The Mammoth Book of Frankenstein (Mammoth Books) (35 page)

It was hard work mowing the lawn. Joyce was perspiring and a savage resentment was building up. Robert had disappeared some
hours earlier, but she had no doubt where he was and her eyes wandered to his cinema building on the far side of the garden. Another two parcels of film had arrived that morning and that had added to her anger. The two had spoken very briefly; long silences were becoming the norm within the marriage and Joyce was conscious that things had deteriorated to a dangerous degree over the past two years. This was one of the factors which had driven her into another man’s arms; the utter indifference of her partner to her needs both as a woman and a human being.

Joyce put the mower away in the small shed just beyond the cinema, aware all the time of the faint music issuing into that corner of the garden. She ate lunch alone and when she went out again to continue her gardening activities she was only vaguely conscious of the fact that the shadowy figure of Robert had passed briefly across her field of vision, presumably on his way to the kitchen where she had left a cold salad lunch for him.

It was late afternoon and the shadows were lengthening on the ground before Joyce had finished her current projects in the garden and when she went back indoors to make herself a much-needed cup of coffee, there was no sign of Robert. She went through all the rooms in turn but he was not there. She made a quick, cautious call to Conrad confirming their next meeting, then returned to the garden, sitting on a teak bench in a small arbour to finish her coffee and biscuits. It was almost dark by this time and leaving the coffee tray on the bench she collected her spade, intending to take it back to the garden shed.

She paused by the entrance to Robert’s private cinema. Strangely enough, he did not seem to be there. Or at least there was no sound of films being projected this evening. She bent to the door, listening intently. Unless he was showing silent films . . . She made up her mind. It was time they had a serious talk. They could not go on in this manner. She was inside the vestibule now. Robert had constructed a small lobby which featured glass cases containing film stills. Of very old films, of course; mainly from the twenties and thirties. There was an inner door leading to the cinema proper, with its archive material, constructed not only to muffle the sound when films were being projected, but to prevent light spill from the outside.

Very quietly Joyce opened the inner door and glanced through. Yes, there was a film showing, but it appeared to be silent. Then she saw it was one of the Frankenstein series. Odd that there was no sound. Unless Robert had it switched off for some reason. She could not see him for the moment as she had not yet adjusted to the light intensity in here. Her eyes were again directed to the screen; she suddenly felt dizzy and her heart had begun to thump
uncontrollably. Was she ill or had she over-exerted herself in her gardening activities today?

Yes, it was the
Bride
. There was Elsa Lanchester in her incredible makeup as the Monster’s mate and the hysterical Colin Clive facing the sardonic Ernest Thesiger, both men in their white surgeon’s smocks. And here came Karloff himself, clumping clumsily into the laboratory. Or was it Karloff? The screen image seemed to be going out of focus, wavering and insubstantial as mist. Joyce’s breath caught in her throat and she stared incredulously at the burning rectangle before her. It was impossible, but there was Robert’s face up there on the screen with the other actors. Karloff’s massive body and Robert’s features! It was impossible but it was happening. And still the silent pantomime went on.

She must be ill. This could not be happening. She pressed the sharp point of her shoe against her right instep. There was pain, certainly, so she was wide awake and not dreaming. Instead she was enmeshed in a nightmare. She looked around desperately for the light switch, could not find it. Then her eyes were caught by something else. The reflected light from the screen was strobing across the floor and winking on the masses of film tins. Robert could not have drawn the curtains across them tonight, as he usually did, to avoid the reflections from the projector beam. Then thunderous music began, startling her so much that she almost fell.

The screen light was falling across Robert’s figure now, hunched in a canvas chair at the back of the projection room, apparently intent on the drama being played out before him. Joyce took one step forward, then froze. It was not Robert; someone much taller and more massive, wearing a thick sheepskin coat. She screamed then as the reflected light from the projector made vivid bars across the flat skull and horrific features of Karloff’s Monster. The light glinted on the neck bolts and the metal clip on the skull as the leering mouth was turned toward her. Joyce moved then, hardly realizing that scream after scream was still being wrenched from her throat. The paralysis left her. She still had the spade in her hand, having apparently carried it in, though she had not been conscious of having done so.

She went forward rapidly, raining blow after blow on the hideous form in the chair. The music from the screen speakers dinned in her ears as the film came to its climax. Sick and trembling, she at last found the light switch as the final leader of the film ran thrashing off the end of the spool. The noise went on until she pulled out the plug. The silence was thunderous as she turned to the crumpled form of the thing that had been watching the film. Rivers of blood, scarlet splashes on the spade she held in her hand.
The face was almost unrecognizable. Joyce fell to her knees as she recognized the shattered remnants of the man who had once been Robert. She must have fainted then because her wrist watch showed that more than two hours had passed when she finally became aware of her surroundings.

Shaking uncontrollably, she dragged herself to her feet. No, it had not been a mirage, but terrible reality. Her brain was working again now. Somehow she forced herself to look at her handiwork. Could the whole ghastly error have been an optical illusion? That somehow the mirror at the back of the hall and the reflection off the hundreds of film cans might have transposed her husband’s image on to that of the screen? While the visage of Karloff had been superimposed on to her husband’s features? Impossible, surely. And yet the deed was done. Wild thoughts passed through her head. Her first impulse was to ring the police. But how could she explain? No-one would believe her. It would mean years of prison at the least and the loss of all of her dreams of a shared future with Conrad. She forced herself into motion, her mind made up.

