“What now, Heinrich?” asked Braun in a whisper. “It’s been a while since the machines stopped and still we haven’t seen anything suspicious out here.”
“No,” replied Franz. “But we heard, didn’t we, the sound of the door and that inhuman roar.”
“The wind, perhaps?” asked Ulrich quietly and hopefully.
“If that was the sound of the wind, I’ll gladly —”
But Heinrich Franz’ voice was abruptly silenced as the German heard the steady thump, thump, thump of heavy footsteps crushing the foliage of the woods.
“Listen,” he whispered. “Do you hear that?”
Exchanging fearful glances, Braun and Ulrich obviously did.
The footfalls were louder now, the man or thing making them obviously stepping nearer.
“He sounds as if he’s coming from the castle,” said Braun. “If it’s who I think it is, then I’m going back to town — now!” Automatically, he started off in the direction of Ingolstadt.
But Franz’ strong hand caught his shoulder and brought him to an abrupt stop. He raised his long rifle into the moonlight, the barrel appearing bluish in the pale light.
“No one’s running just yet,” said Franz. “We’ve got rifles. We’re going to see this through. Now let’s keep close together.”
Standing near one another with weapons ready, the three men waited, the footsteps sounding louder, moving faster than any one of them had expected. Suddenly they saw an enormous shadow loom above them, the bushes flying asunder as the towering dark form stalked into view. Three human faces gasped at the sight of the monstrous visage that scowled down at them, snarling hatefully.
“The Monster!” gasped Braun, shaking where he stood, no longer possessing the ability to run. “The Frankenstein monster!”
“Alive!” exclaimed Franz. “You see, I was right!”
“But w-we were supposed to find him,” moaned Ulrich, “not the other way around! We’ve got to run back to town, arouse the people to get torches and –”
“No time for that!” observed Franz. “Ready with those rifles, men!”
There was no other choice but to stay and fight. Had they decided to run at that moment, the giant could easily have snatched them back with his enormous hands and arms.
Ulrich was the first to take aim.
Instantly, the Monster reacted. Though he had been imprisoned in ice for so long, the sight of a gun was branded indelibly in his memory. The weapon might not have the power to slay him, but he remembered the pain it could inflict upon his immortal frame. Before Ulrich could squeeze back his trigger, fingers of living steel snatched the weapon from his shaking hands.
Franz and Braun stood petrified.
Ulrich could only gasp. And when he finally mustered the energy to turn and flee, he was already in the giant’s unbreakable grip. It all occurred so fast that Ulrich was probably unaware of what actually happened as the Monster grabbed him by the feet, swung him around and dashed his brains across the trunk of a nearby tree.
The other two men reacted with revulsion, clutching at their mouths and stomachs. It had all taken place so rapidly that neither of them had yet come to the realization that they might be next.
Braun was the second to raise his weapon. He cursed the Monster, determined to exact a terrible vengeance against this beast who had murdered his friend. But, even as he aimed at the misshaped, stitched head, his rifle was seized and snapped in half by those Herculean hands.
Heinrich Franz, imagining the sound of the cracked rifle to be that of his own backbone, was already retreating into the shadows. He watched with horror as his comrade was snared by the Monster’s hands and raised high into the air. He turned, just as the giant snapped Braun’s spine over his knee. Franz would remember that nauseating sound for the rest of his days, which he knew would not be for long if he didn’t move faster.
Franz did not look back as he bolted in the direction of the town. At least he would survive, he told himself, to carry out his original plan which would eventually lead to his rise in the field of local politics.
Somewhere behind him, the Frankenstein monster was already searching for his third victim. But he was alone now, save for the two bloodied and battered corpses that lay at his feet. Without feeling any emotion for the two killings, the giant stomped past the mangled bodies and proceeded, without any real destination, in the direction he assumed the third man had run.
Moments later, the Monster was lost amid the dwarfing trees of the forest.
* * *
In the glade where the circus wagons still stood, Professor Dartani heard the sounds of struggle from somewhere in the direction of the castle.
