Bride

by Kyle Alexander Romines

  “Why?” he asked me through tears. “She never hurt anyone. She was good.”

  “Who did this?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.

  When Alphonse started to respond, his words came out in a slurred stammer. He let go of Elizabeth and started to stand but stumbled back, clutching at his chest. His knees buckled, and he toppled to the floor beside her corpse.

  “Father!” Ernest said, running to his side. He was too late. Alphonse Frankenstein stared blindly at the ceiling, his heart forever stilled.

  Before I could comfort Ernest, footsteps sounded above. I realized with growing horror that Gerhardt was alone. I hurried up the stairs in a panic. The door to our room lay open before me. There were no sounds of a scuffle coming from the other side. An eerie silence had fallen over the house.

  “Gerhardt?” There was no response.

  I pushed the door open and stepped inside the room. My husband’s body was slumped across the bed, where we had lain together only moments ago. His face was pale, his ashen skin already cold as the warmth fled from his body. His head hung over the side of the bed, exposing the bruises on his neck where he had been strangled to death.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The tavern door burst open with a deafening crash. I stood in the doorway, holding Gerhardt’s lifeless body in my arms. Rains swept inside from the storm at my back. Every head turned toward the source of the commotion. I staggered inward, my chest heaving from the journey taken on foot from the Frankenstein estate. Lightning flashed behind me, highlighting my otherworldly appearance, and for a moment no one made a sound.

  My gaze fell on Victor, who sat alone at the bar. Our eyes met, and his brow furrowed in shock as he noticed the body in my arms. Ignoring the hushed voices murmuring through the room, I started toward him, my wet clothes dripping onto the floor.

  “Persephone, what is it?” he exclaimed, his expression full of horror. “What’s happened?”

  I laid the body on the floor. “You have to help him.”

  Victor knelt beside Gerhardt’s motionless form and studied the body. “He’s dead,” he said after feeling for a pulse. “I’m so sorry. There’s nothing more I can do.”

  “You’re wrong. You’re the only person who can help him.” I leaned closer. “Bring him back.”

  Victor backed away, clearly uncomfortable with the idea. “You don’t know what you’re asking,” he said, lowering his voice after a quick glance around the room at the spectators.

  “It was your monster that murdered him,” I said angrily. “You told me you were working to perfect the process.”

  Victor appeared torn between the life he had led and his resolution to give it up. “Yes, but I never completed my work. I no longer have my journals. We don’t know what might happen. I might fail to bring him back, or worse.” He left the worse outcome to my imagination, but given the feral first days of my undead existence, it wasn’t hard to consider the possibilities.

  My anger quickly faded, replaced by despair. I buried my face against Victor’s shoulder, unable to restrain my tears. “Please,” I begged him, sobbing. “If you ever cared for me, help me now.”

  Victor stared past me into the storm raging beyond the tavern, and a strange calm came over him. “We must leave at once. Help me with his body.”

  I scooped Gerhardt’s corpse from the ground.

  The bartender put himself in our path as we approached the door. “Where do you think you’re going?” the man asked, staring at the body in my arms. I snarled at him, and when the man noticed my scars, he backed away warily.

  We spilled into the rains. “Quickly,” Victor shouted back at me above the thunder, sprinting in the direction of the docks. “It has to be tonight. While the corpse is still fresh.” The detached, clinical voice I remembered from the cottage had returned. “My laboratory is outside Geneva.”

  I splashed through the mud, following him to shore, where the ferry sat idly beneath the storm clouds. The ferryman was fixing his boat to the dock as we approached. He glanced up from his pipe, startled as I laid Gerhardt’s body on the deck.

  “What are you doing out here?” he asked, fighting against the wind. “You should be indoors.”

  “Please sir,” Victor said, producing several coins. “We need to cross the lake with haste.”

  The ferryman shook his head vigorously. “Are you mad? There’s no amount of money on earth that would cause me to make the journey in this weather.”

