The Spirit of Frankenstein

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Space-Age Nazi Hunters.

He'd been talking about it for months. He'd found out the film was "in the making" on the Internet somewhere. Who knew where? The Internet had become the same as everything else: a scattering of useless information and senseless babble. The meaning was lost in it now. Every search-engine first turned up thousands of useless sites with thousands of hits apiece before showing you that one useful site you were looking for on whatever topic you were exploring, that one site that would be helpful. By clicking once on the link, you'd officially double its total number of visits.

Not that it mattered much. Soon, version eight of Mind-Melter would be released. The 'net wasn't used for much except for cyber-sex and porn exchange. Mind-Melter could send brainwaves, actual thoughts across the air in less than seconds to whatever desired target so long as they wore a Mind-Melter receiver. The Internet would be obsolete. Why take the time to type words during cyber-sex when you can merely invent an image, and seconds later, your partner, millions of miles away, will see that image and understand your fantasy fully?

Space-Age Nazi Hunters.

What the hell type of movie would that possibly make?

"Can we go see it, Dad?"

He stood in the doorway leading into the kitchen, talking across the garage to me.

"We'll see, Timmy," I responded, barely even knowing what he'd said. I was working after all, and my concentration went fully into my work.

"But it's going to be a great movie, Dad."

"We'll have to wait and see what's going on when it opens, Tim. I can't make any promises."

"But, Dad, I really want to see it..."

"Tim," I snapped, finally looking up to see him raise his head some, his face hopeful despite my scolding tone. "What did I tell you about bothering me when I'm working?"

He lowered his head, not wanting to look me in the eye as I scolded, his hopeful expression melting away.

"Go clean your room, and tell your sister that you both should be in bed by eight-thirty."

"Okay," he said, mumbling more than talking. I looked down again, eager to put the finishing touches on the contents of the bottle before me. The last bottle. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him still standing there. He had more to say, but he hadn't decided whether or not he wanted to continue just then. After about a half-minute, he sighed and turned, head down, and disappeared around the corner into the kitchen.

It was time to close the door. The kids couldn't see what would go on behind it from then on, and I could trust them in the house without me. Tim was only eight, but his sister Halle was twelve, and she'd handled her brother well over the past two years.

It was Monday, getting on in the evening. The time between when the kids left for school in the morning and when they came home in the afternoon wasn't enough any more; hadn't been for over a year now, but the past several months had been worse. Halle had accepted the change easily enough, but Tim had fought it all the way, disrupting my work whenever he found an excuse, fighting with his sister and often insisting I tuck him in at night, something Halle had been doing for over a month now in my place.

All of that was almost over now, though.

I closed the door, latching the deadbolt I'd recently installed.

The parts had arrived that morning, specifically chosen for this purpose. They were tested and examined in labs for any difficulty foreseeable: Weaknesses in blood vessels; tears or weaknesses in muscle tissue; any excessive build-up of cholesterol; you name it. They arrived in insulated metal cases, which sat in a line on the floor next to the freezer I'd had delivered two weeks ago. I'd plugged it in upon arrival. By now, the interior lining was coated with an inch-thick layer of ice. Icicles hung from the rack inside.

I found the case with the torso inside and lugged it over to the lab table in the middle of the garage. Once there, I popped the locks and lay the torso flat in the center of the table on its back. It wasn't stitched in the front, and the skin there caved in on the hollow space beneath. The organs would all have to be implanted, but it was work I was capable of. I had every manual I could possibly need on the shelves of what was once my workbench but had served instead as a research station for the past two years.

Organs first.

I gathered the cases containing the basic organs (heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, etc.), moved them to the lab table, and got ready to work. Each organ, as well as the limbs, would take the better part, if not more than, two or three hours each.

Hard work.

I remembered seeing "B" movies when I was young in which mad scientist types would simply stitch the arms and legs on with thread, binding the skin on the surface and leaving the various workings beneath untouched. They were all "Frankenstein" rip-offs, and the work that went into putting the bodies together similarly fake, almost a joke compared to the actual experience.