“Gort,” he told the brute standing beside him, “it will not be long now. I can feel it. My psychic powers have never felt anything this strong before. Follow me.”
The two men hid in the bushes, while the mammoth figure stiffly emerged from the shadows, its eyes looking toward the campfire. The fire’s light made the Monster’s features appear even more unearthly. Carefully, the Monster avoided the flames, then scrutinized the camp, his eyes seeking the third of the three gunmen.
“Looking for someone, my friend?” hissed Professor Dartani. “Obviously you were lured to our camp by our fire. Could we be the object of your search?”
Boldly the Professor crept from the bushes.
The Monster looked incredulously at this diminutive human being who dared to approach him without fear.
Gort stood up cautiously from behind the dark vegetation, expecting to see his scrawny boss broken in half by the giant.
But the Monster showed no sign of aggression, at least not for the present. He was waiting to see what this insanely courageous old man would do next. Surprisingly, the ancient one did not do what other men would do in this situation, namely to draw a firebrand from the campfire and wield it defensively against him. He just continued on his way, grinning to show the small number of teeth in his shriveled mouth, and looking kindly at the Monster.
“No, no, my friend,” cackled Dartani, “don’t be afraid of old Professor Dartani. I know who you are and what you are. Frankenstein’s monster, I presume?”
The Monster uttered a deep-throated growl.
“I thought so,” contined Dartani. “Splendid, I have been waiting for you.”
Gort was finally stepping out into the open. The Monster snarled at his approach, letting his fingers ripple out like the legs of yellow spiders. As he took a step in Gort’s direction, Dartani clutched at his arm.
“No, my friend. Gort will not try to harm you. Gort and I are your friends.”
Dartani’s words were hypnotically soothing and the tenseness left the Monster’s arm.
“We will not hurt you,” said the Professor, looking with green fire in his eyes up into the giant’s face. “And you will not hurt us. Am I correct?”
The Monster’s eyes moved curiously in their sunken sockets. The black lips moved, trying to form a word, but only succeeded in creating an inarticulate moan.
“Good, my friend,” said Dartani. “You have come from the castle, have you not? Castle Frankenstein?”
Pointing one hand in the direction of the old fortress, the Monster touched his throat with the other, his fingers touching the coarse stitching where his head had been attached.
“And you cannot speak?” asked Dartani with pretended concern. “A pity. But at least you can understand my words. That is good. For then you will know what it means when I tell you that I am your friend. Your friend. And except for Gort here, your only friend.”
The Monster nodded, his black flowing hair flopping about the large shoulders.
“Good, good,” said the old man. “Your friend. And I’m sure no one needs to emphasize the importance of having a friend—a friend you can trust — to someone such as yourself.”
The creature grumbled, slowly nodding his head.
Dartani’s wrinkled brow furled. His eyes seemed to glow brighter in the radiance of the campfir
e. He reached out with his skeletal hands.
“Here,” he said, “take my hands.”
The Monster responded to Dartani’s quiet suggestion and clasped the Professor’s hands, uncharacteristically careful not to squeeze too tightly. There was the hint of a smile on the creature’s face.
“Good, my friend,” said the Professor, his eyes widening. “And you will also find a calming in my eyes. Go ahead, look into them. Stare into them. Let yourself be drawn into them to drown as if in a green sea.”
The eyes of the giant were already losing themselves in Dartani’s gaze. His brain, newly awakened, was most susceptible to the Professor’s suggestion. The Monster trusted this man who called himself friend but the bond existing between them now was something far more potent than trust.
The world into which the Monster had been reborn was throbbing, dissolving away, leaving nothing behind but the calming voice of Dartani and his two scathing eyes.
Gort, dumbfounded, walked up to the demon and waved his hands before his staring eyes. The Monster, completely entranced, did not even blink.
“You did it!” he said.
“Of course, and I admit I put him under much faster than I’d expected. Look at him, Gort, standing there like some lifeless statue right out of my Asylum of Horrors.”
