Kingdom of Frankenstein

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Special thanks to Mary Shelley

My name is Victor Frankenstein. I’ve never tried to make anything beautiful. Not until today.

I live in a house with a lab that sits on a hill which overlooks a town. It’s a quaint little town, with straw houses, cobblestone streets, oil lanterns, and people who hate me.

They hate everything about me; what I make, what I believe, what I want to achieve. They leave me alone, letting me go about my business so long as it doesn’t interfere with theirs, and I do the same. Most days I stay on the grounds, toiling in my lab, reading arcane books of alchemy and life and death, and tending to my creations in the basement.

I keep them in wrought iron cages. They sit there, with pale, mangy skin, black greasy hair, and blank eyes. They smell of death, and they are my children. They mean me no harm. I am their creator, who carried them as cold corpses from the cemetery, and brought them to life with the wonders of science, and just a pinch of black magic.

The people in the town hate them. I keep them locked away and the people in the town don’t bother us.

Every day, I walk the rows of cages, pushing a cart of fresh meat. They like it raw. I hand them meat through the bars, point at it, and say “Food.” They eat it quickly, and I wince as they growl like animals.

I take them for walks on the grounds, give them toys, and tell them stories. A few of them know how to speak, but none can hold a conversation. They were my beginning, my stumbles as I learned to walk. They are not beautiful.

We live in God’s shadow.

Since he cast us out of Eden, humanity has begged, quarreled, suffered, and died, under his cruel, uncaring gaze. With his infinite power and vast knowledge, he has let us wilt away; left us bruised, bleeding on the ground, blaming us for his failings as a father, leaving us alone and scared, at the mercy of forces beyond our control.

I did not want this for my fellow man.

I wanted to reveal the secrets of the universe, unlock the hidden vaults of knowledge, solve the mysteries of death, and put us on equal footing with our estranged father. I wanted to usher in a new age of peace and understanding, where men are Gods, totally in control of their own destinies.

I wanted to be a modern Prometheus.

For this, they called me a lunatic, a madman, a demon, and monster. I’m not a monster. I’m just a man who tried to change the world, and got spat on for it. The people in the town hate me. They’re nothing but simple rubes, clinging to fairy tales from mankind’s childhood. They wallow in filth, as I promise to raise them to unheard heights, promise them salvation from the God who abandoned them.

And for this they sneer, they howl, and push me away, force me to work here, secluded in my lab like a prisoner. I have no one to talk to, listen to, help, or encourage me. Just a cold bed at night.

Prometheus tied to a rock.

Humanity has given up on me; left me alone in this place, my malformed creations the only things keeping me company. Inarticulate, grotesque, and brutish, my children are imperfect as their father.

But I want something different, something more. Something divine, ethereal, angelic, and transcendent. Something above that which exists today, that displays grace with its every breath, that keeps me warm in this cold place.

It is only now, after years of practice and solitude, of hunching over old books, mixing chemicals, digging up corpses, losing sleep, fixing machines, working long hours without a moment’s rest, that I finally feel ready. My mind and soul are just the right balance of bored, excited, and desperate that drives innovation. As Gaia made her Uranus, so too will I create a mate.

I’ve never tried to make anything beautiful.

Not until today.

Thunder rumbles in the distance as the storm approaches. The people in the town retreat to the shelter of their huts and churches. Though they speak of respecting nature, they hide from its most violent forms; cower before its awesome strength like frightened children.

They say I go against nature, that I hate it. I don’t hate it. I marvel at its complexity, elegance, and power. I respect nature. They fear it.

I open the ceiling of the lab, and stick the lightning rod on the roof. She lays on the gurney, wrapped in bandages like an Egyptian mummy. I check her vital signs. No pulse or heartbeat. Not yet.

Tesla coils line the walls, switches wait to be pulled, dials wait to be turned. A tingling goes up my spine and goose bumps line my flesh.

The storm arrives. The rain beats down in heavy sheets, coming in through the opening in the ceiling, drenching me and her. Jagged blue lines of lightning pierce the dark clouds above. Thunder roars like an avalanche; God’s wrath to power my creation.

I secure the gurney to pulleys and ropes, and raise it to the opening in the ceiling. It sits up there, waiting. I work the dials, throw the switches and pull the levers. Tesla coils spark, buzz, and hum. The wind howls and the rain falls. I look to the sky, and watch lightning illuminate the darkness.

