Frankenstein Lives Again (The New Adventures of Frankenstein) (4 page)

Winslow looked at Dupré “That’s our stop,” he said to the Frenchman. As he stood up from the seat and went for his luggage, his mind was again, even if for only a few moments, upon a fantasy with golden hair.

CHAPTER IV:

The Ravings Of A Madman

The Arctic town in which Dr. Burt Winslow now found himself was small, somewhat primitive, almost like a pioneer town of the American West. He and Pierre Dupré looked about the area, noticing that horses, wagons and sleds seemed to be the principal means of transportation. There were only a few automobiles on the snow-packed streets, and fewer still were actually moving. The houses, with their white-blanketed roofs, were set rather far apart; the closest being no nearer than a few hundred feet from its neighbor.

There were a small number of stores on the main street, including a general store from which, Winslow surmised, just about anything might be purchased that he would need for his expedition further north. A sign on the window of the store also identified the place as a trading post, assay office and post office.

At one end of the street was a medical center, actually a small hospital. It was, Winslow would later learn, run mostly by educated Eskimos and had many of the facilities common to modern metropolitan hospitals.

Down and across the street was an average-sized building with an adjoining garage.

Winslow stood silent for a moment, looking in the direction of the building. At last he said, “Are you certain you want to do this, Pierre? I mean, you hardly know me. And yet you’re volunteering to go out into that wilderness with me, possibly to prove that, in this case, our legend is nothing more than a legend.”

The Frenchman smiled. “Ah, but then you’ve done so superb a job of convincing me that it might be more than myth, nothing could possibly drag me away now. We French are an adventuresome lot. Besides, I was bored just thinking of my planned vacation at a communications base. How much more exciting monsters are than the group I’d have been forced to be with!”

“Thanks, my friend. To be honest, I can certainly use your help. Not only that, but I think the two of us make for some interesting conversations.”

Dupré began to laugh in agreement, so hard, in fact, that veritable clouds of visible breath poured from his mouth.

“If not for you,” Winslow continued sincerely, “I might have been forced to hire help among the natives.”

“And from what you’ve already told me about them,” said Dupré, “and about their so-called Ice God, I doubt you’d have much luck. Perhaps they’d even cause you some trouble. From what I know of superstitious peoples, they usually don’t just sit still and permit their deity to be snatched out from under them. Luckily for you,
Monsieur
, Pierre Dupré is far more than just a mere traveling companion with, as you Americans would say, a gift for gab. I also happen to be a good shot with both pistol and rifle – that is, assuming that we might be in store for some trouble.”

“Thank you,” said Winslow. He began to walk toward the building, then quickened his pace. Already quite visible were the large letters painted crudely over the main doors of the building: Morris Lamont Transport Co. “Yes, I’ll be needing you, Pierre. Mr. Lamont runs a one-man operation out here. So I doubt he’ll be able to just lock up and leave to go with us. You and I might very well be the entire expedition, my friend. Just you and I and, of course, the ‘Frankenstein’ monster.”

The two travelers stopped in front of the old transport company building. The garage door was open enough to reveal the pair of large canvas-covered trucks parked inside.

Winslow and Dupré stepped inside the building, tracking snow into the office area. The warmth of the room’s radiators quickly melted the snow as Winslow, seeing that no one was apparently about, rang a small metal bell on the service counter.

A few seconds later, a gruff voice sounded from a back room. “Yes, sirs, may I help you, sirs?”

Winslow turned his head to see the worn, whisker-covered face of the man now approaching him from the other side of the counter.

“Mr. Lamont?” asked the American.

“That’s me,” he said with little inflection in his voice. “And what can I do for you?”

“My name is Winslow. Dr. Burt Winslow. I’d contacted you last month about reserving a dogsled and a truck.”

“Of course. Dr. Burt Winslow,” said Lamont. “Don’t worry, Dr. Winslow, it’s all set to go, just like you wanted.” He ran his hand across his sandpaper beard, producing a scratchy sound. But tell me, doctor, why do you need both a sled and a truck? Isn’t one good enough?”

“Not exactly,” replied the American. “I plan to go out to an area where it’d probably be impossible to get a truck. But what I’m after is too big to bring back here by dogsled.”

Lamont coughed. “Then maybe you’d be a little more specific as to where you’ll be going and just what the hell you’ll be doing. I’d hate to rent you some equipment that might get lost out there and never come back.”

