The Mammoth Book of Frankenstein (Mammoth Books) (51 page)

The great cellar – it was more of a cavern – was lit with several lanterns suspended by chains from an almost cathedral-like roof. But
although the cellar was underground, Brian had the strange sense of a breeze and the tang of salt spray upon it. He let his eyes wander over the great cavern and could see on one side an answer to the puzzle.

On one side the walls opened out to a large cave mouth, which must stand directly on the cliff face, open to the sea.

In spite of the constant light of the many lanterns, a white brilliance seemed to dominate the cavern. It came from a great lamp which stood on top of a big metal box, prominent in a corner. From it, several wires ran both to the roof and which, Brian guessed were probably connected to the strange disc which crowned the house. Other wires ran to various weird boxes on which were strange markers, valves and other instruments. To one side stood a chemical bench. And there were surgical cases, packed with instruments the like of which Brian, in all his medical career, had not seen before.

In another corner were several boxes and a table covered with a canvas sheet. Close by, were some wooden crates from which came a constant whining and whimpering and on peering closely Brian realized they were make-shift kennels and decided that they contained several dogs on which the baron was experimenting

But it was the centre of this great underground laboratory to which Brian turned his fullest attention.

There stood an operating table and beside it the baron, in surgeon’s gown and mask. On the other side crouched Hugo. They were peering at something which lay inert on the bloodstained sheet.

It was the black form of a gigantic wolfhound.

“And now, Hugo.” It was the voice of the baron, and it carried a triumphant note in it. “Now, Hugo, let us see the result of our work.”

The baron bent over the dog and seemed to adjust something.

“Yes, yes, my friend, the stitches are in order.”

The creature made some noise in its throat.

“Yes, Hugo. Now comes the moment.” The baron removed some surgical instruments from the table and stood back. “Everything is ready except the very spark of life, but now . . .”

He moved towards the great box which was, Brian later discovered, a large generator, and made a rapid check of the dials and switches.

“It has stored sufficient electricity from the storm, my friend. So all we have to do now is pull the switch. Stand back!”

The noise from the machine rose to an ear-piercing whine, a whine so intense that Brian covered his ears with his hands and he noticed that Hugo had backed away into a corner with the
kennelled dogs. The light on top of the machine glowed blinding white. Incredibly, Brian saw this whiteness race along some wires to the inert body on the table, saw the body of the animal jump with the shock of the current, fall back and jump again.

The baron snapped back the switch and the whine died back into the former rhythmic hum.

The baron ran forward to the dog and Brian saw him place a listening instrument against the animal’s ribcage. For a while the baron leant over the animal, oblivious to any thing else. Then he flung the stethoscope from himself and there was a look of wild exultation on the man’s face.

“
Wunderbar
!
Wunderbar
! I have succeeded. Once again, I have succeeded!”

Hugo came scuttling back to his master’s side and peered at the animal.

“Look at him, Hugo. Look at him. I have given it life, I have breathed life into a hound. So my success of last week was not the merest fluke even though the first beast died. This one shall live. I knew what I could do once, I would do again. They . . .” there was a catch in his voice, “they broke my equipment before, tore up my notes, destroyed my experiments. But I knew that sooner or later I could repeat that experiment. Look, my Hugo, the hound lives . . . and I have given it life. Soon I will recreate man once again!”

Brian looked on in amazement as the cadaverous baron seemed to dance about the room.

The black shape on the table was stirring and had risen from its side and lay on its belly on the table, a grotesque head on top of its long body, a red gash of a tongue lolling over its gigantic fangs. Even from where he hid, the creature looked like some vicious nightmare to Brian.

“Come Hugo, let us get it in the cage. We don’t want another accident such as happened to the previous creature. This will be my hound of hell . . . my enemies shall come to know his jaws in time.”

The baron gave a short bray of laughter as his servant pushed forward a great box-like kennel and carefully avoiding the snapping fangs of the awakening animal, managed to manhandle it into the box and slam shut the wire mesh door.

