Pre-Show Announcement

ANNOUNCER: The following episode contains discussions and depictions of violence, body horror, suicide, imprisonment, torture, improper medical treatment, psychological abuse, chronic physical and mental illness, premature burial, and death. It also features menacing situations, disturbing content, and jump scares. Listener discretion is advised.

Episode Begins

[Music plays. A creak of wood as a trunk opens, then another as it closes.]

MINA HARKER: I was twelve when I saw my first vampire.

[An exhale.]

MINA HARKER: I was with my grandfather by then. At the university.

[More shallow breaths in a small, enclosed space.]

MINA HARKER: He didn’t want me to see the work he did. Said I was too young. But there was a great big trunk in the back of the room where he taught. And I was very good at hiding.

[The lid opens.]

GRANDFATHER: Mina.

[Mina’s Grandfather speaks with a low, rumbling voice, with a European accent.]

[Mina chuckles a bit.]

MINA HARKER: He, of course, found me instantly. I’d argued with him. Begged. The new boy was being allowed to watch. The one from the orphanage. The one who was only fourteen. Fourteen wasn’t that much older than I was. I had just as much right as he did. But my grandfather said there were rules - rules about where women were allowed and where they weren’t. So I’d snuck in while he and his students were retrieving it from the stables. But now... he’d caught me. And yet... instead of shouting, or scolding, or pulling me out, he put his hand on my shoulder. Put a finger up to lips. Shhhh.

[Another wooden creak as the lid closes.]

MINA HARKER: He closed the lid... but left it open just a crack. So I could see.

[There’s a scraping sound as a box is slid across a surface.]

GRANDFATHER: Is that it? Very good. On the table.

[The crate is deposited on the table.]

GRANDATHER: Crowbar.

[The ringing sound of metal, followed by wood breaking.]

[A vampire snarls, struggling to get free.]

GRANDFATHER: Restrain the subject, please. Yes... this will do. Mr. Harker, the scalpel and the bone saw. [Pause.] Jonathan. Focus. This is serious work, boy, I need you present. The scalpel and the bone saw, now.

[The vampire continues struggling. Under the following, we start to hear burning, scalding sounds.]

MINA HARKER: I stayed in that trunk for three hours. I saw everything the men did to that creature. How they took it apart. To understand what it was. How it could be alive in death. How to fight it. For the first time in my life, I felt like I was a part of the work they did. I never loved my grandfather more than I did that day.

[There’s a burst of flame, as well as a final cry of pain from the restrained vampire.]

[The main Dracula: The Danse Macabre theme music begins to play.]

ANNOUNCER: Dracula: The Danse Macabre. Starring Peter Coleman as Count Dracula and Evangeline Young as Mina Harker. Episode 3: Experimental Purposes.

[The theme music fades out. It is replaced by the dingy sounds of an asylum in a state of disrepair, including the steady drips from water leaks in the ceiling.]

MINA HARKER: The second night at Carfax, you had me brought to your study.

[In the distance, we hear a man scream.]

MINA HARKER: By that point, I’d been... processed. My clothes were gone, my hair was gone, all my worldly possessions had been taken from me.

[A door opens.]

MINA HARKER: The study was a big room: an enormous fireplace, endless bookshelves, and that huge mounted brown bear in the corner, roaring at nothing.

[A door opens, footsteps as Dracula enters. Erik Satie’s Gnossiene #1 plays.]

COUNT DRACULA: I am so sorry to keep you waiting. Had to see to one of the patients in the East ward. Lovely man, very talented painter. [Smacks his lips.] Were you offered something to eat? To drink? There’s a bottle of pinot noir in the cabinet over there. I’m sure is quite lovely. [A pause.] Mmm, suit yourself. Now tell me... how are you today?

MINA HARKER: No.

COUNT DRACULA: No? You are no?

MINA HARKER: No, we are not doing this.

COUNT DRACULA: Oh, come now. There is no reason why the two of us can’t talk like civilized people.

MINA HARKER: Correct. There is not one reason, but a multitude of them. Most of them involving murder.

COUNT DRACULA: Are we not at a place where we can move past the little things?

MINA HARKER: The only reason why I am in this place at all is because you have me immobilized in a straight jacket.

[We hear the tension of the straight jacket as Mina struggles against it.]

COUNT DRACULA: An unfortunate measure, but it’s entirely for your own safety. I’m here to help, Mina.

