You can see him sitting there, in his cell. He's taken to the corner on the bed, just beside the window, where he watches the sunrise and fall, and the moon shine the night. He looks at you, and immediately you can feel what he's feeling in that moment. You thought it was just because he was so expressive, you thought it was because you were so sympathetic towards him, you thought it was because he didn't know how to control his emotions. It never even occurred to you that it could have been something more, something far greater. He looks at you, as you push your glasses up, and then you look at him, immediately feeling his curiosity, it is so child like it makes you smile. You take off your glasses and hand them through the cell bars.
"Do you want to see them?" you ask him.
He is cautious, crawling to the edge of his bed and reaching out for the glasses then quickly recoiling back into his corner. You smile as he investigates them, breathes on them, wipes them, tries them on. You laugh and he pushes the glasses up with his finger as he saw you do.
He smiles at you, and you're washing in deep gratitude and contentment. Such a small action, so greatly appreciated. He hands them back to you, staying at the edge of the bed this time.
"You're the master here?" He asks. "The doctor?"
"Yes, my name's Jack Seward."
"Jack." He repeats "Jack Seward."
He whispers them again, as if examining your name, each letter, each syllable, each sound, as if there is something more in them. As if there is something he can learn from you just from your name. He nods, and smiles.
"I'm here to help you." You say.
He smiles a different smile, one that says "you can't help me," one that smiles and is amused at even your offer. He must find it cute you're going to try and help him. Still you think nothing of it.
"Help me…" He seems to be asking, calling, but he's just reciting on your words.
He's a strange little patient isn't he? The nurses say the police brought him from the Abbey just over the fence. They say he was covered in blood, and the police had to beat him to come here. They had to sedate him and wash him, clean his clothes and everything to make him presentable for you. He sits across from you, looking at you, no longer satisfied with your words but now he stares into your eyes. He looks like a sane man, and if he was always quiet he could probably pass in the public as one. But you know better than that, you're a great doctor, you help the weak and the sick. You know under that content smile is a madman.
"And what's your name?" You ask.
"My name?" He seems confused for a moment.
He collects himself and laughs at himself. He wipes his hair, and looks back up at you.
"My name is Renfield." He says with little pride.
"Renfield…?"
"R. M. Renfield."
"What do the R and M stand for?"
He smiles a big smile and covers his mouth, looking away. You lean back in your chair, and know he's not going to tell you. You don't go any further, this is your first meeting, it shouldn't be an interrogation. You want to befriend this madman so h can trust you, so he can allow you to help him.
He looks at you again, smiling, staring at you, into your eyes. He looks as if he's trying to look into your soul, pierce the irises of your eyes to see into your mind. You're fixed on him, as he is to you, and then from nowhere his arm is stretched out, and there's a fist. He looks at his hand and you look at his hand. Slowly he opens it to reveal a dying fly.
He takes it up to his mouth, staring at you, then the fly, and licks it off his hand, swallowing it whole.
"You want to help me, fix that?" He asks innocently, and you nod.
He nods and scratches his chin as if thinking about something very big. He goes over to the window, stopping at where the sunlight reaches the shadows. Slowly he reaches his hand into the sun, and laughs loudly. He then jumps into the sun's shine, and looks again at you. He seems so happy, so amused by you. You think of it as just madness.
"I think this is the beginning of a very interesting relationship." He says. "I anticipate you're going to be my one connection to humanity. I'm too interesting, too new for you to share with anyone else? I feel the same about you, Doctor."
It was a strange comment, but you thought little of it. How foolish you were then, how foolish you are now. It should have been obvious his connection to his Master, his deterioration of his contentment as Dracula arrived on your shores. How he continued and continued to fall from his sanity, the mask of humanity was slipping, his mad laughter broke through his wall. It should have been obvious to you. He tried to warn you, and you know it. He liked you, he liked Lucy, he liked Mina, he liked all of you. You must have been the one kind soul he had ever known, and you just ignored him, dismissed him like he was nothing. He tried to tell you of Dracula, of his Master. He tried to save you all.
He died for it.
And still you're being so foolish. Doctor Seward, the foolish doctor who fought a great evil. The months have gone by and have become years. You have looked around his cell in all the time, you couldn't bear to, you could smell the blood, the remnants of Dracula. The nurses cleaned and cleaned and still you can feel it, still you can smell it. You haven't let anyone else in his cell, and finally you enter, and there's dust everywhere. You look around and see a book peaking out from under the mattress. You pull it out, it is large and thick, and filled with broken pages.