“Think of it, Hugo,” rhapsodised the baron. “I have given it life. Next it will be my task to create a man . . . a beautiful man that will so expunge from the mind of mankind my past mistakes, that they will honour me as their god!”

Hugo made a snarling sound and tugged at the ecstatic baron’s sleeve.

“Eh? What is it, Hugo? Oh, you. Yes, you.”

The baron laughed at the slobbering face of his servant.

“Yes, yes. You will be next. I promised, did I not? I will recreate your body limb by limb. You will see, my friend. Did I not give you a nice arm in replacement for your misshapen one? Two days but with my technique it is exactly as your own. Soon you will not even see the scars where the arm joins your own body.”

Hugo nodded happily and waved the arm in the air, gurgling like a new born child.

“Well, peace, Hugo. We will soon refit your other limbs until you stand as tall as I do. I shall change your face and your body, my ugly friend.”

Suddenly Brian realized his danger. The baron and Hugo were walking towards the stairs. He turned and made to scramble up the cellar steps to the door. He was almost there when his foot slipped on the stone slabs and he fell, face down, slithering on his stomach on the cellar steps. Before he could move he felt his arms held in a vice-like grip.

He was turned, none too gently, to find the fiendish face of Hugo peering down at him.

Behind him the white face of the baron was gazing down in ironical amusement.

“Well, Hugo, it seems we have had an audience for our little medical experiment. An appreciative audience, I trust. Welcome, Doctor Shaw. Welcome to my humble laboratory.”

Brian looked up at the white mask-like face of the baron. He sat with his back against a large packing case, his hands bound securely behind him and his ankles were also tied tightly. Hugo had gone and the baron was sitting on a stool looking down at his unfortunate prisoner. There was the trace of a smile on his thin, bloodless lips.

He pulled from his pocket a long, black cheroot, bit off the end and proceeded to light it.

“You cannot get away with this, baron,” said Brian between clenched teeth.

“It is only fair to tell you that you will never leave here alive,” said the baron in a conversational tone. “But as you are a man of medicine, a scientist like myself, you will appreciate my reasons, of which I shall tell you presently.”

“My name, sir, is not Frankenberg. It is the Baron Victor Frankenstein.”

The baron paused to see what effect it had on the young doctor.

The name meant nothing to Brian.

The baron smiled ruefully.

“Ah, vanity,” he said quietly. “I thought the name was universal, a byword. But then, I forget you were a mere child at the time . . . when was it? 1816 – ten years ago. A long time, eh?”

As Brian watched the baron’s eyes glazed as he drifted off into his remembrances.

“My father was the Baron Alphonse Frankenstein of Geneva, and we were an old and rich family. I had what they called “promise”, and when I was seventeen I had already graduated from the schools of Geneva and went on to the great university of Ingolstadt. There I studied under Krempe, that great professor of natural philosophy, and under Waldman, who taught that chemistry was but a branch of natural philosophy.

“I engaged in scientific pursuit so closely that I outstripped even my fellow students and teachers. For two years I studied so hard that I did not even return to Geneva to visit my family, spending my holidays in my laboratory, wresting nature’s secrets from her unwilling grasp.

“Ah, my young friend, the phenomena which had peculiarly attracted my attention was the structure of the human frame and, indeed, any animal which was endowed with life. Whence, I often asked, did the principle of life proceed? A bold question, and one which has ever been considered a great mystery. But I, Victor Frankenstein, dared to grasp the nettle.”

He paused. There was a wild exultation in his eyes. His pale face had become animated with a strange light.

Brian felt a growing revulsion.

The man was obviously mad; but there was, in his madness, a ghastly genius which both repelled and attracted the young doctor. The immorality of what the man was saying shocked him, while its scientific importance took his breath away.

The baron had resumed his speech.

“It needed the life spark, as I called it, to animate the body once it was carefully prepared for life. Where would I find that life spark? Ah! From the elements themselves! I wrested the life force out of nature herself – learnt how to harness nature’s electricity, the lightning flash, to my will.