  The once-serene waters of the lake stood transformed under the storm. Tall, black waves rocked the ferry violently in the water. Periodic bursts of lightning cast an ominous glow over the lake’s surface.

  “We don’t have time for this.” I grabbed the man by the neck and lifted him off the ground. “Take us across the water—now.” My grip tightened around his throat until he gasped for air. I relented, dropping him against the dock, and the ferryman complied without another word.

  “His brain,” Victor said, gazing at Gerhardt’s body as we crossed the turbulent waters. “Is it intact? He hasn’t suffered any cranial damage, has he?”

  “No,” I replied, unable to banish the image of Elizabeth’s mangled corpse from my mind. There would be no return for her. The creature had seen to that.

  “I thought that monster was finally dead,” Victor muttered, as if reading my thoughts. “I was a fool to think it was over.”

  “He came in the night, after we were asleep. He was gone before I saw him.”

  “What of the others?” Victor asked, momentarily breaking from the trance-like scientific state he had fallen into. “He didn’t hurt them, did he? Is Elizabeth safe?” His eyes went wide with worry. “I should go to them. They could be in danger.”

  I clamped my hand down over his. My voice was firm. “You will help me with this first.”

  Victor nodded. “We must be careful. That fiend is out there somewhere, watching. This might be part of his plan.”

  Victor was almost certainly correct. The monster undoubtedly had some further work of malice planned. I should have killed him when I had the chance. How many lives had that simple act of mercy condemned? Given the chance, it was a mistake that would not be repeated again.

  The ferry shuddered under the impact of the waves as the distant outline of Geneva materialized through the darkness. Water poured into the boat. The ferryman stumbled, clutching the wheel for dear life, and Victor nearly lost his balance. I stood firm, Gerhardt’s body held fast in my arms.

  “It’ll be all right, my love,” I promised him, my voice lost to the thunder. “We’ll be together again soon.”

  “This way,” Victor shouted at the ferryman, pointing out a looming structure outside the city. It was a tower of sorts, built on a tall cliff overlooking the lake. It was probably a lighthouse that had long ago been abandoned and forgotten, the perfect place for Victor’s clandestine experiments. The ferryman dropped us off at the shore, and we scaled the cliff as lightning raged around us, threatening to strike the tower.

  I was tired of storms. I was born amid one. The Scottish coast had nary a sunny day. The villagers had chased me through the rains with torches and pitchforks. It was as if the land was cursed wherever I went. For once, however, the sight of the lightning brought a smile to my lips. It would restore the love that had been taken from me.

  The tower seemed to grow with our approach. It rose high above us, reaching toward the clouds. Stones had fallen from its crumbling façade over time, but the structure remained mostly intact.

  “This way,” Victor said, beckoning me through the doorway. He produced a match from his pocket and lit a lantern that hung on the wall beside him. Victor led the way up the stone staircase, and I followed closely behind, carrying Gerhardt. When we neared the peak, Victor opened a wooden door that had rusted on its hinges. The lantern’s pale illumination revealed his laboratory within.

  “Set the body over there,” Victor said. He gestured to a table in the center of the chamber as he
went about lighting torches for a better view. “I’ll need your help to get everything up and running while the storm is still building.”

  His words barely registered. I gingerly lowered Gerhardt’s corpse onto the table, unable to tear my eyes away. A lump formed in my throat, and my hand sought out his and found it as cold as mine. When Victor noticed me, he stopped what he was doing and came to stand beside me.

  “It’s my fault,” I muttered. “I shouldn’t have left him alone.”

  Victor hesitated and laid a comforting hand on my shoulder. “We can save him yet. We’ll do it together. I’ll teach you how.”

  He pulled on a pair of gloves and laid out a tray of surgical instruments on the table beside him. I did not look away as he worked. Despite the urgency, Victor remained calm and collected, his hands steady throughout. He showed me how to prepare the body step by step, and instructed me on the purpose of each machine and how it operated. When he finished, I fixed Gerhardt’s arms and legs in place on the platform, and we began to power the machines that would restore my love to life.

