Monster

by Dave Zeltserman

  I watched as he was locked away behind bars before I finally quitted this place.

  CHAPTER 28

  For at least twenty minutes I heard the donkeys braying as they pulled the wagon up the steep path that they were being urged to travel. I tried not to think too much of this and pulled a cork from another bottle of wine. By the time the wagon had reached the top of the cliff, I had finished this bottle, and I threw it into the stone fireplace and watched as the bottle exploded into tiny glass fragments. The fireplace and floor around it was littered several inches deep with these fragments. So many wine bottles, at least a third of what had been left in a well-stocked cellar.

  I sat and listened as he approached the main gate, and heard his gasps and cries when he saw the ruin that was done to his castle. He must have known I was there, but he did not flee, and instead I heard his footsteps echoing across the marble floor. To leave no doubt about my presence, I opened another bottle of wine and drank it hastily so that I could smash the bottle in the fireplace. When he heard this noise, his footsteps stopped for only a minute, and then they continued. I sat quietly after that and waited for him.

  Frankenstein was as pale as a ghost when he entered the dining room. His body near emaciated, his cheeks sunken, his eye sockets gray and hollowed, his hair in disarray as if he had been caught in a windstorm. He waited silently for me to speak, his eyes near lifeless. I stared at him for a long moment before I felt that I could control myself to say what was on my mind.

  “I have been waiting here for months for you,” I said. “Ever since I heard of your release for Clervil’s murder. I thought your conviction and death, even if done by a quick hanging, would satisfy my thirst for revenge, but now with this obscenity of your release my desire for revenge is burning hotter than ever before, and I have spent months pondering what to do.”

  “It was no obscenity,” he said, his voice a dull, listless drone to match his wasted appearance. “I was innocent of Henry’s murder.”

  “You were,” I acknowledged. “Just as I was of Johanna Klemmen’s murder, but that did not prevent me from being broken on the wheel for it, and the evidence against me was no more compelling than the evidence against you. But I was a member of the working class, and never fully understood the power of wealth, and how a wealthy father can buy a son’s freedom no matter what evidence stands against him.”

  He remained silent, and I shrugged, not really caring what he had to say regarding the matter. “Do you like what I have done to your castle?” I asked, forcing my grin.

  “Why? Was it necessary to destroy it?”

  “I had months to spend waiting for you and I wanted to put the time to good use. I should commend you on your wine cellar. Very well stocked, and an excellent selection.”

  I tottered to my feet. He took a step backward, but did not run away. I don’t think he would have been capable of fleeing; from the way he had paled his legs most likely would have given out on him.

  “I am quite drunk,” I said. “That is the only reason I am able to keep from killing you right now. I do not know if you have had a chance to fully appreciate the destruction I have done to this castle, but let me give you a tour.”

  Frankenstein stood frozen as I moved toward him. When I reached him I stood grinning harshly, and then grabbed him by the collar of his jacket, and proceeded to half carry him so that I could give him a tour of his castle. He put up no resistance to this, although I had him lifted so that his toes dragged on the floor, so I doubt any resistance would hardly have been possible. The first room I took him to had once been his evil amphitheater.

  “I am especially proud of my handiwork here,” I said. I twisted him around so he could view the full extent of what I had done. All the furniture within the room had been broken into pieces, and the wall that the mural had been painted on had been stripped to bare stone. The floor of the room was littered with rubble.

  “You should have seen how they tried to scream when I punched holes through the mural and tore it apart,” I said. “You would have thought that they were truly living instead of figures painted on a wall. If I could have left the women alone I would have, but unfortunately that was not possible, for the men all ran and hid behind the women, or at least they tried to. I have to give you credit, not only did you instill in these painted men your dark soul, but also your cowardice. As you can see, I destroyed the entire wall, and when I broke apart their figures, their faces settled into death masks. I was going to burn these pieces, but I saved them for you to see.”

  I picked up one of the fragments from the wall which showed the face of one of the malicious waltzing men, and he indeed looked like a corpse the way his eyes were closed and the trickle of blood that ran from his lips and the greenish tinge to his skin. Frankenstein looked at this but only blanched at its sight. I held him where he was so he could fully appreciate the extent of the damage that was done to the room, and then I dragged him to each of the closets off of the room so he that he could see that they were equally turned to rubble.

  “You haven’t asked about your guests,” I said as I dragged him to the boudoirs on this floor so that he could see the destruction that was done to them. “They were here when I first arrived. This was when I still believed you were going to be convicted of Clervil’s murder. I am afraid most of them are probably dead now, although not exactly by my hand.”

  Frankenstein hadn’t made a sound as I dragged him from room to room to see how I had left them in ruin. I turned him toward me to make sure he hadn’t passed out for I wanted him to fully appreciate the fate his guests had suffered, and when I saw that he was staring at me wide-eyed but too terrified to utter a word, I continued.

