The Mammoth Book of Frankenstein (Mammoth Books) (52 page)

He walked across to the cabinets and tugged vainly at the doors.

Perhaps, he thought, there might be something which would help him, a crowbar or like implement, lying among the various boxes which were shrouded by a great canvas sheet at the back of a pile of packing cases. The cases were near the kennels in which the baron had placed his experimental dogs. For the most part these dogs seemed under the influence of some kind of drug. They looked
at Brian with unseeing eyes, although one noticed his approach and whimpered pitifully.

A vicious snarl closer at hand made him jump and he turned to see the great wolfhound on which the baron had operated, glaring at him from crazed bloodshot eyes. Its fighting fangs were displayed, and the great jaws snapped convulsively.

He carefully skirted the box and hoped the great beast would not start barking and so attract attention.

He began to poke about among the cases. Surely there was an iron bar or hatchet among them? Perhaps under the canvas?

He drew back the covering, which revealed a series of fairly sizeable glass tanks containing bubbling liquids. But it was the sight of the contents of those tanks which brought Brian’s heart into his throat, and the nausea to well within him.

In the first tank was a severed head. The head floated in the liquid, supported by wires along which a faint current was still flowing, causing the horrid eyelids to flicker open and shut, revealing wide, staring, dead eyes. The face had been that of an elderly man, a kindly face, now frozen white in death. The mouth was open and the tongue lolling. The greying hair was plastered over the forehead. It was a head that looked strangely familiar.

It took a while for Brian to bring his horrified gaze back and examine it carefully. He knew now that he was looking at the severed head of Doctor Talbot Trevaskis.

Weapon or no, he decided to try to escape from this morgue of a house, back to the village and seek someone in authority to whom he could tell his fantastic story.

He climbed slowly to the cellar door. The great iron handle gave, and Brian inwardly cursed the noisy squeaking of the rusty hinges as he swung the door open.

The hallway outside was in darkness, but there was just enough light to make out the stairs which led up to the servants’ hall.

Holding his breath, Brian climbed the stairs and stood for a second behind the door.

The house was quiet.

Stealthily he stole down the corridor, keeping carefully to the shadows of the walls. He reached the door and opened it, and was out into a bright moonlit night. The storm clouds had been swept far out to sea, and the rain had ceased. It had left the lawn between the house and the trees carpeted with a silver sheen where the silvery moonlight was reflected against the rain-sodden grass.

Brain was halfway across the lawn when he heard a cry. Without pausing in his stride he darted a swift look over his shoulder and saw the figure of Hugo looking in his direction from the corner of
the house. Then Brian was among the trees and racing through the undergrowth towards the stone walls of the estate.

A sound caused him to stop dead and froze his very heart.

From the direction of the house came the solitary howl of a hound. No sooner had it died away than came a series of yelpings and barkings. It was the sound of a hunting pack, turned loose upon its quarry.

A cold sweat began to pour from Brian as he realized that the baron had unleashed his hounds. He began to run forward blindly, uncaring as he stumbled into bushes, as branches snapped across his body and scratched at his face. The single thought in his mind was to reach the stone wall, and to this end he bent his will, jumping across muddy ditches, pushing aside restricting branches, not noticing the pricking of the gorse and the thorns which tore into the flesh of his arms and legs.

Brian began to run as he had never run before, his heart pounding madly. Sweat began to flow from his forehead, trickling into his eyes, almost blinding him. His mouth hung open and his breath came in harsh, painful gasps.

He could feel the muscles in his legs growing weaker and weaker at the exertion.

Some part of his mind registered the yappings and barkings of the dog pack as they came on behind him. He could hear them pushing through the undergrowth in his wake. Closer still and closer they came.

He could run no more.

He stumbled against the trunk of a tree and rested there, his heart thundering against his rib cage, an excruciating pain in his side.