How foolish you were to assume it. The horror fills you as you open the first page and see the date, "March 27, 1649." You don't even have to read further, it suddenly strikes you, and fills you with grief.
"How foolish you were, doctor." You can hear him saying, laughing at you in that mad way.
How foolish you were to assume that the slave of Dracula was mortal.
Your heart suddenly sinks, as you realize the man you thought of as lesser than human, was in fact over a hundred years old, perhaps older. That Renfield was not a man or a monster, he was something else, something between a mortal and an immortal, something between good and evil. You thought of him as a patient, he must of seen you as so small. He must have lived lifetimes, and even if he was insane he must have had the depth and intelligence to understand the passing time. He must have seen you as so small, a small little life that will only last a few decades, when he would go on. He must have seen you as just a bunch of organs in a sack of flesh about to decompose at any moment.
Oh God, what he must have known, and thought. What Dracula must have done to him all those lifetimes.
How foolish of you, to think he was as small as you.
You flip the pages, wanting to find something, anything. You go to the last page, the subject entitled "To the Doctor, or Anyone." And you read on.
"I believe this will be my last entry of hundreds and perhaps thousands. I started this history long ago on feather pens and scrolls, then I moved onto books like this one. I'm afraid the rest of my collection is back home in Transylvania, Master said I could only pack so much, so I could only bring this one journal. Anyway, yes, back to the point. I'm going to die tonight, I believe. I hope in a way. I don't want you to worry, doctor, if you're reading this, I've been expecting this night and this death for centuries."
You stop, it is difficult to read.
"I only wish to thank you, doctor, for all the things you did for me while we were together. It is true I haven't been shown much of the modern world, back home Master is very strict ever since that incident a while ago. I was shocked when he commanded me to leave his side, to come here, to England, to invite him into this foreign land. I had never been ten steps away from him you see, until the day I left for England. I had a month to myself where I saw plays and everything. I had steak, nearly raw steak, and it was delicious. This modern world, so beautiful, so bright at night, I can hardly see the stars. I'm rambling, I'm running out of ink I should stop. Thank you, doctor, really. I'm sorry for any stress I caused you, I'm sorry I could straight forward tell you what was happening, and I'm sorry this attempt to save you is going to fail. Thank you for all your kind words, and good intentions, you are an amazing person, and really should stop it with the morphine. Take it from me, I have seen many men over the years, men don't really change. But then again, I haven't seen much of modern men. And don't worry, if I had to choose how to live my last months here in England, I would choose to be in this Asylum and be your patient. I would change nothing, I have no regrets, no remorse.
Good doctor, I feel as though I should give you some advice I have, something that will sum up all my life's experiences and actually teach you something. I'm sorry but the words escape me, I have no small sentence to tell you, no amazing revelations about life. I know nothing of death, or life. I can only tell you, do not be sad. There are too many things to be happy for to be sad. It's selfish to be sad.
I'm going to die tonight. I know it. Master knows it. He's going to come in here and I'm going to try and stop him, and fail, and he will kill me. I know this. It's this moment, that moment when I'm dead, that I've been stuck in for decades. I've been dying all this time, dying and now I finally die. This is destiny. Do not mourn, do not weep for what must be left of my soul. There is nothing I can do, nothing you can do, nothing you could have ever done. Do not be sad.
I'm not.
P.S. Oh I would have loved to have my last words to you be "I'm not," but I'm sorry I have to insist and tell you more. Please read the rest of this journal, I know you out of anyone would appreciate them. In them I suppose is a history of my life, as well as some of my Master's. Oh forgive me, but never mind. Not my Master, Dracula, Dracula, Dracula. Vlad Tepes Dracula. Anyway, you'll like the journal I'm sure, give it to Van Helsing because he'll like it as well. Tell Mina I'm sorry."
You stare at it, hearing his voice as you read. He sounds so happy, so cheerful and content, even in his last hours he was happy. You wipe your eyes, and take off those glasses he once wore, the slave of Dracula. You shake your head, and go to the first page, the date "March 27, 1649."
"My name is Renfield." The page says. "I walk the line of life and death, and I stand upon the edge of madness. The story of my life begins in the 1400s…"
You read on.
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Next Chapter Coming Soon.
This is the novelization of my screenplay I entered in a contest and won a scholarship to USC for, and thousands dollars, and meetings with studio producers. I hope you all enjoy it, I could have never done it without you. I feel happy to begin this, because this entire chapter isn't even in the screenplay! I have dramatic license on my own story, I can put in all the details I want, and all the things that just wouldn't work in the script as a movie, but are still beautiful!
I hope you enjoy.