Here is a story treatment that I wrote back in 1994. All Rights Are Reserved. It is called...
VAMPYRE
by
T.J.Hurford
copyright. T.J.Hurford. 1994
This is an environmental story with a difference. It concerns on Count Winterhof. The Count is a distant relation of an infamous central European family.
Count Winterhof is a cruel blood-sucking icicle of a man. A Vampyre. Whereas his cousins all 'live' in Transylvania or deep in the heart of the Amazonian rainforests, Winterhof and his family stay far, far to the North in a frigid tomb of a fortress on an island surrounded almost permanently by Arctic pack-ice on the Northern coast of Russia.
You might think that the Count has little upon which to feed but you would be wrong. There are tiny hamlets even in this Godforsaken land and the Count and his relations 'farm' them with great care, just as shepherds tend their flocks. The level of misery amongst the local people borders on madness. They cannot escape. Poverty and the great tundra to the South dictate that none may leave this dreadful place. Those that have tried have incurred the displeasure of the Count, though none have returned to tell exactly how that displeasure is shown.
The Count's family are not particularly fussy though they are partial to the occasional virgin. A virgin is a virgin whether they be human, animal or bird and the forests and coasts of their realm are deathly quiet. Only those that can swim beneath the icy water's surface are safe from the hideous puncturing of the Vampyre's needle-like fangs and the loathsome lappings of their tongues when on their nightly rounds they 'milk' the unwary.
The skepticism that has greeted age old tales of Nosferatu far to the South in Eastern Europe has not reached the home of Count Winterhof. There are no tourists here to laugh at the fears of the peasantry. Perhaps the occasional scientist studying the Polar Bear population, but that is all. They are very careful with what few visitors do arrive. These people are, in the main, left completely alone and return to the comfort of their centrally heated apartments in Moskva or Sverdlovsk none the wiser as to the hideous secret that seems to make the people of the Northern coast so reticent and apparently fearful even of their own shadows.
The Winter of 1248 had been a bad one in Transylvania. Not only had there been more snow than anyone could remember with even the rivers freezing solid but there had been an uprising against the ancient family Dracula. Driven from their castle by a mob of garlic-wearing, stick-wielding men, women and even children, few had escaped from the family crypt beneath the ages old hilltop fortress. Few, yes...but some.
For many, many years the heirs to the great Dynasty of the Undead, (the Nosferatu) had roamed the World in search of another home, and, indeed, some had found refuge of a sort in far-flung places. Others, though had never forgotten the ancestral castle deep in the Carpathians and as soon as possible, they had returned. The retribution on local citizens had been swift, brutal and completely merciless. They had once been all but Kings and Queens of Transylvania. Now, time had passed and they were, to all intents and purposes, Gods and they took their tribute with grim and silent pleasure. Ten fold suffering was meted out upon the petrified and cowering descendants of those who had formerly had the temerity to rise against Count Dracula and his family.
It is said that Vampyres must sleep each night upon the soil of their beloved homeland and that, in order to travel, they must needs take some of this poisoned earth with them to line the coffins which they take to use as their day time places of refuge. Minions of the Dark Lord perform this service; zombies subsumed to 'The Will', their blood tainted by the Count's own. Enough to make them controllable. Enough for them never again to be flattered with the words 'human' and 'alive', but never enough for them to be truly Vampyres themselves. To be a member of the Dynasty you must either be born to it or very occasionally, wedded to the throne.
Most returned to Transylvania yet some did not. One branch of the Family stayed in South America. Another hung on for a while in and around Salem in the United States, and one group had decided to stay in the far North of Russia, above the vast forests near the wintry coast. For these Vampyres, the undead relations of Count Winterhof, the notion that one day they might return to Transylvania was deeply unattractive. Not for them the need to fill a coffin with Carpathian earth. They had long since, through necessity, found an even better substitute; one that kept them deliciously cold during the short sunlight hours and never disappeared whatever the time of day. For ten months of the year it lay in vast unassailable solemnity about their granite fortress....ICE.
The year is 1998. For centuries the Count and his family have existed above the far Northern tundra; exalting in the interminable nights that last for months and which give them time to 'fatten up' for the few short weeks when sunlight rules the wastes and sleep recharges their spirits. Soon it will be Winter again. Their slowly awakening bodies will be able to glut on the human 'sheep' of their domain. Soon....
The Awakening of the Undead this year has come belatedly. The snow and ice are more conspicuous by their absence than presence. The climate is distinctly WARM. True, it remains dark, but the ice is MELTING. Count Winterhof breaks his centuries old habit, and abducts a scientist currently visiting the nearby Arctic Meteorological Research Station. He soon discovers that the ozone layer is thinning above his home. It is a catastrophe. Nobody knows what will happen but change appears already to be irreversible. The Count leaves his victim, a beautiful young American student to rest. He will question her further soon. It is not his wish to suck her dry and so he has only partaken of a brief drink. She is tainted, but alive. Unfortunately for the Count, the nights are not yet endless and he must repair to his icy black marble coffin for a rest. The girl awakes and, in a daze manages to find her way back to the base. It is her last day and reassuring her Russian colleagues that she is alright even though she cannot remember anything of her disappearance, she leaves by helicopter.