  “If this works correctly, he’ll be exactly as he was,” Victor said, flipping a switch. Wires hummed with unseen life. “He’ll be like any ordinary human, with a functioning heart and organs, his memory intact.”

  “Thank you, Victor,” I said softly.

  Together, we opened the trapdoors, letting in the rains.

  “Once the machines are fully powered, we’ll raise him into the storm,” Victor said. “It shouldn’t be long now.”

  Without warning, the noise from one of the machines faded.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked as Victor inspected the machine, perturbed.

  “This device is meant to absorb the excess electricity. It’s gone dead,” he muttered, fingering the lifeless wires. “There must be a problem with the source in the chamber below.”

  I frowned. “I’ll see to it. You stay here. The moment the machine is ready, raise him through the trapdoors.”

  “Be careful,” Victor replied, staring outside the laboratory’s window into the vast blackness beyond the tower.

  It was a short journey down the staircase to the room below. Sparks flew from a large machine against the wall, which had been smashed to pieces. Someone had tampered with it. As I started forward, the steel jaws of a bear trap clamped down on my ankle, and a searing pain tore through me. Lightning flashed outside, revealing the trap’s metal surface, coated in black blood.

  The creature stepped out of the shadows, a sinister expression on his face.

  “You.” I lunged toward him, but my foot was caught in the trap. He lingered just out of reach, taunting me. “You murdered him. I offered you mercy. I gave you a chance for something better.”

  He bared his large, predatory teeth. “You would condemn me to a life of torture and call it mercy?” Booming thunder shook the tower’s foundation, and he lifted his gaze upward. “If you will not spend eternity at my side, then you will experience my loneliness forever.” With that, he swept from the room, leaving me trapped inside, powerless to stop him.

  Moments later, the sound of shouting emanated from above. Victor.

  I struggled with the trap, screaming in pain, and forced the metal teeth open just as another blast of thunder reverberated outside the stone walls. I limped up the staircase, covered in blood, toward the open door that loomed above. Victor was locked in a struggle with his creation inside the laboratory. Gerhardt’s form rested unmolested on the platform.

  “Come, Frankenstein,” the creature said as Victor retreated behind a table. “Let us finish what you began when you cursed me to this hellish life.” He threw the table aside, and it broke against the wall.

  “This ends tonight,” Victor said, pulling a pistol from his coat.

  The creature knocked it out of his hand before he could fire, and the gun went skidding across the stone floor. Victor snatched a torch from the wall, waving it at the creature to ward off his advance as I rushed to the lever that would raise Gerhardt into the storm.

  The creature growled, swiping blindly at the fire, and Victor charged forward, swinging the torch. They met in a violent collision that sent them both careening in the direction of the platform. Victor plunged the torch into the only part of the monster’s face that was not deformed, and the creature howled like an animal and buried his face in his hands.

  “Now every part of you is ugly, you wretched animal,” Victor said cruelly, kicking the monster before he could rise. “No more will you threaten those I love.”

  The creature’s screams faded and turned into a hair-raising laughter. “She didn’t tell you, did she? They’re already dead.” His burned face was enveloped by an expression of fiendish delight. “I almost spared her,” he said quietly. “She was kind to me when I came for her, your dear, sweet Elizabeth. Then I remembered my hatred of you, and all the rage I had for you I inflicted upon her.”

  Victor’s resolve faded, and his mouth fell open in shock. “Is it true?” he asked me, faltering.

  “Victor, look out!” I shouted as I worked furiously to raise the platform.

  The creature took advantage of his distraction to seize Victor and rip the torch from him. He tossed Victor across the room effortlessly and before I could stop him, set Gerhardt’s body ablaze.

  “Now you can never bring him back,” he gloated as I attempted desperately to put out the flames.