The keys were on the side of the projection stand where they always were. She went out, her course of action clear. She switched off the light, locked the door, then washed the spade carefully under the garden tap. Cold water would remove all traces of blood, she had read somewhere. Not hot. That could be fatal. When the spade was absolutely clean she dried it thoroughly with a piece of sacking and then thrust it into the earth several times before replacing it in the garden shed. This she locked also. The garden was extremely secluded, with very high hedges and it was a bright moonlit night.

Back in the house, she locked and bolted the front door and poured herself a stiff brandy in the dining room. Fortified, she returned to the garden, procured a big tarpaulin from the shed and then selected Robert’s spade, which was much bigger than her own, and more suitable for the night’s work. She had already locked the back door of the house and bolted the side gate so no-one would disturb her and she had all night. The earth was very friable about eight feet from the hedge, in the spot she had chosen.

She and Robert had always planned to have a York stone terrace there. She would need to be careful. Fortunately, Robert had no living relatives but there would be questions, of course, from friends and neighbours. And after several weeks she would have to report his disappearance to the police. There would be problems, naturally, but they were not insurmountable. And in the course of time, when people’s memories had faded, they would come to think that Robert had walked out after a row; or had found another woman. Both she
and Conrad were still young and would be able to marry after the statutory period was over.

She breathed deeply as she walked toward the most remote part of the garden. The moon shone on serenely as she began to dig like a madwoman.

It was a bright, sunny morning when Joyce went down the front path to check the car. She was meeting Conrad in an hour and they would spend the next fortnight in the Cotswolds. She had told him that Robert was away on business, which frequently happened, and he had asked no questions. She had already telephoned the contractors about the work on the new terrace. She and Robert had often discussed establishing it there, so there was nothing untoward in the request. Especially as the builders already knew of their intentions.

The tarpaulin with its contents was a good eight feet down. Fortunately, the soil had been very easy to work, though it had taken her almost until dawn to accomplish the task. It would be several weeks before the earth would settle, but then the contractors would not arrive on the site until another month had passed, as they had a large number of commissions to fulfil. Joyce walked back to the house for a final check and then again toured the garden to see that everything was in order.

She noticed as she passed the spot where Robert lay that there was a slight mound of earth over the place. She tamped it down with one elegantly shod foot.

Her heart was light as she ran toward the front gate.

“Better dead!” she said.

Nancy Kilpatrick was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but is now a resident of Toronto with her Canadian husband. She is considered to be one of North America’s experts on vampires, often appearing on radio and television, and she enjoys reading her stories to audiences in the Toronto area
.

Her short fiction has appeared in such anthologies and small press magazines as
The Year’s Best Horror Stories, Deathport, Freak Show, Phobias 2, Book of the Dead 4, Xanadu 3, Eclipse of the Senses, Northern Frights, Children of the Night, Eldritch Tales, Fang, Prisoners of the Night, The Vampire’s Crypt, Bloodreams, Nightmist, International Vampire
and many others. She has been a finalist for both the Bram Stoker Award and an Aurora Award, and won the 1992 Arthur Ellis Award for best crime story. Her published novels include versions of
Dracula, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Fall of the House of Usher
and
Frankenstein
for Masquerade Books’
The Darker Passions
series (under the pseudonym Amarantha Knight), and she has edited the erotic vampire anthology
Love Bites.
Her limited edition collection
, Sex and the Single Vampire,
was published in 1994
.

About the following story, the author explains: “It always seemed to me that Victor Frankenstein was so driven, he must have had several reasons for creating a monster. Also, the vampire has moved into the present, and I wanted to see how Frankenstein’s creation would fare in the 1990s. The creature likely was in his twenties, around Victor’s age.
He’s described as tall, pale and scarred. Sounds like rock-star material to me
. . .”

O
NLY A YEAR AGO
, plenty of club kids were calling the band
Monster
a bunch of British clones, cheap imitations of
Nine Inch Nails
. Until
Monster
flew the big ocean. Candy, though, had never seen them that way. She always knew
Monster
was brilliant, and Creature, their main man, a rock icon.

Tonight, from
Dead Zone
’s small stage, the four band-boys pounded out heavy bass and garbled archaic lyrics from their latest CD. The sound that crunched through the amps and throbbed from the stack of oversized speakers said
Monster
was definitely headed for big time. Candy wasn’t really listening, although her foot tapped automatically to all music. She was watching. Especially the lead.

Creature. Taller than tall. Lean. In his twenties. Long black hair, ear cuffs, trade-mark small-calibre bullet piercing his left ear lobe. Pasty skin, dead black lipstick, sexy eye makeup. Pale, wet-ice eyes that sliced right through you like chilled blades. Or at least that’s how Candy felt whenever he glanced her way.

Fran leaned close, breathing hot, moist air into Candy’s ear, and screamed above the music, “He’s dangerously cooooool!”

Candy nodded, barely glancing at her friend. She couldn’t take her eyes off Creature. She loved his scars.

This close to the stage she could see every one. They streaked his forehead, jaw and cheeks like red sutures, wounds from a battle. Tonight he wore black snake-skin pants, tight as flesh, matching kick-ass boots, and an open chain-mail vest. Signature black-skull bandana wrapped around his head. Under the strobe, criss-crossing red marks flashed over most of his exposed body.

Something about those warrior stripes turned her on. She wondered what it would be like to run the tip of her tongue slowly over them, up the pink mountains, and down into the redder valleys. Would the skin be hard and smooth like a regular scar? Would they open and bleed? They looked so fresh, it was like he’d had surgery yesterday – but the doctor wasn’t too good with a needle and thread.