Frankenstein's Bastard Child

Volume 18

"Do you want to know how I did it Alice?" My heart stopped first at the man's voice, that familiar stoic tone. Then sped to a blur when there was silence. No rain, no pitter patter of drops, just the sound of my organs shifting. I regained my footing and flung myself backward brandishing my spare pocket knife but the man was nowhere to be found. My attention snapped to the complete lack of rain. I'd heard of storms stopping in seconds but this was too immediate. Not to mention that other pre-rain sounds were at a loss as well. I was going to be attacked and in the condition I'm in now I don't think I'll be able to put up much of a fight. I'm in an opening large and empty enough that it'd be practically impossible to sneak up on me without leaving some sort of trace like a footprint or even the faintest glimpse of a shadow but there was nothing. I need to get back to Muvere, I might stand a chance if they can pump me up again. At the very least I could use a little backup. After taking one last look around I bolted for the door. I had only made it about 10 feet or so before something came into view. A blonde German boy, tall and lanky in stature sitting in the grass like it was nobody's business. By all means I should have seen him, even if he was laying flat it wasn't like I actually noticed him move he just appeared. A blot that just flared to life in my iris almost as if I had already known his presence but didn't care as if this boy was previously dubbed by my own brain as irrelevant. He was fidgeting with crude machinery like you would see in Da Vinci's journal but made of some sort of white brittle substance stained almost completely in red. The strangest part about it however was the fact that it had moving sheets of metal moving similarly (a little too similarly) to a vocal cord. It was clear that I'd never met this person but something about him seemed familiar. I pointed the knife towards him. He didn't seem to mind. It took a bit of strength to say my next words.

   
"Kid! I don't know who you are but you need to leave. It's not safe here, I don't want to but I will hurt you if necessary." No response. "Hey, can you understand me?" Still Nothing. I tried getting their attention in a few other languages, francias, deutsch, espanol and still nothing.

Maybe they were deaf, as on edge as I was. I can't attack a child if there's a chance they can't understand me. It wasn't terrific but I knew a bit of sign language. I tried to sign the words for "are you deaf?" raising the hand with a knife in it to my ear. As soon as that happened the blade of the knife shattered, splintering into my cheek. I instinctively dropped the remaining handle covering my ears as they began to ring profusely. It was an ear splitting sound like the metal equivalent of a balloon popping just horrid and loud. The only thing that stopped the ringing was the boy's voice.

"It's a derivative of Tesla's earthquake machine. It emits a frequency through the air to the point where with a flip of a switch you can instantly change the amount of pressure in the area." I had just barely mentally recovered, still only somewhat able to hear let alone answer.

"Can you not hear me? Or are you just not smart enough to understand what I'm saying? It doesn't matter, I'll explain it in moronic terms. This part vibrates and rain stops, and this button makes the knife go boom." Their voice was almost completely monotone, any emotion I was picking up from them seemed almost like a stress induced hallucination. I needed to dispatch him quickly. I had exhausted almost all my resources in the fight but at this range I wasn't defenseless. I still had a small deringer stowed away as a backup, it was small and could only fire two small ball bearings at a time but it would have to do. If anything I could at least try to disorient them. My hand flung to the boy derringer in hand I pulled back the hammer steady my aim and a second later in the half beat before pulling the trigger the gun was pointed at my head by my own hand. I couldn't have been the one to do that. How did it get there? The boy spoke.

"It's not a threat, it's just a suggestion. The choice is yours." A millisecond and a cold sweat later my consciousness kicked in using my other hand to slam the barrel of the gun into the ground firing both rounds into the dirt. My breathing was erratic, my heart beat playing to the beat of Bohemian Rhapsody. I wasn't forced into anything. My brain actually thought that it was what I wanted to do. Who is this kid?

"Why didn't you take the shot? Didn't I make myself clear? It'd be easier if you did it yourself." My words stung like I was breathing fire, heat stinging my tongue and the tips of my teeth.

"It's obvious if you wanted me dead I would already. Spit it out, what do you want from me?" Like a professional poker player the boy's face was steeled making him seem to shift from eight to 80 in a fraction of a second.

"I was right." He stood. "You're just not that smart. I'm not a murder, I'll give you the tools necessary for the deed but I refuse to pull the trigger. That'd make me as bad as you. But you are right about one thing, I do want something." He pointed to the building. "Give it back to me." A slight pang of confusion turned to fear then to rage. He was talking about Muvere. My legs began to wobble and creak.

"You stole from me and in turn you've committed so many other crimes against humanity. Theft, genocide, and even now you tried to harm an inocent child. But all will be forgiven, we can all move on with our lives. You to your stupor of pleasure you seem to always drown yourself in. And me to my chi-" His words were cut off as my fist slammed into his left cheek turning his head but barely fazing him otherwise. My fury blocked out all sense of pain and or reason.

"HIS NAME IS MUVERE DAMN YOU AND THEY'RE NOT YOURS THEY BELONG TO NOONE YOU HEAR ME!!!!!" I was able to land a blow. It probably wouldn't be worth anything but boy was it worth it.

"I think I have a theory as to who I'm talking to don't I? Dr. Frankenstein I presume?" His face slowly snapped toward me displaying the first emotion I'd seen from him so far. Disgust.

"Get my name out of your mouth child! Don't pretend like you know what's best for them. I know what's best for them, I created that thing and it could be feeding the poor or healing the sick and feeding the poor but instead he's mucking around with you. What's worse is I believe I sense that deep down you feel the same." I wouldn't listen to this. "Do you want me to remind you of what happened in the basement?" I fell to the ground in front of them furiously ripping up grass and dirt.

"I CAN'T HEAR YOU, YOU BLEW OUT MY EARDRUMS REMEMBER?" The disgust on the boy's face grew.

"What do you think you're doing?" I had just finished digging a small square hole.

"This is your grave, get used to it! I don't care who you are but anyone who treats Muvere like property to be bought and sold. Try me one more time and you and your tiny ass balls are going in the hole you hear me!?" My nails were ravaged and blistered as a result of the digging and the boy bent over to pick up something out of the grass picking up the discarded derringer from earlier.

"I'm still right, you're as stupid as I thought. There's no point in me staying here." The boy raised the gun to his temple, somehow aging back and forth between 8 and 80 years old.

"I am the most intelligent man alive and when I want something done it happens. If heaven and earth need to be crushed under my thumb then so be it." Their wrinkled thumb pulled back the hammer of the unloaded gun. "Even if that means throwing away my dignity to you." And a smooth young finger pulled the trigger. The gun fired making little noise as there was nothing in the chamber. Instantly the body in the boy's clothing vanished as the cloth sank into my makeshift grave as rain tumbled down. Adrenaline ceased to exist and I collapsed to the floor. Everything felt like shit. As much as I wanted to deny it, those words did hurt, they hurt more than any bullet. I keep teetering on wanting to block these thoughts out but there's a part of me that feels the falsehoods in his words came from truth.