“Come on,” I say to the storm and the jealous God behind it. “Come on! You can do better than that!”

A thunderclap shakes the earth, and I smirk.

“Come on Lord of creation,” I taunt. “Father of man, Alpha and Omega, You can do better than this. In seven days you gave us a world! Now give me a storm!”

A deafening crack of thunder, a blinding flash of light, and the rod is struck. Ask, and it shall be given you, the old book said.

The storm dies down. I turn off the switches, set the dials to zero, and watch as the Tesla coils slow down. The opening in the roof is closed, and the gurney is lowered to the ground.

We’re both dripping wet. I stand over her, and remove the bandages from her face. By brown-gold candle light I see her; her smooth, soft cheeks, round chin, and pink lips. I touch her long, black hair, and drag my fingers over the stitches that lie across the neck and forehead.

She’s pale like a ghost. For several moments nothing happens. I wonder if I’ve done something wrong, if I’d miscalculated.

Then she gasps. Her eyes open. Her hand twitches on the gurney. My heart races as I take her hand. I’m shaking. Brown newborn eyes frantically search the room.

“Hello.” I whisper. Her eyes find me. They glow in the darkness of my lab. She shivers and shakes, as she struggles to take her first breath.

I fetch a towel and dry her off. Slowly, I help her off the gurney. She limps on useless legs, that she doesn’t know how to use yet. I carry her to the couch in a corner of the lab, and lay her down. Her eyes dart about, and she starts to hyperventilate. I stroke her hand, and try to calm her.

“It’s okay,” I whisper. She doesn’t understand, but it still works. Her breathing slows, her shaking stops, and she closes her eyes; her beautiful brown eyes. I sit next to her as tears blur my vision. My brain is a mind-gibberish of ecstasy. My heart beats faster than it has in years. I finally did it. Something beautiful.

Father made us a sister. He made her last week and brought her down here to meet us. She’s so pretty; her smile is pretty, clean and white, like a bunny’s fur.

One time a bunny broke into the basement and we ate it. Father grumbled when he had to clean the mess.

Father doesn’t come down here as much as he used to. He still comes down to feed us, sticks his hand in through the bars, and drops a piece of meat on the floor.

“Food.” He says. Then he leaves.

No more stories, toys, or walks. He only wants to be with her. I can’t blame him. We aren’t as pretty as her.

A few weeks go by, and I try to teach her how to function. She struggles to speak and stumbles when she walks. But she loves music.

The phonograph in my study is her favorite toy. Her face lights up every time I play a record. She likes to sit in my father’s old armchair with the cracked leather, and listen to music all day. I sit with her and watch her reactions; tears at notes of sorrow and glowing smiles at soaring symphonies.

I love music, but I never learned how to play an instrument. I wish I knew how to play one. Then I could make her as happy as these dead composers make her.

After another few weeks pass and she starts to dance to the music. She dances better than she walks. Her feet glide across the floor, as she floats to the melodies.

We sit in the study, and she puts on a Chopin record; something sweet and sad. It’s one of my favorites and quickly became one of her favorites. I was so happy when I found she liked it. It’s so rare, and so sweet, to find someone to share your passions with.

She dances to it barefoot on the Persian rug, smiling like an angel. She looks so beautiful it hurts. After a few minutes I stand up, walk over to her, and try to dance. I keep stumbling. My movements are stiff. She pauses here elegant dance, and watches me fail. I feel nervous and defeated, as I sit back down on the couch. I could never do it as well as her. It seemed so effortless when she did it, but I couldn’t get the hang of it. She takes my hands and shows me.

We moved slowly at first, hand in hand, gently trying to keep up with the rhythm of the song. It was only after I was comfortable enough that she began to move faster. In the presence of a record player and shelves of old text books, she taught me how to dance.

An artist, the body her instrument, teaches me a symphony. We glide across the floor as one. There is no stumbling, no second-guessing; just me and her and the music.

The song ends. We stand in the middle of the study. Sweat drips down her face, making her skin glisten. She pants and smiles, and looks more beautiful than anything I’ve ever seen in my life.

