Radcliffe said to his wife: "You know what the truly scary thing about these people is?"
"I can think of several."
"What I had in mind is that there are long stretches when what they're saying and doing almost seems to make sense. Or is it just me? Am I getting brainwashed? Junie, I tell you, minutes go by, even hours, when everything they tell us seems so reasonable, and they don't sound like crazy cultists. I mean Graves has a way of putting things that makes them sound convincing. But if you listen close and think about what he says… especially on that tape…"
June was frowning. "Do you think that all this—all this about vampires and so on—can be only symbolic? I mean that we're not meant to take it literally?"
Phil thought about it. But he didn't have to think very long. "No. No, I don't think that at all."
While cleaning up the remains of another snack—so far the milk and cereal were holding out—the pair conferred between themselves. Now, with several hours of sleep behind them, it seemed at least possible that they would be able to think clearly about their situation, and maybe attain some useful insight.
But anything of the kind eluded them, at least at first.
"Phil, what are we going to do?"
"I don't see what we can do, except watch their silly tape over and over again, and play along with their ideas. Next time we see Graves, we'll have to tell him we've seen the whole tape and we understand it. We're ready to have discussions with him and believe anything he tells us. Meanwhile we look for a chance to get away, though it doesn't seem likely that they're going to give us one."
This time they watched the whole tape, almost three hours of content, all the way to the end, in one continuous session. It was a sobering experience, but when they had completed the chore, they still didn't know what to think. Except that Mr. Graves might know a lot about a great many subjects, but he was no ball of fire when it came to making a media presentation.
Just sitting around and waiting quickly became unendurable. Radcliffe, when he felt reasonably sure that no one was looking, stalked through the house, quietly testing the locks and heavy bars on both doors, then examining the grill-work on all the windows. He discovered no weak points. The only real result was that now, having proven to himself that he was in a small and doubtless not fireproof building with all the exits locked, he began to feel a touch of claustrophobia.
Once or twice, during the morning and afternoon of their second day of confinement, the two were invited out, by two or three of the masked monsters, for a walk. On these occasions they were always closely watched.
June was nagged by the idea that there might be some significance in the identities of the individuals portrayed in the masks most of Graves's assistants had chosen to put on. They were plastic or rubber creations that covered the entire head, Halloween-costume imitations of various imaginary monsters of the Hollywood variety. Both prisoners got the impression that there were more masks than people, suggesting a deliberate attempt at preventing identification, for the same people didn't always wear the same mask.
June could not entirely rid herself of the idea that some deep meaning might be found in the individual choices, and she began to jot down little descriptive notes on all their jailers. Then she decided this was a bad idea, tore up the sheets from the note pad, and burned them in the sink. Phil saw the assumed identities as purely accidental.
Then June turned away from the sink with a quick motion, almost a little jump. "Something just occurred to me."
"What?"
"We've seen Frankenstein and the Wolf Man, right? And the Mummy, if I'm interpreting that funny-looking one correctly. I mean the one who looks like a bad case of sunburn, peeling."
"Right. Plus a whole lot of others who I have no idea who they are. So?"
"Well, it just occurred to me—Count Dracula is missing."
Connie appeared more restless than usual the next time she showed up, around noon on the following day. The gypsy-looking girl made little or no effort to conceal the fact that she found it definitely boring simply to sit around all night and all day, especially when she was forbidden to taste this young breather's blood; she thought there ought to be some fun in this kidnapping business for her.
Then the gypsy girl wistfully asked June how her hair looked. Even as she asked the question, she was twisting the dark curly strands around her finger, pulling them forward while she frowned up toward them with her eyes crossed. "It's not really long enough for me to see."
"Why don't you go and look in the mirror?"
Connie only giggled, as if the idea were somehow painful.
By this time Philip and June had had the idea of vampires thoroughly drummed into their heads by the videotape. Now June asked their visitor point-blank if she was a vampire. Connie answered simply that she was.
The other woman pursued the point. "And when Mr. Graves on the tape talks about a woman named Constantia, who is doing all these things in France, two hundred years ago…"
"Oh, he means me. Oh yes, absolutely." Connie smiled, a cheerful conspirator. "Not that everything he says about me on the tape is necessarily strictly true."
The captives, not knowing how to respond to this declaration, looked at each other. It sounded to them like this girl really believed what she was saying.
"If you're a vampire," Radcliffe proceeded cautiously, "is there some way you can demonstrate the fact—I mean short of actually biting someone and drinking blood?"
"I could, sweetie. Oh, it would be very easy. But Vla… Mr. Graves doesn't want me to do anything like that yet."
Nervously Connie looked around. June was staring at her in an unsettling way. She was also afraid of Vlad's anger, and admitted as much to the prisoners.
Spontaneously Connie added, in the manner of one impulsively giving good advice: "I wouldn't make him mad at me, if I were you."
Graves had never uttered any threats, but Radcliffe found himself in full agreement. "Is he really five hundred years old?" he asked on impulse.
"Just about." Constantia smiled; her look had undertones of wickedness. "I'm years younger than 'Mr. Graves.' " This time she pronounced the name with more than a hint. of mockery.
"Oh?"
With a giggle she delivered her punch line: "Not a day over four hundred and eighty."
June and Phil had gathered from the tape, where the identification was strongly implied, that Mr. Graves and the story character called Vlad Dracula were supposed to be one and the same—now and then Graves, narrating on tape, even slipped into the first person without appearing to notice that he had done so. But like any rational breathers at the end of the twentieth century, the couple had been resisting the idea.
Radcliffe wasn't ready to give up on the subject. "How old is he, then? Really?"
"Oh-oh!" Her long lashes flickered at him flirtatiously. He couldn't tell if the gesture was serious or self-mocking. "You haven't been really studying your videotape, or you'd know."
"That's not true, we have been watching it. I mean really." He looked at June for confirmation.
June nodded vigorously.
"Not the whole thing." Connie was dubious.
"Yes, really." June added her assurance to her husband's. "We've seen it now from beginning to end."
Their visitor shook her dark-curled head, marveling. "You see it and hear it, but you don't believe it." Now Miss Gypsy was about to pout. "We went to a lot of trouble to make that tape. I ran the camera most of the time."
"I didn't know."
"Well, I did. And I know some folk who'd give a million dollars to have it. Even to know half of everything that's on there. You're being given it for nothing and you won't even take it seriously." Now she was really pouting. Maybe, thought Radcliffe, she was perturbed because she thought the tape mentioned her only in a slighting way.