Monster

by Shane Peacock

  “You are shaking, my boy. For that, I wish I had feelings, I think. I believe it is something called sympathy, concern for others. I have the sense, however, that I might not thrive with such an emotion. It might slow down my research. Such sensations are, I would contend, enemies of science and progress. I must eliminate you now. You are in possession of a most dangerous secret! It does not seem an intelligent move on your part to appear here, certainly not scientific. But I know you are not a stupid boy, so I am guessing that you calculated that you could kill me at this distance. Think again, Edgar. I can seize the gun from your hand the instant I see your finger press the trigger. If you back up any farther, I shall simply, as you know, dodge the bullet.”

  “I am willing to test your abilities.”

  Godwin lets out a bolt of a laugh. “I believe that is humor, or is it?” Then his face grows grim. “You do not want to play games with me, child.”

  Edgar lowers the gun.

  “That’s a good boy. Take your medicine, your death, like a man.”

  “That is an old-fashioned idea, Godwin. And I’m not planning to die today anyway.”

  “Oh?”

  “I am here to make a deal with you, a rational one; we might even call it a scientific one. You are an intelligent man, so I suggest you listen.”

  “I am all ears. Well, not exactly, I am numerous different body parts.” He lets out a genuine laugh and it startles him. “My God, I think that was humor!”

  “I came here with the other three. We followed you to this shack.”

  “And?”

  “After we surveyed the situation, we realized that it would be almost impossible to kill you here, and I’m guessing you had some sense that we might be nearby and boarded up the windows in this building because of that.”

  “You are correct.”

  “So, the others wanted to leave the islands and tell the authorities about you and what you are trying to do and your exact location. I didn’t feel that would work. I felt the authorities would think our story was ridiculous and we were insane. My friends also had the idea that we might leave you a note saying that we were informing on you, so you might at least leave here, thus ensuring our safety. But I said you would not believe that or would just quickly follow and kill us all.”

  “Well, I must say, Edgar, that in this debate I am on your side. Your reasoning is extremely sound and theirs has holes in it like those in the cheese the Swiss manufacture.”

  “We argued, long and loudly. We split up.”

  “I am sorry to hear that. Well, maybe not entirely.”

  “The other three have gone. They are intent upon telling the authorities. I was left here alone. I wasn’t sure what to do. Then I decided I would talk to you. I remembered the times we had together in the operating room, the kindness you showed me when I was repulsed by the dead bodies, the way you helped my adopted family when Mr. Thorne died, and your desire to have human feelings, to care…to laugh.”

  Godwin looks startled. It is as if he were feeling a pain inside that he wasn’t used to. “You and I, Edgar, we are both fatherless. Perhaps we—”

  “So, I decided to appeal to what might be called your better side, the side you wish you had, but also to your brain, your rational brain. You see, if the authorities do believe the story my friends tell, then your game is up. A well-equipped force will come for you.”

  “But they won’t believe them.”

  “Can you be sure of that? What are the odds?”

  “They are calculable.”

  “And you know that such odds do not have zeros in them. There is some chance, however slim, that by tomorrow morning a group much more lethal than us will be here to destroy a menace and nothing good can come of that for you, even if you escape. You will be exposed, one way or the other—if they simply see you or even if you murder them all. And if you kill me now, you run a risk too. My disappearance might give some credence to the things my friends tell the authorities.”

  “Why, that is sound reasoning, Edgar, sound indeed! I am proud of you!”

  “Thank you, sir. But I will take it another step or two. I believe that I can assure you that you will not be exposed if you do as I say and that what I say will be attractive to you as well.”

  Godwin smiles. He looks excited and his face turns red, almost as if he were aroused. “I am fascinated. Please go on, immediately!”

  “I will tell whatever authorities who might believe my friends that what they are saying is ridiculous. I will discount their statements. Thus, a barely believable claim will sound like utter hogwash.”

  “I love that word!”

