Frankenstein Lives Again (The New Adventures of Frankenstein) (10 page)

She set aside her crowbar, stepped over the wooden remnants of the various crates, and took Winslow by the hand.

“Then, since you don’t have to wait for any storm, how about the two of us doing a little experimenting on our own?”

“But-”

“It can wait, Burt, just like I’ve been waiting for you to come back here.”

“I’m sorry, Lynn,” he said. “I guess I have been rather the mad scientist since I’ve returned.”

“I’ll forgive you,” she responded, taking him by the hand leading him toward a huge stone staircase. “But I really shouldn't you know. I mean, you’ve been here a while now, and you still haven’t noticed how much cozier it is, how I’ve cleaned it up. When I first moved in, the place was like the House of Usher.”

Winslow could feel himself blush. Only now, after she had indicated it to him, did he notice that the place had been cleaned. He was impressed, even as he ascended the staircase with Lynn, but did not comment. For his eyes had shifted to the woman’s free hand, which was already unbuttoning her tight-fitting blouse, the material fluttering away from the magnificent curve of her breasts.

“You’ll especially like the way I fixed up the master bedroom,” she told him, her voice like a song.

Winslow’s mind made an instantaneous calculation. The gas mask would ensure the Monster’s dormancy for at least several more hours. And the locked door and the superstitions of the townspeople should shield the giant from any molestation.

He smiled at the young woman as she led him into the stately chamber which had been made as romantic and homey as a gothic castle might be made. As he began to open his shirt, he watched her gentle hands drop her blouse to the throwrug which had been placed on the cold floor. It was impossible, he silently mused, but now he was hardly even thinking about the great experiment or the giant creature it would involve.

CHAPTER X:

To Walk Again

Night had swallowed the town of Ingolstadt. But this was no ordinary night. It was enveloping darkness electrified by a collective fear. Numerous buildings were illuminated by flickering lights that appeared as yellow eyes, giving life to the homes and shops.

Inside the Red Galley Inn, patrons were complaining about the suspicious, coffin-shaped box that some of them had seen carried to Castle Frankenstein. The atmosphere at the inn was thick and difficult to breathe, a congestion of cigar, pipe and cigarette smoke, the cloud’s smell mingled with that of beer and wine.

Heinrich Franz, who always prided himself on his long association with the town’s mayor, took a long draught from his ornate beer stein. Then, with a froth of foam still on his frowning lips, he set the mug down on the table. Wiping away the foam, he stared at the two men who were seated across from him.

Both Braun and Ulrich had been waiting for their friend to speak.

Finally Franz stated, “I don’t like it. I don’t like it one damned bit. It is too much like the old days. My father and grandfather and his father all passed along the story. The story of the scientist Frankenstein and the Monster he made from parts of dead bodies.”

The other two men seated at the table grunted in mutual agreement, then continued to drink their beer while listening to Franz.

“It was a devil’s experiment, I’m told,” he went on, “and now it looks like the devil’s experiment of Frankenstein is going to happen again. Once again the Monster will prowl our streets, searching for victims — our loved ones — to seize and tear apart with his enormous hands.”

Braun was finishing off his beer. When he consumed the last drop, he waved his mug before Franz’ eyes. “We had better all keep our eyes open,” he said.

“More than that,” returned Franz. “We’d best keep our eyes peeled on Castle Frankenstein. For it is there that trouble will begin. And at the first sign of any trouble, we’ll deal with this Dr. Winslow and his wench... the way that our ancestors would have dealt with them!”

The waiter approached the table and Heinrich Franz ordered another round of beer for himself and his friends.

“And how is that, Heinrich?” asked Ulrich naively.

Franz took a long drink, then leaned back in his wooden chair. His gaze was no longer on his friends but on the crackling flames of the fireplace. For several prolonged moments he stared at the fire. Then a smile spread across his face.

And both Braun and Ulrich had their answer.

* * *

A crackling campfire was the only illumination in the clearing of the dense forest. The trees cast elongated, spectral shadows that wavered across the camp, grasping with woody talons along the luridly painted sides of the circus wagons. The aroma of cooking beans wafted in the breeze to the pair of magnificent stallions who waited patiently, tied to a tree.

Gort turned a spoon in the bubbling cauldron of beans and whiffed the aroma.

Professor Dartani sat on a boulder, staring out with a vulture’s eyes across the black expanse of forest. His back was to the campfire and his servant. He seemed not at all interested in food at the moment. Something had seemingly taken possession of his mind to leave only a motionless husk seated near the campsite.

The huge servant looked up toward his master. “Anything the matter, boss?” he inquired. “You better eat, you know. You’re skinny enough now, so you can’t afford to lose anymore weight. Come on, have some beans. They’re good. I cooked them myself.”