[Mina scoffs.]

MINA HARKER: And that’s why you’ve taken over an insane asylum? To help?

COUNT DRACULA: Oh, New York hasn’t known what to do with this place for decades. They were only too eager to pass on the property and its social function to a private investor.

MINA HARKER: Oh good. Exactly what the City of New York needs. What are you really doing here?

[Dracula chuckles.]

COUNT DRACULA: Fine, fine. Well... When you’ve been alive for as long as I have, you start to see certain patterns in humanity. Humans love clever. Clever gets you wealthy andpowerful and comfortable. But brilliant? Mmm, that’s a different matter. Humanity doesn’t like it when someone is too far ahead of the time - the village square hates it when someone is right about something they’re not ready to stop being wrong about. In the 1500’s, if you said the Earth revolved around the sun, you were burnt at a stake.

[A burst of flame, along with a scream.]

COUNT DRACULA: In the 1600s, if you thought a country could be ruled by its people rather than a king, you were hanged, drawn, and quartered.

[The whinny of a horse.]

COUNT DRACULA: In the France of the 1700s, if you dared to say that maybe the whole revolution business was going off the rails, you were sent to the guillotine.

[A guillotine blade descends with a crisp shhhnk!]

COUNT DRACULA: And now, in the 1800’s, when someone is ahead of the curve... more often than not...

[A horrible, pained wailing.]

MINA HARKER: ... we send them to an asylum.

COUNT DRACULA: Just so. It’s where you end up if you’re a brilliant, forward thinker. If you’re someone -

MINA HARKER: - like me?

COUNT DRACULA: Exactly like you, yes. See, I don’t have a problem with brilliant people. I like them. I like being able to... take my time with them. And it’s nice to have them in a place where nobody asks too many questions when people pass away unexpectedly.

MINA HARKER: All right - I’m brilliant, you’re mad, we’re stuck together in an asylum. I’ve heard worse premises for melodrama. What happens now?

COUNT DRACULA: Do you like games, Madame Harker?

MINA HARKER: Do I - games? Do I like games?

COUNT DRACULA: I love games. The only problem is... a game’s only as good as your opponent. The two of us are going to play a game, a game that’s going to decide -

[Mina spits. Dracula’s hand goes up to his cheek.]

COUNT DRACULA: ... did - did you just spit at me?

MINA HARKER: It felt like the thing to do, given the circumstances. I’m sorry to interrupt, but let’s skip ahead. My life is effectively over. I know that, you know that, the mounted bear over there knows that. You are going to kill me. The only variable left is whether you are going to kill me now or kill me later. The fact that you haven’t done it already suggests you want something from me. Something only I can give you. How am I doing so far? I’ll take your silence as, well, I’m doing quite well. But bad news: Whatever you want, I’m never going to give it to you. And seeing as I am not small enough to fear something as quotidian as death, you have no power over me. So I’m not playing.

COUNT DRACULA: Hmm.

[He rises from his chair. Takes a few steps.]

COUNT DRACULA: Tell me, Madame Harker, do you play... the piano?

MINA HARKER: The piano? Do I play the piano, that’s what you just said?

[A rustle of fabric as Dracula says:]

COUNT DRACULA: Yes. This one was here when I took over the premises. Lovely thing, but a bit corroded. I’m having it re-strung.

[He opens the lid of the piano.]

MINA HARKER: I know we’re in a place of madness, but is there a point to this particular bout of madness?

[Strings tinkle and tense as Dracula rifles through them.]

COUNT DRACULA: The point... is that even objects of great beauty require a bit of... calibration from time to time.

[He closes the piano lid.]

COUNT DRACULA: You know things. Things about vampires. Things about me.

[A rustle of fabric.]

MINA HARKER: What are you doing? Why are you kneeling?

COUNT DRACULA: I’m about to make my point a little more sharply than I had planned.

[A piano wire tenses in his hand.]

COUNT DRACULA: I’m afraid of the cross, aren’t I?

MINA HARKER: ... yes, you are.

COUNT DRACULA: Good girl. Tell me why.

MINA HARKER: Why?

COUNT DRACULA: Why, yes.

[We hear the twisting gears of a clock.]

COUNT DRACULA: And what do you think? A minute ought to do it? Tell me why vampires are afraid of the cross in the next sixty seconds or I’ll use this piano wire to slice off your foot.

