Frankenstein Lives Again (The New Adventures of Frankenstein)

by Glut, Donald F.

  Frankenstein Lives Again!

  Volume I of The New Adventures of Frankenstein

  by Donald F. Glut

  Pulp 2.0 Press

  Los Angeles, CA

  The New Adventures of Frankenstein

  Volume 1:

  Frankenstein Lives Again!

  By Donald F. Glut

  Copyright © 2011 by Donald F. Glut

  Published by Pulp 2.0 Press (www.pulp2ohpress.com)

  Cover illustration by Mark Maddox (www.maddoxplanet.com)

  Kindle and ePub formatting by eBook Mechanic

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book in any form whatsoever without permission in writing from the publisher, except for brief passages in connection with a review.

  Text scan and OCR by MovieEditor.com

  This edition is copyright and trademarked by Bill Cunningham and Pulp 2.0 Press.

  All rights reserved.

  For more information contact: Newpulpmedia@gmail.com

  To Boris Karloff

  The greatest Frankenstein Monster of all

  CHAPTER I:

  Frozen Horror

  Fairfax looked hysterically at the fuel gauge of his airplane’s instrument panel. He could feel the craft tossed by the powerful Arctic wind and it took more than a second for his eyes to get a focus on the gauge. Perhaps he secretly hoped that he had been wrong when last he looked, that the gauge might have moved since then. But to his consternation, the gauge remained as frozen as the barren white wasteland that flashed by the windows of his cockpit.

  Empty!

  He wanted to shout, but even if there were someone else in the plane to hear him, his voice would not have carried over the roar of the rapidly descending craft. There wasn’t another drop of fuel left in the tank, he told himself, after which he cursed himself for venturing out this far.

  His strong hands clutched the cold stick, vainly trying to yank the whining ship out of its downward trajectory. The plane choked for fuel that was not there, or so it seemed to Fairfax who often thought of his ship as a living thing. His peripheral vision detected the blinding stretches of ice and snow that sped by the cockpit windows as the nose of his plane dipped even more severely.

  Fairfax knew that crashing was inevitable. There was nothing he might hope to do to avert his fate. He was going to die; he knew that, but he refused to meet that death without a fight, without first exhausting himself in his struggle to survive. Had he been a religious man, he might have prayed, but he doubted there were any gods that might speed to his salvation out in these desolate ice fields. All he could do was maintain his useless grip on the ship’s guide stick.

  Peaks of ice flew by his vision until all he could see was a blur of whiteness. The droning of the airplane made his ears hurt. He saw the earth shooting up faster. A terrible wall of frozen white seemed to appear before him, while his ship immediately attempted to break through the irresistible barrier.

  Fairfax braced himself against the sudden impact as, absorbed by the mountain of packed snow, the plane arced, its tail section wavering for a few seconds in the screaming wind. Then the plane seemed to die.

  Fairfax hurt for only a moment.

  * * *

  A small group of Eskimos huddled together in the snow as they saw the gleaming ship vanish with the crumbling white mountain.

  “It is an airplane,” Norcha assured the others, struggling to make himself heard over the howl of the wind. A paleness seemed to sweep over his darkly withered face as he noted the direction in which the plane had dropped “It has fallen near the sacred tomb ... of the Ice God!”

  Norcha’s face, worn hard and brown by a long life in this severely cold environment, looked sternly at the other Eskimos in his group. They had all seen the ship plunge earthward, but it was only their older leader who had stood beyond the white hill and actually pinpointed the craft’s earthbound location.

  “You are certain?” one of the others inquired, noticeably afraid. “Remember, Norcha, the sacred ice tomb. Perhaps we have witnessed some omen. Perhaps the craft was a message ... a sign . . . that we have not been faithful protectors of our Ice God.”

  “You speak nonsense,. Bruk,” said Norcha. “Airplanes are human-sent. They do not come from gods. Inside there is a man, like anyone of us. His fall from the sky was probably no more than an accident. And yet, even though unintentionally, he has invaded our holy grounds and profaned the land of the Ice God.”

  “But Norcha,” said a third member of the group, “then the stranger from the sky has committed sacrilege. Sacrilege! If the Ice God should awaken, his vengeance would be upon us, our children, and their children.”

  Norcha thought for several moments. “You are right,” Norcha replied grimly stroking his jaw. He clenched a gloved fist and the shaggy hood of his parka shifted with the wrinkling of his brow. “The outsider must be kept away from the sacred tomb!”

  The other Eskimos looked toward their leader for advice.

  “Show us where the stranger is, Norcha,” pleaded Bruk. “Let us deal with him so as not to fall into disfavor with our God.”

  For a few moments, Norcha paused in silent reflection, his body standing rigid to withstand the buffeting wind. “From where his airplane fell, he can —if he has survived the crash — walk to the ice tomb within minutes so near is he to the holy place. We must hurry if we are to reach the tomb before he does.”

  There was no more delaying what they knew must be done. Norcha’s eyes scanned the miles of undiminishing whiteness, then stopped to focus upon the sleds and teams of huskies, which were barking as if anxious to get started.

