The Mammoth Book of Frankenstein (Mammoth Books)

by Stephen Jones

  I don’t know which way his judgement went but, at any rate, he stood up suddenly and impulsively.

  “Would you like to see my laboratory?” he asked.

  “I would.”

  “Come on, then.”

  I followed his broad back to the far end of the room. The beaded curtains moved, almost as though someone had been standing behind them and moved away at our approach, but there was no one there when we pushed through. The room beyond was narrow and dark, and opened into a third room which was also separated by curtains instead of a door. The house was larger than it appeared from without. At the back of this third room there was a wooden door. It was bolted but not locked. Hodson drew the bolt and when he opened the door I saw why the house had appeared to project from the cliff behind. It was the simplest, if not the most obvious, reason. It actually did. We stepped from the room into a cave of naked rock. The house, at this part, at least, had no back wall and the iron roof extended a foot or two under the roof of the cave, fitting snugly against it.

  “One of the reasons I chose this location,” Hodson said. “It was convenient to make use of the natural resources in constructing a building in this remote area. If the house were to collapse, my laboratory would still be secure.”

  He took an electric torch from a wall holder and flooded the light before us. The passage was narrow and angular, a crack more than a cave, tapering at a rough point above our heads. The stone was damp and slimy with moss in the wash of light, and the air was heavy with decay. Hodson pointed the light on to the uneven floor and I followed him some ten yards along this aperture until it suddenly widened out on both sides. Hodson moved off and a moment later the place was lighted and a generator hummed. I looked in amazement at Hodson’s extraordinary laboratory.

  It was completely out of context, the contrast between chamber and contents startling. The room was no more than a natural vault in the rocks, an oval space with bare stone walls and arched roof, untouched and unchanged but for the stringing of lights at regular distances, so that the lighting was equal throughout this catacomb. There was no proper entranceway to the room, the narrow crevice through which we had passed simply widened out abruptly, forming a subterranean apartment carved from the mountain by some ancient upheaval of the earth. But in the centre of this cave had been established a modern and, as far as I could see, well-equipped, laboratory. The furnishings appeared much sturdier and more stable than those of the house, and on the various tables and cabinets were racks of test tubes and flasks and beakers of assorted shapes and sizes, empty and filled to various degrees. Files and folders were stacked here and there, just cluttered enough to suggest an efficient busyness. At the far side of the room there was a door fitted into the rock, the only alteration that seemed to have been made to the natural structure of the cave.

  Hodson gestured with an open hand.

  “This is where I work,” he said. “The accumulation of years. I assure you this laboratory is as well equipped as any in the world, within the range of my work. Everything I need is here – all the equipment, plus the time.”

  He walked to the nearest table and lifted a test-tube. Some blood-red fluid caught a sluggish reflection within the glass and he held it up toward me like a beacon – a lighthouse of a man.

  “The key to mankind,” he said. His voice was impressive, the dark fluid shifted hypnotically. “The key to evolution is buried not in some Egyptian excavation, not in the remnants of ancient bones and fossils. The key to man lies within man, and here is where the locksmith will cut that key, and unlock that distant door.”

  His voice echoed from the bare rock. I found it difficult to turn my eyes from the test-tube. A genius he may well have been, but he definitely had a flair for presenting his belief. I understood the furore and antagonism he had aroused, more by his manner than his theories.

  I looked around a bit, not understanding much of what I saw, wanting to read his notes and calculations but fairly certain he would object to that. Hodson had moved back to the entrance, impatient to leave now that I’d seen the laboratory, not wanting me to see beyond a surface impression.

  I paused at the door on the opposite side of the chamber. I had thought it wooden, but closer observation showed it to be metal, painted a dull green.

  “More equipment beyond?” I asked.

  I turned the handle. It was locked.

  “Just a storeroom,” Hodson said. “There’s nothing of interest there. Come along. Dinner will be ready by now.”

  It was curious, certainly, that a storeroom should be securely locked when the laboratory itself had no door, and when the entrance to the passageway was secured only by a key which hung readily available beside the door. But I didn’t think it the proper time to comment on this. I followed Hodson back through the tunnel to the house.

  A table had been set in the front room, where the initial conversation had taken place, and Anna served the food and then sat with us. The Indian was not present. Anna was still quite naked, and somehow this had ceased to be distracting. Her manner was so natural that even the absurd motions of placing her napkin over her bare thighs did not seem out of place; the paradox of the social graces and her natural state did not clash. The meal was foreign to me, spicy and aromatic with perhaps a hint of walnut flavouring. I asked Anna if she had prepared it, and she smiled artlessly and said she had, pleased when I complimented her and showing that modesty, false or otherwise, is a learned characteristic. Hodson was preoccupied with his thoughts again, eating quickly and without attention, and I chatted with Anna. She was completely charming. She knew virtually nothing outside the bounds of her existence in this isolated place, but this lack of knowledge was simple and beautiful. I understood full well what Hodson had meant when he’d suggested that, had he met a woman like this when he was young – was surprised to find my own thoughts moving along a similar line, thinking that if I had not met Susan –

  I forced such thoughts to dissolve.

  When the meal was finished, Anna began to clear the table.