A hound, fleeter than the rest, raced into the clearing before him, saw him and gave an excited yelp. The beast paused not a second but sprang for the man. Exerting some hidden strength, Brian stepped back and swung his foot at the animal, the toe of his boot caught it in the throat as it started its spring and there was a snap. The animal fell back without a sound, its head strangely twisted to one side.

But the others were closing in.

He turned and stumbled on. His legs were like jelly. He could go little farther. It was hopeless.

Almost weeping in frustration, he stumbled against another tree. He tried to marshal what remained of his resources, but it was useless. A kind of lethargy of despair overcame him. What was the use of struggling on? They would get him in the end. Better to have done with it all now.

A hand grasped his arm.

He turned, his heart beating twice as rapidly.

It was the woman who called herself the baroness.

“
Komm, komm mit
!” she cried in agitation.

“No good. No good. I’m done. Done, I tell you!”

She seized his arm and began to drag him.

“Down there,” she jerked her head towards a stream. Brian allowed himself to be dragged forward, the woman half pushed, half pulled him towards the stream. Then they splashed along it until they came to some great overhanging embankment which jutted out, forming an almost cave-like hollow.

Brian found himself pushing through an iron framed doorway in which he could see no door.

He could hear the splashing of the dogs as they drew nearer.

Then his energy deserted him. With a shuddering sigh he fell down in the tiny passageway and gave himself up for lost.

The dogs, fangs barred, had almost reached the doorway when the woman reached forward. There was a cranking of a chain, and suddenly, an old iron portcullis slid from an unseen slot, barring the entrance, and leaving the hounds angry and puzzled, snapping through its bars.

“We must not wait here to be found by Hugo,
mein Herr
,” whispered the baroness urgently. “We must go on.”

Brian raised his eyes and saw the hounds barking and yapping on the far side of the iron bars. He muttered a prayer of thanks. It seemed to give him new strength, and he raised himself up, half supported by the woman.

They passed several winding tunnels, and came through several iron-shod doors, which the baroness carefully secured behind them. Their route lay through a maze of waterlogged passage-ways.

“Where are we going?” gasped Brian.

“Ahead is a small room, where I often hide when he . . . the baron . . . is in a bad mood. These tunnels are part of an ancient tin mine, and the tunnels come up under the house itself. They lead into the cavern where the baron has his laboratory. From there, through the mouth of the cave which leads on to the cliff face, one can climb down and make one’s way along the edge of the cliffs to the cove below Bosbradoe. Care must be taken along the rocks which lay directly beneath the cliffs.”

Brian was incapable of further speech and allowed himself to be led through the subterranean maze until, finally, they came to a little cave-like room.

“It is my sanctum,” said the baroness as she helped Brian on to the bed. “I often hide here.”

She let him lay for a while, breathing deeply, until his wind came
back and the pain was gone from his side. Then she handed him some water. It was cool, and refreshed him greatly.

‘You are his wife . . . Baroness Frankenstein?” he asked at length.

The woman nodded unhappily.

“Ah,
mein Herr
, did I not tell you he was evil?”

“How long have you been married to him, madam?”

“Just before he had to flee from Geneva, with the curse of the people upon him, and the evil thing which he had created. I was young then . . . young and beautiful.” She paused in reflection then continued. “I feel I have lived several lifetimes in these last few years. When I married Victor he was handsome, rich, and people said he was going to be a great scientist. Alas, they did not know what evil experiments he was conducting.

“Can you believe that I loved Victor, despite all that? I thought he had made a tragic mistake, that the people had been unfair to him.

“So it was that, when I heard from him, telling that he had escaped, that his creature was dead and that he wanted to start a new life in England, I took what money remained to us and came running, running to his side.

“We bought this house here, in Cornwall, and soon after, Victor began his experiments. It was then that I discovered that Victor, unbalanced by the awfulness of what he had done, had become mad, totally mad. There were no excuses I could make for him. He somehow believed he was God; that he could create life. But what a terrible path he trod to achieve his ends!”

She placed her hands over her face and sobbed loudly.

“The greatest evil he did was to Hugo.”

“Hugo?” asked Brian puzzled.