  “I’ll kill you,” I hissed, throwing myself on him. We smashed through vials and beakers and overturned rows of shelves in our conflict. The creature seemed thrown off-guard by the extent of my fury. Despite his size and strength, I forced him back and overpowered him, hitting him again and again.

  I flung him against the window and the stones tore away and plunged into the night, exposing the outside of the tower. The creature peered down at the drop and a flicker of fear crossed his face as I approached. Before I could stop him, the creature grabbed my wounded ankle and squeezed, pulling me down to the floor. He threw himself on top of me, pinning me down, but as his hands closed around my neck, a gunshot tore through the room.

  The creature dropped me and stumbled back as I crawled away. Victor stood behind us, smoke rising from the barrel of his gun. The creature reached out and threw Victor toward the open space where the window had been. Victor managed to grab the side of the tower, but the stone surface was covered in rain, and his grip was slipping.

  “Help me,” he shouted as I looked from one to the other. If I saved Victor, the creature would make his escape, but if I took my revenge on the creature, Victor would surely drop to his death.

  There was no time to decide. I flung myself toward the wall and grabbed Victor’s hand just before he lost his grip on the side. I pulled him inside, and we collapsed together on the wet stone surface.

  When I looked back, the creature was gone.

  Dawn came, but there was no reprieve from the horrors that preceded it. Despite the damage done to the laboratory in the struggle, the equipment remained functional, but there was no one left to revive. The flames had devoured Gerhardt’s body before being drowned by the rains. Elizabeth’s corpse was far too ruined to attempt a resurrection, even if Victor used parts from other bodies. We would be alone, together—the creature’s final curse.

  Victor fled the tower before daybreak. I knew where he was going, but chose to dwell in the laboratory with Gerhardt. There were no more tears left to shed. I felt numb. Even the rage that had driven me before had been extinguished, leaving only a sensation of hollowness in its place. I wrapped Gerhardt’s remains in a shroud and buried him at the edge of the cliff, where he would gaze over the lake that once promised us freedom. I said a prayer for him, my hand on the crucifix he had given me. Gerhardt had given me so much more than that. He restored my true self when I was lost. To lose that part of myself now would be to forsake the memory of what he meant to me.

  “Rest well,” I said. Gerhardt was with my father now, in heaven. It was the one place where I c
ould never follow, not after Victor had given me life eternal here on earth. If death found me, it would be many years later, if ever. My gaze fell on the shore across the lake, and I began my descent. There was still business with the living.

  I secured passage across the lake. A chill hung about the air, hinting at summer’s end and the long winter that would come after fall. After disembarking on the other side of the water, I caught up to Victor just as he reached the house. He was engaged in conversation with Ernest.

  “You don’t want to go in there,” Ernest said, blocking Victor’s path to the door. The grief on his face was palpable. Even now he only wanted to spare his brother pain.

  “Get out of my way,” Victor said, barely acknowledging my presence. I hung back, wordless. Nothing I could do or say would change Victor’s mind once it was set on a purpose. He brushed Ernest aside and crossed the threshold. Ernest and I exchanged a knowing look, and moments later a cry broke out from inside.

  “I’m sorry,” I said from the doorway.

  Victor held Elizabeth’s bloodstained body in his arms, openly weeping. “She died because of me. Because she loved me.”

  “I know what it’s like,” I said, reaching out to him. We were united in our despair, alone save each other.

  Victor pulled away from my touch. “Why didn’t you tell me?” His tone was angry.

  “She was already dead,” I answered. “Look at her. She’s too far gone, Victor. Even you couldn’t have brought her back. The monster knew what he was doing.”

  “It’s your fault,” he said bitterly. Here was the old Victor, who blamed everyone but himself. Tragedy seemed to bring out the worst in him, as it brought out strength from me. “You could have stopped him—if you had only finished him when you had the opportunity.”

  I bowed my head and made no response. He was hurting, the same as me.