Monster

by Dave Zeltserman

  “Almost done, my pet,” Frankenstein grunted as he tugged at the thread. “I do so regret the delay, but obtaining the necessary material was not easy, nor was the labor necessary to build you this new arm. But I do expect it to be as functional as the one I needed to remove. We will see.”

  When he was done he applied more of that foul-smelling balm along the area that had been stitched.

  “This will set us back, of course,” Frankenstein muttered, as if to himself. “A pity. But let us hope this new arm will take. In the meantime, your blood has remained stagnant for too long and we need to get it moving again.”

  He used the hand crank to raise me. After he left, I surprised Charlotte by mouthing words to her.

  What am I?

  A sadness pervaded Charlotte’s features as she realized what I was asking. She attempted a fragile smile toward me.

  You are a gentle soul. I can read that much from your eyes.

  But what of my appearance? What am I outwardly?

  I do not know.

  I begged Charlotte to describe me. Pain squeezed her features for a moment, but then she attempted a whimsical smile.

  You were missing an arm. That has been replaced. But myself, am I not missing a whole body?

  Please, Charlotte, I beg of you. How do I appear?

  You are very large. Let us leave it at that, and please do not make me say any more. Tell me instead of happier days from your life so that both our spirits may be lifted.

  I relented and did not press Charlotte further for details. I told her of how when I first saw my Johanna I was completely enraptured by her beauty, and later how nervous I was when I attempted to work up the courage to first ask her to join me on a Sunday stroll and how my spirit soared when she said yes. I tried to maintain a happy countenance as I related my history to Charlotte, but I was deeply troubled, for how could I trust my memories after the lunacy I had fallen into? The image that I carried of myself was of a man of fair complexion and slight build. That grotesque appendage taken from my body shattered this image. If my body was that of a monstrous creature, then how could I believe my other memories to be true? From words Frankenstein had spoken earlier, he seemed to be of the belief that he created me. If that were true then maybe he had also created the memories contained within me that now seemed so dear. Was it possible that I, Friedrich Hoffmann, never actually existed? And if that were so, is it further possible that my beloved Johanna was also nothing but a figment of my imagination? It was both horrible and joyous to think that that could be the case. Horrible to think that a being as wonderful as my Johanna was never really a part of this world, and that the love and passion that I was so sure I felt toward her was only imaginary. But it was joyous to think that if all this was purely illusionary then the sweet Johanna that existed within my memories never had to suffer the cruel fate that I imagined had befallen her.

  I was so caught up in my thoughts that I failed to notice Charlotte’s expression dimming or the door being opened, and was in the midst of relating a story to Charlotte when Frankenstein appeared in my peripheral vision. Terror filled me with the thought that I had betrayed my secret knowledge to him, and worse, betrayed Charlotte’s confidence, but when Frankenstein laughed out loud I realized that wasn’t the case.

  “Ah, my dear pet,” he exclaimed happily. “You now have the ability to use your jaw muscles. How wonderful! But what are you trying to do to Sophie? Eat her? She is not food, my pet! Or am I mistaken? Are you so bewitched by her beauty that you are trying to enjoy her carnally? I am afraid that too great a distance separates you both for your lips to reach, at least not without my help!”

  Frankenstein giggled to himself, and when he picked up the bowl that Charlotte’s head rested in I thought he was going to bring her to me to force our lips to press. Instead, though, he smiled mockingly at me and placed his index finger on her lips for her to suckle on, all the while giggling in that insidious manner of his. Oh how I despised him and wished that I had regained enough strength to throttle him! But even as I burned in my hatred I was relieved that he had failed to divine the true nature of what he had seen.

  Frankenstein’s giggling ceased. A hardness showed in his eyes as he placed Charlotte on her shelf. Then he turned those cruel eyes toward me, studying me as if I were little more than an insect under a piece of glass.

  “If you have the strength to move your jaw muscle, I wonder what other strength you have recovered? Can you not yet move your fingers, your toes?” he mused softly. “More importantly, I must wonder why you are hiding this from me? Is it simply an animal cunning that has taken over?”

  He pursed his lips as he continued his black-hearted study of me. During it I fought to keep my expression empty so that I might hide my intelligence from him. At last he gave up.

  “Is it that my presence simply leaves you paralyzed with fear, the same as a fox may leave a rabbit?” he queried. “Whatever the reason, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you are regaining your strength, and with luck this new arm that I have crafted will grow to be part of you. And perhaps enough intelligence will develop in your brain so that someday I may learn the truth regarding this curious behavior of yours. We shall see.”

  Frankenstein proceeded to lower me once more. Shortly after he left I heard a low but horrible bellowing noise, as if made by a wild animal with its leg caught in a trap. Only after I later felt a sensation of wetness upon my cheeks did I understand that I was the source of this terrible noise. It was the sound of my own weeping.(tinku)

  CHAPTER 5

  I became familiar with a routine. A dreary and mostly hellish routine. No matter what the human spirit may be confronted with, we appear to possess the capacity for settling into habits so that we may be able to survive our circumstances, no matter how horrific they may be. After seeing the appendage that was removed from me, I had to confront the fact that my being was something other than that of a man, but still, I stubbornly believed my spirit and sentiments to be human.