I hold her, pull her close to me, and press my lips against her lips. She tastes so sweet.

Then she tries to push me off her. She struggles in my arms. I don’t let go. I should, but I don’t. I want her to be mine.

The smile is gone. She looks scared, and beats my chest with her fists. She’s never been violent before. I’m furious at her for acting this way. I am her creator. She has no right to do this to me.

I smack her across the face. I let her go, and watch her collapse to the floor. She looks up at me with tear-filled eyes.

“I…” My mind struggles to find the words that will fix everything, and I come up with nothing. I finally squeak out, “I’m sorry.” It doesn’t work.

The sting of betrayal stays on her face, like a sad mask. All traces of the joy and love are gone.

I hold out my hand. I know she won’t take it, but my heart can’t accept that. If I do it will destroy me. I dare to hope. There is a fine line between hope and delusion.

Bending down, I keep my hand out.

“I’m sorry,” I say. Tears stream down my face, and I pray she can see that I am sincere. “Please. I promise I’ll never do that again.”

My outstretched hand shaking, I watch her expression of fear mixed with hate. She stands up, and glares at me. Those soft brown eyes, morphed into orbs of hate. I think she wants to attack me, but she does something more painful. She runs away.

I chase her through the house, through hallways lined with joyous memories, of her and me. Memories that now taunt me, tease me with what I’m about to lose.

We both run into the front room of the house. I trip as she opens the front double doors. Sprawled on the floor, I watch my Uranus run away.

She is gone. Coldness washes over me.

On the floor of the living room, I stare at the open front door. I’ve lost her. I made her run away. I wanted her so badly. During all the long nights, toiling in the lab, reading arcane texts, losing sleep, trying to make my beautiful creation, my warm companion, I never considered that she might not love me back.

I was so excited, so caught up in what I was doing, that I never let the thought cross my mind. I was so lonely, so desperate, that I was afraid to think of that. And now I’m paying the price.

Maybe she would have loved me eventually. Maybe not. Now I’ll never know.

I don’t chase her out the door. I let her go. I don’t know where, but it’s bound to be better than here. To a better man, who won’t try to force her to love him. I never deserved something like her.

Reluctantly, I push myself off the ground, and go down to the cellar. In the darkness, surrounded by racks of wine bottles, I pull one down. Rip the cork out, and take a swig. The bitter taste helps to soothe, but this feeling will never go away. I’m used to people hating me; I’m almost okay with it. But right now, sitting on the staircase to my cellar, I’ve never hated anyone or anything as much as I hate myself.

Stumbling, I walk back up the stairs, half-empty wine bottle in hand. I’m lightheaded, and a little tipsy, but I still don’t feel much better. No matter how much I drink, I can’t stop thinking about her.

Where will she go? What will she do? Who will take her in?

Back in my study, I turn to one of the windows, and see the village that sits down below. Yellow lanterns illuminate cobblestone streets. Dots of light, shine out of small huts. The village looks so peaceful, like the kind of place where you want to live, and raise a family.

But you haven’t seen them when they’re angry. You haven’t seen them, with their pitchforks, and torches, and inhuman chants for your head. There is no place in their hearts or minds, for anything that contradicts their dogmas; their fairy tales that keep them warm at night.

People in the big cities speak of the quaint, quiet virtue of towns like this. They don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about. That town outside my window is nothing but a cesspool where the hateful and the ignorant breed. The world is made of towns like this one.

What will they make of her?

My heart goes cold. My hands shake, and I can’t breathe. What if they find her? What if she goes down there? She doesn’t know any better. She might be heading there right now.

I can’t let them find her.

I run out of the house, and do something I haven’t done since I was a child; I pray.

“God in Heaven,” I say. “Don’t let them find her.”

Tears stream down my face. I feel ashamed and angry at myself, but I don’t care.

“I know you hate me,” I whisper as I run down the hill. “But she’s innocent. Let me wither away and die alone, but please don’t hurt her. Please.”

They’re burning a monster in the town square tonight.

My mama and papa are taking me. Mama says the monster was made by a bad man in a lab.

We get to the square, and all our neighbors are here; the butcher, the baker, the farmer, the merchant, all to see the monster burn. They all look excited.

“Where’s the monster?” I ask Papa. He points to a pole surrounded by a pile of firewood. There’s a person tied to the pole with a bag over its head. I can hear it crying.

