James Baquet

Few novels have gripped me with fear like the macabre events of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula.”

London lawyer Jonathan Harker travels to Transylvania to help Count Dracula purchase properties near London. Harker wanders the halls of Dracula’s castle at night, and must be rescued from three vampire women. Dracula soon departs, leaving Harker at the women’s mercy. He barely escapes, ending up delirious in a hospital in Budapest.

Dracula, meanwhile, sails for London, taking along several boxes of earth. The ship’s crew members disappear one by one, leaving only the captain to man the helm. When the ship runs aground in England, the captain sees something like a large dog leap ashore.

Jonathan Harker is engaged to Mina Murray, whose best friend Lucy Westenra chooses a husband from among the three men courting her. But Dracula has other plans, and stalks her after she starts sleepwalking. Mina goes to Budapest to bring home Harker, and a Professor Abraham Van Helsing, who taught one of Lucy’s suitors, knows that Lucy is being drained of blood, and why.

Garlic repels vampires, and Van Helsing places it around Lucy’s room, but her mother unknowingly removes it. Lucy and her mother die soon, and shortly after her death a beautiful woman is seen abducting children. Van Helsing and his team go to Lucy’s tomb and drive a stake through her heart before beheading her.

The now-married Harkers return and join Van Helsing’s campaign against the vampire. But Dracula fights back, using a henchman named Renfield to get to Mina. He half-turns her to vampirism, and the only way she can be saved is if Dracula dies.

Vampires must rest in the earth of their homeland. Van Helsing and his team search out each of Dracula’s properties and one by one neutralize his boxes of earth. He escapes England with his final box, and Van Helsing exploits a psychic connection between Mina and the vampire to track him. Jonathan and the others trap him not far from his castle (where Van Helsing and Mina have destroyed the vampire women) and stab Dracula in the heart. He crumbles to dust, Mina is saved, and the Harkers go on to raise a family.

Vocabulary:

Which word above means:

1. uses for one’s own purposes;

2. gruesome; horrifying;

3. steering wheel of a ship;

4. assistant bad guy;

5. mentally disturbed by illness;

6. pushes away;

7. of the mind;

8. make useless;

9. men hoping to convince someone to marry them;

10. breaks into small pieces

ANSWERS: 1. exploits; 2. macabre; 3. helm; 4. henchman; 5. delirious; 6. repels; 7. psychic; 8. neutralize; 9. suitors; 10. crumbles