Okay, Mr. Lamont,” said Winslow, beginning to talk while his hands gestured to describe the scene. “We load the sled and the dogs into the back of the truck. When we can’t drive any farther, we unload them, hitch up, ride out to the end of the line, get what we came for and bring it back to the truck. Then we just drive back here with the cargo. Simple, isn’t it?”

“Maybe, Doctor,” said Lamont, “except for one thing. Something that’s been bothering me ever since I got your letter. You seemed so secretive in what you wrote, like you were talking around the subject, like you didn’t want to tell me too much. For the life of me, I can’t think of anything up in those wastes that’d be of value to anyone. But I sure as hell don’t figure on renting out my equipment unless I know for sure what you’re after.”

“Then,” answered Winslow without trying to cloud the issue any further, “I’ll tell you. I’m going to bring back the Ice God of the Eskimos.”

Lamont’s jaw dropped. “The Ice God!” he exclaimed, almost loud enough to be heard at the South Pole. “But — I mean, you can’t be serious, Dr. Winslow. Those stories — you don’t really believe them, do you? Sure, I’ve heard some of those wild tales. Fairy tales, they are! Stories about some terrible god scaring all the natives and all. But nobody in his right mind would —"

Dupré came to Winslow’s rescue. “I assure,
Monsieur Lamont
, that Dr. Winslow is perfectly sane . . . and serious about all this.”

“But an Ice God — “ Lamont began.

“It is no
god
we’re speaking of,” the Frenchman continued defensively. “It’s...”

“It’s all right, Pierre,” said Winslow, looking at Dupré, then back at Lamont. “But it really doesn’t matter what you think about my state of mental health, Mr. Lamont. It’s what I believe. And I happen to also believe that I’m paying you quite well for my little expedition.”

“Hmmmm,” said Lamont, “indeed you are.” He bowed his head, then laughed to himself. “Money’s money, as they say. If you prefer to waste yours, that’s your business.”

“Well, maybe I won’t be wasting it. We’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?”

Morris Lamont remained silent for a short while, his mind apparently elsewhere. Then he spoke again. “You know, Dr. Winslow, right now there is a man in our little hospital who claims he was out there—in that so-called sacred country of the natives. And, you know, he claims to have actually seen something frozen out there in the ice... some kind of demon or creature or....”

“Or Ice God?” asked Dupré.

Lamont gave an affirmative nod. “Call it whatever you wish. Ha! I believe the man in the hospital bed even called it a monster.” The most horrendous monster that — “

“Did you say
monster
?” Winslow’s enthusiasm showed.

“Yeah,” Lamont went on, displaying no emotion himself. “Of I’m surprised he didn’t see anything else out there, maybe a few pink elephants to boot. The guy was a raving lunatic, I’ve heard Not only that, but drunk to the gills, too, I might add, and delirious from the cold.”

“What!” Winslow burst out incredulously. “Why, we couldn t have asked for anything more. Talk about being at the right place at the right time! But tell me, Mr. Lamont, this man…was he a native? I mean, was he already primed to see the mon — I mean, Ice God?”

“No, sir. He was an Englishman. In fact, it was I who found him. I was taking some pelts I’d traded from a trapper back here, when I saw him lying out in the snow, must’ve been half dead, he was. He was half froze, at least, and babbling about seeing something horrible… monstrous in the ice, then passing out. He smelled like a keg of whiskey. Didn’t find him too far away from here, actually.”

“This is more than I could ever have hoped for!” said Winslow, loudly. “Go on, man. Anything else?” He waited expectantly for Lamont’s next words, never having hoped to obtain such a clue as to the location of the “Ice God’s” tomb.

“There were footprints where I found him,” said Lamont, “and sled marks. Luckily it’d stopped snowing, so the tracks stayed around long enough for me to see them. Now that seemed strange indeed to me. Seemed like somebody just dumped the man where I found him… maybe to be picked up by someone like me, or to die by himself in the snow.”

“Obviously, then,” said Winslow, “you saw nothing of the Ice God yourself.”

Lamont shook his head.

“Then if this man actually saw the Ice God,” said Winslow, “it doesn’t take any Sherlock Holmes to deduce what happened after that. He was probably discovered by the natives, taken away from where they found him, then dumped where you found him, Mr. Lamont—probably as a punishment for defiling their sacred territory.”