The mayor, in his black top hat and clean dress shirt, walks to the firewood. He’s holding a torch. He sounds angry when he talks. He scares me.

After a little while, he stops talking and lights the firewood. The monster screams. It sounds like a person, and it scares me.

Everyone’s yelling, and chanting. They’re really mad at the monster. They like watching it burn.

Then someone screams, and they stop yelling.

We all turn around. It’s a man, running down the hill, toward the fire. He’s skinny, with bags under eyes, and really messy hair. He looks scared. He pushes through the crowd, shoving people out of his way. By the time he reaches the fire, the monster has stopped screaming.

The man fell on his knees, and stares at the burning monster. No one is yelling or screaming. No one says anything. They just watch him.

A little while passes, and the fire dies down. The only thing left of the monster is a pile of ashes on the ground. The man stands up, and collects some of the ashes with his hands. Then he turns around and looks at the crowd. His face is wet, and we wait for him to say something. He just leaves, his head hung low. His tears fall like raindrops, onto the ashes in his hands.

He keeps whispering, “I’m sorry.” over and over again, as he goes back up the hill.

The mayor comes back out. He looks tired, and a little upset. I don’t think he liked that the sad man showed up. He not excited anymore. Nobody is. I want to cry, but I don’t because Papa will be mad.

The Mayor tells everyone that justice has been done, and he says goodnight. We start to go home. Everyone is quiet. I ask papa what the monster did.

“Nothing,” Papa said. “It didn’t have to do anything. It was a monster.”

Her ashes feel heavy in my hands. I keep them close to my body to protect them from the wind.

By the time I reach my house, the ashes are soggy from my tears. I enter my house, and search for a place to put them. I find an empty vase that sits on a small table by a bookshelf.

Carefully, I pour the ashes in. I stop myself from kissing the vase; she wouldn’t have wanted that. She wouldn’t have wanted to be back in this house either. I’ll move her in the morning.

I go to the study, the last place where we were happy. I sit in a chair across from hers. The new bottle of wine has already given me a stomach ache. I still drink it. I don’t feel like doing anything else.

If I’d just stayed calm, if I’d just taken a moment to think, to actually use my common sense, instead of acting like a fool, she’d still be here. In an instant, I ruined everything.

But I wasn’t the one that killed her.

I stand up from the chair and walk over to the window. The town sits there. The lanterns have been doused. Everyone lies sleeping in their warms beds. They just killed an innocent woman, and they sleep soundly, like she was a pest.

I drove her from my house, from my life, treated her horribly, never to see her again. For this I will suffer until the day I die.

But I wasn’t the one who killed her.

I look up at the sky.

“I know you hate me,” I say. “I know you want me to suffer. But she didn’t do anything! She had committed no crime, broken none of your laws. Her only sin was being created by me. Could you be so petty, to let her suffer for that?”

My vision is blurry with tears.

“You say I make abominations, when you create a world with murderers! I wasn’t the one who called her a monster, who didn’t flinch as she screamed, who didn’t care that she suffered!”

The clouds do not part, there is no disembodied voice, and the ground does not shake. There is no response. I look back at the window, at his creations. Simple beasts, who never take the time to try and comprehend anything different from their own. They destroy the world, hold us back, pushing away the other, ostracizing or destroying that which they can’t understand. And they call me a madman who makes monsters.

A madman who makes monsters.

Father came down to the basement. He looked tired. My brothers who could speak asked what was wrong. He didn’t say anything. I couldn’t see the meat cart. My tummy grumbled. All our tummies grumbled; Father had missed dinner.

He walked up to my cage. He had bags under his eyes, and his cheeks were wet. I wanted to ask where pretty sister was, but Father didn’t teach me to talk. His hands shook, as he pulled the key from his pocket. I started to clap. He was gonna take me for a walk. And it was gonna be a night walk. I was gonna see the stars and the moon!

He opened my cage, and walked to another cage and opened that one too. We watched him open up all the cages. He never took us all out on a walk at the same time. He moved slowly.

When all the cages were open, he led us up the stairs. We went outside. The stars were so shiny, like little sparking dots in the sky. I couldn’t see the moon though.

