Frankenstein Lives Again (The New Adventures of Frankenstein) (14 page)

But the Monster’s arm hardly possessed the speed and precision of the guillotine. The blade came crashing down into his neck and for an agonizing moment Krag felt the heavy blade hack its way through his flesh and bone. Only then did death mercifully come to him.

As if in a final act of desperation, the lifeless body of Ingolstadt’s mayor swept a dead arm against the oil lamp to splash its flaming contents across the far wall.

* * *

The fire spread rapidly across the room, like a living and voracious thing, eating whatever happened to find itself beneath its jaws of flame.

The Frankenstein monster stood entranced, watching as the fire — perhaps the only thing in this world that made him cringe with fear — ate through the dry curtains and sent a wall of deadly flames from one piece of furniture to the next.

He wanted to flee before the flames grew precariously larger, but first there was his master’s command... an order that must be obeyed.

“Proof! You must bring back proof of Krag’s death!”
 

Proof?

The giant was standing in the spreading river of his victim’s blood, gushing from the truncated neck and spreading about his raised black boots. He felt the heat of the growing inferno behind him as he found something lying in the pool of blood, something that still bore the Mayor’s frozen look of horror.

Both retrieving the object of proof by its hair and recoiling from the flames, the Monster rushed for the door through which he had come, but escape was barred by a wall of fire. Instinct forced him to flee in the opposite direction, bringing him to the front door. Prompted by the approach of the flames, the beast slammed his shoulder to the door and sent a shower of wooden splinters into the street.

A moment later, with a trophy in one hand and a dripping guillotine blade in the other, the Monster had escaped from the blazing house.

Suddenly the night was alive with noise – that of people shouting and of the fire engines.

Attempting to avoid detection, the Monster slipped into the shadows of an alley, taking concealment behind a stack of wooden boxes. Peering out, he observed the crowd of human beings gathering in front of the burning building. He heard the wail of a siren and saw the strange looking vehicle — one he had never seen before — from which men in uniform leaped out to spray the building with great streams of water.

The Monster was now safely away from his deadly natural enemy, but his spirit could almost feel those flames. He knew what fire could do to his ancient flesh. He had felt the biting of flames before, so early in his existence.

He watched with fascination as the men in uniform continued to battle the fire and wished that he too had the power and nerve to brave his worst foe.

Even as he observed, the beast saw that one man — a familiar man not wearing a uniform — was attempting to stir up the small band of onlookers. The creature gave out an angry roar. The man was the last of the three he had encountered in the woods, the one who had escaped his wrath.

* * *

When the fire-fighting crew finally reduced the inferno to a steaming ruin, Heinrich Franz was able to make himself heard.

“I tell you, Mayor Krag was not the type who would accidentally set his house on fire. He never smoked in bed and never left on his lamp. I know him. I’ve known him for years. I left him only minutes before the fire was reported and he wasn’t even smoking. I tell you,” said Franz, raising his voice, “that Krag was killed ... by the Frankenstein monster!”

“The Monster!” someone in the crowd echoed, after which the entire group joined in with a barrage of indistinguishable shouts.

Regaining the crowd’s attention, Franz continued with vehemence, “I tell you the Monster is back with us! And alive! With my own eyes I saw him murder our friends, Ulrich and Braun! Their corpses lie at this very moment in the woods!”

At that moment, two firemen emerged from the smoking ruins, carrying the charred remains of the town’s mayor. The group could not help but notice the absence of a head, but it was assumed that part of the body must have been incinerated. The grisly remains were hastily deposited into the ambulance.

When the fire engine and ambulance drove away, Franz again aroused the crowd. “And the Monster has killed our Mayor! If you doubt that he also murdered Braun and Ulrich, go up into the woods near Castle Frankenstein and see for yourself what remains of them!”

There came another round of shouts.

Then a woman yelled, “I believe you, Heinrich!” 

“And so do I, Franz!” came another voice. 

“As do I!”

The crowd was now a mob thirsting for vengeance, with fists raised to the dark heavens and curses shouted to uncaring and unseen forces.