Lasers were the tools of choice here. Technology had advanced in laser usage in leaps and bounds since its initial introduction into the medical world. Now, less than fifty years later, scalpels and sutures were almost never even considered. Incisions and the sealing of such were done with lasers over ninety-five percent of the time. The result was not faster healing injuries, but injuries left with little to no healing at all, as well as drastic drops in surgical scars.

Ideal; from a surgical perspective.

By Monday evening, I had over half of the organs implanted. Exhausted at midnight, I put the half-constructed torso on ice and headed to bed. I dreamt of the funeral. Although I'd dream of her often, that was the last time I was physically with her. Four of us stood in a semi-circle around the casket, dividers having been drawn behind us to separate us from the rest of the people present. Her mother wept quietly, now being the last of their small family after her father passed away from a heart attack a few years back, and Halle stood close to her, gripping her grandmother's hand and burying her face in the folds of the woman's black dress. I held Tim, who looked down at the body in the casket, knowing what had happened but not even close to understanding, tears welling in his eyes. I whispered in his ear that he'd miss her, we'd all miss her, but that everything would be all right. I did so as much to occupy my own mind as to comfort him.

The funeral scene faded away to a week before the accident; the last time we'd been together. It had been so plain, so usual. I'd like to look back and remember that last night as being full of passion, as I'd like to think it would have been had I seen the end coming. She'd been lying in bed next to me, half-asleep, and I'd stirred in the night. I reached out for her, holding loosely to her as I rolled closer, my body half covering hers as I pressed my face into her neck, kissing the skin there. She stirred as well, her arms wrapping around me in trained reaction.

She pulled me closer to her, helping me position myself above her in my half-aware state and spreading her legs, wrapping them around me and using them to pull me closer. As my lips found hers, I reached down with one hand, hooking my thumb under the waistband of my boxers and carefully pulling them down.

Having just awakened, and only half-so at that, I was already erect. I pressed forward blindly, feeling her dampness as I rubbed against her a few times before reaching down again to position myself to enter. In my sleep, I could almost feel her warmth encompassing me as I drove deep inside. Her legs and her arms gripping me tightly, her body tensed around and against mine. I drove forward in slow steady strokes, my eyes closed, feeling her breath expelling heavily against my face.

My hands found their way to her waist and pulled at her nightshirt, drawing it up to her shoulders, giving me access to her breasts, which I fondled and caressed, gently kissing and sucking the skin above them as I ground into her.

After a few minutes of this, her arms and legs contracted tightly around me, then loosened some, then contracted again, doing this several times over the next thirty seconds or so as her breathing grew heavier and her moans louder and closer together. I wondered if she was coming, but in my half-awake state, I wasn't certain. Afterwards, I'd never asked her to know for sure. My body responded as though she had, growing more excited and building to a crescendo. A few seconds later, I emptied into her, coming to a stop on top of her, laying still for a moment as her limbs loosened their grip. She was falling back asleep again already. I raised my head, pressing my lips to hers over the nightshirt, bunched up at her neck, then rolled over to my own side of the bed and dozed.

We'd made a habit of this type of thing, half-awake love-making sessions that often seemed more fulfilling than the longer-lasting wide awake sessions we had to plan for. These brief sessions would often last less than five minutes, without planning or any true effort, but without the inhibitions and expectations the wakeful mind often imposed on us, we were usually both well satisfied and resting soundly together, oblivious to the problems of the world outside our bed.

I awoke Tuesday morning with my heart thudding strongly in my chest, missing her more than I had in a long time, and decided to head straight back to work. I pulled the torso from the freezer and went to work again, picking up right where I'd left off but with renewed vigor. That night, after working all day, and talking Tim away from the door seven or eight times (each time more trying than the last), I was almost too exhausted to drag myself to bed.

On Wednesday, I inflated the air mattress and placed it on the floor in the only open corner. By then the body was nearly complete, missing one arm and the head, brain already implanted. The latter would prove difficult, but in the end, I'd get the job done correctly, nerves and spinal cord properly attached and capable of sending every necessary signal wherever it needed to go.

"Dad?"

Tim's voice sounded through the door.

