In the Shadow of Frankenstein: Tales of the Modern Prometheus

by Edited By Stephen Jones

  “What—” Starr exclaimed.

  “Don’t interrupt. I’m putting in the thoughts,” Colin said.

  Thoughts? That was sheer madness, beyond madness. Starr stared aghast. Thoughts in brains for clay men?

  Starr wanted to say something then. But Colin looked up and the afternoon sun streamed into his face so that Starr could see his eyes. And Starr crept out quietly under that stare; that stare which was almost—godlike.

  The next day Colin noticed that the clay men moved.

  II

  “Frankenstein,” Colin mumbled. “I am Frankenstein.” His voice sank to a whisper. “I’m not like Frankenstein. I’m like God. Yes, like God.”

  He sank to his knees before the tabletop. The two little men and women nodded gravely at him. He could see thumbprints in their flesh, his thumbprints, where he’d smoothed out the skulls after inserting the brains. And yet they lived!

  “Why not? Who knows anything about creation, about life? The human body, physiologically, is merely a mechanism adapted to react. Duplicate that mechanism perfectly and why won’t it live? Life is electricity, perhaps. Well, so is thought. Put thought into perfect simulacra of humanity and they will live.”

  Colin whispered to himself, and the figures of clay looked up and nodded in eerie agreement.

  “Besides, I’m running down. I’m losing my identity. Perhaps a part of my vital substance has been transferred, incorporated in these new bodies. My—my disease—that might account for it. But I can find out.”

  Yes, he could find out. If these figures were animated by Colin’s life, then he could control their actions, just as he controlled the actions of his own body. He created them, gave them a part of his life. They were him.

  He crouched there in the barred room, thinking, concentrating. And the figures moved. The two men moved up to the two women, grasped their arms, and danced a sedate minuet to a mentally-hummed tune; a grotesque dance of little clay dolls, a horrid mockery of life.

  Colin closed his eyes, sank back trembling. It was true!

  The effort of concentration had covered him with perspiration. He panted, exhausted. His own body felt weakened, drained. And why not? He had directed four minds at once, performed actions with four bodies. It was too much. But it was real.

  “I’m God,” he muttered. “God.”

  But what to do about it? He was a lunatic, shut away in an asylum. How to use his power?

  “Must experiment, first,” he said aloud.

  “What?”

  Doctor Starr had entered, unobserved. Colin cast a hasty glance at the table, found to his relief that the mannikins were motionless.

  “I was just observing that I must experiment with my clay figures,” he said, hastily.

  The doctor arched his eyebrows. “Really? Well, you know, Colin, I’ve been thinking. Perhaps this work here isn’t so good for you. You look peaked, tired. I’m inclined to think you’re hurting yourself with all this; afraid hereafter I’ll have to forbid your modeling work.”

  “Forbid it?”

  Doctor Starr nodded.

  “But you can’t—just when I’ve—I mean, you can’t! It’s all I’ve got, all that keeps me going, alive. Without it I’ll—”

  “Sorry.”

  “You can’t.”

  “I’m the doctor, Colin. Tomorrow we’ll take away the clay. I’m giving you a chance to find yourself, man, to live again—”

  Colin had never been violent until now. The doctor was surprised to find lunatic fingers clawing at his throat, digging for the jugular vein with surgically skilled fingers. He went over backward with a bang, and fought the madman until the aroused guards came and dragged Colin off. They tossed him on his bunk and the doctor left.

  It was dark when Colin emerged from a world of hate. He lay alone. They had gone, the day had gone. Tomorrow they and the day would return, taking away his figures—his beloved figures. His living figures! Would they crumple them up and destroy them, destroy actual life? It was murder!

  Colin sobbed bitterly, as he thought of his dreams. What he had meant to do with his power—why, there were no limits! He could have built dozens, hundreds of figures, learned to concentrate mentally until he could operate a horde of them at will. He would have created a little world of his own; a world of creatures subservient to him. Creatures for companionship, for his slaves. Fashioning different types of bodies, yes, and different types of brains. He might have reared a private little civilization.