[A plink! from the piano wire. Tense music begins playing.]

MINA HARKER: What?

COUNT DRACULA: Sixty seconds and... go.

[The clock starts to tick - it will continue to do so under the following:]

MINA HARKER: Are you - are you serious?

COUNT DRACULA: Tick tock, Mina...

MINA HARKER: All right, wait wait! Let me think.

COUNT DRACULA: Sure. Have a look in that big library in your head. See if you can find the right book.

[Throughout this sequence, we hear snatches of the objects, creatures, and people that Mina describes.]

MINA HARKER: Quiet. You are dead. Undead. A creature living past the point of its natural span. Not a man but an animal, a predator, a parasite, a, uh -

COUNT DRACULA: No, no, that’s the wrong direction. Wrong and boring. Thirty seconds.

MINA HARKER: Fine, fine. You’re not a creature of instinct. You’re not just a beast. You’re... a man. What’s left of a man. The shadow of a man.

COUNT DRACULA: Ooooh. Closer and farther at the same time...

MINA HARKER: Fine, forget you. The cross, what is the cross...? It’s a sign of of civilization. Of spirituality.

COUNT DRACULA: Come on... tick tock, tick tock...

MINA HARKER: Give me a moment. Here: it’s the sign of a higher power. Or the pursuit of a higher power.

COUNT DRACULA: Seven seconds...

MINA HARKER: It’s a matter of... ritual. Of habit, of community, of...

COUNT DRACULA: Three... two... here we go...

MINA HARKER: It’s what you lost! It’s what you lost when you became a vampire.

[The ticking and the tense music both stop.]

COUNT DRACULA: Say more.

MINA HARKER: You... you were a man once. You were alive. Then you died. But some part of you... remained as something less than what you were. You can... imitate life, you can steal it, you can live the way an animal does. But... a human isn’t just an animal. There’s a greater part to it. To being a person. It’s... other people. It’s a sense of home. And it’s understanding there may be more to us than just living. That’s all gone for you. And some part of you feels that loss. Is... revolted by it. And when you’re confronted by it, the animal part of you can’t contain itself. No. Get away. Run away, now. It’s why you can’t just enter someone’s home and why you’re so afraid of the cross. Except it isn’t just the Christian cross, is it? It’s all kinds of religious symbols. It’s anything that reminds you that you are less than you once were, isn’t it?

[The piano wire plinks! in Dracula’s hands… then un-tenses. Mina exhales in relief.]

COUNT DRACULA: Brilliant. Everything I thought you’d be and more. I knew there was a reason I liked you, Mina Harker.

MINA HARKER: What... the hell... was that?

COUNT DRACULA: The first hand in the game we are about to play. Because you’re right. A vampire is less than a man. He is just a mindless monster. Until he’s not. I’m not like that.

MINA HARKER: ... no, you’re not. I’ll grant you there is some... residual human intelligence still in you.

COUNT DRACULA: There’s man in here, not just a beast. How did I do that?

MINA HARKER: ... I don’t know.

COUNT DRACULA: And so we come to the heart of the matter. I don’t have other people like me. I’ve been meaning to do something about that. To... make myself a match. If only I could meet the right person. So here’s the game:

[The Satie piece starts to play again.]

COUNT DRACULA: Can you figure out what it takes to turn someone into a thinking vampire... before I’m done doing it to you? If you do... you go free. If you don’t, you stay at my side. Forever.

MINA HARKER: No, this is - why would you tell me this? Why give me a chance at all?

COUNT DRACULA: Because I want to know that I’m right about you, Madame Harker. And I want you to understand one thing:

[He lunges at her with inhuman speed, snarling. When he speaks, his voice is low and deadly:]

COUNT DRACULA: Death is my mercy. Death is the great, long peace I grant. If you think the choice before you is as kind as death now or death later... you are severely lacking in imagination.

[He releases her. Mina gasps.]

COUNT DRACULA: Mr. Hennessey?

[A door opens.]

COUNT DRACULA: Would you take Madame Harker back to her cell? And... bring her a warm meal. Some fresh clothes. Maybe a bar of soap. She’s been... brilliant today.

MR. HENNESSY: Yes, sir.

[Mr. Hennessy speaks with a low, blunt tones of a very large brute.]

[A shuffle as he starts to take Mina away.]

