A chronicle of the Great Death of Wisborg in the year 1838 A.D.
Nosferatu! Does not this name sound like the very midnight call of Death?
Speak it not aloud, or life's pictures will turn to pale shadows, and nightmares will rise up to feed on your blood.
I have long meditated on the rise and fall of the Great Death in my home town of Wisborg.
Here is the story: In Wisborg there lived a man called Hutter with his young wife Ellen...
"Why have you destroyed them - the beautiful flowers?"
"Not so hasty, my young friend! No one escapes his destiny."
There was also a house agent called Knock, a strange man, and the center of much gossip. One thing was sure: he paid his people well.
"Count Orlok - His Grace - from Transylvania - wants to buy a beautiful house - in our little town..."
"You could make a nice bit of money."
"You will have a marvellous jorney - What matter if it costs you a bit of pain - or even a little blood?"
"He wants a handsome deserted house..."
"That house - just opposite yours. Offer him that!"
"Leave at once, my young friend. Have a quick journey into the land of phantoms!"
"I may be away for several month, dear Ellen, away in a country of ghosts and robbers."
Thus Hutter gave the grief-stricken woman into the care of his friends, the rich shipbuilder Harding and Ruth, his sister.
"Do not fear."
From relay to relay, through the dust raised by the stages, Hutter hurried on until the peaks of the Carpathian mountains loomed up ahead.
"My dinner - quickly - I must hasten to Count Orlok's castle!"
"You must leave now! The evil spirits become all-powerful after dark!"
The Book of the Vampires
From the seed of Relial came the vampire Nosferatu which liberty and feedeth on the blood of mankind and abideth,
unredeemed, in horrible Darkness, on the cursed earth from the graveyards of the Black Death.
Nosferatu, a name that ringeth like the cry of a bird of prey. Speak it not aloud!
"Drive on! The sun is setting!"
"We will go no further! Not for a fortune!"
"We will go no further! Here begins the land of the phantoms!"
And when he had crossed the bridge, the phantoms came to meet him.
"You are late, young man. It is almost midnight. My servants have all retired."
"Blood! Your precious blood!"
"Shall we stay up together for awhile? It is a long time until sunrise during the day, my friend, I truly sleep the deepest sleep."
As soon as the sun rose Hutter felt himself freed from the shadows of the night.
Dearest Ellen! Do not grieve because your beloved is far away...
...the mosquitoes are reals pests. I have been stung at the neck by two at once, very close together, one on each side...
One's dreams are heavy in this deserted castle, but do not fear...
With twilight the empty castle came alive again with menacing shadows.
"Your wife has a beautiful neck..."
"I shall take the house - the handsome deserted house opposite yours..."
From the seed of Relial came the vampire Nosferatu which liveth and feedeth on the blood of mankind and abideth,
unredeemed, in horrible Darkness, on the cursed earth from the graveyards of the Black Death.
At night said Nosferatu sinketh his fangs into victim and feeds on the blood that constitues his hellish elixir of life.
At the same hour...
"Ellen!"
"Fetch a doctor...a doctor!"
"Thomas!!!"
"A harmless blood condition!"
The doctor described Ellen's anxietes as if the had been trifles. But I know that in that night her soul had heard the call of death.
Already, Nosferatu was raising his wings. And Hutter, far away, had heard her cry of warning.
"Ellen! Ellen!"
The raftsmen little suspected what terrible cargo they carried down the valley.
"The peasants brought him into the hospital yesterday. They said he fell from a mountain. He is still feverish."
"Coffins..."
Nosferatu was on the way, and with him catastrophe approached Wisborg.
Professor Bulwer, who studied the secrets of nature, later told me about it.
The Empusa was chartered and carried his coffins filled with earth.
The ship must set sail this night.
Cargo for Empusa Destination: Wisborg
At the same time, professor Bulwar explained to his pupils the cruelty of carnivorous plants.
Nature's secrets were revealed to horrified eyes.
Is it not... like a vampire!
Already, Nosferatus's drawing near seemed to affect Knock, the house agent.
"The patient who was brought in yesterday has gone out of his mind!"
"Blood is life! Blood is life!!!!"
"And this one..."
"...a polyp with tentacles..."
"Transparent - almost without substance..."
"No more than a phantom..."
"Spiders-"
Ellen was often seen alone among the dunes. Longing for her beloved, she searched the waves and the distant horizon.
One's dreams are heavy in this deserted castle, but do not fear...
I am leaving immediately to return to Wisborg - and to you.
"No I have to get away - reach home by the shortest possible way!"
New Plague Baffles Science
"A sailor has fallen ill below deck. He is talking in a fever."
Like an epidemic it spread over the entire ship. The first sailor who had shown the symptoms was followed by the entire crew into the dark grave of the waters.
In the light of the setting sun the captain and his first mate said farewell to the last of their companions.
"I shall go down! If I haven't come up again within ten minutes..."
The ship of death had a new captain
It is a difficult to imagine how young Hutter, his energies sadly dectimated, managed to surmoung the difficulties of his homeward journey.
At the same time, driven by the fatal breath of the vampire, the vessel moved rapidly toward the Baltic.
"I must go to him. He is approaching!!!"
The Master is coming! The Master is here!"
I have given much thought to the notion that Nosferatu travelled with coffins filled with earth.
Then I discovered that vampires draw their shadowy power from the cursed ground in which they are buried.
"I have examined everything - there is no living soul on board."
Varna-July 12. Crew, apart from myself, the captain-one helmsman, one mate, and five sailors. Departing for the Dardanellas.
2nd day: July 13. One sailor has contracted a fever. Course: SSW. Direction of wind:
3nd day: July 14. Mate has begun to hallicunate, says a strange passenger is below deck. Course:SE. Direction of wind: NE. Volume of wind:3.6
10th day: 22 July. Passed Gibraltar - Panic on board - Three men dead already - mate out of his mind - Rats in the hold - I fear the plague...
"The plague is upon us! Go home! Shut all your windows and doors!"
All citizens are notified that the honourable magistrate of this town prohibits the moving of plague-victims
into hospitals to prevent the plague from spreading through the streets.
Hutter had made Ellen promise not to touch the book which had given him such terrifying hallucinations.
Yet she was unable to withstand its strange fascination.
One can recognize that mark of the vampire by the trace of his fangs on the victim's throat.
"Look! Every night, in front of me..."
Panic seized the people. Who was sick or dying? Who would be stricken tomorrow?
"I shall run over there quickly. I shall get Sievers..."
Wherefore there is no salvation therefrom except that a woman pure in heart were to make the vampire forget the cock's first crowing.
Of her own free will would she have to give him her blood.
The panic-stricken town was looking for a scape-goat. It chose Knock.
"They saw him escape - he strangled his keeper!"
"He strangled him! The vampire!"
"Bulwer! Fetch Bulwer!"
"Master! Master! Beware!"
"The master...is...dead."
"Thomas!"
And the miracle shall be told in truth. At that very hour the Great Death ceased and
the shadow of the empire vanished as if overcome by the victorious rays of the living sun.
The End