But Professor Dartani did not budge.

Gort wondered if his master had seen something in the woods. He gazed in the direction that the Professor was facing, but saw nothing save the shadowy forms of trees and something that appeared in the moonlight to be the silhouette of a great castle. Maybe the Professor was in one of his meditation trances?

“I said, anything the matter, boss?” Gort repeated, this time raising his voice.

Like one of the mannikins in his own Asylum of Horrors, Professor Dartani slowly turned his head toward his driver. His mummylike visage was a mask of sheer hatred, possessing a strength that made even the brute criminal Gort uncomfortable.

Dartani’s lips quivered. “I have been thinking,” the Professor began, “of this village. And its fears. And mostly, I have been thinking of… Krag.”

“The Mayor?”

Dartani nodded slowly, then his eyes snapped wide open like lights. “The impudent, pompous fool! To think that he thought he could tell me where I can and cannot show my exhibits! To think that he presumed to tell me anything! But the overstuffed ass shall pay for what he has done.”

“Pay?” A sadistic grin moved Gort’s lips. He rubbed his massive hands together in anticipation of some act that only he could envision.

“And he shall pay in the most terrible way that I can devise,” hissed Dartani.

Gort’s enthusiasm was growing. “Do you want me to sneak back into town?” he asked with wide eyes. “I could slit the creep’s throat, maybe shoot him, or — “

“And have attention drawn immediately to us?” replied the Professor, his bones creaking as he twisted his body around to face his servant. “Remember, everyone saw our little conflict in the streets.”

“We could take the body with us and dispose of it someplace else.”

Dartani shook his head. “Even if Krag were suddenly missing, we would be suspected. And these old wagons could never outrun the horses of the gendarmes. Besides, Krag’s death must not be by ordinary means. He must be made to suffer for his disparaging attitude toward me. Krag’s death must be terrible and unique and not traceable to us.”

“But,” said Gort, slamming a fist into his other hand, “I am getting impatient.”

“I can understand that,” said the Professor, gently tapping Gort’s mountainlike shoulder with his bony hand. “I can imagine how torturous it can be for someone of your own special talents to remain idle. But please, be patient. I promise that you will have your pleasure before much longer, as will I.”

As he spoke of pleasure, Dartani again imagined the young beauty who had so narrowly escaped him by the pond. He yet longed for her sun-bronzed nakedness. But for the present, the old man’s desire for revenge superseded his other longings. In another instant his thoughts had drifted to what he had heard in the street about the horror that had once been so great in Ingolstadt that the mayor would not allow Dartani’s exhibits in his town.

The brute servant returned to the campfire to spoon out two plates of hot beans. He was about to hand one steaming plate to Dartani when the Professor, ignoring him, slid off the boulder and got down on the ground. Then he knelt and dug his fingers into the damp earth.

“What are you doing, boss?” asked Gort, still holding the plates.

Dartani did not look up at him, but stared straight ahead in the direction of the castle.

“It has finally occurred to me,” the Professor responded after a long silence, “just what the significance of Krag’s remarks might be. I am finally remembering why the name of Ingolstadt is familiar to me. And just what that castle might be. And if I am correct, perhaps Krag’s death will be more delightful than I had ever hoped.”

The old man dug his fingers deeper into the ground. 

“What are you getting your hands all covered with dirt for, Professor?”

“Undoubtedly you’ve never heard the term psychometry,” answered Dartani, his face still looking ahead. “In short, it is a means by which a psychic can grasp an object belonging to someone and, by means of reading the radiation given off by that object, know something about its owner. I am going to use the very earth in this area and try to read what message it has for me. Now, be quiet. I must have total silence, complete concentration.”

Gort watched as his master’s eyelids closed and the vulturelike head lifted, facing the castle. His body remained rigid for a while until a slight vibration could be detected in those corpselike limbs. At last the wrinkled lips twitched into a ghastly smile, as though the Professor had seen something to his delight through his sightless eyes.

Dartani was still smiling when he opened his eyes again and looked up at Gort.

“I have seen him and he is wondrous!” rasped the Professor. “And when he comes to us, he shall be ours.”

“Huh? What are you talking about, Professor? Who?”

The old man finally accepted one of the plates of beans and began to nibble at them, while Gort devoured his own portion like a ravenous animal of prey.

“You will know everything,” said Dartani, “soon enough. But for the present, we both wait.”

* * *

The laboratory that now existed inside Castle Frankenstein barely resembled the old ruins first discovered by Burt Winslow when he purchased the building and its surrounding land.

