A TASTE FOR ETERNITY- Intro

A TASTE FOR ETERNITY
A Companion to Bram Stoker’s DRACULA
by Cedric Marc Klein
(c)1995

In homage to Dwight Frye

“Never yet have I found the woman I wanted
to bear my child, until I met this one, whom I
love. For I love Thee, O Eternity!”
Nietzsche’s Zarathustra

I: THE MASTER COMES
Purfleet, London, England
1887, September 25

Mad-

or aware?

Is there a difference?

I no longer know.

All I know is the Hunger- for Life.

And I know the food I need- the same food the Master requires.

Don’t be shocked. It’s in the Bible, “the blood is the life.”

But they call it madness. Lock me in Carfax Hospital.
Commit me to the care of good Dr. Jack Seward.

My name is Richard Manfred Renfield.

My goal is to preserve and extend life, to absorb Life, to become LIFE!

My hope is to sit at the right hand of the Master of Life.

From beyond the Eastern Sea, that borderland beyond the forest,
he comes. On the wings of the tempest, midst thundering winds
and celestial fire, he has arrived. And I was the first to
welcome him to his new home. Oh, his appearance- ancient of days,
flowing hair of awful whiteness, piercing eyes of scarlet fire.
Do you wonder why I fell before him? A warlord weary
of dull peasants, searching for a new empire to subdue.
And such an Empire- the first to span the globe.

For months, I’ve heard his Call. Even before they locked me up.
I labored- preparing his way. Setting up the Carfax Abbey sale,
which young Harker closed after my- detention.

How did I come to this cell?

With the Call came the Hunger. I kept it at bay for a time,
with raw meat, insects, rodentia, birds. I sought a remedy at
the Eucharist- but the mockery of the priest, offering me pale
weak wine as blood when the real stuff pulsed in his wrists-
Is it any wonder that I cast off all restraint?

So since the middle of May, I have been restricted to this diet
of lesser lives. It will do, for a while.

But regarding the Master- When a nobleman enters a land to
take it, the first thing he often takes is a woman of that land.
The Master chose a young popular pretty miss named Lucy
Westenra. Delicious irony! (Sorry.) She was courted by Dr. Jack
and his two best friends. She had even picked Arthur Holmwood,
a future lord. But in the end, the Master stole her heart from
them all- and sealed it with a kiss.

I had never met Miss Lucy when she was warm. But once she
entered cold immortality, he brought her for an introduction.
I’ve never cared for pale people, all weak and placid, but she
was delightful, charming, even vigorous. And she had such
hopes for the Marriage.

Those hopes are at the root of the mystery baffling the police.
Toddlers with small bites, telling of a “bloofer lady”.
If they only knew-

Lucy only wants to bear him children.