“Sounds reasonable,” answered Lamont. "'Course, the crazy antics of a few natives still don’t convince me that there really is anything out there, except for what a drunken, near-dying man may have imagined. A man like that might see anything, I suppose.”

“I suppose,” the doctor repeated.

“And you say that this man,” interposed Pierre Dupré, who had been, for the while, remarkably quiet, “is in the local hospital at this very moment?”

“That’s right,” replied Lamont. “He was at the medical center, where I’d taken him, last I heard. But judging from the condition he’s in, he probably won’t be there for long. Might not last for more than a couple days.”

“Burt,” said the Frenchman, “then of course we’ll talk to this man right away.”

“Of course.” Winslow was already turning toward the door with long, anxious strides. “We’re already on our way.”

Burt Winslow and Pierre Dupré left their luggage in the care of Morris Lamont, bolted out the door and then paused to look back at the transport company owner.

“Mr. Lamont, get everything prepared that I wrote you about,” said Winslow anxiously. “We leave early tomorrow morning.” Turning his head to the Frenchman, he added, “Come on, Pierre. To the medical center!”

“Ah,
Monsieur
, so the game is, as the Great Detective would say, afoot!”

“Indeed,” said Winslow as he departed the warmth of the building and stepped into the cold air.

“Sounds as crazy as that guy in the hospital,” mused Lamont, as the door to his establishment slammed shut and cut off the chilling wind.

* * *

A middle-aged native doctor greeted Winslow and his French friend at the main desk of the medical center.

“Of course, you may see Mr. Fairfax,” the physician said. “He’s coming around remarkably well. Actually, by all odds, he should have died out there. But something made him survive — probably either his own determination to hang on or the whiskey that he’d drunk.”

“Thank God,” said Winslow.

“But before you go into his room,” the physician continued, “I fear I must warn you.”

“Warn me?” Winslow inquired.

“Mr. Fairfax cannot be taken too seriously. He was raving when Mr. Lamont brought him here, and, of course, quite intoxicated.”

“But he can talk to us, can’t he?”

“Yes, Dr. Winslow. But he rants and raves about... things. Perhaps you’d rather leave for now and come back to talk to Mr. Fairfax when he’s more rational?”

“Not on your life, Doctor,” answered Winslow. Then a thought came to him. For a few moments he wondered about a possible third member in his expedition. “But you said he was getting better, physically, I mean. Will he be released fairly soon?”

“No, Dr. Winslow. He’ll still be under our care for a while. It’s his legs you see. He’s suffered a severe case of frostbite.” 

“Sorry to hear that,” said the Frenchman. 

“Then let’s go in and speak with him,” said Winslow. 

“Just try not to get him too excited, please,” said the native doctor.

“I’ll try not to, doctor. And now, if you’ll kindly show us to Mr. Fairfax’s room?”

“Certainly,” said the Eskimo, leading Winslow and Dupré down the white corridor, then into a private room.

The hospital room was clean, functional, though nothing elaborate. Light from the six-month Arctic sun streaked through the semi-drawn Venetian blinds. In the center of the room, a clean-shaven man lay under the spotless hospital linens. The bedridden patient’s eyes looked up as the physician and the two foreign visitors approached the bed.

“Some visitors to see you, Mr. Fairfax,” said the doctor, motioning with his hand for Winslow and Dupré to step closer to the bed. “They would like to speak with you.”

Fairfax’s gaze fixed itself to the two men. His eyes were like watery pools and his mouth was rapidly forming a frown that advertised his contempt for the visitors.

“More doctors who want to examine my mind?” snarled Fairfax. “Maybe put my brain under a microscope to prove that I’ve gone insane? No thanks, I’m not seeing any more doctors — not ever!”

“These men are not doctors —” the physician began.

“Uh, Mr. Fairfax,” interrupted Winslow, “we’re not here to examine you. Just to talk to you. About what you saw. About the... Ice God.”

“
God
? It was more of a
monster!"
 Fairfax exclaimed, reaching up violently from the bed until the pain in his injured legs forced him to a motionless slump. He looked up at the two men, the expression on his face revealing that he saw the visitors only as two more people to make him the fool, the intoxicated clown who made claims about frozen demons. “And now I’ve got a couple spectators,” he moaned, “who’ve come to see the show... or a man raving about what cannot possibly exist.”