  Each night Frankenstein would perform his ungodly rituals. During the day I was mostly left alone to contemplate the horrors that had befallen me, with my only respite being when every third day or so I would be raised to a more vertical position. The reason for this, according to my host, was to keep my blood from settling and more rot from occurring, although I suspected Frankenstein also took perverse pleasure in having Charlotte and I face each other. Little could he have suspected that I greatly welcomed the company of Charlotte a fellow creature made equally as miserable as myself. During these brief respites we would converse in our silent manner. While I desperately wished to know what I had become, I made no attempt to extract from her the nature of my appearance. Mostly from Charlotte I received the warmth of human compassion, which was completely absent from Frankenstein, who radiated nothing but mockery and cruelty.

  The appendage that Frankenstein manufactured to replace the one that had decayed successfully attached itself to my body. As the days passed, my strength grew, although what I had was still very little. I did however gain the power to move my neck sufficiently to see more of my surroundings. The room I had been placed in appeared to be a laboratory, with both familiar and unfamiliar medical apparatus cluttering several tables. Enough sensation had also returned to my skin so that I determined that a fabric had been lain across my body. My appearance was still mostly a mystery to me. I lacked even the strength to lift my hands to the necessary height so that I could view them.

  Not once did I sleep. Perhaps this inability was due to Frankenstein’s nightly satanic chanting. Or perhaps sleep was simply a component missing from the form of creature that I resided within. Or it could be simply that my lack of physical activity left me with no compulsion to sleep. There were other normal bodily functions that were absent within me, most noticeably that I did not receive any nourishment or liquids. I wondered about that, for every known species of creature requires nourishment and water to survive, and I had had neither for o
ver forty days. I suspected that the foul ointment Frankenstein applied to me nightly had been seeping into my body and, in some ungodly way, was providing me the nourishment that food and water would normally give.

  As the days passed, Frankenstein’s demeanor grew decisively excited. He scurried about his laboratory, his cheeks flushing a bright pink, all the while remarking that we were soon to be visited by an honored guest. It was late one afternoon when I heard Frankenstein’s voice drifting in from outside of the room, and soon realized he was conversing in French with another man. The two of them must have been in a room adjacent to the one that I was housed in, and I could hear them without much strain through the walls. At first the two men exchanged pleasantries with Frankenstein addressing this other man as “my dear Marquis.” He spoke with a reverence and subservience that seemed unnatural for him. After Frankenstein had expressed his hope that this other man had enjoyed a comfortable journey, his voice nearly tittered in excitement as he commented on the notorious stories he had heard over the years concerning a Rose Keller.

  “Bah!” this other man exclaimed angrily. “They made it out as if I had slaughtered and dismembered a roomful of wenches instead of merely flogging the ass of one particularly opportunistic whore! And the way they treated me. A nobleman. All because of a few welts on the backside of a whore? Enough of that. Victor, must you keep me in suspense much longer? I have been anticipating this creation of yours ever since we began our correspondences and you proposed the idea to me.”

  “I will be keeping you in suspense a while longer for I have another surprise for you. Really only a novelty, but one that I believe you will find of interest.”

  The door to the laboratory opened and Frankenstein entered moving in an excited pace. I dared to lift my head high enough to spot him, but he was too eager in his intentions to notice. Near breathless, he raced to where Charlotte rested and took hold of the bowl that she was within. He exited the room while carrying the bowl in one hand and stroking her scalp with his other. From beyond I heard this other man, this Marquis, shout out in surprise.

  “Its eyes! They’re moving! Does it possess intelligence?”

  “Sadly, no. She is little more than an amusement. But watch how she suckles my finger when I place it near her mouth.”

  There were several moments of quiet, then the Marquis shouting out again.

  “How … how do you explain this?”

  Frankenstein hesitated before explaining, “My dear Sophie was a whore when she was alive. From Paris. I believe what she is doing now is mimicking behavior that still remains ingrained deep within the recesses of her brain.”

  “A Parisian whore, you say? I have been intimate with so many, but I must have missed this one while I was locked away in the Bastille. Why the milky liquid in the bowl?”

  “That is how she receives nourishment, by absorbing the liquid through the bottom of her neck. Think of her as an orchid growing in a pot.”

  “Fascinating, truly fascinating. Can it exist outside of the bowl?”

  “For several hours, yes. After that she would wilt and die.”

  “I see that you have taken the precaution of removing its teeth,” the Marquis said. “My dear Victor, please do hand it to me. I desire to have it suckle my finger also.”

  My blood boiled as I heard the way they discussed Charlotte as if she were a plaything. During one of our visits together, Charlotte explained to me that it was better for her to lick Frankenstein’s finger than for him to surmise the intelligence that she held. But her eyes also flashed with ferocity as she wished that she still had her teeth so that she would’ve been able to bite off whatever she could of his.

  If I had had the power to do so I would have left the table that I was stranded on and crushed both their skulls. When I heard this despicable Marquis remark how he would later make use of Charlotte once he was properly rested from his traveling, I found myself choking with hatred toward this man as I understood his depraved intentions.