  “May I help?” I asked.

  She looked blank.

  “Why no, this is the work of the woman,” she said, and I wondered what pattern or code Hodson had followed in educating her, what course halfway between the natural and the artificial he had chosen as the best of both worlds, and whether convenience or emotion or ratiocination had guided him in that selection.

  When the table had been cleared, Anna brought coffee and brandy and a humidor of excellent Havana cigars, set them before us and departed, a set routine that Hodson obviously kept to, despite his avowed denials of social custom and mores. It was like a dinner in a London drawing-room, magically transferred to this crude home, and seeming if anything more graceful for the transference. I felt peaceful and relaxed. The cigar smoke hung above us and the brandy lingered warmly within. I would have liked to carry on the conversation with this intriguing man, but he quite suddenly shifted the mood.

  He regarded me over the rim of his brandy glass, and said, “Well, now that you see I have no connection with these rumours, you’ll be impatient to get away and pursue your investigations along other lines, I assume.”

  His tone left no doubts as to which of us was anxious for my departure. Now that his exuberance had been satisfied, he was disturbed again – a man of changing moods, fervour followed by depression – feeling, perhaps, that he’d once more fallen victim to his old fault, the paradox of talking too much and too soon, and regretting it directly after.

  He looked at his watch.

  “You’ll have to stay the night, of course,” he said. “Will you be able to find your way back?”

  “I’m afraid not. I hate to be a bother, but – ”

  “Yes. Ah well, perhaps it’s for the better. At least my location remains a secret. I mean no personal offence, but already you disrupt my work. The Indian assists me in certain ways and now he must take the time to guide you back through the mountains. I’ll know better than to make
that mistake again, however. It should have occurred to me before that I must instruct him to return alone from Ushuaia.” He smiled. “I can think of few men who would disagree with the Indian, if it came to that.”

  He said all this with no trace of personal ill will, as if discussing someone not present, and I could take no exception to his tone, although the words were harsh.

  “The Indian may well be one of the most powerful men alive,” he said. “I’ve seen him do things, feats of strength, that defy belief . . . all the more so in that it never occurs to him how remarkable these actions are. He’s saved my life on three separate occasions, at great danger to himself and without hesitation. Have you noticed the scar on his side?”

  “I did, yes.”

  “He suffered that in rescuing me.”

  “In what manner?”

  Hodson frowned briefly, perhaps because he was recalling an unpleasant situation.

  “It happened in the Amazon. I was attacked by a cat – a jaguar. He came to my assistance at the last possible moment. I don’t fear death, but I should hate to die before my work is completed.”

  “I’d wondered about that scar. A jaguar, you say? Was the wound inflicted by fangs or claws?”

  “I don’t – it was a bit hectic, as you can well imagine. A blow of the front paw, I believe. But that was some time ago. Amazing to think that the Indian hasn’t changed at all. He seems ageless. Invulnerable and invaluable to me, in such help that requires strength and endurance. He can go days without sleep or food under the most exhausting conditions.”

  “I learned that well enough.”

  “And you’ll undoubtedly learn it again tomorrow,” he said, with a smile, and poured more brandy.

  We talked for the rest of the evening, but I could not lead him back to his work, and it was still quite early when he suggested that we retire, mentioned once more that I would want to get an early start in the morning. I could hardly disagree, and he clapped for Anna to show me to my room. He was still seated at the table when I followed her through one of the curtained doors at the back and on to the small cell where I was to spend the night. It was a narrow room with a cot along one wall and no other furnishings. There was no electricity and Anna lighted a candle and began to make the cot into a bed. This was disrupting again, not at all like the natural acceptance I’d felt at dinner, seeing her naked by candlelight, bending over a bed. The soft illumination played over the copper tones of her flesh, holding my eyes on the shifting shadows as they secreted and then moved on to reveal and highlight her body. She moved. The shadows flowed and her flesh rippled. Her firm breasts hung down like fruit ripe for the plucking, tempting and succulent. I had to tell myself that it would be a wicked thing to take advantage of her innocence, and think very firmly of Susan, waiting for me in London. I think man is naturally polygamous, although I don’t know if this is necessarily a bad thing, and it took great resolution to force my thoughts away from the obvious.

  She straightened, smiling. The bed was ready.

  “Will you require anything else?” she asked.

  “Nothing, thank you.”

  She nodded and left, and the room was stark and harsh with her departure.

  I crawled into my crude bed.

  I didn’t sleep well.

  It was still early and, although my body ached and protested from the rigours of the trek, my mind was active and alert. The thought of starting out again early in the morning was unpleasant, and I felt that very little had been accomplished by my efforts. Perhaps Hodson would tell the Indian to set a more leisurely pace, but I couldn’t very well suggest this after he’d already mentioned how inconvenient it would be to have the Indian wasting time as my guide. It was a distasteful thought, added to the futility of the journey.

  Presently I began to drift towards sleep, my body overruling my mind and drawing me into a state of half-consciousness, half thinking and half dreaming. A vision of Susan occupied my mind and then, as the dreams became more powerful than the thoughts and my subconscious mind rejected the restrictions of my will, it became a vision of the splendid Anna which I was unable or unwilling to reject. I yielded to this night-time prowling of the id, the transformation of thought to dream.

