Dave Zeltserman - Monster

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.”