COUNT DRACULA: Actually... a single might not be the thing for Madame Harker. Let’s transfer her to one the inhabited cells. Put her in with... tut, tut, tut, Ms. Renfield, if you’d be so kind?

[More horrible wailing through the walls, then the sound of a heavy cell door opening and closing.]

MINA HARKER: I was taken to my new cell, to meet... my new companion.

[R.M. Renfield is an older woman. She speaks in a sharp, manic tone, and her voice is raspy and weak. At the moment, she is having a coughing fit. After she finishes:]

R.M. RENFIELD: Who are you? Come! Quickly now, who are you?!

MINA HARKER: Mina - Mina Harker.

R.M. RENFIELD: Mina Mina Mina Harker. Yes. No. Wait. Is it Mina or is it Harker?

MINA HARKER: What? It - it’s either, whichever -

[Renfield has another coughing fit.]

MINA HARKER: Are - are you okay? What’s — what’s wrong?

R.M. RENFIELD: Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s wrong. Heh. My lungs are charcoal, haven’t been right for half a decade. You save yours. Harker, you said?

MINA HARKER: Yes, Harker.

R.M. RENFIELD: Good. Good. Well. [Clears her throat.] It’s nice to meet you. I’ve heard about you. He, uh, he speaks about you.

MINA HARKER: ... He? You mean, Count Dracula? All right, uhh, then. Great. I’ll... just sit here -

R.M. RENFIELD: NO! Not there! You’ll disturb them.

MINA HARKER: Disturb the...?

R.M. RENFIELD: The flies. Little lives, all in a row. I collect them. I collect lives. Little ones first. Then bigger ones. The way he - he does.

MINA HARKER: ... I see. Right. I need to get out of here. At once.

[The scene transitions to the familiar fireplace of the frame story.]

COUNT DRACULA: How long were you there? All told?

MINA HARKER: I was there... for two years, a month, three weeks, and six days. The treatment could be... humane. When you wanted. Clean clothes. Blankets on the bed. Food that was only... slightly spoiled. That’s when you were pleased with me.

COUNT DRACULA: And when I wasn’t pleased?

MINA HARKER: Things were harsher.

[Distorted, we hear the sound of someone screaming underwater, as well as a blast of electricity. It fades away quickly.]

MINA HARKER: But you were happy at first. Thrilled you could play your little game.

[The sound of the fireplace fades away, replaced by the Satie piece once again.]

[A book is dropped and lands on the surface of a desk.]

MINA HARKER: What is this?

COUNT DRACULA: Saint Walpurga’s writing on matters of the occult. Bit of light reading for my favorite patient.

MINA HARKER: I’ve read many books on the subject of vampires already.

COUNT DRACULA: Not like these you haven’t. Hehe. Not like the kind we have in the old world. [A pause.] Well, fine, if you don’t want to read it -

MINA HARKER: Wait, wait. I... I didn’t say that.

COUNT DRACULA: You want to know, don’t you?

MINA HARKER: I’ll confess to some... professional curiosity. The sooner I know how you happened, the sooner I can make sure nothing like you ever happens again.

COUNT DRACULA: Welcome to the game.

MINA HARKER: Let’s... iron out the rules, then. If we’re playing. I’m allowed books. What about questions?

COUNT DRACULA: Some questions. Yes.

MINA HARKER: Very well. This process... does the subject... is it necessary to - ?

COUNT DRACULA: Are you asking me, Madame Harker, if you still have to die? Maybe. Maybe not.

MINA HARKER: That is not an answer.

COUNT DRACULA: It is all the answer I’m inclined to give you. I never said I’d play fair.

MINA HARKER: Very well... how long does it take? On average?

COUNT DRACULA: It varies. It depends on how... stubborn the subject is.

MINA HARKER: What happened to you? How did you die, Count Dracula?

[In the distance, distorted, we hear a wolf howl.]

COUNT DRACULA: Hmmph. That... would be telling. And that’ll be all, Madame Harker. I do have other patients to attend to. And you have some reading to do. Actually... have one more book.

[A drawer opens.]

COUNT DRACULA: The last journal of Jonathan Harker. See what you find in there that might be of use to you.

[The heavy cell door opens and closes. Renfield coughs and mutters.]

[The lock on the door slams shut.]

R.M. RENFIELD: Harker? Are you back, Harker? Oh. I see. I see. He gave you books. I wish he would give me sugar, they would like it so much. My flies. This looks like a journal - can I take that one for - ?

