by Jeff Rovin
It did not say FL but Fla.—the old-style abbreviation. And there was no zip code. Caroline wondered if the hotel even existed anymore. She examined the coins. There were some British coins as well as two pennies, a nickel, and a shiny silver dollar. They were heavier than any coins Caroline had ever held. She put them down on the handkerchief and slipped the currency from the diamond-studded brass clip. She unfolded it. The seven notes were from the U.S. and from Great Britain, though the designs of the British money were different from any she’d ever seen. She examined the passport. It was British, though she had never seen one like it. The photo was pasted on, not laminated, and it expired in 1949. If this were a gag, someone had been awfully thorough.
She put the money in the clip and pushed everything back through the opening. She sat back again on her heels.
Her great-aunt had begun writing after she moved in here. The first stories she penned were her popular werewolf tales. This man claimed to be such a creature. Her great-aunt’s werewolf was from England, and so was Mr. Talbot. From Wales? she wondered. While it was true that someone could have slipped in here to mimic Joan Raymond’s stories, the reverse was also true. Her great-aunt may have been inspired to write horror stories after encountering Lawrence Talbot.
Talbot disappeared through the revolving door to the right of the landing. While Caroline waited for him the telephone rang. She hurried over to the antique desk in the corner. In addition to the black telephone, there was a computer, a laserjet printer, and stacks of paper piled in a corner of the desk. Behind the desk were rows of bookshelves thick with volumes old and new.
Caroline hesitated before answering the telephone. It could be her parents calling to see how she was doing, or it might be Mr. Banning wondering if she still wanted him to come back. LaMiradans probably got up with the sun. On the other hand, it could be someone calling for Henry Pratt or William Porterhouse, wondering why they hadn’t come home the night before.
Caroline was about to pick up the receiver when the built-in answering machine took the call.
“Hello there. This is Joan Raymond. I’m unable to answer your call, but if you’ll leave a message at the tone I’ll ring you back. Thank you and goodbye.”
There was a beep followed by a man’s gruff voice. “Well, it figures I’d call Mornay Castle and get a dead person. If anyone’s listening, this is Jim Pratt, Hank’s granddad. Hank, when I couldn’t reach you at home or on the boat, I woke your secretary and got the number where she thought you’re at. If you’re still there and can tear yourself away from consoling your pretty new client, it’s a little before six a.m. These old hips aren’t going to make it around the swamp without you. Think you could give me a call and let me know when you’ll be here? Thanks, son. Bye.”
Jim Pratt hung up.
Caroline took a deep breath. The shock of what had happened to Pratt and Porterhouse hit her anew. They were dead. She couldn’t believe this was happening.
Suddenly, Talbot called out. “I thought you said Miss Raymond was dead!”
Caroline turned. Talbot was leaning through the opening. He was struggling to get through.
“She is, Mr. Talbot.”
“But I heard her voice! Where is she?”
“That was just her answering machine,” Caroline said.
“Her answering machine?”
“Yes. It’s a tape recording . . . like a record. A phonograph record that answers the phone and then records the caller’s voice.”
Talbot’s brow wrinkled deeply. After a moment he withdrew. He sat back down and leaned heavily against the wall.
Caroline walked over. “Did you examine the men?”
“I did,” Talbot said. “They’re both dead. There’s no point in bringing them up. Just call the police so I can turn myself in.”
Caroline squatted. She looked down the stairs. The hand was gone and the revolving door was closed. Even in his suffering this man was the embodiment of decorum.
“When the police come,” he said, “you must convince them that I am what I am. Tell them what you saw last night. They must waste no time killing me.”
“You can forget that,” she said.
Talbot looked at her. “What do you mean? I’ve killed again. The evidence is down there.”
“With trials and appeals it’ll take anywhere from ten to thirteen years before they put you in the electric chair.”
“Ten to thirteen years?” Talbot said. “No, it has to be tonight! And I have to be killed with a silver bullet.”
