The Bride of Frankenstein

by Guy Preston

  A note of anger crept into the Monster’s voice.

  ‘Friend?’ it said again, reaching for the girl’s hand with one gigantic hand. There was a note of command in the voice.

  Something about this ghastly travesty of love sickened Frankenstein.

  ‘Stop!’ he cried.

  The Monster turned with a snarl and caught the girl fiercely to him. Her mouth snapped wide and a high metallic scream rang forth. It maddened the Monster. It began to croon reassuringly to the girl, but its harsh notes only terrified her the more. She screamed again.

  Swiftly Frankenstein crossed the room and took her from him. A bellow of fury escaped it.

  ‘She hate me – like others!’ mouthed the Monster. Once more it made for the girl.

  At that moment there came an interruption. The door of the laboratory was flung wide and Elizabeth appeared. Finding herself unguarded, she had managed to escape.

  ‘Henry!’ she called.

  Frankenstein motioned her back.

  ‘Get out,’ he cried, ‘as you value your life!’ He knew, none better, the temper of the Monster when roused.

  She shook her head.

  ‘Not without you.’

  A terrific crash told of the shattering of a trayful of glass apparatus. Smashing its way towards him, the Monster reached out once again for the girl. One hand fell for an instant on the electrical control lever.

  ‘The lever! Look out for that lever! You’ll blow us all to atoms!’ shrieked Pretorius, flinging everything within reach at the raging creature.

  The meaning of his words clicked in the Monster’s slow intelligence. With a trumpeting roar of triumph it seized the control with both hands.

  ‘Henry,’ screamed Elizabeth again, ‘you must come! I won’t go without you.’

  For a moment Frankenstein hesitated.

  ‘I can’t leave them,’ he stammered. ‘Don’t you see –’ But his hesitation gave the Monster the chance it had sought. Like a flash one huge hand shot out and seized the girl from the scientist’s arms. Then it gestured savagely towards the door.

  ‘You live!’ it cried. ‘Go! Go!’

  Frankenstein waited no longer. And as the door slammed behind him and his wife, and the Monster saw them running madly down the hill, it caught the shrieking girl in a close embrace and threw itself flat across the lever.

  ‘We – belong – dead!’ it cried as the first shudder shook the building.

  And the white, gibbering face of Dr Pretorius was the last thing it saw, before there came a blinding flash, a terrific explosion, and the whole tower thundered down in ruins.