MINA HARKER: NO! Don’t!

[Renfield jumps back. After a moment:]

R.M. RENFIELD: All right, Harker. It’s all right. They’re your books. I won’t touch. My flies won’t touch. You’ll be all right.

MINA HARKER: No, Renfield, I don’t think I will be. I, uhh, I think I am in very far over my head this time...

[Mina exhales slowly.]

R.M. RENFIELD: Life’s the key. Little flies, little lives everywhere. Big lives where they matter. We can take them in. Like he does, but different. You have family, Harker? Little lives around yours?

MINA HARKER: My parents died in a fire when I was five. I was sent to live with my grandfather. Professor of Anthropology and Theology. A lot of people said he was too important to be running after some orphan girl. But he took me in. He was... uncompromising. He didn’t care what anyone thought. He did what he wanted. And he studied the things that he thought were important. And when something is important you just... you do it. That’s what he was like.

R.M. RENFIELD: And he is gone now?

MINA HARKER: He passed away years ago. He’s gone. Like Jonathan is gone. And Lucy’s gone. I’m very alone now.

R.M. RENFIELD: No, no, no. Not alone. You have me. And the flies.

[Mina laughs a small, overwhelmed laugh.]

MINA HARKER: God, I must be going mad.

[The scene fades to the fireplace from the frame story.]

MINA HARKER: Later that night, I finally got to read Jonathan’s account of his time at Castle Dracula. Just as he had once been trapped there... now my time at Carfax began in earnest. We fell into our little routine.

[Music begins, and we go into a montage sequence, moving from space to space as the characters describe them.]

MINA HARKER: Every week, you gave me a new book.

[A book lands on the desk. We hear this sound after every book that Dracula mentions.]

COUNT DRACULA: King James’s Daemonologie. Treatise on the Apparitions of Spirits. The Cin-Caellum. The Hexenhammer. The Lesser Key of Solomon.

MINA HARKER: And every week I had the same answer for you:

MINA HARKER: I don’t know.

COUNT DRACULA: That’s a shame, Madame Harker. Let’s give it another week, then. Hmm?

MINA HARKER: Sometimes life was almost tolerable. Other times...

[A shock of electricity. Mina cries out in agony.]

COUNT DRACULA: I was less courteous.

MINA HARKER: I heard things, as I was led throughout the asylum. From the attendants.

MR. HENNESSY: That old geezer in Cell 214 finally kicked it, huh? What’s he marked for, grounds or chapel? Grounds, right. Bag him. Let the grave keeper know. Get him in a box, get him in the Earth. Quick.

[The cell door clangs shut.]

MINA HARKER: In time, my cellmate rose to higher ambitions.

[Renfield coughs.]

R.M. RENFIELD: Look, Harker! Spiders. I collect spiders now. Aren’t they pretty? They ate the flies. All those little lives, into a bigger life, a bigger life...

[Mina moans, feeling weak and pained.]

MINA HARKER: And every so often I’d see my hands shake. I’d feel lightheaded. You were feeding on me.

COUNT DRACULA: I was feeding on a lot of people. But... yes. You were irresistible.

MINA HARKER: So I kept getting weaker. And you were getting stronger. And cleverer. But you know what was the worst part?

[A bowl is pushed along the ground.]

MINA HARKER: Renfield, what are you doing? That’s your breakfast.

R.M. RENFIELD: No, no, no. You are weak. He... he took your life, didn’t he? In the night. He took it away. Very rude. And life is the key. You need to get yours back. So take of my life.

MINA HARKER: Kindness. Even in this nightmare you’d fashioned... there was kindness to be found.

[The fireplace from the frame story.]

COUNT DRACULA: And you tried to escape. Three times, you tried.

MINA HARKER: And three times I was caught. January of 1894.

[A rustle of fabric.]

MR. HENNESSY: Caught her trying to scale the south wall, sir.

COUNT DRACULA: Throw her in solitary. Two weeks.

MINA HARKER: Hmmph. September of 1894.

[Another rustle.]

MR. HENNESSY: Tried to smuggle herself out in the laundry, sir. It was a near thing.

COUNT DRACULA: Solitary. Half rations. A month.

MINA HARKER: And February of 1895.

[Mina is thrown on the ground.]

MR. HENNESSY: She got Mr. Donaldson with one of the cooking trays. Very nearly fought her way out.