The rusted, archaic equipment used by Victor Frankenstein had been replaced by the best new apparatus that the Winslow fortune could buy. The expensive modern generator, connected to the river-turned paddle wheel outside the castle, occupied a prominent place in one corner of the room. Pieces of bizarre-shaped electrical apparatus filled every cranny of the laboratory, with great terminals and coils and rheostats just waiting to be sparked into operation.

In the center of the laboratory was the replacement for Victor Frankenstein’s wooden table. Winslow had substituted for it a gleaming metal platform, some ten feet in length, equipped with five buckle-down leather straps and tilted to a forty-five degree angle with the floor. At the base of the platform was a metallic footrest.

But it was not the platform that Burt Winslow was now concerned with, as he brought a hypodermic needle filled with a strangely colored liquid up to his eye level. Winslow, clad in a white laboratory smock, felt his heart pound with excitement as he beheld again the awesome hulk of the Frankenstein monster, lying motionless and silent against the platform. The assemblage of transplanted organs, mostly human parts, was securely strapped to the platform, the raised black boots firmly in place against the footrest.

The gas mask had been removed hours ago and the creature’s ghastly countenance was now in full view. The heavy, waxlike eyelids were still closed over the dun white sockets. The straight black lips were relaxed now and closed.

The dormant Monster was no longer wearing the tattered rags that Winslow had first seen through the ice block. Now he wore a new set of clothes, all a nightly black, including the turtle-neck sweater and coat, none of the attire large enough to accommodate his large size. The sewn arms extended for several inches beyond the sleeves and the massive chest seemed about to burst through the ebon sweater. But Winslow, when he bought the clothes, had not expected the Monster to be this large.

“What are you doing now?” came a softly feminine voice.

Still holding the needle, Winslow turned to see Lynn walking across the laboratory floor. She was dressed in a plain white nurse uniform, appealing only in the way it hugged her curvaceous body and showed the gentle hills of cleavage where the two top buttons were left open.

“Just going to give him one more injection,” he told her, “using one of the formulae Frankenstein discovered while at the University of Ingolstadt. Then we’ll begin.”

He found a spot in the Monster’s cold arm and gave the injection.

“I still think it’s ugly,” said Lynn, watching Winslow withdraw the needle. “I’ll be glad when we’re finished and you’ve proven whatever it is you so desperately want to prove. Then maybe the two of us can go back to living like normal human beings.”

“It won’t be long now, darling,” he said, putting aside the empty syringe and then making some last minute adjustments in one of his machines. “And once we’ve revived the Monster, bringing him back at full strength, and proving that both Victor Frankenstein and Mary Shelley were right, we – and the world – will learn much from our giant friend.”

“I only hope,” she said, barely loud enough to be heard, “that the Monster doesn’t resent being brought back to life.”

“Huh? What was that you said?”

“Oh, nothing I haven’t already said before.” Lynn completed her own adjustments in another section of equipment.

Winslow grasped two lengths of cable, each of which terminated in a small, socketlike device. The cables had already been connected to the laboratory machinery. With the free ends in his hands, the scientist climbed a ladder which had been placed beside the metal platform. Reaching the top, Winslow connected a socket to each electrode imbedded in the Monster’s temples.

“All fastened,” he said, looking down at his lovely assistant.

“Fine,” she said, turning to look up at him. “And ol’ ‘Igor’ here is ready when you are.”

Smiling, Winslow rechecked the electrode connections, then hastened down the ladder to take his place beside Lynn. Both of them gazed up at the apparently lifeless form strapped to the platform.

“He frightens me, Burt,” she said, shivering and grabbing his arm. “Even lying there dormant, he scares me. That face, those stitches and everything. In a way, I feel sorry for him. To think, he’ll be brought back into this world as a Monster, a hideous freak, never to know love or companionship.”

“That’s all about to change now, Lynn,” said Winslow in all honesty. “He’ll be my responsibility and I will treat him like the human being he was intended to be. We may call him ‘Monster,’ but we’ll let him know that he’s really a man. That he is different from you and me only in his origin. No longer will he be hated, scoffed at by an uncaring world. Never again will he find the need to act like... a monster. When he sees how things have changed since he last walked the Earth, he will be grateful for his revival.”

“I… hope you’re right, Burt. God, but I hope you’re right! But I still don’t like looking at it. I wonder if I ever will.”

“Maybe not,” said Winslow. “But for now, let’s not worry about how the Monster looks, not only making him live again.”

Recalling the instructions he had memorized from
The Journal of Victor Frankenstein
and knowing full well the operation of his own new equipment, Winslow picked up two pairs of dark-lensed goggles, donned one pair and handed the other over to his assistant. Then he took her hand, feeling her tremble slightly, and led her to the control panel. Standing behind the panel, Winslow looked up over the mass of buttons and switches and glanced again at the Monster.