“Sure is an ugly cuss,” said Gort. “Even I look better than him. But now that you’ve got him like that, will he follow your orders?”
“Shall we find out?” answered Dartani, switching his attention to the Monster. “Well, my friend, will you do what I command . . . everything that I command?”
Eyes still staring, the Monster slowly nodded.
“You know, Gort, it’s often said that a person cannot be hypnotized to do something against his own better nature, to kill, for example. Fortunately for us, our giant friend here has no such moral qualms.”
“It’s still hard to believe, Professor,” said Gort, looking about the rigidly standing figure, “that this thing is for real.”
But Dartani was not listening to his driver. He was already climbing aboard the second of the two wagons. Once inside, he crawled over the mannikin of the werewolf, pushed aside the dummy of his voluptuous victim, and rummaged through various other gruesome paraphernalia until his fingers touched an exhibit that had been dismantled and stuffed in a corner.
Gort walked up to the wagon and said, “What are you looking for, boss?”
“I’ve already found it,” replied Dartani, touching the wooden pieces of the device, and then its sharp-edged blade. He looked back at his servant who was peering inside the wagon. “Remember when I said that we would wait to kill Krag, wait to give him a special, painful death, one that will not reflect upon us?”
“I remember.”
“Well, now there is no longer any reason to wait. Krag’s death will be truly in the style of poetic justice. It will be through one of the very instruments he refused to let me exhibit in his town. And the reason for his refusal, the Frankenstein monster himself, will be the very one to wield that instrument of death!”
Dartani turned his ancient body. In his hand was something so heavy that he could barely carry it. But even in the darkness of the wagon, the terrible object could be identified.
Gort, who had taken more lives than he could remember, felt a cold thrill ascend his spine as the moonlight flashed off the blade of a disassembled guillotine. Instinctively he brought his hand to his neck.
“Here, take this,” said Dartani, struggling to hand the blade over to his servant. “It was not meant to be used by hand, but given someone with suitable strength, it will serve its purpose.”
Gort accepted the blade, being careful not to cut himself on its razorlike edge. The blade was heavy, even for one of his own physical prowess. In the hands of someone considerably stronger...
He turned around to look at the Frankenstein monster, who was still standing like a grim sentinel awaiting his commands.
CHAPTER XII:
Horror Stalks The Streets
Burt Winslow was sitting forlornly at a long wooden table in the laboratory at Castle Frankenstein. His fingers were unconsciously playing with the pair of goggles he had worn during the experiment. His other hand wandered aimlessly through his thick brown hair, mussing it.
Behind him, Lynn Powell was standing. She gently rested her hand on his shoulder and squeezed affectionately. Then she moved close to him, pressing her body tightly against him. But he hardly seemed to notice.
“If only I could have made it understand,” Winslow rationalized, “that I was giving it a new life.”
“I think he did understand,” she replied, leaning close to him so that her long hair fell against his cheek.
The scientist looked up at her, for once ready to listen.
“I have a feeling that’s why he came after you, Burt. I don’t think he particularly wanted to be brought back as a misfit in an uncaring world. Remember, he’s already been through that once before.”
“If that’s the case,” said Winslow, “then it should have hated me enough to kill me. But it didn’t. It could have, by God, but it chose to release me. Unless…” He turned around on the table bench, looking up at the woman he loved and placing his hands on her firm hips.
She smiled.
“You think he didn’t kill you because I asked him not to?”
“After all, you were the one who shut off the machines.”
“I know,” she returned. “But I think he had another reason for letting you go free. If he killed you, that might’ve been too fast, too easy. But I think the Monster is smarter, more devious than that. I believe he wanted you to live.”
Winslow was finally beginning to understand, and the ghastly grin he remembered seeing on the giant’s face was at last starting to make some sense.
“God help me,” he said, lowering his head against Lynn’s chest.