  “The dogsleds will bring us there swiftly,” said Norcha, leading the others to their only means of transportation across the white northern reaches. Seconds later, the Eskimos had boarded their sleds and were shouting commands at the dogs. The canines barked and howled as if in competition with the howling wind. Then, as they began to move across the ice, Norcha silently prayed to his deity that soon they would deal with this stranger who had profaned the Ice God’s hallowed ground.

  * * *

  It was miraculous, thought Fairfax, that not only had he survived the crash, but he had revived quite rapidly. By all odds, he should have been a corpse, and yet he could move. Somehow he had been saved by the cushioning wall of snow into which his plane had smashed.

  His vision darted to the cockpit windshield, which was flush against a solid wall of tightly-packed snow. Surely, he thought, the temperature inside the plane must now be as low as that outside. For several minutes, Fairfax hardly moved. He shivered in the subzero environment, then tried to keep moving in order to speed up his circulation. At last he found the strength to rub his hands together, but hardly produced enough body heat to be even slightly beneficial. He wished he were wearing gloves.

  Fairfax knew that he ought to be dead. Had he been a God-fearing man, he might have believed that he had been rescued from death for some as of yet unknown purpose.

  Unfastening his seat belt, Fairfax struggled to pull himself out of the chair. He tried to ignore the cold, to move about like a machine, at least until he found that small metal box he had stashed behind the pilot’s seat.

  “Here it is,” he said, his bare fingers touching something cold and smooth.” Still here . . . still intact, I hope.”

  Slapping himself a few times to get his blood circulating, Fairfax picked up the metal box, placed it on the pilot’s chair, flicked the latches and opened it.

  “Good,” he mumbled to himself, “the cotton la
yers kept it from breaking.”

  He smiled for the first time since he had learned that his ship was in trouble. The whiskey flask was like an old friend to him. Quickly he removed the cap of the flask and began to guzzle down its golden contents. Almost immediately there was warmth surging through his veins.

  “That’s good. Makes me warm.”

  Caring less than before about the cold, Fairfax rummaged through his supplies until he found the pair of old and worn gloves he had put away until he got time to buy a new pair. Putting on the gloves, he made his way to the exit of the plane, opening it to be assaulted by a freezing gust of air. Struggling for breath, Fairfax stepped outside into a world of nearly blinding whiteness, with only the whiskey helping him to ward off the torturous elements.

  As he trudged through the snow, the wind and snow and cold seemed to taunt him, to jeer him for being such a damned fool to be out here at all. He glanced back at the plane, buried in the snow, then continued on his way to nobody-knew-where, his dark form barely a speck against the monotonous white expanses.

  He felt better as he drank down more of the liquid in the flask. Fairfax could already feel the effect of the liquor. His vision was getting hazy and his balance, already impaired by the deep snow through which he struggled to move, was wavering. At first, he wasn’t certain if the noises he was hearing were real or just a product of his whiskey-influenced imagination. He strained to listen more carefully and was now sure that what he heard was the yelping and barking of dogs, getting progressively louder and, he hoped, closer. Fairfax grinned, for dogs could mean sleds and sleds implied a rescue party. Perhaps someone saw his plane when it went down, he thought. For the first time, he actually felt fairly confident that he would be rescued from this biting cold.

  He wasn’t really worrying anymore about getting back to civilization. All he had to do was wait. He drank down some more of the dwindling supply of whiskey in the flask. And he started to laugh.

  Briefly, Fairfax turned his ice-chilled body and looked back at the plane. Its nose was completely engulfed by a mountain of snow. The aft section of the ship stuck out of the white embankment like a dart. They’d never dig that out again, he thought, then proceeded on his hike.

  Fairfax was hardly paying any heed as to where he walked. Just keep moving, he told himself, get his cold blood warmed up again. The chunks of ice and the whiskey’s effect made him stumble occasionally and every time it was more difficult for him to return to his feet. Once he lost his balance and dropped face first into a blanket of snow. But the whiskey seemed to impart to him the strength and energy to go on - toward just where, he honestly had no idea. All that concerned him now was to keep moving, keep the blood circulating, until he was spotted by the masters of those dogs.

  The barking was louder now. More confident than ever that he was soon to be rescued from this bleached hell, Fairfax consumed the last few drops of the whiskey, then cavalierly tossed his empty flask into the mocking wind. He smiled again, envisioning a friendly St. Bernard dog rushing toward him with a keg of welcome brandy around its neck.

  Fairfax staggered, swayed, his feet failing him, his stumbling more frequent. But he pushed himself onward, to the accompaniment of the wild music of howling wind and barking dogs. The realization came to him that he could not possibly go much farther or even remain conscious for any great length of time. His feet were losing their feeling. His only hope was in his yet unseen rescuers. Yet, if those dogs didn’t hurry, there would be hardly anything left worth rescuing.

  With one final surge of energy, Fairfax heaved himself forward. He could feel the veins in his neck bulge as he attempted to continue on his way. His gloved hands reached out, his vision obscured by a new flurry of snow that seemed to come solely for his own benefit. He could feel a terrible numbness creeping through his limbs and was suddenly unable to use his legs. For a moment, he felt as though he were floating on air, then dropped chest-first into the snow.