“Yes, Hugo.” It took some moments before the baroness would continue. “Hugo was a young man. A student of science at the Sorbonne in Paris, who was intrigued with the experiments Victor had performed at Ingolstadt. He wanted, like Victor, to find the source of life. Over the years the young man traced Victor, until he finally arrived here some five years ago. He was a young man of twenty-two, handsome, tall, aristocratic.”

Brian’s face shone with amazement.

“Hugo?”

The woman smiled softly.

“You don’t believe it? That the grotesque creature you see now was once a handsome young man?”

“It is not possible,” breathed Brian.

“Indeed, it is so. Victor welcomed him into the house. Hugo was
a kind and sympathetic man. So sympathetic that it was natural for me, in my lonely despair and anguish, to turn to that young gallant. We fell in love, Hugo and I, and made our plans accordingly. But I didn’t realize that, although he loved me, he loved his scientific ambition more. And that ambition was to discover Victor’s secret of life. We could have escaped; we delayed and Victor grew suspicious and finally discovered us.”

Again the baroness broke out in sobs.

“One night Victor enticed Hugo into his laboratory. I heard Hugo screaming. I tried to enter but the doors were locked. I never saw the Hugo I knew again.”

Not for the first time, Brian had to fight down the feeling of horror, as the implications of what the baroness said grew clear in his mind.

The baroness was nodding.

“Yes, with his infernal skill, Victor recreated Hugo . . . recreated him as the awful monster you see today, in order to punish us both for our infidelity. In that recreation he also destroyed Hugo’s mind.”

“My God!” ejaculated the young man.

The baroness seized his hand.

“We must escape! You must help me escape! Victor must be punished for his evil, his blasphemy!”

Brian looked into the pain-stricken eyes of the woman and nodded.

“Don’t worry. We shall get away this night.”

“We shall have to go down the cliff face.”

“It will be all right,” assured Brian. “I have even climbed mountains before now.”

“You will help me?”

“I will. But tell me. Why is the baron – after what he did to Hugo – now rebuilding,” he paused over the right word, “rebuilding his body?”

“I think it is because he needs Hugo to assist him in his experiments. He knows that Hugo’s mind is gone, his very memory of me. Hugo is merely an animal. But a clever one. So Victor has decided to give him better limbs by which to carry out the terrible tasks that Victor demands of him.”

Brian stood up.

“We must go now.”

“I have been ready these past ten years.”

“You have not tried to escape on your own?”

“Escape to whom,
mein Herr
? Who would believe me? Victor would merely say that I am his poor deranged wife. They would send me back or, worse, lock me into an asylum.”

The baroness led the way from the small room, along the maze of passageways, and up several stone steps, pausing before a rotting wooden door. She listened intently before swinging it open.

Brian followed her into the great cavern-like cellar.

“This way, young
Herr
,” she called softly.

Brian followed her across to the cave entrance. Four hundred feet below, he could make out the pale rocks and the white foam where the sea crashed against them. To the left, the grey granite cliffs obscured his vision of the coast line, but to the right he could see them curving away towards a little cove, above which the lights of Bosbradoe twinkled invitingly.

At first glance, the cliffs seemed to fall precipitously, but when he looked closely he could see a series of jutting stones by which a careful climber might begin to make his way down for the first hundred feet. After that he would have to consider his route.

“I will go first,” he said, “then you must follow me. Keep close, and I will direct you as to where you must place your feet. Do not move from one hold to the next until you are sure that you have made yourself secure with your other limbs.”

The woman nodded.

Carefully Brian levered himself over the edge of the cave entrance and stood balancing precariously on the first foothold.

He was glancing down to find a firmer foothold when he heard the baroness scream.

At the foot of the cellar steps stood Baron Victor Frankenstein, and at his side the deformed and twisted figure of Hugo.

The baron’s thin lips twisted into a sneer. His cruel, pale eyes flitted from Brian to his terrified wife. She stood trembling from head to foot, the back of her hand covering her twitching mouth.