  “I forced them each to select an illustration from your planned drama, and I promised them that I would act out those illustrations on their bodies if they did not within one hour’s time climb down the path by foot to the base of the cliff. In their haste many of them tumbled off the cliff, and their bodies could be seen until the snow covered them. The few that made it to the bottom might have survived, but given the way they were dressed and the fact that I hadn’t allowed them to take any supplies, I doubt they made it out of the Chamounix valley. Although, who knows? Perhaps one of them did. But it did seem a fitting ending for them given how anxious they were to see those illustrations acted out on others.”

  Frankenstein showed no reaction to this, and I was afraid that he might have slipped into a state of shock. When I slapped him to see whether he was still with me, he asked in a thin but irritable voice whether that was necessary. Grinning harshly, I dragged him up the stairs so that he could see how I had turned the living quarters into a ruin of what they had been, with every piece of furniture destroyed and every wall demolished.

  “You might be relieved to know that I made sure that your honored Marquis was sent by donkey wagon back to Paris,” I said. “I wanted him alive. I did very depraved things to him, things that I am sure must have made him insane, and I wanted him to be able to live out his miserable remaining years within a lunatic asylum. I made sure to escort him personally down the path, and gave the carriage driver explicit directions where to take him, although I asked him to take the donkey wagon instead of the horse carriage.”

  “That is good,” Frankenstein uttered in his petulant drone. “I am glad the Marquis was sent in good health.”

  I couldn’t tell whether he was being sarcastic with me or was just too numb to understand my words, but I continued with our tour. “You might also like to know that all of your prisoners were set free,” I said. “Not only that but I made sure that they were brought safely to Geneva. I used the wealth left behind by your guests so that these innocents would be compensated for what was done to them. It wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough, but at least it would guarantee their safe passage back to their homes and allow them to live out their lives in comfort, and maybe someday they will be able to forget the terror that you inflicted on them.”

  “That
was very generous of you, Friedrich.”

  This was said sarcastically, and I trembled for a moment as I fought to keep from breaking his neck. Thank God for the wine I drank!

  “Do not say my name again,” I warned him. “I won’t be killing you while I give you this tour, but if you say my name again I will start breaking your bones.”

  He nodded his understanding of what I promised, and as I dragged him from room to room my temper eased.

  “Fortunately none of the prisoners knew your name,” I continued, my voice calm again. “If they had you would have been imprisoned, and I would not be able to act out my plans. At first I was willing to let society punish you for what you have done to me and Johanna and all of your other victims. But over these past months since your release from that Irish prison, my thirst for vengeance has grown and has become something nearly insatiable. No, letting a court punish you will no longer do. And now I have an entirely different fate mapped out for you.”

  We were done with the upper floors and I dragged him down the stone steps to the dungeon. When we arrived there he saw that his eight pillars of death had been left intact.

  “Pick a number between one and eight,” I told him.

  He began crying then. A pitiful whimpering cry. “Please, don’t,” he begged. “You have already ruined me. You don’t have to do any more.”

  I struck the stone wall with all my might, and the stone cracked under the blow. “Pick your number!” I roared.

  In his fright he picked the number four.

  “Ah, a coward’s number,” I said, as I chained him to the fourth pillar. “This one is only a quick spike through the heart. There are so many more fitting numbers that you could have picked, but no one can ever say that I am not a man of my word. Or should I say, an abomination of my word.”

  “I gave you life!” he cried out. “How can you act so unmercifully to the one who gave you life? And these crimes you accuse me of, they were for the greater good, both for medical knowledge, and to show the world its hypocrisy, for how can you expect man to evolve if they don’t understand the nature of their cruelty!”

  I had to stand very still for otherwise I would have murdered him instantly. “How dare you say these words to me,” I said, my voice every bit as cruel and inhuman as anything Frankenstein had ever dreamt up. “You murdered Friedrich Hoffmann and Johanna Klemmen, and you did this not for any medical knowledge, but so that you could act as God and perform your unholy experiments. How can you dare to argue any high-minded reasons for what you were going to do to your prisoners? Evil men will always try to rationalize their acts with a higher purpose, but what you have said so far is rubbish. I saw the way you and your guests looked at these prisoners, I saw the anticipation and bloodlust burning in your faces. So do not dare tell me that you had any other reason for your planned drama than wanting to enjoy watching young girls and children defiled and murdered!”

  With that I pulled the chain for this death machine. Frankenstein shrieked then, and looked flabbergasted when nothing happened.

  “I disabled the gears to this evil machine,” I said. “If you had nine lives, then I gladly would have chained you to each of these pillars and let you experience each death. But you only have one life. What was it Shakespeare said? Cowards die many times before their deaths, the valiant never taste of death but once. I will see you die a thousand times before I will allow your final death to come.”