  And more. He might have created a race. A new race. A race that bred. A race that was developed to aid him. A hundred tiny figures, hands trained, teeth filed, could saw through his bars. A hundred tiny figures to attack the guards, to free him. Then out into the world with an army of clay: a tiny army, but one that could burrow deeply in the earth, travel hidden and unseen into high places. Perhaps, some day, a world of little clay men, trained by him. Men that didn’t fight stupid wars to drive their fellows mad. Men without the brutal emotions of savages, the hungers and lusts of beasts. Wipe out flesh! Substitute godly clay!

  But it was over. Perhaps he was mad, dreaming of these things. It was over. And one thing he knew: without the clay he would be madder still. Tonight he could feel it, feel his body slipping. His eyes, staring at the moonlight, didn’t seem to be a part of his own form any longer. They were watching from the floor, or from over in the corner. His lips moved, but he didn’t feel his face. His voice spoke, and it seemed to come from the ceiling rather than from his throat. He was crumpling himself, like a mangled clay figure.

  The afternoon’s excitement had done it. The great discovery, and then Starr’s stupid decision. Starr! He’d caused all this. He was responsible. He’d drive him to madness, to a horrid, unnamed mentally-diseased state he was too blind to comprehend. Starr had sentenced him to death. If only he could sentence Starr!

  Perhaps he could.

  What was that? The thought came from far away—inside his head, outside his head. He couldn’t place his thoughts any more—body going to pieces like this. What was it now?

  Perhaps he could kill Starr.

  How?

  Find out Starr’s plans, his ideas. How?

  Send a clay man.

  What?

  Send a clay man. This afternoon you concentrated on bringing them to life. They live. Animate one. He’ll creep under the door, walk down the hall, listen to Starr. If you animate the body, you’ll hear Starr.

  Thoughts buzzing so …

  But how can I do that? Clay is clay. Clay feet would wear out long before they got down the hall and back. Clay ears—perfect though they may be—would shatter under the conveyance of actual sounds.

  Think. Make the thoughts stop buzzing. There is a way …

  Yes, there was a way! Colin gasped. His insanity, his doom, were his salvation! If his faculties were being disorganized, and he had the power of projecting himself into clay, why not project special faculties into the images? Project his hearing into the clay ears by concentration? Remodel clay feet until they were identical replicas of his own, then concentrate on walking. His body, his senses, were falling apart. Put them into clay!

  He laughed as he lit the lamp, seized a tiny figure and began to recarve the feet. He kicked off his own shoes, studied carefully, looked at charts worked, laughed, worked—and it was done. Then he lay back on the bed in darkness, thinking.

  The clay figure was climbing down from the table. It was sliding down the leg, reaching the floor. Colin felt his feet tingle with shock as they hit the floor. Yes! His feet.

  The floor trembled, thundered. Of course. Tiny vibrations, unnoticed by humans, audible to clay ears. His ears.

  Another part of him—Colin’s actual eyes—saw the little creeping figure scuttle across the floor, saw it squeeze under the door. Then darkness, and Colin sweated on the bed, concentrating.

  Clay Colin could not see. He had no eyes. But instinct, memory guided.

  Colin walked in the giant world. The foot
came out, the foot of Colossus. Colin edged closer to the woodwork as the trampling monster came down, crashing against the floor with monstrous vibrations.

  Then Colin walked. He found the right door by instinct—the fourth door down. He crept under, stepped up a foot onto the carpet. At least, the grassy sward seemed a foot high. His feet ached as the cutting rug bit swordblades into his soles. From above, the thunder of voices. Great titans roared and bellowed a league in the air.

  Doctor Starr and Professor Jerris. Jerris was all right; he had vision. But Starr …

  Colin crouched under the mighty barrier of the armchair, crept up the mountainside to the great peaks of Starr’s bony knees. He strained to distinguish words in the bellowing.

  “This man Colin is done for, I tell you. Incipient breakdown. Tried to attack me this afternoon when I told him I was removing his clay dolls. You’d think they were live pets of his. Perhaps he thinks so.”

  Colin clung to the pants-cloth below the knees. Blind, he could not know if he would be spied; but he must cling close, high, to catch words in the tumult.

  Jerris was speaking.

