The Passage

A soldier raised his hand. Peter recognized him as the one who had spoken to Michael in the mess hall. Sancho.

“What about the heavy mechs, sir? They won’t make it in the mud.”

“The decision’s been made to leave them in place. We’ll be traveling L and Q. Your squad leaders will go over this with you. Anyone else?”

Silence from the crowd.

“All right then. Enjoy the show.”

The lanterns were doused; at the back of the room, the wheels of the projector began to turn. So there it was, Peter thought; the moment to decide was upon them. A week had suddenly become no time at all. Peter felt someone slip onto the bench next to him: Sara. Beside her was Amy, wearing a dark woolen blanket over her shoulders, against the cold.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Peter whispered.

“The hell with that,” Sara said quietly. “You think I’d miss this?”

The screen blazed with light. Encircled numbers, descending in sequence: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Then:

CARL LAEMMLE

PRESENTS

“DRACULA”

by BRAM STOKER

FROM THE PLAY ADAPTED BY

HAMILTON DEANE & JOHN L. BALDERSTON

A TOD BROWNING PRODUCTION

A chorus of cheers rose up from the benches as, incredibly, the screen was filled with the moving image of a horse-drawn carriage, racing along a mountain road. The picture was bleached of all color, composed entirely of tones of gray-the palette of a half-remembered dream.

“Dracs,” said Hollis. He turned to Peter, frowning. “Dracula?”

“Sound!” one of the soldiers bellowed, followed by others. “Sound! Sound!”

The soldier operating the projector was frantically checking co

“Wait, there, I think that’s it-”

A crackling boom of static: Peter, entranced by the moving image on the screen-the carriage was entering a village now, people ru

On the screen, a man in a white hat waved a walking stick at the carriage man. As he opened his mouth to speak, all the soldiers chimed in as one:

“Don’t take my luggage down, I’m going on to Borgo Pass tonight!”

An explosion of general hilarity. Peter tore his gaze away to glance at Hollis. But his friend’s eyes, glowing with reflected light, were raptly focused on the moving images before them. He turned to Sara and Amy; they were the same.

On the screen, a heavyset man was speaking to the driver of the carriage, a burble of meaningless sounds. He returned to the first fellow, in the hat, his words amplified by the shouted recitation of the men:

“The driii-ver. He eez… afraid. Good fellow he eez. He wants me to ask if you can wait, and go on after sunrise.”

The first man waved his cane arrogantly, having none of it. “Well, I’m sorry, but there’s a carriage meeting me at Borgo Pass at midnight.”

“Borgo Pass? Whose carriage?”

“Why, Count Dracula’s.”

The mustached man’s eyes widened with terror. “Count… Dracula’s?”

“Don’t do it, Renfield!” one of the soldiers yelled, and everybody laughed.

It was a story, Peter realized. A story, like the old books in the Sanctuary, the ones Teacher read to them in circle, all those years ago. The people on the screen looked like they were pretending because they were; their exaggerated motions and expressions called to mind the way Teacher would act out the voices of the characters in the books she read. The heavy man with the mustache knew something that the man in the hat did not; there was danger ahead. Despite this warning, the traveler resumed his journey, to more mocking shouts from the soldiers. In darkness, the carriage ascended a mountain road, approaching a massive structure of turrets and walls, drenched in a forbidding moonlight. What lay ahead was obvious: the mustached man had more or less explained it. Vampires. An old word, but one Peter knew. He waited for the virals to appear, falling on the carriage and tearing the traveler to shreds, but this didn’t happen. The carriage pulled through the gate; the man, Renfield, stepped out to find that he was alone; the driver was gone. A creaking door, opening of its own accord, beckoned him inside, where he found himself in a great ruined cave of a room. Renfield, unaware, his i

“I am… Drrrrrac-ulaaah.”

Another tent-shaking detonation of whoops, whistles, cheers. One of the soldiers in the front row shot to his feet.

“Hey, Count, eat this!”

A flash of spi

“Muncey, what the fuck!” the projector operator yelled.

“Get your blade,” someone else shouted, “it’s in the way!”

But the voices weren’t angry; everybody thought it was hilarious. Under a storm of catcalls, Muncey bounded to the screen, the images washing over him, to yank his blade free of the wood. He turned, gri

Despite it all-the chaotic interruptions, the laughter and mocking recitations of the soldiers, who anticipated every line-Peter soon found himself sliding into the story. He sensed that some pieces of the film were missing; the narrative leapt ahead in confusing jerks, leaving the castle behind for a ship at sea, then for a place called London. A city, he realized. A city from the Time Before. The Count-some kind of viral, though he didn’t look like one-was killing women. First a girl handing out flowers in the street, then a young woman asleep in her bed, with great sleepy curls of hair and a face so composed she looked like a doll. The Count’s movements were comically slow, as were his victim’s; everyone in the movie seemed trapped in a dream in which they couldn’t make themselves move fast enough, or even at all. Dracula himself possessed a pale, almost womanly face, his lips painted to look bowed, like the wings of a bat; whenever he was about to bite someone, the screen would hold for a long, lingering moment on his eyes, which were lit from below to glow like twin candle flames.

Part of Peter knew it was all fake, nothing to take seriously, and yet as the story continued, he found himself worried for the girl, Mina, the daughter of the doctor-Dr. Seward, owner of the sanatorium, whatever that was-and whose husband, the ineffectual Harker, seemed to have no idea how to help her, always standing around with his hands in his pockets, looking helpless and lost. None of them knew what to do, except for Van Helsing, the vampire hunter. He wasn’t like any hunter Peter had ever seen-an old man with thick, distorting eyeglasses, given to vast, windy pronouncements that were the object of the soldiers’ most outspoken mockery. “Gentlemen, we are dealing with the unthinkable!” and “The superstitions of tomorrow can become the scientific reality of today!” The catcalls flew each time, and yet a great deal of what Van Helsing said seemed true to Peter, especially the part about a vampire being “a creature whose life has been u