“Why?” A malicious glint showed in his eyes as he considered me. “No particular reason. I was able to procure the material and thought it would be amusing to reunite two lost lovers, although I never imagined that memories and intelligence would be retained in your brain or hers. But now it would be a fascinating experiment to test whether love is indeed spiritual or merely brought about by physical attraction, for if I were to bring back your lover, would she be able to look past your hideous appearance and still have deep affections for you, or would she simply be sickened by your sight?”
I did not say anything. My eyes cast downwards toward the stone floor. I could not have met Frankenstein’s cruel eyes for any purpose, for my strength bled out of me as surely as if my jugular had been severed.
“Well, Friedrich, shall I sacrifice one of these young girls so that you may be with your beloved Johanna Klemmen once more? Or would that act be too repulsive for you?”
For a long moment I could not answer him, then my voice barely a whisper, I uttered, “Do as you wish.”
“No, Friedrich, that is not good enough. You must decide or I will dispose of your beloved’s brain and she will be lost to you forever. If you need to, you can rationalize your decision with the knowledge that you will be saving one of these young girls, for none of them will be surviving past the end of our drama. But I will not be sacrificing one of these girls for this purpose unless you are a willing accomplice. One last time, do you wish me to bring Johanna Klemmen back to you?”
God help me, I nodded my assent.
“That is not good enough. I need to hear your words.”
I forced myself to meet his eyes and all the maliciousness that they contained. “Do what is necessary to bring Johanna back to life,” I said, my chest aching so that I could barely stand it.
He nodded solemnly. “I will do that, Friedrich. But no more of your lectures, and no more of your false nobility. Now which one of these should be made into Johanna Klemmen?”
I shook my head. “I do not care. You choose,” I said.
The smile that next twisted his lips chilled me as nothing before had ever done.
“No, my friend,” he said, “you will choose her, but it will be done in a most sporting way.”
Frankenstein assembled the rest of his guests in the dungeon, and I was surprised to see that they consisted of women also. In total, his guests comprised seven men and four women. I was also surprised that the Marquis was not among them, although I later learned that they expected his arrival within two weeks’ time. As with the guest that I had seen earlier, they all appeared to be of wealth, and they all clearly shared Frankenstein’s perversity. There was little difference between them and the devil worshippers that I had encountered, except that I was powerless against them, as I equally was against Frankenstein.
While I stood helpless, servants brought out the prisoners for me to look over, and I was compelled to do so both by Frankenstein’s black magic and his implied threat of disposing of Johanna’s brain if I failed to cooperate. It all had such a surreal nightmarish quality to it as I was forced to look into these poor girls’ faces as they wept with fear and misery, all the while Frankenstein and his guests tittering with amusement and making wagers over which girl I would select. Frankenstein in his evil even had the young children brought out for me to look over. Several times I wished to die when these innocents begged me to rescue them. But I knew I could not, and overpowering in my mind was the desire to be reunited with my Johanna, as grotesque a manner as this reunion would be brought about. In the end I chose one of them.
“When will this be done?” I demanded.
Frankenstein looked at me slowly as if he were going to comment about my tone, but in the end chose to ignore it. “Not for several weeks,” he said, his own tone peevish. “I need to travel to London first to consult with others who have knowledge that I need since the operation of placing a brain in an otherwise undisturbed body is very different from my constructing a being from material, as I did with you, and I will also not be leaving until after the Marquis arrives. So be patient!”
With that the party broke up. Frankenstein and his guests quitted the dungeon, and I was compelled to follow them. I wandered about as if I were in a spell, at times sinking into deep despair over my unwitting role in this atrocity and my inability to help these innocent prisoners, at other times anxious over the prospect of once again being in Johanna’s company. The tearing that was done to my soul over this was something awful, and it was with surprise that I found myself drawn back to that evil amphitheater. When I looked up and saw the ballroom scene, I stumbled backward, disoriented, for it appeared to me as if the couples within the mural had danced halfway across the room. None of them were where I remembered them. Other details also seemed new to me. One of the men now held a dagger behind his back; a woman’s mouth froze in the beginning moments of a scream; lines of terror showed in other women’s faces. As I stood transfixed at this mural and puzzled over these changes, one of Frankenstein’s woman guests approached me.
“Later this will become much more interesting,” she told me.
Earlier I had been introduced to all of Frankenstein’s guests, and this one was a viscountess from an extraordinarily old family. If I had not known the evil that lay in her heart, I might have mistaken her for an attractive woman who perhaps bordered on beautiful, but even still, I might have detected her icy countenance. I did not bother to respond to her attempt at conversation. Instead I moved my gaze back to the painting.
“Victor mentioned that he constructed you to be quite well endowed,” she said with a snicker. “Or in his words, large enough to make any stallion envious. I wish to see your cock. Show it to me.”
Frankenstein’s hold on me extended to his guests. I was powerless to disobey her, and as if unseen strings were controlling my hands I opened my cape and lowered my trousers. She made a gasping sound and then proceeded to amuse herself with me. I stood there helpless, unable to move or command my hands to throw her away from me. Soon one of Frankenstein’s other female guests joined her, while several of the male guests entertained themselves by watching. Perhaps it was my imagination, but it seemed to me as if several of the waltzing couples within the mural were now smirking at me.
I was required to join them for dinner, and Frankenstein seated me next to himself. Their conversation quickly grew tedious as it revolved around the same tired themes that Frankenstein had brought up to me earlier. I attempted to drown them out by drinking glass after glass of brandy. They were too involved in their pontificating to notice, and after a while the brandy did help to dull out their voices. After dinner ended, I found myself drawn once more to the amphitheater, and this time there was no denying that the scene had changed. The couples were no longer happily waltzing, but now the men were displaying an animal savagery as they ripped the dresses from their partners and threatened their throats with the blades of knives. I blinked several times, wondering if I was seeing what I thought, or if the brandy had left me so intoxicated that I was merely imagining this sight.
“My friend, you are beginning to understand the nature of my mural.”
Frankenstein was smiling patiently at me. I did not wish to ask him anything but I couldn’t help myself.
“How?”
“If I can bring you back to life, why not a painting?”
A sickening feeling filled me as I turned my gaze back to the mural and the evil it represented.
“They are very sly devils,” Frankenstein said. “They will not move while being watched. Later, at midnight, they will, but not now.”
I knew Frankenstein wished me on my own accord to come back at midnight so that I could watch how the actors within his mural would play out their drama, and for that reason alone I avoided returning to that room that night, as much as my morbid curiosity begged me to. Instead I took several bottles of brandy to the bedroom that Frankenstein assigned to me. The bed that he had constructed for the room was almost twice the size of a normal bed, and so it fit me, as did the silk sheets and enormous blankets that he had specially made. Frankenstein also had a special armchair constructed to hold my size, as he also did for the dining room. I sat in this chair and drank the brandy that I brought back with me, hoping that it would dim the self-hatred that raged within me. I tried to remember my life when I was still Friedrich Hoffmann. I tried desperately to think of Johanna, but my thoughts kept reflecting back on the horrors that I had experienced since awakening inside of Frankenstein’s laboratory. My execution and rebirth as a hideous abomination, poor Charlotte existing only as a disembodied head, wolves turning into vampyres, devil worshippers and their human sacrifices, this castle and the utter depravity within it, complete with a living mural of horrors. My thoughts eventually slowed as the brandy succeeded in dulling my senses, and a