“At a time when men were still playing with the electric arc, while Seebeck was using copper and bismuth to discover simple electric current generated by thermocouple, I, Victor Frankenstein, was wresting that life force from the fount of power itself.”

“So astonishing a power was placed into my hands, that I hesitated
a long time concerning the manner in which I should employ it. Finally, I decided that I would create a being such as myself.

“It was a dreary November night, I recall, that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. I collected my instruments around me and infused the spark of being into the lifeless form I had created. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eyes of the creature open: it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.

“My toils of two years, in which I had worked for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body, and which had deprived me of rest and health, were over.

“But the people did not understand. They attacked my creation and they attacked me. They drove me and that creature into the bleak Arctic wastes, where it perished. But I was picked up by an English ship, and in my despair I related my story to one Robert Walton. He was horrified, disgusted, even as he wrote my story down and which he afterwards published through his friendship with Mary Shelley, the wife of the English poet. He thought me dead when he published the story, for he recounted how, in my despair, I leapt from the ship on to an iceberg and was borne off into the darkness of the Arctic night, never to be seen again.”

The baron sat back and laughed wildly.

“Poor fool, poor fool! I leapt on to the iceberg because I knew two things. First, that this stupid moralist would give me in charge to the police when we docked and that they would send me back to Geneva to stand trial for the murders committed by my poor creature while defending his life from the madness of the people. Second, I had seen a ship astern of us which I knew would have to pass by that iceberg. I was only half an hour on the ice before I was taken off by an American brigantine which landed me in Plymouth. From there, I sent for my wife, and she came bearing the remnants of my fortune, which was still large enough to make me secure from prying eyes.”

The baron stood up smiling.

“And so, my friend, I have spent the last ten years in this god-forsaken land, continuing my researches, trying to find out where I had gone wrong before. For I will admit that my first creation was not perfect.” His eyes flashed. “No, no! I made a mistake somewhere, for it turned out to be a mindless monster, whereas my creation was to have been the perfect man, a beautiful man. But I shall succeed eventually, do you hear me?”

His voice rose to an hysterical note.

He swayed for a few minutes and then gathered his self-control again.

He threw down the butt of his cheroot on to the floor again.

“And now, my friend, I will leave you to your contemplation. Tomorrow I shall start work on poor Hugo. I promised him a beautiful body.”

He chuckled.

“It is not a creation of life, but by it I can improve my grafting techniques and make his twisted form into a body fit enough to aid me in my greater experiments. Thanks to your help,” the baron twisted his mouth into an evil grin, “and the help of the so stupid Doctor Trevaskis, who tried to interfere with my work, Hugo shall soon have a fine young body.”

He twisted on his heel and was gone.

For several seconds Brian lay still, chewing his lips and lying to fight down the feelings of panic which assailed his nerves.

It was the breeze, with the salt sea taste, sweeping in through the open cave entrance, which jerked his mind to the thought of escape. He cast his eyes wildly about the cavern seeking some means of severing his bonds. There was none.

Then his eyes fell on the butt of the baron’s cheroot. A faint whisp of smoke still curled from it.

Brian rolled over on his stomach, and slowly inched his way towards it, turning his back, stretched out his bound wrists towards it, feeling for it with his finger tips. He burnt his hands three times before he had managed to manoeuvre the red tip of the butt against one of the cords which bound him.

The smouldering rope hurt his wrists and hands. It became almost unbearable, but Brian set his teeth tightly and kept the cheroot pressed firmly in place.

With a jerk, Brian felt the strand go slack and it was but the work of a few minutes more gradually to unloosen his bonds, and finally free his wrists.

Quickly Brian untied his feet and stood up. For a few seconds he crouched in agony as the blood surged to his feet causing excruciating cramp in his lower limbs. He stood unsteadily, and peered round, seeking a weapon by which to defend himself if either Hugo or the baron returned. Most of the surgical instruments had been cleared away and locked in various cabinets which surrounded the cavern.