  “In exchange, you will leave here, go far away and never return to London. Exiled, yes, in a sense, but alive. Perhaps you can find some place to rehabilitate your appearance and perhaps you can even find yourself a mate, regenerate a dead female body. I promise to say nothing of your existence as long as you do not harm anyone, no living human being. I think that you, sir, as a scientist, have a sense of honor, and that you have respect for a rational, intelligent pact.”

  Edgar can’t tell if Godwin can see that he is shaking even more now.

  For a moment, the creature is speechless. He narrows his watery eyes and the seared yellow flesh around the protruding brow wrinkles.

  “Well,” he finally says, “I believe you have offered a most excellent proposal. I shall pack my bags.”

  “A wise decision.” Edgar turns to go.

  “Oh, Mr. Brim,” says Godwin, “may I shake your hand? It seems like a fitting thing for two gentlemen to do, to seal an honorable contract.”

  Edgar hesitates, but then lifts a trembling arm toward him. He sees the creature’s big burned hand approaching his, the two gray stumps evident. Edgar realizes his mistake: Godwin will crush his hand, perhaps rip his arm from the socket and then kill him right here while his friends look on. Then this creature will go up the hill and hunt the others down and murder them and remove their appendages, organs and brains.

  But the hand is warm and gentle.

  “Thank you,” says Godwin.

  Edgar feels an overpowering guilt. He turns to go up the hill where his friends are hiding, his head down.

  “I saw Mrs. Shelley a second time, you know,” says Godwin. Edgar stops. “It was in the middle of the night, hours after she had glimpsed me in the forest—I went to that ominous place, the Villa Diodati, where she was staying, and I sneaked up to a window and looked inside. At first, I couldn’t find her, so I began moving around the exterior of the house, peering into the other rooms—I saw Lord Byron sleeping and Mr. Shelley and then I found Mary. Her oil lamps were lit with something thrown over them to keep the light dim, as if she were frightened to sleep with them completely out. I watched her as she tossed and turned in bed. I was so fascinated that I leaned forward and pressed my hideous face to the pane. She seemed to notice me and sat up in a start. I ducked down. And when I looked back a few minutes later, she was asleep, though her eyes were moving frantically under her lids.”

  “It really is you,” says Edgar softly.

  “My friend,” says the creature, “I know you offered this pact because it makes sense and I admire that deeply. It is a sound plan. But…” He pauses. “Did you at all…do it because you felt some compassion for me?”

  Edgar looks into Godwin’s eyes and thinks they are more watery than before.

  “Does it matter, sir?”

  “No…of course not, I just thought…no, of course not.” Godwin’s voice resumes its old confidence. “Have a good life, Edgar. I wish you the best.” He smiles. “I shall fulfill my end of our deal and I know you will fulfill yours. You are, after all, human.”

  —

  When Edgar reaches the others on the far side of the hill they are surprised by his demeanor. He doesn’t seem pleased.

  “It worked?” asked Tiger, looking incredulous.

  “He bought it?” says Lucy. “He’s leaving?”

  Edgar nods. “As
soon as he can.”

  Jonathan is pacing. “Excellent! We go back to the farmhouse now and buy some food, and then we follow Godwin. He’ll likely leave by boat and head farther north. We track him to wherever he goes, probably some godforsaken place where there are no people about…some place where he has no shelter, no building like here, no place else to go, absolutely killable. And he won’t have any idea that we are following him! He’ll be vulnerable. We can wait until he falls asleep, put the business end of the barrel right to his temple and blow the contents of that freakish skull to hell!”

  The other two smile. But Edgar doesn’t.

  “Let’s go get him,” says Tiger.

  24

  Edgar knows they must do it. It is a simple fact. A pact with a monster is no pact at all. But as they walk together back to the farmhouse, he can’t shake a sense of guilt. Lucy notices. The other two are marching out ahead of them, as if they can’t move fast enough.