“I know this sounds terrible, but I think he wants you to suffer, Burt, for bringing him back. I think that now that he’s alive again, he plans to stay that way. And whatever he must do to keep alive, whatever atrocities he’ll have to commit –”
“Will be on my conscience!” He drew her toward him, guiding her to sit on his lap, cuddling her like a baby in need of love and understanding, though it was really he who felt helpless at the moment.
She snuggled up closer to him, kissing his cheek, as he rested a hand on her leg.
Winslow shook his head. “If only it could have spoken to me, told me how it felt. But it appears mute. Possibly the years stuck in that ice caused damage to its vocal cords.”
She stroked his head.
“Oh, Lynn. Everyone around here tried to warn me. Even you tried, darling. But I was too stubborn, too self-centered to listen. Too obsessed! I thought I was doing something noble, performing an experiment that would prove something important to the world. What I did prove was that a mad scientist doesn’t have to be an old codger with frizzy white hair and a hunchbacked assistant. Oh, Lynn, I’ve repeated Frankenstein’s mistake.”
A terrible image suddenly flashed before Winslow’s mind and it involved the woman now in his embrace.
“Lynn, you’ve got to get away from here immediately. Away from Ingolstadt, as far as you can go!”
“Leave you?”
“Yes, before another minute passes. Get in the Volkswagen. Drive as fast as you can to the railroad station.”
“But – “ she started, standing as she spoke. “Somehow I don’t believe the Monster would hurt me.”
“It’s not necessarily the Monster that makes me fear for you,” he explained, rising to his feet and holding her shoulders, “but the villagers. They were on the verge of becoming a mob when I first stepped off that train. Think what will happen now once they learn that all their suspicions about me are true.”
“No, Burt, I –"
“Sooner or later, someone’s going to see the Monster. And when that happens, there’ll be mass hysteria, and they’ll be
after us. I don’t want you to be around here when it happens. Lynn, you’ve got to do this for me. You’ve got to get away from here!”
“And you?” asked the woman.
“Obviously, I’m staying,” he said. “I brought the Monster back and I am about to assume my responsibility toward it — to its capture and destruction.”
Lynn shook her head. “Nothing you say will make me leave you now, Burt. I also happen to be your assistant, right? So I’m staying by your side — until this whole mess is straightened out.”
“I guess, deep down inside, I wanted to hear you say that,” Winslow said. “But I’d still prefer your leaving.”
“You used to say I was the best assistant you ever had. I intend to keep that distinction, and also prove to be your most loyal one.”
“You know that it’s up to me to destroy the beast,” he said.
“But how?” she inquired, puzzled. “You’ve told me many times that the Monster is immortal, that he can’t be killed.”
He turned toward the table, his hands searching through the collection of medical instruments scattered haphazardly upon the white cloth covering it. “I didn’t say kill, I said destroy. There’s a difference. And this will be my weapon.”
The scientist lifted before his eyes the surgical scalpel that flashed in the laboratory’s artificial light.
“Remember,” he continued, “Victor Frankenstein created the Monster surgically, putting it together organ by organ, bit by bit. Now, if I can somehow capture the Monster before it kills anyone or creates too much damage and bring it back here to the laboratory, I should be able to knock it out cold with that gas, then reverse Frankenstein’s procedure and rid the world of that horror forever.”
“Reverse?” The realization of what Winslow meant made Lynn wince.
“That’s what I said.” Winslow squeezed the scalpel until the sweat in his fingers made it slide about in his grip. “The only way to really destroy the Monster is through dissection… taking it apart piece by piece.”
* * *
Mayor Krag’s bed was probably the most comfortable bed in all of Ingolstadt, which was why he was able to fall back asleep after his earlier incident in the street. He tossed over several times in his bed, hiding himself beneath the bed covers, hoping that the pounding at his door was merely part of his dream. Anything in that nightmare would have been more welcome than the shadowy faced giant that had invaded his slumber, snarling at him through a whirling red sea of blood.
Frankenstein Lives Again (The New Adventures of Frankenstein) Page 13
