Frankenstein Theory (10 page)

Waldman offered a forced and crooked smile. “Very well, I look forward to seeing you at my door soon, then, Frankenstein.”

I smiled and shook my head slightly. “Were I you, I wouldn’t hold my breath, Professor.”

Once Waldman was gone, I joined Elizabeth in the dining room for a cup of coffee. She was busy stuffing her mouth with a bit of buttered bread when I entered. She stood and grabbed the steaming carafe of black delight and poured me a tall cup.

“
Thank you, darling.” I kissed her on the head and sat at the breakfast table. From the spread I plucked a pastry and bit of fruit.

“
With whom were you speaking, Victor?”

The question came as no surprise. The answer, fortunately, was not couched in untruth. “Professor Waldman from university, checking in on the status of the research.”

Elizabeth took a long pull from her coffee. When she’d swallowed, her eyes twinkled with a most natural curiosity. “Whenever will you let me in on your little secret?”

The thought of Father’s theories being
little
was laughable. Fortunately, I was able to contain myself. “You wouldn’t understand the work, my dear. Would that I were a pianist, so you might watch me rehearse and still find joy in the process. Unlike your unmatched adoration of music, what I am doing would most certainly bore you.” I shoved a piece of pastry into my mouth and spoke through the mouthful of food. “Besides, the second your delicate sensitivities beheld the sight of the unsealed human…”

Elizabeth shuddered. My strategy had worked perfectly. With a simple image, I managed to ween her from the need to meddle.

“
I plan on going into town for a spot of shopping today, Victor. Is there anything you need?”

There was. However, my needs could not be fulfilled by a run of the mill shopping adventure. “Thank you, darling. I cannot think of anything I require. Should I change my mind…”

Elizabeth leaned in and kissed me softly on the cheek. “You’ll have to let me know before I leave. I do plan on being gone for the better part of the day.”

“
Shopping on the Lord’s day.” I smiled and winked. “Whatever will the people say?”

“
They’ll be too busy kneeling and prostrating at the altar of faith to see me taking great pleasure in the consuming of goods on a day I should be resting.”

I returned her earlier kiss. “You are a saucy one, Elizabeth Frankenstein.”

“
And you love me for it, Victor.”

“
I do, indeed.”

We finished breakfast and decided to give the help an extra bit of respite from their duties by clearing the table and cleaning the dishes. Once the kitchen had been returned to a perfect state of order, Elizabeth dashed off to ready for her day, and I to my laboratory to continue the preparation for the next phase of the work.

This would be my Genesis—the origin point of the single most important step taken for the Frankenstein Theory. What I was about to do would make or break me as a scientist.

I had to succeed. For science, for my father…for myself.

ACT THREE

A Monster Most Human

T H I R T E E N

The knock at the castle door nearly sent my heart into a fit of spasms. I had been seated before a raging fire, reading through my notes from university. Elizabeth sat delicately on a loveseat, sipping tea and tackling the task of knitting socks.

Elizabeth startled from her peaceful state. “Victor, who would call at this hour?”

“I have no idea, my dear. Remain here, and I’ll investigate this mystery.”

I snatched one of the fireplace tools from the hearth and made my way to the door. With my doings of late, I wasn’t sure whom I could trust and whom I could not.

I tiptoed up to the door, gripped the poker tight, and cracked open the door.

Through a curtain of rain, I could discern a man clothed in a velvety, hooded black cloak which covered the top half of his face.

“Frankenstein?” The man’s voice was deep and rough.

“Who are you?” My whisper was barely audible over the rain.

“I have a letter for you from Mr. Fishka.”

All propriety sloughed from my manners and I reached my hand greedily toward the stranger. He backed away slightly and slowly shook his head.

“The little adventure has put one of my friends in great danger, Mr. Frankenstein.”

Once again, I shot my hand outward. “That’s
Doctor
Frankenstein.”

“I don’t care if you are a king or a god, you’ve placed a friend of mine in a dangerous position which nearly caused him to lose his life. Should Fishka not return from this journey, the consequences for you will be severe.”

“If you do not hand over the letter addressed to me, I can promise you your life will be…”

Before I could finish my statement, a leather-clad hand shot out of the darkness and gripped my wrist as if it fully intended to crush through meat and bone. I cried out; the grip released.

“You know not with whom you are dealing, Frankenstein. One does not toy with me without suffering.” The hooded figure leaned in close. The stench of rot and liquor spilled from between his lips. “I’m watching you, Victor…and your wife. Misstep once more, and the chances of you ever performing surgery again will be nil. Is that clear?”

This time, the threat hit home. I nodded quickly, and the grip released. The shadowy figure finally slipped the letter through the doorway and then disappeared into the night. Without hesitation, I spun on my heels, fell into the now-closed door, opened the letter, and read.

Doctor Frankenstein,

Though fraught with much peril, my arduous journey has borne fruit. I have managed to procure exactly what you have demanded and will very shortly return to Castle Frankenstein. I fully understand you require the brain in perfect order, so I have avoided using force and have turned to my old friend ether. During my travels home, I will do my utmost to protect the sanctity of the man’s faculties so that you may endeavor to succeed in your research.

Expect me very soon.

Your faithful servant,

Igor Fishka

The letter, which had been sealed in an unfamiliar black wax, was postmarked only yesterday. Even with his location a mystery, Igor could not have traveled far—therefore, my servant was close. How the prolonged exposure to ether would affect the brain, I was unsure. I did, however, know that, upon Igor’s arrival, the Frankenstein Theory would be put to its greatest and most profound test to date.