  The young farmer is still outside, now pouring a pail of some sort of brown food—smelly gruel, half liquid half solid—into a pen with two scrawny pigs. They snort at him and then squeal when they see the strangers. The young man turns his handsome face toward them and then plants his feet and holds the pail in a tight fist. A woman comes to the door of their hut, hatless and in a dirty dress with a restless naked child in her arms, cooing at it with a toothless mouth.

  “We will pay English pounds for whatever food you can spare us,” says Tiger to the man, “and we need a boat. We will pay well for it too or for someone to take us somewhere in it.”

  The farmer waits a while before he answers. “There is two boats on the island. They goes south twice a week.”

  “North,” says Edgar, “we will need something going north.”

  “There is a whaling boat,” says the young man, “goes upwards to the arctic, stops here on Wednesdays to drop off supplies, north end at the dock. I don’t keeps much track of time, so I don’t knows when that might be.”

  “Today is Monday,” says Lucy.

  They are allowed into the two-room hut and notice that the walls are not plastered and the thatched roof is sagging. They choose two crude loaves of bread, a few lumps of cold ham, some hard biscuits and a half-dozen wizened apples, and pay the woman handsomely for them.

  They sleep under the stars again, this time on the far side of their little hill where they can see Godwin’s shack. At the crack of dawn they follow him as he walks around the coast in the dim light, carrying his large sacks, in search of something. When he finds it, he steals it and within moments he has rowed one of the island’s two boats out of sight toward the arctic, his strength monstrous. The waves are growing high around him.

  “He has stolen some poor man’s only vessel,” says Lucy, “and we just stood here and watched him do it.”

  “It is better that the man has his boat taken,” says Tiger, “than his life.”

  —

  Twenty-four hours later, the whaling craft appears at the docks on the north end of the island, a small Norwegian steamer with two smokestacks and masts, and a rugged-looking crew of some half-dozen men, who appear to speak a multitude of languages. The sailors’ eyes linger on Lucy and Tiger, transfixed by the former and unsure about the latter. Edgar shudders at their appearance and some of the words they use, but he knows he and his friends must interact with these men and get aboard this ship and pursue and kill the monster or risk his return and the horrible things he would visit upon them. He finds it difficult to believe that Godwin will let them live with his secret tucked away in their minds, no matter what he has promised. So, Edgar convinces the captain to take him and his friends northward, a substantial quantity of Shakespeare’s English pounds his most persuasive argument.

  “Where exactly are you going?” asks the captain in surprisingly good English. “Where shall we set you down?” Though his crew are lightly dressed in the warm weather, some bare-chested and others in dirty cotton shirtsleeves, this slightly stooped and aging man with white whiskers, creased skin like dark leather and fingers as thick as sausages, wears blue wool trousers, a double-breasted pea-coat and a captain’s hat.

  “North,” says Tiger.

  “North is a long way and not an exact destination, sir, ma’am.”

  “Well, where do you go from here?” she asks him.

  “We will be touring about. We are the remnants of the last great whaling crews around these parts, so we have the sea to ourselves much of the time and go where we want.” It seems the captain likes to talk. In fact, he is a bit of a speech maker. “There was a day when expeditions would be gone for years at a time, but we are just out for short stretches and then come home to our families, those of us that have them. If we get one whale or two then we is happy. We always stop at Spitsbergen Island up at the gate to the arctic near the top of the world and we sometimes use some of the abandoned whaling huts there on a night or two. We search the waters for the dark giants of the sea that give us the oil and the bones and flesh to help us make it through another year. We slaughter them right on the boat, our own factory ship this is, The Little Walton, our moving whale laboratory. We’ll spend but a week up there this time and return by the same route.”

  “Spitsbergen Island?” asks Edgar. “That’s a long way, isn’t it? Do you encounter any other places before that?”

  “Well, there’s the Shetlands. We’ll be there by this afternoon.”

  “They are inhabited, are they not?”

  “Why, yes, of course, many folks have lived there for as long as can be remembered. Is that not what you want? Why would you seek out a barren place?”

  “I will add another ten pounds to your pocket if you never ask me that again.”

  “All right,” the captain finally says.

