each setup. But now Johnny and I can do it all ourselves. I have installed fifty high-definition digital cameras throughout the castle and grounds that we can control from my state-of-the-art studio. We can adjust the ambient lighting, get just about any angle from wherever the scene is taking place, and so forth. Which, of course, virtually eliminates the need for setups. In this way we have been able to shoot nearly the entire film—the horror story that has been our lives. Except, as I said, the final sequence. And you are now in it.”

His expression turned more serious than Quinn had yet seen it. “I had not realized until now that incorporating you into that sequence could mean danger for us all. Your very emanations could upset the delicate balance of natural and unnatural forces I have combined to create this world where … the line between movies and reality sometimes seems blurred.”

Emanations upsetting unnatural forces?
That sounded like the wild imaginings of a mind left alone too long to create a world of movie fantasy, but Quinn couldn’t dismiss it.

“What exactly is this danger my being here could cause?” he asked.

“I cannot say precisely, because I do not know. What I
do
know is that your being here will test my creations in ways they’ve never been tested.”

“Are you saying your castle is haunted?”

His gaze narrowed. “Extremely.”

“By what?”

The intense gaze shifted inward to some troubling place. “Bad deeds,” he said. “Remnants of things I have done.”

“We’re all haunted by those.”

“Not like mine. They have begun to take on a life of their own.”

That sounded impossible, but for now Quinn had to take him at his word. “If you think my being here puts any of us in jeopardy, then perhaps I should leave.”

“
No
,” Markov said, a little too emphatically. “I think that would be premature. If I can find a way to write you into the final sequence, it could add a great deal of excitement. And totally aside from that, I have been looking forward to lively discussions with someone so knowledgeable about the glory days of Universal.”

“As have I,” Quinn said, wondering how Markov thought he could do all this after having invited him for only two days—one of which was already almost gone. Maybe he was thinking of asking him to stay longer.

The vague hint of a smile came onto Markov’s lips. “In those old movies we both love—
The Most Dangerous Game
comes to mind—the mad eccentric would lock his guests in the castle for his villainous purposes. I could certainly do that, but … while I am undeniably eccentric, I am not mad, Mr. Quinn. Like everyone I have the capacity for evil within me, but … I am
not
evil.” He sounded as though he were trying to convince himself more than Quinn. “I will not force you to stay. You must do so of your own free will.”

Suppressing annoyance at the notion that he could so easily be taken prisoner, Quinn stayed focused on his mysterious host’s explanation of the evil that he believed dwelled—not just in the castle—but within himself.

“In
The Most Dangerous Game
,” Markov continued, “Count Zaroff was the madman behind it all. Here, of course, that would be me. My castle is my laboratory.”

He tried to lighten the moment by using the comical British pronunciation—luh-BORE-uh-tree—and raising an exaggeratedly sinister eyebrow, conjuring the stereotype of countless mad movie scientists and their stock line that “I must never be disturbed when the door to my luh-BORE-uh-tree is closed.”

He held the pose for a long beat before turning serious again.

“But even the mad Zaroff gave Joel McCrea and Fay Wray a sporting chance. If you recall, he had them trapped in a cave with a bow and arrow but walked away, saying he would ‘hunt them like a leopard.’”

“I do recall.”
You and I are kindred spirits
, Markov had said. Count Zaroff said the same thing to Joel McCrea. “So is this our version of
The Most Dangerous Game
?”

“Not exactly. But your threshold for terror may be tested. For you to make a fully informed decision about whether to stay or leave, I must show you the monsters I have created in this shrine to madness. But the things I have to show you are so far outside the boundaries of reality, our minds must be fresh. I know you must be fatigued after the rather grueling trip in the carriage, so tonight I will only show you Lon’s short—a behind-the-scenes look at one of the movie moments that fueled my Dracula obsession. A Preview of Coming Attractions, if you will. I will give you the full studio tour after you have had a chance to sleep.”

“I’m not fatigued,” Quinn said. He looked at his watch. “It’s not quite eight o’clock yet. Why not give me the full tour now? Trust me: I’ve spent a good chunk of my life exploring the world outside the boundaries of reality, and that’s not a nine-to-five world. Besides, I didn’t come here to sleep. I’ll get plenty of sleep when I’m dead.”