We looked down at the bottom of the hill. There was a little town, like the ones in the storybooks Father read us. We couldn’t see the people, but we could smell them. They smelled good.

Father pointed to the town and said, “Food.”

From my place on the hilltop, I watch my creations swarm the town. Their stampeding feet quickly wake the villagers. Half-asleep, they stumble out of their homes, and gasp at the oncoming horde.

I walk down onto the cobblestone streets. I smell the blood as my creations break into the homes and rip the children from their beds. My plague strikes swiftly.

Rotting yellow teeth dig into tender flesh. A mother screams as her child is ripped from her arms, and eaten in front of her. A farmer tries to fight off a few of the monsters, before being overpowered. A blacksmith hiding in an outhouse makes his last prayer. They know what it feels to be hated, hunted, and hurt. I do not suffer alone tonight. And they scream.

Their screams echo through the streets, soar into the sky, and penetrate my bones. They howl painfully into the night, begging God to help them. But God can’t help. Instead he watches, paralyzed in horror, at my unnatural plague.

By sunrise most of the village is dead. Their corpses line the street like the lampposts. A few buildings are on fire. The smell of smoke and blood fill the air. Broken glass and wood litter the ground.

A few survivors lay curled up on the streets their eyes never blinking. They are dead inside.

I find an old wooden stool, on the ground in front of a pub, and sit in it. I feel exhausted. My joints and head ache. I cough from the smoke, and my chest feels sore. As I finish my coughing fit, someone taps me on the shoulder. I turn to see one of my creations; a one-eyed little mongrel, with yellowish green skin. Wisps of gray-black hair sit on his scalp. He is skinny, wearing rags that loosely hang over his skeleton body.

He holds out a piece of pinkish flesh. It looks like a piece of brain, but it’s been chewed up so much that I can no longer tell. My creation grunts as he holds the raw meat up to my face. I gently push his dry hand away from me, and shake my head. He proceeds to eat it himself, as he walks into the pub behind me.

Down the street, a small group of them slowly devours the remains of a large woman. Across the street from me, two of the beasts lean against a post office wall, sleeping.

I look up at the sky, with a tired half-smile. I wonder what he thinks of all this; how it feels to watch what you’ve created be mercilessly ripped to shreds. Then again, maybe he doesn’t care. Maybe he really is indifferent, as I am to an ant.

No matter, I’ve done what I needed to do. My love has been avenged. It is only now, that I realize how futile my efforts have been.

The people in this town, with their ignorance, cruelty, and viciousness, are not the only ones who live this way. Their hatred is not unique. They are but a microcosm of this hateful world. There is no haven for the intelligent, no open-minded utopia of like-minded individuals. There is no hope for people like me; no hope for my creations.

I stand up and walk the streets, not really going in any particular direction. I turn a corner, and find the remains of a priest. His collar is stained with blood, and his face is frozen in an expression of pure horror. One of his arms has been chewed off, and his stomach has been ripped open. Other than that, he’s in pretty good shape. It won’t be too hard to make something out of him.

The gears in my head begin to turn. A sickening glee takes hold of me.

I begin to run around the town, finding all the dead bodies from the night before. About one-third of them are completely useless; stripped to the bone.

Most are in usable shape. If I can’t use their whole body, they usually have a few limbs or an organ I can borrow. I’ll need some help bringing them back to the lab. My creations can help. I’ll need to round them up first. That shouldn’t take more than a few hours though.

We’ll carry them back to the lab, all the salvageable bodies. It’ll take time, but within a few months, I can double the number of creations, increase the size of my army.

Then we’ll leave the mansion and the lab. Me and my horde will visit more towns, with their churches, and cobblestone streets, and bigoted ways, and they will feel my rage.

And with each town we destroy, every simple-minded rube we kill, my army will grow. Their dead bodies will be the seeds of future conquests.

My heart races. In the orange light of dawn, I begin to laugh; a loud inhuman cackle, that bounces off the buildings, and echoes through the town.

I laugh until my lungs are sore, and my throat hurts. I feel light-headed. The path ahead is clear. For the first time in human history, the armies of God, ignorance, and stagnation, would be trampled, and overrun. It will be a new world, made in my image.

The Kingdom of Frankenstein.

Originally published as an ebook on April 23, 2016