  I unchained him from the death machine. His eyelids fluttered for several moments and I thought he was going to collapse, but he struggled to regain his composure and he remained standing on his feet. Without a word to me he turned and headed toward the stone steps. While his legs appeared unsteady, he did not fall, and I followed behind him. As he walked through the castle toward the main gate, he paused as if he desired to ask me a question. I knew what that question would be—Where had I hidden his collection of occult books—for I heard him earlier when he was searching through his hidden cabinet. He wisely decided against asking me this question and continued to the gate. I was tempted to volunteer the information that I had burned his prized collection and that they were now only ashes, but decided that his not knowing so would create more inner turmoil. Of course, if I had told him this I would not have mentioned the page that I had torn from the most insidious of his collection. Once Frankenstein stepped outside, he attempted to muster some dignity as he turned to me.

  He cleared his throat, and with his body stiff and his expression set in a stern fashion, said, “Let this end now. No good can come of this hatred laying waste to you. Let us both imagine that we have woken up from an evil dream and try from this moment to live in peace.”

  I had never hated him more than I did at that moment. The two of us to live in peace? After what he had stolen from me? After cruelly murdering the woman that I had loved more than life itself? And what had he lost? Nothing more than the ability to create evil! And he dared speak these words to me as if he were leaving me as something other than an abomination to mankind!

  I trembled as I stood staring at him, and once again a red haze nearly blinded me to him as my rage boiled and blistered within my soul. But it could not end this quickly. He needed to suffer many more deaths before I would finally squeeze his last breath from him. Somehow I managed to keep my hands at my sides, and while I did not answer him with words, I am sure he understood me from the raw emotion that flooded my eyes. He turned and walked away from me, and I followed him to his wagon, and continued to follow him as the donkeys pulled him down the path that wound around the cliff. I had too many plans to allow an injury to come to him now. Once the donkeys reached the bottom, I continued to follow Frankenstein and watched as he took the open single-horse drawn carriage from the stable held below. While I would have preferred him to suffer the indignity of having to return to his home by a donkey wagon, I needed him safe, and for that reason I allowed him to take the carriage. As he rode across the glacier, I stood and watched until he disappeared from sight. After that I returned to the castle, for this was going to be my home until I completed my vengeance against Frankenstein.

  CHAPTER 29

  Over the months that followed, I spent part of my time at the castle and the rest of it spying on Frankenstein. Occasionally I would let him see me—usually when his mood had lightened so that I could remind him of what was waiting for him. When these moments would occur he would pale, and any semblance of good humor would disappear from his face. Most of the time I would remain hidden from him, but when I absolutely needed to I would show myself to him, for I could not stomach seeing him happy for too long.

  During these months Frankenstein lived at his father’s home on the banks of Lake Geneva, and it would take me two days of hard traveling over the glaciers and mountains to reach this place. While I hated to give up my spying on him, at times I would have no choice. If I spent too long watching over him the hatred within me would become so fierce that I knew if I did not leave I would be unable to keep myself from murdering him, and I was not ready for that yet. When these overpowering feelings would come over me I would force myself to quit Geneva and to return back to the castle. Once there I would drink enough wine over several days to deaden these impulses. And only then would I dare to return back to my enemy.

  While I had turned much of Frankenstein’s castle into rubble, I did leave certain things undamaged. The wine cellar. The food pantry. The massive armchair that Frankenstein had constructed specifically for me. Most important, a hidden laboratory that I discovered deep within the bowels of the castle. This laboratory was reached from the dungeon by a secret passageway, the door to which was very cleverly concealed and that I had only serendipitously discovered.

  This laboratory was as well-stocked as any apothecary’s, and held the compounds that I needed. I used these to make a solution which, when applied to a handkerchief and then later pressed over a victim’s nose, would cause the victim to fall into a deep slumber.

  Each night that I
was in Geneva, I would wait until my enemy was asleep and then I would scale the northern wall of his father’s house so that I could slip into Frankenstein’s room unseen. While he lay asleep I would apply my specially made compound to a handkerchief and then press it against my enemy’s face. Sometimes he would wake briefly, but then his eyes would quickly drift closed, and he would fall into a deep sleep that nothing would be able to wake him from for several hours. Whether he remembered these intrusions, I could not say. I would like to think so, for that would certainly have caused a greater trepidation within his spirit the next morning. These moments were so brief that most likely if he did remember anything, he thought of them only as fragments of a troubled sleep. While he then lay unconscious, I would light a candle and take from my cape the page that I had torn from his insidious book of the occult, the one that had been wrapped with human skin, and I would chant the spell on the page over and over again. While this spell was not the same as the one he had cast over me, and would not make him my obedient slave, it would suit my purposes for when the time was right.

  During the months that I observed Frankenstein he would engage in normal activities and attempt to fit in with the other people around him, all of whom appeared to be decent and kindhearted folk. This was an act on Frankenstein’s part. To my eyes there was no disguising the evil that lurked inside of him. What others would confuse as a quiet and somber countenance, I knew to be defeat and cowardice. I had ruined his plans to commit further atrocities, and all that was left for him was to play this part and try to pretend that he belonged with other decent people. So he hid his true proclivities and acted as a chameleon with those around him. Most likely he was trying to fool himself as much as anyone else.