As Caroline crouched there she suddenly smelled something strange. It was different from the decaying odor that had been so strong the day before. This smelled like burnt rubber. Frowning, Caroline stuck her head into the opening. She leaned toward the left side of the staircase, the side that overlooked the still waters.
“What is it?” Talbot asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Do you smell something?”
Talbot sniffed. “Yes.”
They both looked downstairs. The sun was rising higher and a few rays of light reached the long-still waters. They revealed a mirror-flat surface, dark and lifeless.
“The smell is definitely coming from that direction,” Caroline said as she leaned over further.
Just then she saw something break the surface. It was small, smooth, and grayish-green. Then whatever it was attached to began to rise. Caroline could tell at once that it was not a marine mammal. It was something from hell.
Talbot bolted toward the water side of the ledge. In his eagerness to see what was there he nearly slipped off the mossy surface. Caroline reached in and grabbed him. When he had regained his balance he looked down.
“No,” he cried. “No!”
“Who is it?” Caroline demanded. “What is it?”
Talbot didn’t answer. They watched together as the nose became a face and it rose slowly from the water. The flesh was wrinkled and brittle-looking, vivid green on the cadaverously hollow cheeks and temples, shading to pale green around the eyes and mouth, and grayish on the chin, nose, and along the jaw. There were patches of scabbed, bubbled flesh on the broad forehead and heavy brow, on the neck, and around the ears. They seemed to Caroline like imperfectly healed burns. The lips were pale red and parted slightly, the heavily-lidded eyes were shut, and the long raven-black hair lay flat on top of the squarish head. There was an ugly, jagged rip in the flesh which ran from the hairline nearly to the right eye. As the face rose, another long, ragged scar was visible just beneath the left side of the jaw. Below it, incongruously fresh against the parchmentlike tissue, was a silvery neck-bolt. It glistened with its own sheen as well as the sparkle of the clinging water.
“In answer to both of your questions,” Talbot said gravely, “that, Miss Cooke, is the Monster of Frankenstein.”
SEVEN
As Caroline and Talbot watched, the Monster’s thick, crusted lids opened gradually. The eyes peered ahead. They were not so much black as completely dead and colorless, with only a hint of white on either side of the large irises. The eyes turned slowly toward the top of the staircase.
“It’s alive,” Talbot said. “Somehow, after all of these years, the Frankenstein Monster is still alive!”
Caroline looked from the creature to Talbot. She’d always dreamed of going down a rabbit hole and finding Wonderland. That was what she’d been looking for in the field when she’d found the dead cats. Now that she’d finally found her rabbit hole she wished she could close it forever.
“This has to be a joke,” she said. “You’re all in on it for some reason—everyone in LaMirada!”
“I wish it were a joke,” Talbot said. “The Monster is real enough to kill. I’ve seen him do it many times.”
“Why is this happening?”
“Because none of us can truly die,” Talbot replied. He said it as matter-of-factly as when he’d given her his name. “You’d better leave, Miss Cooke.”
Caroline looked down at the water. The Monster had
floated to the surface. Its massive shoulders were beginning to move and its thin, red lips trembled. Were they trembling from the cold, she wondered, or was the creature attempting to say something?
“Please go!” Talbot said to the young woman.
“Not yet, Mr. Talbot. Before I go anywhere you’re going to have to convince me that these events are real.”
“You see for yourself—”
“What I see is a big man with a hideous face. What I saw last night was a snarling man with a hideous face. I want to know that this isn’t all a big show. Some kind of vendetta against my aunt and her family.”
“It isn’t! You must believe me.”
“Must I?” Caroline replied.
She hadn’t actually seen the bodies of Henry Pratt and Mr. Porterhouse and she was starting to doubt again. Starting to think once again that the people of LaMirada were behind all of this. The locals she’d met were quirky enough to plan and execute something insane. Hadn’t Henry Pratt said the castle would make a terrific bed and breakfast? Maybe somebody on the mainland wanted to scare her away and buy the place cheap. And wouldn’t it make the place more marketable to visitors if it were supposedly haunted?