There is a meeting in the Great Hall of the Undead. The Count has decide to go in search of a new home for his family. The girl, too, must be found. There is always the chance she will remember what has happened to her and that would also be calamitous. He needs more information and she will provide it. He prepares to leave. There will be no problem in finding the girl. Once tainted by the lips of the Vampyre, none may remain hidden long from his questing gaze.
The long, low shape of a Russian destroyer, the Admiral Yevtushenko, on a friendly visit from Murmansk to New York slowly entered the harbour. Instead of the cheering crowds who had earlier come to witness this exhilarating example of glasnost, the docks stand empty.
The news reported by the harbour pilot that this is a ghost ship populated only by rats and one lone Russian sailor lashed stone dead to the ship's wheel has cleared the reception area extremely rapidly. There are no explanations though many want some, and quickly.
That night an eerie shape like a gigantic bat is seen briefly, flying above the masts of the quarantined vessel. The only sign in the morning that something might be amiss is an open door to one of the storage lockers. Ice, already melting, is streaming out into the corridors and galleys of the mighty ship.
It has been an uncomfortable day for Count Winterhof. The dockside cold stores of a Jewish sheep importer were adequate but he has spent the daylight hours in the company of thousands of dead animals and this is not what a senior member of one of the oldest aristocratic families on the planet should have to expect. Night would change all that though.
Bernie Sorowitz stared gloomily at the serried ranks of meat carcasses. His Uncle Heimi had sent him down to fetch a dozen for the butcher's shop in the Bronx. "Get them himself, why didn't he?...OY!". He slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand and heaved a carcass off its hook. Outside on the dock the Sun was already setting. Behind him in the gloom a long, black-clad arm, its sinuous be-taloned fingers writhing independently like some obscenely animated bunch of asparagus reached towards one shoulder.
Bernie Sorowitz, former refrigeration engineer and now acolyte of Count Winterhof the Vampyre, staggered beneath the weight of a large piece of white equipment. It had been a very long day but for some reason he did not feel tired. Thirty he had delivered, and all of them to upper storey apartments. The work had been unceasing except for that moment when a man whom he only vaguely recognised had come up to him to speak and then turned hesitantly away as if unsure whether he was who they thought or not. He had shrugged his shoulders, dribbled revoltingly in an uncontrolled way and got on with his job unaware that behind him his Uncle Heimi was staring after him with a puzzled look on his face.
For some reason the Count had been unsuccessful in his search. Marilyn Conrad would not be as easy to find as he had anticipated. New York was a big place. A VERY big place indeed. The Count had never in all his six hundred undead years seen anything like it. He positively dribbled at the thought of all those necks. It would soon be daylight though and with unerring precision, even in an unfamiliar city, he homed in on one of the apartments that his minion, Bernie had spent the daylight hours purchasing and preparing for him.
Count Winterhof was tired. The combined effect of pollution and noise had completely disorientated him. He had partaken of a light snack in the shape of a vegetarian roller-blader in Central Park and was now ready for sleep. He flew in through the open window and searched the gloom for the chest freezer which he had instructed Bernie to place ready for him. Stupid!. Stupid!!. STUPID!!.
It isn't easy to sleep in a refrigerator.
The Count is ANGRY. Bernie pays for his mistake. He is getting weaker and weaker and paler and paler. How was HE to know?.The Count had asked for cold appliances. How was he to know that meant freezers?.. My life.
Marilyn isn't even in New York. She is away visiting her parents in New England.
Count Winterhof is having a very trying time. Instead of spending every night searching for the scientist and trying to find out when and if the Arctic is going to melt, he seems to be spending more and more time instructing Bernie in the proper way to perform his extremely important duties. Last night they had even gone together to an all-night freezer centre and the Count had needed to show Bernie exactly which units to purchase by actually lying in them much to the amusement of the salesman whose laughter had rapidly died away, and I DO mean died.
Now Bernie was too tired to deliver them all in one night and the Count spent the day wrapped in an old raincoat, its myriad pockets stuffed with refreezable plastic blocks from cool boxes, his head neck and face covered by scarves and a large Mexican sombrero. There would be a reckoning that night for the laughter that his appearance had caused on the streets of New York.
Bernie is sent out on his own to track down Marilyn whom he eventually finds and promptly, much to her distress, fall in love with. Marilyn screams every time she sees him loping around bent almost double, his slavering gums dribbling green spittle.
The Count has discovered that in order to get anything done in America you have to be on television. He has, with his peculiar hypnotic powers secured his own all-night show and things are looking up. His family have joined him. He has a huge new house fully equipped with cold storage rooms for their coffins and he has bought out the refrigeration company owned by Heimi Horowitz. Bernie is his new partner and has been turned into a full Vampyre.
Marilyn has changed her mind about Bernie. Suddenly he has turned into a Devilishly handsome, suave, sophisticated young playboy. As sharp as they come and devoted to her. He looks like an Italian gangster, and the way he nibbles her neck is to die for!.
The Winterhofs have a new home, a prime time show dedicated to environmental issues, the saving of the Arctic and the planet's ozone layer. They have a growing 'family' who have yet to realise that immortality can be a right pain in the neck (if it goes on too long), and a huge 'larder' in the shape of New York's unsuspecting population to satisfy their every craving.
Heimi Horowitz has lost a cringing nephew and gained a street-wise punk and the people of the far North of Russia are getting to sleep nights!...
end