“Then let us get our torches lit and hunt down this monstrous fiend that has already taken three of us! Let’s kill him before he can claim another citizen of Ingolstadt!” Franz was yelling as loud as possible, his nostrils flaring like those of an enraged beast. “Let’s end the curse of Frankenstein once and for all!”

They were like a swarm of human locusts, shrieking to destroy the Monster which none of them had yet actually seen. There was a swelling pandemonium of overlapping voices as the mob dashed, some of them pushing to get ahead, in all directions. Whatever wooden objects they could find — table legs, chair legs, thick tree branches — were quickly wrapped in cloth, dipped in kerosene and set ablaze. Soon the entire street was illuminated by the crackling fires of their torches as the irate townspeople scattered everywhere, searching every corner and shadow for their quarry.

No one saw the giant figure retreat deeper into the umbrage of the alley.

There was a small group of six townsmen pressing ever closer to the alley, their torches casting their radiance along the building walls.

“Maybe in there,” said one of the men, looking into the alley but still not seeing the cowering giant.

“There’s some boxes over there,” remarked another man in the small group. “He could be hiding back there. Come on, let’s get a closer look.”

As the six men stepped into the alley, a low growl, issuing from the darkness behind the pile of boxes, froze them where they stood. The growl sounded almost human. The men looked apprehensively at one another.

One man nudged the tallest member of their party. “Ludwig,” he whispered, “you go first. You’re always boasting that you’re the strongest man in Ingolstadt.”

Gulping, Ludwig advanced with caution, holding his torch above the boxes. But when he saw the light from his torch had illuminated behind those boxes, he could not move. The creature staring up at him, crouched like a wolf ready to spring on its prey, was the black-garbed giant. In one of its yellow hands was the gaping face of Mayor Krag. Atop a box next to the creature was a huge blade stained with crimson gore.

“By all the saints –” he gasped.

He saw the Monster begin to rise from the slime and filth of the alley, setting aside the decapitated head. 

“What is it?” asked one of the group.

They were advancing toward their friend when the towering form of the Monster arose over their heads. The tallest of the six men was still unable to move, a choke having lodged itself in his throat. Instinctively the Monster reacted to the torch in his hand, turning his face away from it and roaring angrily.

“The fire!” said another in the group. “He’s afraid of fire!” Taking advantage of the moment, he hurled his torch against the Monster’s chest.

In a black flash, the Monster’s arm knocked aside the fiery missile, some of the flames managing to scorch his yellow flesh. The creature screamed, both from the pain and from the fear of the flames. Then he swung a powerful arm into the neck of the man who had thrown the torch, nearly severing his head with the force of his blow.

The other five men watched dumbfoundedly, several of them dropping their torches to the pavement in their horror.

Then, with unbelievable speed, the Monster seized the corpse of his latest victim and, using it as a weapon, swung it by the legs. The body’s skull slammed with deadly force into the skulls of the other men. They staggered for a few moments, too stunned to resist, as the Monster, taking them unawares, brutally ended their lives under a barrage of pounding yellow fists and crushing black boots.

Now six battered corpses littered the alley, their blood mingling with the little black pools of filth that settled on the pavement.

Six torches fizzled in the water, dying shortly after the men who had once carried them.

His work here finished, the Frankenstein monster returned to the trophy and the tell-tale weapon he had left behind the crates and took up one in each hand. 

From outside the alley a cacophony of voices and scrambling feet could be heard.

“Did you hear that? Those noises came from the alley!”

The Monster could see that the man leading the mob of torch-bearing men was the same one, again, who had escaped him in the woods. But there was no time to wait and add him to his growing list of deaths. The mob was getting dangerously close with their torches. And there were also the commands of his master, old Professor Dartani, resounding over and over again in his transplanted brain.

“Kill Krag! Bring back proof! And don’t let yourself be taken captive or slain!”

The luxury of killing that other man would have to be postponed, perhaps until the Monster found the means to shake off the influence that had taken over his mind.