COUNT DRACULA: Forty-five days. Solitary. And... hmm, oh, break one of her legs.

MR. HENNESSY: Hmm.

[There’s a horrible snapping sound, followed by Mina crying out in pain.]

MINA HARKER: It took nearly six months to heal. I was... less eager to make an attempt during that time. And so, days became weeks...

R.M. RENFIELD: It’s life... the key is life...

MR. HENNESSY: Take that one down to the chapel...

COUNT DRACULA: Tick tock, Madame Harker...

MINA HARKER: Weeks became months...

COUNT DRACULA: You’re going to make an excellent companion...

R.M. RENFIELD: Many little lives, one big life...

COUNT DRACULA: Have one more book…

MINA HARKER: And months... became two years.

[The now familiar distorted wailing rings out, then stops, replaced by the fireplace from the frame story.]

COUNT DRACULA: And then... suddenly, it happened. What changed? What was different that day?

MINA HARKER: It wasn’t just one thing. It was... reading everything. Being around you. Hearing Renfield mutter about life, what matters is life. It was... two years of hell. That’s what it was. You’d had brought me up to your study again...

[The scene fades away. A door opens.]

COUNT DRACULA: Sorry, bit behind on the intake work. The more you do of it, the more there is to do...

MINA HARKER: I feel for you in this difficult time.

COUNT DRACULA: You know, Madame Harker... I sense that you aren’t taking matters between us seriously. It’s like your heart’s not in it.

[The Satie piece plays again, but now oddly distorted.]

MINA HARKER: Hmm, hmm… You want me to take this seriously? Fine. But in exchange, I want a three course French meal, some actual medical attention for Renfield, and a pony. You know, she actually tried to eat a bird yesterday. A bird.

COUNT DRACULA: You’re stalling, Madame Harker.

MINA HARKER: I don’t know! I just don’t know what makes someone turn into a vampire and retain its humanity. I don’t know which parts of the last two years have been to kill me and which ones have been to preserve my mind into death and which ones are just for your own amusement! I don’t know and the answer isn’t in these books!

COUNT DRACULA: There are mentions in the books of other creatures like me - intelligent vampires, thinking vampires.

MINA HARKER: Pfft! Passing mentions, in a sea of myth and allegory. Momentary references to a vampire that was a warlord or one who masqueraded as a priest. What am I supposed to do with that?

COUNT DRACULA: I want you to be brilliant, at least before I -

MINA HARKER: Before you kill me, yes. Well, I’m so sorry, but I have nothing for you. A vampire rises from the grave. He is a feral, mindless creature. He kills others, steals their humanity by drinking their blood. Robbed of what made them human, they rise as vampires themselves, and from there the virus spreads. How you add a working mind into that cycle is beyond me! Honestly, the only thing that makes even remote sense would be if - [A thunderstruck pause.] If… If... oh. Well, that would... I mean, you couldn’t do that because then... you would...

COUNT DRACULA: I would... what, Mina Harker? Why wouldn’t it work?

MINA HARKER: ... oh my god. [Laughs.] You... don’t know, do you? You don’t know how... you became a vampire and retained your humanity, do you? The whole point of this hasn’t been can I stop you from doing it to me... it’s been about me figuring it out for you.

COUNT DRACULA: Very good, Madame Harker. Brilliant work. I knew you had it in you. And now... you are going to tell me.

MINA HARKER: I am going to to do no such thing.

[He grabs a book and flips through its pages.]

COUNT DRACULA: Yes, you are. Because you can either tell me what you’ve discovered, or... I can take what’s in your head through your blood. And then I can go to Oakwood Manor.

MINA HARKER: You can go... where?

COUNT DRACULA: Oh, you don’t know Oakwood Manor? It’s a lovely estate, just south of London. Home of a fine young man who just inherited his father’s title of Lord Godalming. He lives there, with his newborn son, and his lovely, lovely wife... an American he met while abroad. Did you really think she was safe? The Atlantic isn’t that big. I very nearly made arrangements to go to London, you know, instead of New York. I expect I’ll be just as happy there... right after I turn everyone at Oakwood Manor into my new family.

[A snarl and he has her by the throat.]

COUNT DRACULA: Or you could spare your friend by simply telling me what you know! Tell me and I will -

[There’s a flesh-y, tearing sound. He screams in sudden, unexpected pain.]

