Frankenstein Theory (8 page)

The specter of history threatened to haunt me. Since my father’s passing, I’d fought the heinous memories back, with spirits, with narcotics…with a lust for reversing entropy’s effects. No matter how deeply I dove into distraction, the past returned.

Another flicker of lightning. The shadow of the majestic oak tree danced through my study and onto the walls, its limbs a macabre embrace for the room. A rumble of thunder underscored the moment.

I closed my eyes, and he appeared against the back of my lids.

“
Father,” I whispered.

“
Victor,” a gust of wind seemed to answer in the Baron’s self-same commanding tone.

I lowered my head to the desk, the weight of so much tragedy and thought too much for me.

“
Victor,” the howling wind brought the Baron back to life. The sound threatened to hurl me back in time.

I recalled myself seated in the laboratory, off in a corner, admiring the Baron at work. The precision with which he’d used his hands was beyond the miraculous. His nimble fingers deftly worked with flesh and vein. The Baron made art with organ and flesh.

Would that I had his skill.

“
Victor.” His voice mocked me from the grave. Alive, he had challenged the notion that I would ever make it through university. Dead…I would prove him most wrong.

A brilliant flash of lightning blazed a day’s worth of sun through the room. Standing in the entryway, goggles still propped awkwardly over his eyes, Igor loomed. Had I been of sound mind and sober constitution, I’d have lashed the man with the whole of my vocabulary. As it stood, I capitulated to my condition and waved him in.

“
Doctor, I have what you required.”

His words righted me in an instant. I jumped to my feet and stared down at the grinning man. “Where?”

Igor grinned wide, baring his blackened and misshapen teeth. “Outside, on the stairs to the castle. Shall I bring him in?”

I raced beyond the doors of my study and stopped in the foyer to listen for footfalls or calls from above. Satisfied the sane world was fast asleep, I turned back to my assistant. “Bring him in. Through the study and to the laboratory. He is…”

“
Still alive?” Igor continued my thought. “Yes, he is, sir. A bit inebriated, but he’s functioning.” Igor turned to retrieve his ward, but stopped and tossed a glance over his shoulder. “I should warn you, he’s a bit…ripe.”

Without another word, Igor slipped from the room and through the castle entrance. When he opened the door, thunder rolled into the room and echoed off the marble walls. I waited for the prize. When it entered, stumbling as if its legs were bereft of skeletal structure, I wanted to laugh. Instead, I rushed to the subject’s side and aided him into the study.

He mumbled under his liquor-thick breath. The words escaped comprehension.

“
The man’s drunk, Igor.”

“
Yes, Doctor. The only way I could convince him to join me was to ply him with drink. I’ve never witnessed a single human imbibe as much as this man.” We shuffled on a bit before Igor continued. “But he is alive…as promised.”

Navigating the stairs into the laboratory without candle or lantern, carrying the nearly-dead weight of a drunkard on my shoulder, was treacherous at best. I had to count the steps as we descended. “Thirteen,” I whispered with a soft sigh of relief as we set foot on the floor of the lab.

I handed the subject off to Igor and instructed, “Position him on his side and strap him down tight.”

“
What are we doing with him, Doctor Frankenstein?”

I raced about the lab, gathering the tools and materials I needed to perform the extraction. “Igor, tonight you and I take the first great step toward godhood.”

Igor unleashed a hissing laughter and spoke in a hushed, almost frightened, tone. “I do like the sound of that.”

A crash of thunder frightened Igor. His grip shifted, and the subject slipped and crashed to the floor with a hollow thump.

“
Sorry, Doctor. Won’t happen again.” Igor scooped the man back up and helped him onto the table. Once he had him positioned correctly, he tossed the leather bindings over the body, raced to the other side, and cinched the straps down tight.

From the skylight, a sparkling display of light cracked and danced. The storm was growing in ferocity and intensity.

I shouted over the sound of thunder. “Raise the rods and feed the paddles, Igor.”

“
Yes, Doctor.” Igor immediately grabbed the heavy chains and tugged them into motion. As he did so, I placed the tip of my bone drill at the base of the man’s neck, just under the strap holding his head motionless, and slowly turned the crank to create an entry point for the collection tube. Thankfully, his state of drunkenness denied the man sensation enough to know his body had been unsealed.

Blood poured from the hole so quickly, I had trouble easing the collection tube into the drain. Once the glass pipette was in place, the scarlet liquid ceased flowing. I carefully eased the pipe into an empty beaker.

“
What are we doing, Doctor?” Igor shouted.

“
Hand me the paddles,” I called out over another crash of thunder.

Once the lightning rods were in place, Igor placed the paddles into my now gloved hands.

I took a cautious glance at my assistant. In turn, Igor read the meters on the transference machine and nodded.

With a deep breath stolen from the surrounding air, I slapped the paddles on either side of the drunkard’s head. In a strike of synchronous luck, a bolt of lightning crashed down and bounced between the rods above. The current quickly traveled from the roof into the transference device, through the paddles, and into the man’s head. As the electricity slammed against the inside of his skull, the man bucked and strained against his bindings. The all-too-familiar smell of roasting flesh filled the room with its acrid stink.

The rhythmic spasms slowed and fell into an unpredictable pattern.

“
Igor,” I called out. “Look.”

I pointed at the glass tube protruding from the man’s neck.

“
What is it, Victor?”

“
Life, my friend. Life.”

The body drew still. I dropped the paddles, removed my gloves, and checked for a pulse.

“
Nothing,” I whispered. “He’s gone.” I turned my attention to the beaker on the table. “Igor, this is what my father chased for so long. Within this glass vessel is the key to reanimating life.”