  “Perhaps he thinks so. Perhaps they are. At any rate—what are you doing with a doll on your leg?”

  Doll on your leg? Colin!

  Colin on the bed in his room tried desperately to withdraw life; tried to withdraw hearing and sensation from the limbs of his clay self, but too late. There was an incredulous roar: something reached out and grasped him, and then there was an agonizing squeeze …

  Colin sank back in bed, sank back into a world of red, swimming light.

  III

  Sun shone in Colin’s face. He sat up. Had he dreamed?

  “Dreamed?” he whispered.

  He whispered again. “Dreamed?”

  He couldn’t hear. He was deaf.

  His ears, his hearing faculty, had been focused on the clay figure, and it was destroyed last night when Starr crushed it. Now he was deaf!

  The thought was insanity. Colin swung himself out of bed in panic, then toppled to the floor.

  He couldn’t walk!

  The feet were on the clay figure, he’d willed it, and now it was crushed. He couldn’t walk!

  Disassociation of his faculties, his members. It was real, then! His ears, his legs, had in some mysterious way been lent vitally to that crushed clay man. Now he had lost them. Thank heaven he hadn’t sent his eyes!

  But it was horror to stare at the stumps where his legs had been; horror to feel in his ears for bony ridges no longer there. It was horror and it was hate. Starr had done this. Killed a man, crippled him.

  Right then and there Colin planned it all. He had the power. He could animate his clay figures, and then give them a special life as well. By concentrating, utilizing his peculiar physical disintegration, he could put part of himself into clay. Very well, then. Starr would pay.

  Colin stayed in bed. When Starr came in the afternoon, he did not rise. Starr mustn’t see his legs, or realize that he could no longer hear. Starr was talking, perhaps about the clay figure he’d found last night, clinging to his leg; the clay figure he’d destroyed. Perhaps he spoke of destroying these clay figures that he now gathered up, together with the rest of the clay. Perhaps he asked after Colin’s health: why he was in bed.

  Colin feigned lethargy, the introspection of the schizoid. And Starr gathered up the rest of the clay and went away.

  Then Colin smiled. He pulled out the tiny clay form from under the sheets; the one he’d hidden there. It was a perfect man, with unusually muscled arms, and very long fingernails. The teeth, too, were very good. But the figure was incomplete. It had no face.

  Colin began to work, very fast there as the twilight gathered. He brought a mirror and as he worked on the figure he smiled at himself as though sharing a secret jest with someone—or something. Darkness fell, and still Colin worked from memory alone; worked delicately, skillfully, like an artist, like a creator, breathing life into clay. Life into clay …

  IV

  “I tell you the damned thing was alive!” Jerris shouted. He’d lost his temper at last, forgot his superior in office. “I saw it!”

  Starr smiled.

  “It was clay, and I crushed it,” he answered. “Let’s not argue any longer.”

  Jerris shrugged. Two hours of speculation. Tomorrow he’d see Colin himself, find out what the man was doing. He was a genius, even though mad. Starr was a fool. He’d evidently aggravated Colin to the point of physical illness, taking away his clay.

  Jerris shrugged again. The clay—and last night, the memory of that tiny, perfectly formed figure clinging to Starr’s pantsleg where nothing could have stuck for long. It had clung. And when Starr crushed it, there had been a framework of clay bones protruding, and viscera hung out, and it had writhed—or seemed to writhe, in the light.

  “Stop shrugging and go to bed,” Starr chuckled. It was a matter-of-fact chuckle, and Jerris heeded it. “Quit worrying about a nut. Colin’s crazy, and from now on I’ll treat him as such. Been patient long enough. Have to use force. And—I wouldn’t talk about clay figures any longer if I were you.”

  The tone was a command. Jerris gave a final shrug of acquiescence and left the room.

  Starr switched off the light and prepared to doze there at the night desk. Jerris knew his habits.

  Jerris walked down the hall. Strange, how this business upset him! Seeing the clay figures this afternoon had really made him quite sick. The work was so perfect, so wonderfully accurate in miniature! And yet the forms were clay, just clay. They hadn’t moved as Starr kneaded them in his fists. Clay ribs smashed in, and clay eyes popped from actual sockets and rolled over the tabletop—nauseous! And the little clay hairs, the shreds of clay skin so skillfully overlaid! A tiny dissection, this destruction. Colin, mad or sane, was a genius.