[The scene fades, replaced by the fireplace of the frame story.]

COUNT DRACULA: You bit me. You bit into my neck. What in the hells possessed you to do such a thing?

MINA HARKER: Oh, you know. Complete and utter panic. And... I wanted to see what would happen. Call it... an experiment.

COUNT DRACULA: You were fierce. You broke the skin. And you drank my blood. You were out cold. For a few hours. Then...

[The scene fades away, replaced by a strange, distorted sound, as if we were underwater. Suddenly, Mina wakes, ending the distortion. She coughs.]

MINA HARKER: Good God.

COUNT DRACULA: That was a very foolish thing to do, Mina.

MINA HARKER: What?

COUNT DRACULA: The wound will heal. In time. With enough blood. But if you think -

MINA HARKER: The boxes of dirt. The ones you brought to America, the ones you have to rest in. You’re keeping them down in the asylum’s chapel. Hah.

COUNT DRACULA: What did you just say?

[Mina takes a deep breath. Smacks her lips.]

MINA HARKER: Oooh... Interesting. Huh. Your blood... now there’s a bit of your life in me.

[Dracula laughs, unnerved.]

COUNT DRACULA: It’s... it’s a clever trick. But if you think you can unbalance me -

MINA HARKER: Who’s Maria? Her name. I can taste it. Over and over again. She was someone to you. Who was - ?

[Impossibly fast, Dracula’s on her. He hits her and she falls to the ground. She cries out in pain and coughs a bit, but still - she laughs.]

MINA HARKER: Touched a nerve, huh, doctor?

COUNT DRACULA: Congratulations, Madame Harker you are officially too clever. By half. But don’t worry, I won’t waste your blood on a quick death. MR. HENNESSY!

[A door opens.]

COUNT DRACULA: Take this... filth back to her cell. And clear the schedule for the operating room tomorrow. I think we have... [Takes a deep breath.] I think we have an emergency lobotomy to perform.

[The heavy cell door clangs shut.]

MINA HARKER: Once this filth had been taken back to her cell, the reality of the situation began to sink in.

[Renfield coughs. It goes on for longer than it ever has before.]

MINA HARKER: Renfield… Renfield?

R.M. RENFIELD: I’m okay, Harker. Don’t worry about me.

MINA HARKER: Hah. I have to admit, it’s not just you I’m worried about at the moment.

[A rustle of paper.]

R.M. RENFIELD: What are - what are you reading, Harker?

MINA HARKER: My husband’s journal. I... miss him. It’s... a shame. There was still a third of the journal left to go. He never got to use it.

[She flips through some pages.]

MINA HARKER: Wait...

MINA HARKER: I’d never flipped the journal to the end. All the way to the end. Not to the last entry. But to the last page. And there, I found it.

JONATHAN HARKER: My darling Mina. I’m afraid I’m going to break at least one promise I made to you - I don’t expect I’ll be able to return home. Though our time together was shorter than I’d have liked... I loved you. Even if it wasn’t always what you wanted, I loved you. And I loved that you never let anyone make you less than you were. And I know you never will. All my heart, Jonathan.

[Mina breathes for a few moments.]

MINA HARKER: Renfield... Renfield, listen to me. I have to find a way out of here.

R.M. RENFIELD: Good. Go. You don’t belong here.

MINA HARKER: I think... I need your help for that, my friend. Quite a lot of help.

R.M. RENFIELD: My help? My help? What — Ohhh. Life. You need life. Of course.

MINA HARKER: Renfield, I’m not sure you understand.

R.M. RENFIELD: No, no! I understand. I wondered if you’d ask. I’m not — I do know, Harker. I only have a little life.

[Renfield coughs again.]

R.M. RENFIELD: But it goes to one big life. You have a big life to lead, Harker. So — your plan, will it work?

MINA HARKER: I think so. I think I can make it.

MINA HARKER: She smiled at that. She gestured at herself. And then at me.

R.M. RENFIELD: Then that’s easy. It’s all life.

[The cell door swings open.]

MINA HARKER: Renfield died that night. She swallowed one of the birds she had caught whole. She choked on it. I pounded on the cell door until one of the attendants came.

[Cloth is wrapped around a body.]

MINA HARKER: They placed her in a cloth bag, and went to find the grave-keeper.

MR. HENNESSY: Let’s see... R.M. Renfield... it’s grounds for this one.