With great caution, I lifted the beaker from the table and transferred it into the safe with my father’s book. When I turned back to Igor, he gawked over his goggles.

My hands shook with the thrill of what we’d done. I could feel the grip of my father’s ghostly hands around my heart, forcing a dangerous, palpating rhythm. My every sense was heightened and my breath a stuttering gasp. “We are ready, Igor.”

He said nothing, only stared and grinned.

I wiped tears of fright and joy from my eyes before I addressed my assistant. “What I am about to ask will place you on a rather precarious ledge. Should you deny my request, then your tenure with me is void. Should you agree, know that your eternal soul could very well be forfeit.”

Igor rasped a grinding laugh. “Doctor, gaze upon me and ask yourself if a man of my lot would ever have believed in the eternal soul? I am a malformed abomination, forever condemned to hide among the shadows. My countenance was so abhorrent at birth, my mother gave me to the first pair of arms that reached out. God abandoned me at conception. Why would I ever give over to the misguided hope that a creature such as myself would be blessed with a soul?” Igor spat. “To the devil with faith. Hand me my orders and let us together prove that man is the one true God.”

I held my arm across the surgical table. Igor clasped my hand and gave it a vigorous shake.

“
What I need, my good man, is for you to acquire the ideal specimen for the next phase of our journey.”

The hunched man nodded slowly. “That being?”

“
Reanimation.”

Another grating laugh from the squat man. “The Baron von Frankenstein’s work.”

“
You know of it?”

“
Everyone in my…profession knew the Baron’s doings. We were his procurers…his market. I myself delivered to the man on numerous occasions. Mostly organs; a heart here, a lung there. I’d heard rumor that one of the elder statesmen within the order of robbers was commissioned to deliver a package to the Baron so brutally vile, the man lost his mind when he dropped off the goods. No one ever found out the contents within that sticky, wet burlap sack.” Igor patted the corpse on the table. “I have a feeling I now know exactly what that man delivered to dear old Daddy von Frankenstein.”

I turned away from the table. “I want you to venture out of Geneva. Find me a man bereft of danger. I want a philosopher, an artist…someone genteel in nature, whose heart is profoundly moved by beauty. Return with a brute, and I will personally rid you of your tongue.”

I approached Igor with vigor, my eyes focused and my mouth drawn tight. “Understand this; if you are compromised, in any way, you are not to return to Castle Frankenstein. Should you return empty-handed, you will be the first to undergo the process.”

Igor swallowed hard, his oversized Adam’s apple dancing up and down the length of his neck. “Process?”

I grinned and whispered through nearly clenched teeth. “Life to death to life.”

Ignore slowly nodded. As he did so, a wicked grin seeped across his lips. “I will not disappoint you, Victor Frankenstein.”

“
I should hope not. I pay you enough to warrant a soldier’s loyalty.”

Igor nodded once. “And you have it.”

“
You must deliver the specimen alive; preferably not drowning in rye.” I turned to leave and stopped at the foot of the stairs. “Clean the laboratory before you leave. And get rid of that foul sack of meat.”

As I ascended the stairs, I could hear the muffled sound of Igor humming a hauntingly familiar tune. I couldn’t place the melody, but its gentle lilt brought a strange ease to my mind. By the time I reached the laboratory exit, the melody had infected my mind and spilled gently from my lips.

E L E V E N

I slipped into the bed beside Elizabeth. Her breathing was deep and regular; the slightest snore rose and fell in a calming rhythm. The fading storm brought a fragmented glow into the room, revealing the angelic form of her face, her Roman nose and full lips always a delight to behold. I wanted so badly to lean in and kiss her awake, but the soothing sound of sleep summoned me.

My head dropped to the pillow, followed immediately by the weighted linens covering my arms and shoulders. Tucked within the sanctity of our four-poster bed, nothing could reach me. I was momentarily immune to death’s gaze and touch.

The flickering light grew ever more distant with each breath I took. Consciousness spiraled from my grasp; the caress of lady slumber graced my cheeks, my neck, my chest. Deeper and deeper I dove, until reality was little more than a pinprick of thought and light.

Darkness, on the other hand, was engulfing. A velvety blackness surrounded me, offering no hope of sight on the horizon.

“
Hello?” I screamed out and was answered with a single echo that instantly died away. I willed my legs forward. They complied. From the blackness, the sound of water slowly dripping grew louder with each drop until the volume was unbearable. I pressed my hands against my ears to silence the pounding noise…to no avail. No matter how hard I clutched my skull, the sound grew louder and louder.

“
The sound comes from within.” I whispered aloud the revelation. The dripping grew rhythmic and was finally accompanied by notes played on a pianoforte. The sound of music filled my heart to bursting until the perfect melody was overtaken by cries of pain. The screaming voice picked up the melody, as if each note sung was derived by a shock of pain. I continued moving forward through the bleak landscape of nothing until a blurred form appeared before me. The sound grew in volume as I drew near.

The figure came into focus: the hump of Igor’s back as he sat before a piano, his fingers alighting over the keys. I attempted to speak, but my voice came out in an unintelligible hush. I stepped to the side of the figure and dropped to my knees at the sight of Elizabeth’s body, broken and reformed into the very piano Igor played. Her ribs served as the hammers that pounded string wound from her gut. Elizabeth’s porcelain flesh covered every inch of the instrument.

“
Doesn’t she sound lovely?” Igor sighed as he shifted keys from major to minor. “I’ve always loved the minor keys. Such discordant sadness. Elizabeth always loved this song, Victor.”

Igor deftly played one of Haydn’s earlier piano concertos as if it were second nature. “Doesn’t the sound of a well-tuned piano make you want to weep?”

“
I don’t understand, Igor. What is happening?”