  His fingers tore into the snow, grasping for bits of ice, anything by which he might drag himself forward. Can’t stop, he told himself, got to keep moving, or I’ll freeze to death! With agonizing slowness, he managed to pull himself a meter or more through the snow, stopping only when —he touched something.

  Fairfax mumbled incoherently. Then he raised his eyes, peering out through frost-hooded lids. What he thought he saw shouldn’t have been there, but then whiskey and delirium had been known to warp one’s perception and stimulate the imagination. But, though he did not really believe that what he saw existed, Fairfax lifted one shaking hand. The gusts of wintry air were almost impossible to breathe, but somehow he managed. And somehow, with fingers almost completely numb, he managed to touch the smooth surface that arose like an icy monument before him.

  “It’s hard...” he whispered to himself, barely feeling the icy surface. “It’s like... like a block of ice, just.... sitting there.”

  His other hand gripped snow. He yanked himself closer to the mysterious object, his freezing body somehow inching its way forward, until his face fell hard against the wall of ice.

  “Wh-what?” he gasped, his eyes staring incredulously at the thing that towered above him, possibly eight feet or more into the cold-swept Arctic air.

  The dogs sounded extremely close now. And peppering their barks Fairfax could hear the sounds of human voices, jabbering in some strange and unfamiliar language. But Fairfax was no longer thinking about dogs and a possible rescue. His attention was solely and completely upon this icy wall and the obvious dark form that stood frozen within it.

  Fairfax’ first impression was that the object was a coffin of ice, and that it contained what could only be a corpse. His mind was growing progressively duller as the effects of the cold continued to take their toll. Nevertheless, he still gaped at the glasslike object, constantly blinking his eyes to refocus upon the unidentifiable thing that rested silent and motionless within.

  No longer caring that his body ached from the cold, Fairfax was determined to know what was inside that icy block. He was already beginning to forget the cold that was stiffening his body like rigor mortis. With supreme discomfort he brushed away some of the loose snow that had settled upon the glassy wall. Peering into the window-like ice, Fairfax perceived two long legs — apparently those of a human being. There was a man trapped inside that block of ice, he thought; but, judging from the length of those legs, he must surely be a giant!

  Eyes bulging, Fairfax gazed higher, his vision passing over the long, obviously powerful fingers of the being. He knew it could only be his own distorted perception that made those fingers appear to be yellow in color. The being’s enormous hands hung motionless from the lanky yet obviously muscular arms. He wondered if the creature’s size might be attributed to some trick of the ice, working perhaps like a magnifying lens.

  Fairfax wanted a better look at the awesome form that arose before him. He could see that one massive fist was raised, as if either attempting to break free of the ice or clenched in defiance of anyone who might come upon the being’s massive corpse. Pulling himself higher, the pilot pressed his body against the cold surface of the block and stared up at the being’s head, finding it too far above him to get a good look.

  The barking of the dogs and the sounds of their masters were louder now, as Fairfax fought the cold and his own numbness to stand upright. His feet were almost even with those of the ice-entombed giant. When he wasn’t intoxicated, Fairfax stood a full six feet three inches tall, yet still the frozen creature towered over him by some two feet or more. Fairfax pressed his face flush against the ice for a better look at the thing.

  “Oh, my God, it can’t be!” he exclaimed, coughing, staring incredulously at the motionless giant. He stared with grim fascination at this bizarre human mockery, with its ghastly scars and the coarsely sewn wounds.

  At first fascinated by the being, Fairfax was suddenly overwhelmed by a surge of revulsion for it. Still, he found it almost impossible to look away. Though t
he being’s eyes were shut and concealed behind the heavy lids, the creature’s face seemed to transfix him hypnotically. The being’s straight black lips were pulled back into a feral, perpetual snarl, and Fairfax suddenly felt that they had been frozen while cursing his own name.

  The dogs were almost upon him, barking anxiously, and human voices were filling his ears with meaningless jibberish.

  Fairfax was still staring into the demonically hideous face when he slid down the ice sheet, moaned, then plunged mercifully into dark oblivion.

  CHAPTER II:

  Some Legends Are Based On Fact

  “ ‘He was soon borne away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance.’

  "Thus ends the thrilling saga of Frankenstein and the Monster he created. The end.”

  The stocky French gentleman sucked on his empty pipe a few times, almost in rhythm with the monotonous clacking of the train wheels. Then he closed the paperback book. For a few moments he paused reflectively, his gaze affixed to the bold red logo on the cover.

  “Frankenstein or, The Modern Prometheus,” he read aloud, “by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.” His French accent was pronounced, though his English was perfect. He turned his head slightly to see the handsome American sitting next to him. “That was a good novel. A bit difficult to read in many ways, what with the old fashioned style and all. But the meaning behind Mrs. Shelley’s oftentimes rather rambling prose is quite meaningful, sometimes even profound. I thank you for letting me read it. It certainly has helped to pass the hours riding this boring train.” A smile curled the Frenchman’s upper lip, which was lined by a thin black mustache, and made his rosy cheeks to seem to metamorphose into brightly colored cherries.