MINA HARKER: By the time the grave-keeper came, it was so late I was asleep. Nothing stirred in my bed as they took the body away.

[Nails are pounded into the lid of a coffin.]

MINA HARKER: They put her in a box. They took her to the grounds. And then...

[A shovel dumps dirt onto a coffin. After a moment we start to hear it from the interior of the coffin.]

MINA HARKER: They buried her.

[We hear various shovel-fulls of dirt hit the lid of the coffin. Then… silence.]

[Followed by a deep breath.]

MINA HARKER: Well... before the grave-keeper came by... I may have switched around our places. They found her in my bed the next morning.

[Mina takes a deep breath.]

MINA HARKER: All right. Time to see if I can actually do this.

[With a grunt of effort, she kicks the lid of the coffin. Then she does it again. A third time. Wood breaks and dirt falls into the coffin.]

MINA HARKER: Good. That’s the lid broken. Easy. Conserve the air.

[With more grunts of effort, she kicks again. And again.]

MINA HARKER: All told... it took me six hours. It was seven in the morning when I broke through the ground.

[The comforting buzz of insects in the early morning. Dirt parts and Mina falls on the ground. She cries out in alarm and relief.]

MINA HARKER: And for the first time in two years... there was sky above me.

[Mina laughs and sobs.]

[The scene fades to the frame story fireplace.]

COUNT DRACULA: It took some time for the attendants to realize what had happened. The search didn’t begin in earnest until that afternoon.

MINA HARKER: By that point, I was long gone.

COUNT DRACULA: I searched. I was desperate to get you back. But there were no leads, no trace of you. I half-hoped you’d drowned trying to swim across the river.

MINA HARKER: You were wrong.

COUNT DRACULA: I was wrong. Because three months after you left Carfax...

[A massive, violent blast. Fire burns around us.]

COUNT DRACULA: The explosion hit. It let loose half the patients. It killed seven of attendants.

MINA HARKER: And it burnt the chapel down.

COUNT DRACULA: And with it... my boxes of dirt. In the distance... through the flames. I saw you. And I knew. It was Judgment Day.

[The main theme for Dracula: The Danse Macabre begins to play. Over it, we hear:]

ANNOUNCER: This has been Dracula: The Danse Macabre, created by Gabriel Urbina. Tonight’s episode was written by Gabriel Urbina and directed by Sarah Shachat. Based on the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. Starring Evangeline Young and Peter Coleman. Featuring original music by Alan Rodi and sound design by Jeffrey Nils Gardner. Tonight’s episode also featured Gnossiene #1 by Erik Satie. Script editing by Sarah Shachat. Recorded by Robby Schwartz at Soho Recording. This has been a Long Story Short Production. Thank you for listening.

The End of the Show

GABRIEL URBINA: Hello again dear listeners, and welcome back to the end of the show. This is Gabriel Urbina, the creator of Dracula: The Danse Macabre and the writer for the episode you just heard, and if you're still listening, maybe you'll let me steal just one more minute of your time for three quick things. It’ll be really fast, okay? Let’s get started!

Thing number one: if you are enjoying the show so far, why not rate and review it? It only takes a second, you can do it in all sorts of places and all sorts of platforms, and it really helps us to bully the algorithm that control the Internet into showing our show to other people who might really enjoy it. So that's a win for you, a win for us, a win for listeners everywhere, there’s no reason not to do it.

Thing number two: if you enjoyed this free hour of content and thought it was worth, say, half the price of a movie ticket? We'd love to have that half of a movie ticket. As I've said before, this whole show has been paid for by a grant from… well, my bank account, and every listener contribution that we get help us make more free content that'll be available to everyone. If you really want to help, the best way to do that is to sign up for a recurring contribution over at patreon.com/gabrielurbina - and yeah, don’t worry, there's a link to that in the episode description.

Thing number three: if you know anyone that would enjoy this show - anyone that would get a lot out of listening to Mina and Count Dracula's deadly high-stakes chess match - please let them know about the show. We've really been blown away by how many people have already discovered The Danse Macabre, but we'd love to get as many people as possible tuning in ahead of our season finale in two weeks.

Okay, that's it for the end of the show. I'll be back in the feed next week to tell you about another show that I think you should be listening to, and then we'll have our big season finale the week after that. So from everyone on the cast and crew: thank you, thank you, thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you back here on Christmas Day for our big finale: The Bride of Dracula.