“You’re asking me to believe an awful lot, Mr. Talbot—”
“Right now, I’m only asking you to believe that this creature is dangerous,” Talbot persisted. “He’s evil, Miss Cooke.”
“In what way?”
“Look,” he said, shooting her a worried glance, “if I tell you what I know, will you leave?”
“That depends,” she said.
“Lord, you’re as stubborn as Miss Raymond,” Talbot said as he watched the creature carefully. “A century ago, Dr. Frankenstein built this Monster from the bodies of the dead. But he inadvertently gave his creation a criminal brain. When Frankenstein harnessed lightning in his laboratory and restored life to the dead tissue, the Monster had only one desire. To kill.”
“Randomly?”
“The Monster doesn’t hate the way men do. But he possesses the strength of one hundred men as well as the desire to protect what he likes or destroy what he doesn’t like. To punish those who try to hurt him.”
“What do you think he’s doing here?”
Air hissed slowly from the sides of the Monster’s mouth. The great head moved from side to side. The murky water rippled around him, its lively little waves making the Monster’s stiff flesh seem even more inanimate.
“Miss Cooke, we can discuss this later!”
“Answer me!” she demanded. “What is the Frankenstein Monster doing in the cellar of this castle?”
Talbot looked at her. “Count Dracula brought him here from Europe. I believe he was planning to give him a more subservient brain. Dr. Sandra Mornay was going to perform the surgery.”
Caroline wanted to say, “Yeah, right. Brain transplants. And in 1948 no less.” Instead she asked, “Why?”
“To guard Count Dracula, I suspect. We never found out for sure—”
“We?”
“Myself and Professor Stevens.”
“Professor Stevens,” Caroline said. “He’s the man who was killed here.”
“Yes.”
“By whom?” Caroline asked.
Talbot looked down at the ledge.
“You did it,” she said. “But my aunt told everyone he was killed by—” Caroline stopped. She was beginning to understand—and to believe. Her great-aunt had blamed the murder on the mysterious Count Dracula. She did that in order to protect the name and whereabouts of Lawrence Talbot. But Aunt Joan wouldn’t have done that unless Dracula himself was a proven murderer.
A murderer? Or . . . a vampire?
Caroline felt like her mind was being overloaded. She tried to get back to where she was, to follow the story through.
“How did the Monster get down here?” she asked.
“I don’t know—” Talbot began, then stopped. “Wait.” His forehead wrinkled. “I remember watching as Professor Stevens poured gasoline on the pier. He burned it as the Monster tried to cross. The creature fell into the water. He must have floated or made his way here before the basement was closed off. The Monster was probably searching for Count Dracula.” Talbot looked around. “Yes. I remember talking to Chick Young and Wilbur Grey while they were here early that evening. I believe that this was the very room where the vampire kept the Monster.”
“But I don’t understand,” Caroline said. “How could the Monster have remained alive all these years? And what revived him?”
“Don’t you understand yet?” Talbot cried. “Our bodies are not like the bodies of mortal men. Perhaps the fresh air revived him. Perhaps one of those two men found him or maybe something else tore him loose from the bottom of the waters.”
The jackhammer, Caroline thought.
The Monster snarled. Caroline and Talbot both looked over the edge as it rose with clumsy effort. Standing taller and taller and dripping mossy water, it was clothed in a charred black coat. Its right wrist was visible now; it was scarred like the face.
Talbot gently pushed Caroline back as the creature jerked from side to side and then front to back as it tried to retain its balance. It failed and fell back with a heavy splash, its arms pinwheeling. The creature lay on its back for a moment before it rose again. Then, half-stumbling, the Monster waded toward the dilapidated pier at the foot of the stairs. He lumbered onto the crumbling planks and stood. Caroline couldn’t help but stare. The creature was enormous.