Seeing the torches blazing like monstrous fireflies, the creation of Frankenstein fled through the darkness of the alley. He had already passed through the archway that led out of town when he heard the voice of the mob leader shout at him from behind.

“There he is! And he’s headed for the woods!”

* * *

Stepping into the moonlit glade, the Frankenstein monster waited, casting his gaze behind him fearfully in the direction of the town, until he heard the rickety sound of wagons.

The Asylum of Horrors, driven by Gort, slowed to a noisy halt as Professor Dartani looked down from the seat. “Did you –?” he started expectantly. Then he noticed the blood-stained trophy in the Monster’s clutch. Dartani smiled with pleasure. “Splendid. I’m glad he died with terror written on his face. I’d have been displeased had you brought back a smile.”

It was then that Dartani heard the distant shouts emanating from the darkness of the forest.

Torchlights flickered through the shadowed trees.

“You fool!” shrieked Dartani. “You were discovered. Now there is a mob after you — and consequently, after us!”

Gort, holding the reins and ready to crack them over the stallions’ backs, suggested, “We’d better get away from here, Professor — and fast.”

“Agreed.”

“Then let’s get moving, leave the Monster and –" he started, already lifting the reins.

“No. I may have use for the Monster at some later date. He will go with us.”

Dartani motioned for the Monster to come forward, always staring at him with the psychic power in his mesmeric eyes. The beast set the guillotine blade inside the wagon, then brought forth Krag’s head.

“Get rid of that,” said Dartani contemptuously. “It’s served its purpose.”

Then the Monster, helped in by Gort’s strong grip, climbed aboard, taking his place next to the dummy of a ghoul.

The reins snapped. The horses whinnied. The wagons rolled along the bumpy trail.

Looking out through the back of the wagon, the Monster saw the petrified scream of Krag looking up at him from the ground, then saw the flare of torchlight as the villagers stepped from the trees and into the clearing. He heard their dwindling curses and saw them vanish in the dark distance of the woods.

Ahead, the trees, showing pale trunks in the moonlight, formed a natural tunnel, their uppermost branches bending toward each other and intertwining.

The wagons rolled for a while through the gloomy woods, until Dartani, seeing something, ordered his burly driver to rein them to a stop.

* * *

“Gone!”

Heinrich Franz stared into the darkness which had swallowed up Professor Dartani’s Asylum of Horrors. He looked back as someone removed his coat and covered up the head of the Mayor.

“Where do we go now, Franz?” asked one of the group, holding high his torch. “The forest is a big place and they could hide from us all night without any trouble.”

Franz waited before answering. “Take that... those remains back to town,” he told the man now holding the coat-covered bundle. “You’ll have nothing to fear of the Monster going back in that direction.”

“But what do we do now?”

“Yes, Heinrich. We cannot simply go chasing the Monster by torchlight. Our fire would signal him with every step we took. We might never get him, while he’d be waiting to strike at us from the shadows.”

“At least we know that the Monster is associated with that old Professor and with the murder of Krag,” said Franz. “But I understand how you all feel. We all want revenge!”

The crowd roared in agreement as if they were spectators at the Roman arena demanding the spilling of human blood. Franz could feel their tenseness, understand that they were not about to return home without some satisfaction.

“I promise you that we’ll have our revenge tonight!” he shouted. “Even if we cannot find the Monster, we can have our vengeance on the madman who brought this horror down upon our heads. You know who he is!”

“Aye!” yelled someone in the back of the group.

“It’s Winslow we want!” shouted someone else. 

The crowd hollered in agreement, waving their torches.

“Then follow me,” said Franz, again taking command and leading the way down a winding trail, “to Castle Frankenstein!”

* * *

Lynn was staring out an open bedroom window when she first saw the mob, their torches lighting the way through the woods like some grim religious procession. She saw them make their way onto the drawbridge and then assemble in the castle courtyard.

“Burt,” she said, “come here. We’re in even deeper trouble.” 

In a few moments, she was joined by the American scientist.