Chapter Text
May 3rd, Victory-Ville.-Left Barstow at 8:35 P.M., on May 1st. I’m due to arrive in Necropolis early tomorrow morning. The train was supposed to arrive at 6:46 but got delayed by an hour. Palmdale seems like a wonderful place all things considered. I would have liked to explore more of it, but I feared going too far from the station, as we had arrived late and started at whatever the nearest correct time would be. The impression that we were leaving civilized NCR territory and venturing into the wild north wasn’t something that was far from my mind. This was a land of wild things, blasted heaths, and monsters.
We left at a decent time and came after night fell in a town called Wall-Ongg.Can’t say that I’m crazy about the Hotel Royale, with it being the only one in the area. A thing made out of various tin trailers that were stacked on top of each other, only kept in place by iron bars. I had to climb a rope ladder to get to my room on the second floor and I had to share with a ghoul who wouldn’t make eye contact with me. The food served in the rudimentary dining hall was good. Some kind of radchicken seasoned with intense spices(mem., get the recipe for Mina.)I asked the chef and he called it “Pollo Asado,” and that it was an old-world dish that was popular throughout the state and parts further south. The chef, Inez, said that it was also popular in settlements further north so I should be able to get it at most farming communities. I found what smattering of Spanish I knew useful here; indeed, I don’t think I would have managed this far without it. I might have been forced to dip into my rations and there’s nothing super appetizing about a meal of month-old brahmin jerky with a corn-nut side dish.
Having had some time at my disposal while in The Boneyard, I had visited the Library, and set out to look among the old books, holotape records, and maps that the Followers had on hand regarding Calistoga; it struck me that having some foreknowledge of the region could hardly fail to have some importance in dealing with a local chieftain. I find that it’s a strange place. An isolated area that is surrounded on multiple sides by great mountains, both those that existed before the bombs and the great new ones that formed because of them. A hamlet completely cut off from the rest of the settlements. Not even connected by the rail line. The Followers and their maps weren’t any help in locating where Castle Dracula sat, I couldn’t find it on local surveys or any of the older records. But, I was able to find an ancient tourist spot, Castello di Amorosa. With that in mind, it was a better start than nothing. I shall enter here with some of my notes, as they may refresh my memory when I talk over my travels with Mina.
In Northern Los Angeles County and areas even further north, the population is made up of the usual suspects. Descendents of the Chinese who fled submarines, but didn’t want to join The Shi; ghouls; lost supermutants without any track in life; descendants of Mexicans and middle-class white people who formed settlements that spoke a rural version of Spanglish. I didn’t know what I would find when I ventured north towards Calistoga and the settlements that surrounded it. It was as if I were at the center of some sort of imaginative whirlpool where the possibilities were endless. (Mem., I must ask the Count about all of them.)
I did not sleep well, though the dirty mattress was comfortable enough, for I had all sorts of queer dreams. The ghoul I shared a room with growled to himself. Digging at his face with his fingernails. He seemed only further agitated by the howling of a dog outside of our window. It was either this or my stomach disagreeing with the Pollo Asando. I had to drink some of the local water and hit myself with half a portion of Radaway. Towards the morning, I slept and was woken up by the continuous pounding at the door. I supposed before then sleep had properly overtaken me. My ghoul roommate had already checked out. Breakfast was more Pollo. There was also a side dish of stir-fried potatoes, julienned jalapenos, and eggplants. The host called it “Disanxian.” (Mem., get the recipe for this also.) I had to hurry though, a rough breaking of my evening fast to catch the train before eight. Or…So I thought. I arrived at 7:30. I then had to wait in the carriage for over an hour before the damn thing began to move. It seemed to me that the further north you went, the less reliable the trains became. What were they like in the bitter north like Portland?
The train seemed to rattle as it snail crawled down the track through the country. Endless flat wasteland giving away to trees, both of the skeletal and overgrown variety. We ran past old farms, abandoned settlements, and isolated homes in the woods. And of course, raider camps who took potshots at the train with rifles. Thank god nobody died, but still. As we went further the abandoned settlements gave away to charming little towns that had slightly better buildings than wooden shacks and trailers. Some of them even looked like pictures from old storybooks. At every station there were groups of people, sometimes crowds in all sorts of attire. Some of them were just farmers wearing brown threadbare jackets and pants held up by a length of rope. Others wore old shorts with hoodies made out of brahmin leather. Some with wide-brimmed hats, vests, and chaps to look like cowboys. There were a few supermutants who wore full-body jumpsuits like janitors, stained with mud or viscera, marking their place in the community as either a builder or a butcher.
It was on the darker end of twilight when we arrived in Vacaville or Victory-Ville, which is an interesting old place. It was one of those frontier towns that rested on the outskirts of The Necropolis. There was a road that cut away from it and up to Calistoga, but it was a path that went up and took a long way through the mountains themselves. A nearly seven-hour trip that cut through horror lands like Bakersfield and Stocks. Victory-Ville also served as an ironic name, having been the setting of multiple raider attacks and fires. Only for the people of it to rebuild from the ashes. Then there’s the usual turf wars and famine that sweep through every settlement at some point or another.
Count Dracula had directed me to go to the Gilded Crown Hotel on the outskirts of the town. He said in his detailed instructions that it was one of the best places to stay in the area. I could find no reason to disbelieve this when I came across it. It was a gorgeous old-world-style motel on the northern edge of the settlement, complete with a yellow neon crown that flickered and glowed on its face. Two stories of stone and wood, perhaps even untouched by the flames of the past. I was greeted in the office on the first floor by an old Mexican woman with a kind face, wearing an ordinary peasant dress and a brahmin leather hoodie. One must be weary of the elderly in the wasteland. To be very old is a sign that you’ve done some terrible things to make it to that age. However, that escaped me because I couldn’t help but see some aspects of my grandmother in her thin, wrinkled face and toothless smile.
“Señor Harker?” she asked.
I replied in my frankly abysmal Spanish and paired it with a nod. She looked at me closely, her friendly smile melting into an expression of concern. She vanished into the back and returned with a letter which bore the signature of The Count.
It was written in English as were his letters to the Lawyer’s office in The Boneyard where I work.
It read as follows:
Dear sir!
Welcome to Vacaville. I am anxiously expecting you. At seven tomorrow evening, the mail train from Fairfield to Salvador will leave. I have booked you a fare on it. I will have my carriage waiting for you on East Travis to bring you to my home. I hope you will not have strained yourself too much during the journey, and that you will enjoy your visit to our beautiful land as you are bound to stay here for both our benefits, and I am your friend,
Dracula.
All of this sounded fine to me. It’s not every day you meet a local chieftain, let alone one who can write. Let alone one who lives in a castle. It was like something out of a fairytale about old Europe but transplanted to California, right on the knife’s edge of the civilized world. He wrote in flawless English with the urbanity of cultivated scholars, while negotiating with solicitors and real estate agents to buy a house in the heart of Angel’s Boneyard. Such a man must be truly remarkable.