  They must have grown tired of Charlotte, for the door to the laboratory opened and the creaking of footsteps entered into the room; one pair of footsteps that was heavy and slow, the other all too familiar. I lay on my back staring at the wood-beam ceiling above me. I did not want to give them the advantage of knowing that I had movement within my neck. A loud gasp escaped from the Marquis.

  “My God! Is that actually alive?”

  “Very much alive.”

  “Are … are we safe?”

  “Oh yes. Even if he had the strength to rise we would be safe. But for now the creature barely has the ability to raise his hands several inches from the table. Interestingly, he tries to hide this from me. Some sort of animal cunning, I suppose.”

  Footsteps approached. The Marquis turned out to be a short and rotund man of about fifty. He was almost entirely bald, his features having a grayish, unhealthy tinge to them and his round, fleshy face seeming almost a caricature of a man who had once been thin and handsome. Timidly, he peered over me, his face awash with fear and curiosity, but even still, a haughtiness pervaded his eyes and lips.

  “My God,” the Marquis whispered. “To think that you made this. How?”

  “A complicated process,” Frankenstein said with an air of smugness. “The limbs and trunk and head were all fashioned from materials that I had collected, but these would have been of little use without the secret books of alchemy and dark arts that I was most fortunate to have uncovered. Without these volumes, none of this would be possible.”

  Fear slowly abated from the Marquis’s pale eyes. He leaned in closer to me, his breath warm upon me.

  “Do not dare to tell me there is not intelligence in those eyes!” the Marquis claimed. “I swear he understands every word we speak!”

  Frankenstein laughed at that. “My dear Marquis,” he said, “I do not wish to contradict you, but no, that is not the case. His intelligence would be little more than what you could expect from a four-month-old infant. For now, that is all there is. There exists no knowledge within him, and certainly no understanding of language.”

  “But I can see the brightness in those horrible watery eyes!”

  “Animal cunning, that is all. The brain was obtained from an educated man. The capability of intelligence exists, and with enough schooling this creature could perhaps develop the art of language, but that would require years, if it were indeed possible.”

  The Marquis disappeared from view. In my mind’s eye I could imagine him stroking his chin that was so deeply buried in flesh, his brow worried as if he were profoundly deep in thought. The image of this ridiculous little man in such a state struck me as comical and I must have smiled without realizing it for the Marquis exclaimed with excitement, “Victor, look at how a grin wrinkles its face!”

  “Do not newborn infants also grin mysteriously?” Frankenstein asked.

  The Marquis made a soft humming noise as he considered this. In the end he accepted Frankenstein’s explanation and asked him to remove the blanket from my body. I felt the fabric pulled from me. At the same moment a gasping sound emanated from the Marquis.

  “This abomination of yours,” the Marquis sputtered, his voice strangled. “It is magnificently horrific, far surpassing what I had imagined. Look at the sex organ that you constructed for it! It would be the envy of many a stallion! Perhaps there is even enough there to satisfy that empress of Russia! Does it function? Please do tell me that it does!”

  “An interesting question, my dear Marquis, and one that I am also curious about. For now, no, there is not yet enough strength in the creature for such activity. But in the future? I do not know. Time will tell.”

  “If it does … if it does …” the Marquis’s voice broke off. A brief moment later he continued, his voice having grown exceedingly heated. “Oh, if it does function we would be able to bring more than my masterpiece to life. This creature … this is how I have been envisioning a grotesque giant that I will be naming Minski for a novel that I am curre
ntly involved in writing and which will carry the simple title, Juliette. Later I must share these details with you. When I do you will also see how with your magnificent creature we will also be able to create a living tribute to this novel, as well as my masterpiece. I have goose bumps, Victor, simply imagining it.”

  Frankenstein and the Marquis continued their heated conversation but it mostly turned into a droning noise in my ears. I would catch pieces of what they would say; the Marquis bitterly complaining about a number of issues: his financial situation, his mother-in-law and her attempts to ruin his life, and how he wept tears of blood when his masterpiece was lost in the Bastille, while Frankenstein eagerly entreated the Marquis to describe his latest novel. It was difficult for me to pay much attention to them. Mostly my thoughts kept returning back to Frankenstein’s earlier words: the brain was obtained from an educated man.

  During the many days that I had been housed in Frankenstein’s laboratory, I heard frequent comments uttered from him about how I had been created from materials. I had also seen evidence to support his claims, making it impossible to have believed otherwise. I had begun to suspect that the memories I held so dear were merely illusions. But if Frankenstein had acquired the brain of an educated man to create me, could that man have been Friedrich Hoffmann? Could that be why I believed so dearly that I was this same man? If these memories were real, and if that was the reason I was convinced that I was Friedrich Hoffmann, did that not make me Friedrich Hoffmann, even if other materials were used to construct my body? And what of my soul? How could I possibly have one if I were simply a collection of materials joined together? Charlotte claimed that she could see my soul in my eyes and that it was a gentle one. How could that be? Was it possible that my soul, or should I say, Friedrich Hoffmann’s soul, entered this manufactured body? Or was I in fact soulless, a creature brought into this world through satanic magic? How could such a creature possess a soul?