I had to prepare. The laboratory was already in an ideal state to receive the subject. Every tool had been heated and soaked in alcohol, every surface cleaned and polished. And yet, from deep within my core, there was a frenetic energy building toward a need to
do
.

That energy, I knew, would be best focused on my primary concerns: Mother and Elizabeth. Under normal conditions, their presence wouldn’t be an obstacle to success. What I was about to undertake would be, in no way, considered normal. I couldn’t predict how the machination of bringing the dead to life would unfold. That unknown dictated both ladies of the house be avoided at all costs—my appointment with the university, although false, took priority over attending to the currently inconsequential needs of a wife and mother. There would be plenty more minutes, hours, and days to come, each growing ever more significant, year after year. The opportunity to best God happened rarely. Happenstance was so often at odds with logic.

No matter. The truth at hand was simple

And so it was decided. The moment Igor arrived with the body in tow, I would steal myself from the presence of the ladies and begin the work that would alter the very course of man.

To the fates, I prayed my marriage would survive the coming days.

If not, I fully understood that science was, in fact, my first mistress.

I returned to the warmth of the sitting room. Elizabeth had nodded off, her knitting resting sweetly in her lap. The fire continued its roar toward the flue, and my seat called to me. Instead, I opted to scoop my wife up and carry her to the boudoir…even if only to sleep.

Perchance…

F O U R T E E N

The hearse rumbled its way through the muddy streets of Geneva. With each turn, the tall car nearly topped over. At the topside seat, a cloaked figure cracked a mighty whip. With each shocking snap, the horses picked up the pace until they raced into the pitch-blackness at unprecedented speeds.

A bolt of lightning sparked overhead to reveal Igor seated beside the driver—his eyes bereft of life and his posture sunken and lost.

“Igor,” I screamed out in perfect timing with another crash of lightning. Both horses whinnied loudly in fear as they came to a break-neck halt.

The driver remained motionless on the hearse’s chair, still holding the reins and whip—ready to crack down hard and fast. Only he did not. The hearse continued racing through the narrow streets, careening off passersby and toppling fruit carts. The devilish whinny from the horses bounced from stone wall to stone wall.

“Stop the carriage,” I shouted.

The corpse-like driver remained motionless. I gave Igor’s arm a shake, and the limb snapped off. A single black crow peeked its head from the newly-formed hole in Igor’s torso. Like a child from the birth canal, the bird emerged and took flight. A murder of his brethren followed suit. As the birds exited Igor’s hollowed-out body, it fell forward, limp, and then dropped from the hearse.

What remained of Igor–a lone arm–grabbed me by the ankle and squeezed hard. The cold flesh caught me by surprise, and I tumbled forward. That was when the driver finally animated and snatched me from a perilous fall.

I turned to thank the man, only to see an all-too-familiar face.

“Father?” I cried out.

A crash of thunder and a blinding flash of lightning opened the sky to unleash a torrent of rain. My father turned to me and spoke—only there was no sound.

“I cannot hear you, Father.”

Again he mouthed words I could not hear. I focused on his lips in a vain attempt to read whatever message was meant for my ears. The world around me disappeared. There was only myself and my father. The hearse, streets, people, carts, rain, thunder…it all faded into an absolute blackness. As the ambient noise of Geneva faded into nothingness, my father’s voice returned, just as I remembered it.

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”

The words tore through me like scalpels of confusion. My father was not a religious man. To him, religion was society’s greatest crutch and the worst enemy of science. He loathed the Church and everything it stood for.

“I don’t understand, Father,” I whispered against the background of the infinite abyss.

His arm rose and his hand found purchase on my shoulder. What he whispered next chilled me from within. “A monster most human will unmake mankind.”

Father’s form dissolved into the surrounding blackness. I screamed for his return—to no avail. Again I screamed. “Father!” The inky blackness drained my voice of sound.

An explosion of thunder and lightning shocked me from the nightmare. I sat up and blinked away the sweat of rough sleep from my eyes. The heart within my breast beat relentlessly against its neighboring organs. My breathing fought against the fright to slow. A chill crept across my flesh as the sweat on my neck began to cool.

The flickering lights in the sky cast a wall of shadows across the room. Panic danced just on the periphery of my consciousness. As I felt myself coming undone, I refocused all of my thoughts toward logic and reason. My father was dead, and I did not believe in the supernatural. Therefore, the Baron communicating to me from the grave was not within the realm of the possible.

“It was only a nightmare,” I whispered to myself.

And yet…

I couldn’t unhinge the image of my father as a harbinger of doom and Igor’s unmaking. No matter how little I believed in the mystical and magical, I couldn’t help but wonder if something was trying to pass along some fragmented message or warning from beyond the vale of death.

“Nonsense,” I said under my breath. I slipped my legs out from the comfort of the bed and cautiously tiptoed across the room to my robe. Once within the soft warmth of the garment, I cracked open the door and slipped silently into the hall.

The air outside the bedroom was cool and sweet—the lingering scent of dinner’s dessert.

From the window at the top of the grand staircase, a flicker of lightning illuminated the foyer below. A figure stood, motionless, before the entryway. My heart returned to its chaotic pace and the wind was sucked from my lungs.

“Doctor,” the figure called up in a hushed tone.