“Get out of here!” Talbot shouted at Caroline.
Caroline crawled backward through the opening then reached in to help Talbot. He was able to get his head through but nothing more.
“You’re going to have to push!” she screamed as Talbot pressed his broad shoulders against the opening.
“I’m . . . trying!”
The sharp-edged brick tore the sleeves of his shirt and the tops of his arms. “The poker!” Caroline yelled. She pointed to the iron she’d left there the night before. “The fireplace poker is there, to your left. Use it!”
Talbot picked up the iron, got on his knees, and began hacking at the bricks on the right side. Behind him, the Monster started climbing the stairs. Unaccustomed to carrying the weight of its own body, the creature dropped to his knees. He crawled up several steps and stood again when he reached the landing beside the revolving door. He stood there for a long moment, his arms waving and his eyes half-shut. The Monster didn’t seem to have any destination in mind. Then, apparently hearing the chink-chink-chink of the poker on the bricks, the creature tilted its body back and looked up. With a snarl, he started up the second flight of steps. However, no sooner had he put his foot down and placed his weight on it than the rotted wood snapped. The foot fell through to the solid ground underneath. Growling, the giant hunched and threw his shoulders against the staircase. The entire frame shuddered and the Monster hit it again.
Talbot stopped chipping at the bricks on the right and switched to the left. “I don’t understand,” he said. “The Monster seems to be growing stronger.”
“Maybe that’s because he’s out of the water.”
“No,” Talbot said. The stairs shook again and he dug harder and faster. Perspiration flew from his forehead and fleshy cheeks with every chop. “The Monster requires electricity for strength.”
“What about all the microwaves that’re bouncing around?”
“The what?”
“Microwaves. From satellite dishes, cellular phones—”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said angrily. Clearly frustrated with his progress on the wall, he dropped the poker. “This isn’t working. Back away—I’m going to try to knock it down.”
Talbot wrapped his powerful fingers around the edge of one of the bottommost bricks and began wrenching it back and forth. Dust fell in sheets from the top of the doorway. The wall cracked slightly along the mortar line but the bricks held.
“I’ll help,” Caroline said. She turned
around, put her feet against the bricks, and pushed.
“No!” Talbot said. “Just get away from here!”
Caroline ignored him. Talbot pulled harder on the bricks, grunting with each tug. Finally, with Caroline’s help, a leftside section of wall cracked along the mortar. A final pull from Talbot and push from Caroline and it flew inward.
“I think you’ll be able to squeeze out now!” Caroline said.
Talbot dropped to his stomach and began wriggling through the enlarged opening. He still couldn’t make it and had to lie on his side, diagonally. It was a tight fit but he began worming through.
Caroline looked past him as he struggled. The Frankenstein Monster’s growls grew louder as he climbed on the rubble he’d created and pulled himself onto the top half of the staircase. The Monster’s head was tilted back and he looked up from under his hooded lids. With a low growl he continued clomping up the second flight of stairs. Whenever they shattered beneath his great weight he stopped, leaned against the wall, and swung a leg up to the next step.
“Hurry,” Caroline cried. “He’s coming!”
There were only six steps between the Monster and Talbot. In just a few moments Talbot would be within reach of the Monster’s long arms. Grabbing his tattered shirt, Caroline tried to pull Talbot through. Grunting, the sharp-edged bricks rending his shirt and flesh, he finally got his waist out. He drew his legs from the basement just as the Monster reached the topmost stair.
“Let’s go!” Caroline said as she helped Talbot to his feet.
But the Frankenstein Monster didn’t stop. As Talbot stood the Monster slammed against the walled-up doorway. The structure held but it trembled: bricks, the door frame, even the wall itself. With a vicious snarl, the Monster stepped back and threw his shoulder against the wall. It shook again. This time even the chandelier in the center of the foyer rocked back and forth.