  Jerris shrugged, this time to himself. What the devil! He blinked awake.

  And then he saw—it.

  Like a rat. A little rat. A little rat scurrying down the hall, upright, on two legs instead of four. A little rat without fur, without a tail. A little rat that cast the perfect tiny shadow of—a man!

  It had a face, and it looked up. Jerris almost fancied he saw its eyes flash at him. It was a little brown rat made of clay—no, it was a little clay man like those Colin made. A little clay man, running swiftly toward Starr’s door, crawling under it. A perfect little clay man, alive!

  Jerris gasped. He was crazy, like the rest, like Colin. And yet it had run into Starr’s office, it was moving, it had eyes and a face and it was clay.

  Jerris acted. He ran—not toward Starr’s door, but down the hall to Colin’s room. He felt for keys; he had them. It was a long moment before he fumbled at the lock and opened the door, another before he found the lights, and switched them on.

  And it was a terribly long moment he spent staring at the thing on the bed—the thing with stumpy legs, lying sprawled back in a welter of sculpturing tools, with a mirror flat across its chest, staring up at a sleeping face that was not a face.

  The moment was long. Screaming must have come from Starr’s office for perhaps thirty seconds before Jerris heard it. Screaming turned into moans and still Jerris stared into the face that was not a face; the face that changed before his eyes, melting away, scratched away by invisible hands into a pulp.

  It happened like that. Something wiped out the face of the man on the bed, tore the head from the neck. And the moaning rose from down the hall …

  Jerris ran. He was the first to reach the office, by a good minute. He saw what he expected to see.

  Starr lay back in his chair, throat flung to one side. The little clay man had done its job and Doctor Starr was quite dead. The tiny brown figure had dug perfectly-formed talons into the sleeping throat, and with surgical skill applied talons, and perhaps teeth, to the jugular at precisely the most fatal spot in the vein. Starr died before he could dislodge the diabolically clever image of a man, but his last wild clawing had tor
n away the face and head.

  Jerris ripped the monstrous mannikin off and crushed it; crushed it to a brown pulp between his fingers before others arrived in the room.

  Then he stooped down to the floor and picked up the torn head with the mangled face, the miniature, carefully-modeled face that grinned in triumph, grinned in death.

  Jerris shrugged himself into a shiver as he crushed into bits the little clay face of Colin, the creator.

  DANIEL FOX

  El Sueño de la Razón

  Daniel Fox is a British writer who first went to Taiwan at the millennium and became obsessed with the culture, to the point of learning Mandarin and writing about the country in three different genres, most notably in his mythic Moshui trilogy of fantasy novels, Dragon in Chains, Jade Man’s Skin and Hidden Cities.

  Before this he had published a couple of dozen books and many hundreds of short stories under a clutch of other names. He has also written poetry and plays, and some of this work has won awards.

  “I’ve always read Frankenstein as a tragedy rather than a horror story,” observes the author, “more sad than terrible. The keystone of all tragedy, of course, is inevitability: it’s the inherent necessity of disaster that appalls. Making a man is easy, compared to the challenge of making a place for such a man in a world peopled by the rest of us; and we know that, and we nod wisely and shake our heads in sorrow more than anger, and murmur that saviors should always be sought, never achieved.

  “And as ever, the more we know, the more we seek to know. That’s inevitable. Only bring us fire and the blastfurnace must follow. Time’s coming when making a man or woman to prescription will be comparatively easy; and what can be done will be done. That’s inherent. And by definition, what follows will simply be necessary …”

  Reason is sleeping, in the village and the castle both.

  Reason is sleeping: and up in the castle the doctor sharpens his bone-saw and tests the edge on his scalpels, polishes them brightly on the sleeve of his white coat. In the village below there are crutches and eye-patches, empty sleeves and absent organs; every torso has its scars. And the villagers watch the sky hopefully for signs of an incipient, a beneficent storm: and they bless the good and fruitful doctor, bless him and bless him …