"Yes, Tim," I responded.

It was 9 p.m., Thursday.

I'd been working for almost eight hours and was just putting the finishing touches on the head, fusing the skin on the surface. Since he'd come home from school at three, he'd come at least once per hour to talk to me through the door. I was running out of ways to get him out of my hair.

"The movie opens tonight. Can we go?"

"Not tonight, buddy," I replied. "Did you eat?"

"Yes," he replied, clearly disappointed.

Silence for a few seconds.

I gathered the different vials and lined them on the table before me. The head connected, it was time to work on the brain. Memories, thought patterns, emotional tendencies; all were stored in the various brain fluids I'd extracted before she'd finally died.

I took a syringe and removed the plastic wrapper, then pressed the needle into a vial containing gray fluid. I'd taken enough from her brain that I could do the experiment at least three times. After filling the syringe, I withdrew the needle and set the vial aside, then stepped to the table.

"Dad?"

"Yes, Tim," I returned. I was getting impatient again.

"You haven't been out of the garage for five days. I'm getting tired of take-out food. When-"

"Tim," I snapped, cutting him off in mid-whine.

Silence.

I depressed the plunger enough to squeeze a drop from the needle tip.

"Look," I said. "Tell your sister that you two can have an ice cream bar, one a piece, and then take turns watching television."

After a hesitation, he responded in a sulky voice, "Okay."

I heard him stalking away from the door.

Back to work.

I lifted the head, turning it to one side, and pressed the needle into a spot about a quarter-inch square on the back of the head where I'd shaved the hair off. I depressed the plunger, injecting the fluid into the brain stem, then set the needle aside.

A fresh syringe for each fluid, and there were several, each fluid specific to a specific part of the brain. It was a slow process, starting with preliminary injections to soften the skull enough to allow the following injections to penetrate it.

That took a few hours as well, and when I finished, I locked the vials away and returned the body to the freezer. When the body began to function again, the endocrine and circulatory system fully activated, the fluids would take effect. Until then, they could sit idle.

It had to be after midnight.

I needed to eat, and I hadn't showered in two days. I unlatched the deadbolt and headed into the kitchen. It was spotless. Thank God for Halle, I thought, even though I knew Tim had helped her. He would have meant well but probably just got in her way.

They were good kids; they deserved a good mother.

Soon, I thought. Gwen'll take good care of them when she's with us again.

I debated what I wanted to eat, trying to remember the last time I went grocery shopping and what I'd bought. No particular memory surfaced.

I shrugged, unsure what food was even in the house.

I needed to check the answering machine anyway. I'd think about what to eat while I listened to the messages. I moved through the short hall to the living room and flipped on the overhead light. As the room became illuminated, I could hear the motor of the ceiling fan murmur to life.

The answering machine sat on the stand in the corner, the red number thirty-four flashing.

Thirty-four messages. Five days worth of calls from my mother and hers, wanting to know that the kids were okay, from my med-school roommate Gerald wanting to play tennis, from work wanting to know how the experiment was progressing.

The machine was right in the corner, a few feet from the sofa, but the sofa was as far as I made it.

As I dozed, I swore I could feel the water again, landing on my face in heavy drops. In a dream world that was real not so long ago, the ghosts of ambulance lights flashed to my attention through closed eyelids.

"Sir," a female voice said, and although I knew she was nearby, she sounded distant. "Sir, my name is..."

I had heard her name when it had really happened, but in the dream she trailed off, always trailed off.

I tried to respond, to tell her that I knew what had happened and that she needn't continue, not what had really gone down but in the dream I know it's a dream, and I already knew my wife had been badly hurt.

I could only mumble incoherently.

"Don't try to talk," she said. "I'm holding your hand. Give it a squeeze if you can, sir."

I squeezed.

"Good," she replied. "I'm an EMT, sir. I'm trained and certified to perform First Aid. Do you understand?"

Squeeze.

She went on to explain what happened and to tell me that I was in decent condition, not mentioning Gwen even once. And why would she? She wouldn't know what lies to tell without knowing how long I'd remained conscious after the accident, and telling me the truth, then and there...?