  “And there is no one on Spitsbergen, for certain?”

  “Not a soul, not permanently, though I’ve heard some talk of building a rough hotel for hardy tourists. There seems to be a growing interest in that sort of thing. Explorers on their way to find the Northwest Passage have used it as a launching place too, but there is nothing but rock and ice up there most of the time, that and the animals and mountains beset with glaciers. It is godforsaken. Once we pass the Shetlands, we enter the vast Norwegian Sea and leave human civilization behind.”

  “Set us down at Spitsbergen.”

  “Whatever you say, sir.”

  “And pick us up when you are ready to return home.”

  The captain pauses again. “All right,” he says.

  —

  The ship smells not just of these filthy men’s bodies and clothes but of urine and whale and blood. There are red stains everywhere on the deck. Hoists and mammoth hooks for lifting the ship’s gargantuan catches and holding them while they are butchered, tower above. The many death instruments and sharp blades—knives and swords and axes, even spade shovels—are fastened to the gunwales and bottoms of the masts. At the bow sits a giant harpoon pointing the way north.

  “It is called an explosive harpoon,” the captain tells Edgar with evident pride, “and it can be shot like a cannon at a surfacing whale. You see, it is long and iron and barbed and attached to stacked coils of thick rope nearly half the width of a man’s waist.”

  Edgar imagines what firing this weapon must be like—there would be a bang, then a hiss through the air and then a strike that drives the evil instrument deep within the majestic whale’s flesh, penetrating through the blubber, severing organs and blood vessels, fracturing bones, even the spine. Does the whale shudder and cry out? When they haul it in and lay it down or hang it up, they must peel its body open and carve it into parts. Such is a feat of humanity in the late nineteenth century.

  Edgar wonders, for a second, if Godwin could dodge that harpoon.

  —

  They settle down for the night in the open air again, huddled together on the deck, wrapped in their heavy coats, Jonathan keeping the gun near him. Every last member of the crew had eyed the weapon throu
ghout the day.

  The four friends have trouble sleeping again, and not just because the sun is only down for a couple of hours. They toss and turn on the hard wooden surface, every one of them dreaming of monsters.

  —

  In the morning there is still no horizon in sight. They eat the brown beans and black potatoes the crew offers them and say little. Jonathan keeps trying to position himself between the girls and the men, blocking their views. But Tiger often steps past him and goes to the bow and looks out over the waters, sometimes examining the huge black harpoon.

  When bedtime nears again, they sit close together talking.

  “How do we know they will pick us up again after they set us down at Spitsbergen?” asks Jonathan.

  “We don’t,” says Tiger.

  “Maybe we could tell them that we’ll pay them more if we return safely?” says Lucy.

  “Why would they be motivated by that?” replies Jon. “They can simply kill us and take our money any time, dump our bodies anywhere here, the farther north, the better.”

  They look out over the endless salt water under the endless sunlight in silence—at first, no one has an answer for that.

  “I suppose,” says Edgar finally, “we are just going to have to trust to their humanity, their sense of honor.” But he doesn’t like the sound of that word the second it leaves his mouth. He remembers it coming from the black lips of Percy Godwin.

  —

  They sail north for three more days, the sun never setting. At night there is an eerie glow in the sky. During the days the water is so calm it feels as though they are drifting quietly and smoothly through a dream. They hear the men whispering; they suppose they are talking about them, of money, of the two girls. There is no sign of a creature rowing a boat upon the vast sea.

  —

  Edgar wakes in the middle of one night and watches Lucy sleeping peacefully by his side. He was dreaming of being Victor Frankenstein and of the monster he had created killing his beloved, who again had Lucy’s face. He wonders why it is her and not Tiger. Lying still so as not to wake the others, he turns his head toward Tiger and realizes that Jonathan is sitting up, gazing at her as he quietly writes in his notebook, which he had dried in the ocean air. In the morning, Edgar sneaks a look. It is a poem about a fearless young woman, extraordinarily well done.