  I was asleep.

  I awoke in instant terror . . .

  The sound awakened me.

  There was no gradual surfacing from slumber, I was fully conscious in that instant, and I knew it was no dream . . . knew, even in that first moment, what the sound had been. Gregorio’s haunted words flashed back to me – a sound like no man has ever heard – and I knew that this was that sound.

  It was a cry, a deep rolling bellow, quavering at the end, a sound that only vocal cords could have made, but that no vocal cords I’d ever heard could possibly have made. It was indescribable and unforgettable, the howl of a creature in torment.

  I lay, trembling and staring at the dark ceiling. The candle was out, and my fear was blacker than the room. It seemed impossible that a sound, any sound, could have rendered me helpless, and yet I was petrified. I’ve always considered myself as brave as the next man, but this sensation was far beyond human courage – beyond human conception. I wanted desperately to stay where I was, motionless and silent in the dark, but I knew I would never forgive such cowardice, and I forced myself to move, inch by agonizing inch, as though my bones grated harshly together.

  My cigarette case and lighter were on the floor beside the cot, and I fumbled for the lighter and ignited the candle. Shadows leaped against the walls and I cringed away from their threatening shapes, waiting for reality to form. It was some seconds before I managed to stand up and pull my clothing over the ice and sweat of my skin. Then, holding the candle before me like a talisman to ward off evil, I moved to the door and pushed through the curtains.

  The house was too quiet.

  Surely no one could have slept through that sound, and yet there was no stir of awakening. It was as if everyone had been awake beforehand and anticipated the noise. It had been very near, loud and vibrating, as though echoing from close confines, and I thought of the cave behind the house; felt strangely certain the sound had come from there; moved quietly down the corridor to the front room and then through the second passage that led toward the cavern entrance. Although the sound was not repeated, the silence was terrifying in its own way, a silence formed from that sound or an effect of the sound. I was stiff with dread, my backbone tingling and my flesh rippling until it seemed that snakelike, I was trying to shed my skin. If all fear is emotional, this fear was primordial, linked more to instinct than conscious knowledge of danger. I wanted to locate the source of the sound, but the dread was far deeper than any conception of what I might find, a repulsion that lurked secretly within me in some atavistic remnants of the past, some hideous racial memory awakened.

  I forced myself forwards, through the second room. The door opening within the cave was open, and the tunnel beyond was dark. Light showed at the end, where it widened into the chamber, but it failed to penetrate the passage, and stepping into the darkness was like plunging into cold liquid qualms of panic. I don’t know what resolution drove me forwards, what reserves of willpower summoned the mechanical motions of advancing, but I held the candle before me and walked into the corridor.

  The pale light circled before me, floating over the contorted rocks in evil designs, and wavering on to meet the electric light at the far end, fading against the great brilliance and recoiling over the stoves, over a bundle of rags that blocked my path.

  Rags that moved.

  I would have screamed, had my throat worked, but I was frozen into motionless silence as the rags shifted and took shape, and I found myself staring into a face, a face twisted and wrinkled and human, swathed in a filthy shards, the eyes gleaming under the dark shelf of overhanging brow. It was a woman, ancient and bent and deformed. She had been coming toward me. Now she stopped and spread her arms wide, barring the way like some loathsome crucifix, the rags hanging from h
er elbows in folds that seemed part of her body, some membrane attaching her arms to her flanks.

  She hissed, an exclamation, perhaps a word in some unknown language, rocking from side to side on crooked haunches, and another form loomed up behind her, brushed her aside and advanced on me. My heart stopped, then burst with a surge of blood that rocked my brain. I dropped the candle, and saw the Indian in the light that shot up from the floor, nostrils flaring and cheekbones casting oval shadows in the sockets of his eyes. His hand closed on my shoulder, the strength unbelievable, as if those terrible fingers could have closed effort, lessly through my bones. I fully expected to die at that moment.

  The grip relaxed then. I was dimly aware that Hodson had shouted something from the laboratory; I heard a dull clang as the metal door beyond was closed. Then the Indian had turned me and was pushing me before him, back the way I’d come. I offered no resistance, and he was not unduly rough, although those hands could never be gentle. He walked behind me until we were back at my room, then pointed at the bed with all four fingers extended and stood in the doorway, bending beneath the frame, until I had crawled cringing on to the cot. When I turned he had left, the beaded curtains whispered his departure, and I collapsed in a limp reaction which it causes me no shame to recall.

  It was some time before my mind was released from the emotions, and I was able to think. Then my thoughts came tumbling in disorder. What had caused that sound? What had taken place in the room beyond the laboratory? Who had the ancient crone been, what was her function, what would the Indian have done to me if Hodson had not shouted? Where was Anna? How on earth did this household fit together, what purpose did the members fulfil in whatever monstrous scheme was being conducted? I found no answers, and I don’t suppose that I wanted those answers, that I was prepared to have such terrible knowledge etched on my mind, with my shoulder still burning from the dreadful clutch of the giant Indian, and that ghastly cry still vibrating in my memory.