I paid little attention to her words anyway. I concentrated on what went on around me. When this had really occurred, I could hardly hear her over the sounds of police and paramedics and firemen around me. Walking across the asphalt, their feet crushing and grinding small fragments of glass as they moved; sharing information on this accident victim or that one or how things were progressing; the jaws of life rumbling as the rescuers attempted to cut their way through a vehicle door or roof. Those sounds, and others, some that I couldn't identify at the time, had nearly drowned out her attempts to talk to me.

In the dream, however, she was all I could clearly hear. I wondered on occasion if that meant she was all I should have cared about at that particular moment, being unable to help my wife in my condition and knowing that she was there to help me. Who could possibly know for sure? It was a dream. Who knew if they had any meaning, if they were the restrained insanities of our subconscious or if they were just there? Freud was dead, and sometimes cigars were just cigars.

She spoke to me for some time, bandaging this and setting that. I'd had more than a few deep cuts and gashes, not to mention my leg being broken in two places and my wrist sprained. Then they hauled me into the ambulance. It was while they did this that the dream faded out and the inside of the ambulance became the inside of Gwen's hospital room. This part of the dream was memory to a point as well. They'd known how it would end, and they'd warned me, but I'd only heard a little of what they said. I was in my own world, one that existed only in my mind. I was holding on, perhaps too tightly, to something that I was going to lose.

"Sir," the doctor said. "It's time."

I stared forward, my eyes fixed on the plain white surface of the opposite wall. He'd spoken softly but loud enough; his words were clear, but I didn't want to hear it.

"I'm sorry, sir," he said.

I closed my eyes, not wanting to cry.

"You've...done your extractions?"

I nodded, then took in a deep breath, opening my eyes and looking up at her. When I'd actually sat there, I'd been in that chair for two hours, but that occasion was only the second time I'd looked at her. I didn't want to see her dead or dieing; in my heart, I still needed her to be alive.

"We..."

"I know," I replied. "One more minute alone, and I'll let you..." I trailed off.

He nodded, then walked quietly out of the room.

I stood, looked over the body that lay before me in the hospital bed, its eyes closed, and its body motionless, characterless. Not my wife anymore; merely a body that had once been her; a husk.

I took three steps and was at bedside, then leaned down over her, pressing my lips against her forehead, saying my temporary good-bye. I opened my eyes, looking down on her face for a moment, remembering what life it had once possessed.

In reality I had left then, turned and walked out the door, not looking back. I'd cried for two weeks straight. Then, when my head was beginning to rid itself of the strongest feelings of grief, I began my work. In the dream, however, I'd hovered there a moment longer, my face just above hers, then I'd whispered down to her, "See you again soon, my love."

The body was still for a moment, then the eyes shot open, her blue ones looking up into my brown.

I sat up, even as I woke, my body upright before I knew the dream had gone and reality returned. Whereas normally, I would have awaken crying or muttering her name, this time I remained quiet, eyelids easing open to reveal the living room wall, the sound of the ceiling fan humming above me.

My heart pounded in my chest in what should have been horror after the dream I'd just had, but instead was more like anticipation. I was still, reality sinking in, waiting for my heart to slow back to normal pace. As I sat there, I considered the young paramedic who'd helped me. What had her name been?

I had heard it originally, when she was really there, and for the next so many weeks, that name was one I thought I would never forget. She'd given me her phone number and told me that if I ever needed anything, to just call. And I had. We'd spoken several times over those weeks, though we never spoke of Gwen, and had almost become friends by the time I began my work. Then, as that night grew less immediate, became less real, as too many memories and childhood lessons do, her name slipped away from me. I guessed it was due to so many more important things going on at the time, but I think it was more than that now. I lost my wife that night (she'd lived longer, hooked up to machines that breathed for her and made her heart beat and read brain-patterns that were far too weak and would never grow strong again, but for all intents and purposes, she died right there on the asphalt), an event that would shape the next two years of my life. That name, the sounds of the police and ambulance sirens, the voices of the medics and others around us; they were what made the memory and the dreams real. What made it hurt again as I thought of it.