“Ah. It seems everything reminds me of a moment in
Dracula
.” In an instant he arranged his facial features into a passing resemblance of Lugosi and said the famous line in the actor’s voice: “To die … to be
really
dead … that must be glorious.”

“One my favorite lines. Dracula says it to Mina when they’re in their box at the opera.”

“I’m impressed. You were born too late to be in Tod’s
Dracula
, but now perhaps you can be in mine. Very well. I will give you the tour now. If you decide to stay after it is complete, I would need some time to write you into the final sequence. A few hours, at most. But it would have to be with the understanding that you cannot leave until it is done.”

“So I would join you in your ‘cinematic immortality?’”

“A compelling offer, I would think, for a Draculaphile like yourself. Like me, you have followed the path that leads from the original Dracula—Vlad the Impaler—to Bram Stoker to Tod Browning and Bela Lugosi. It is not a Yellow Brick Road that leads to Oz. It is a blood-stained road that leads to Castle Markov. I have also come to think of this ill-fated pile as my version of the House of Usher. The doomed House of Markov, hidden away in ‘the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.’”

“Another one of my favorite lines,” Quinn said, trying gamely to keep the conversation on more pleasant topics. “From
Ulalume.
One of Poe’s best poems.”

“You share my love of Poe?”

“Yes.”

Markov gave him the stare. “Can you walk out on the chance to live forever in the greatest horror movie ever made?”

Quinn was beginning to see what lay beneath Markov’s polished rationale for inviting him.

Ego. He wanted an audience.

“Your offer is compelling,” Quinn said. “A tad Faustian, but compelling.”

“Faustian. I have found exploring the work of the devil much more interesting than exploring the work of angels. And, after all, we are talking about a path forged by one whose name means son of the Devil.” A lifetime spent in a world of virtual horror tainted Markov’s smile. “Of course, the path of evil is the one fraught with danger. The one I have gotten the distinct impression it has become your life’s mission to follow.”

Despite Markov’s talk of monsters and blurring the line between movies and real life, Quinn couldn’t see how being in his movie could put them all in danger. Then he remembered the night his father died, almost as if the psycho from
Halloween
had stepped off the screen to stab him. That thought triggered another one.

Being in Markov’s movie, after all his dire warnings, would in a sense be a way of avenging his father’s death. It would be like spitting in the eye of the man who killed him and used the movies as an excuse.
“See, you sick son of a bitch? I was in the worst horror movie ever, and it didn’t make me go out and kill somebody.”
It would be Quinn’s way of saying that, no matter how much movies influenced real life, no matter how powerful Markov’s movie monsters might be, no movie had the power to control
him
.

Another thought flashed into his brain: the memory of how much his father had loved
Dracula
, and all the happy times they’d watched it together. The chance to be in the ultimate Dracula movie, directed by a man who had been a part of the original production, would be a fitting final tribute to the memory of his father. A much better eulogy than the one he’d given in a daze at the funeral.

But as tempting as Markov’s offer was, Quinn couldn’t put his life on hold forever. He needed to get back and figure out what he wanted to do with the rest of it.

“I have other commitments I can’t put off indefinitely,” he said. “Before I make my decision I’d need at least a rough idea of how long you would need me.”

“I can tell you exactly. I am determined to end the greatest horror movie ever made on the night of the next full moon, because it is known as the Blood Moon. It will add the final note of perfection—because everything in the film will have
really happened
. No stock footage of the moon. No movie hokum with stunt men and actors acting.”

“When is the Blood Moon?”

“Tomorrow.”

Quinn couldn’t keep a skeptical look off his face. “You think you can get a monster rally sequence written and shot—with me coming into it ice cold—in one day?”

Markov smiled that unwholesome smile. “When one is driven by monsters, anything is possible.”

What had struck the filmmaker part of Quinn’s brain as merely impossible was beginning to sound delusional. No filmmaker in his right mind would put more pressure on himself by setting a deadline based on the name of the full moon. But the chance to bring meaning to his father’s death kept Quinn from dismissing the idea, no matter how implausible.

If all the time-consuming setups had been eliminated, and Markov was an extremely fast director with the genius for special effects he claimed, maybe he could just shoot the footage of Quinn he needed by midnight. That would let him tell himself he had wrapped on the night of the Blood Moon. Then, since all the previous footage had already been edited, all he’d have to do was edit in the final sequence. It still sounded ludicrous, but maybe.