“I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other” -Frankenstein’s Monster
Moronic. Pitiful. Amateur. These were the thoughts that caressed the mind of the spectacle wearing man, stationed in his leather recliner. He shut the paperback book he held in his pale white hands, and set it down onto the arm of the chair, pondering the tale he had just read. As a man of science, he knows the limitations and probability of such an experiment, yet the ethics are questionable to say the least. But what good would it bring to the world of science? A real human experiment, where there is no decade spent tip-toeing around the matter with animal trials, and immediate knowledge could be within our grasp in a fraction of the time. He let out a small grunt through his nose; an exhaust of precaution and inspiration mixed into a concoction of suppressed desire. He began to list the issues that impacted the novel’s creation and could destroy his new impulsive dream. This being that he had just read about had no memories nor basic cognitive function upon its conception into the harsh world, reflective of our own reality. Obviously a flaw, as it had to relearn everything and rely on the emotions and responses of simpletons and fools. Why not have kept the original subject’s consciousness intact, yet add to their body? Then it would have a familiarity to the world, and not gaining an understanding only obtainable through unsupervised exploration. Of course it would respond to its environment; it was just an animal by that point. This creation was intended for the satisfaction of the master, thought the man, yet it did not adhere to the whims of his creator. He believed this to be the downfall of the story’s doctor, a weak presence in the creation’s education and overall life. Such a being deserves a paternal presence to guide it should it ever lose its way. He could not have been a proper father to that monster…
“Father…,” he said under his breath, in a cold whisper.
“Papa, come and play!” rang a child’s voice down the hall from his study. A devilish grin grew from cheek to cheek, as he rose from his seat.
“Coming, honey!” he responded, almost wickedly.
He exited the room, leaving the book he was reading print down with the title on the cover page catching the last glimmer of light before the door was closed. It read: Frankenstein.
The old, fading alphabet blocks on the carpet spelt gibberish words and phrases, garbled English only a creature not of human-kind could understand. Colouring books lay sprawled around the carpet, scribbled in mismatched crayon in a palette of reds and brown. Young Victoria, just a young girl of ten years, sat in her room, pretending the Barbie doll she held in her hand was really going to save the world that inhabited her mind. What calamity the stuffed monster doll that she held opposite the hero would create was unknown. She had always secretly favored the monster over any other toy, and she knew that when the monster would always find a way to beat the character supposed to be a hero, it had to be because of their connection. It was one of the first gifts her father had given, and meant the world to her. Science articles, reports, chemicals and funny long white coats was all that her father was ever in to, and he spent his days in his laboratory or study, reading away at some new book he had gotten. Sometimes he’d come home with new pets and he would take them into his lab to make them “have fun.” However, they would never come back out of the room… All Victoria wanted was to have fun like they did. Yet today was a special day, as father decided to play with her and make her happy with his special news.
The door opened and in strode the labcoat-clad man, spectacles at the tip of his nose and and his grin ever present. Victoria set down the doll, and clung onto the monster in a tight embrace.
“What is it you want to play, dear?” asked the doctor in a reserved soft tone, only saved for his child (and his experiments).
“I want you to be Barbie, and I will be the monster. You gotta protect the world, okay?” her singsong voice replied, as her dad sat on the floor with her.
Before the monster could even lay the first hit on the fearless Barbie, a phone buzzed in the breast pocket of the lab coat. Victoria’s face grew saddened and she pouted, forming her face into a caricature of frustration. The scientist flipped open the cell phone and held it to his ear, responding in simple yesses and grunts through his nose, inhaling sharply before letting out an enthusiastic, “stupendous!” He said his farewells as quickly as his greetings, and hung up the phone, shoving it into his pocket and rising to his feet. He glanced at his daughter with an expression of guilt – not of his character if you were one to know him. Victoria held onto the monster again, this time tighter.
“Listen up,” he said squatting down to face the girl. “I know that daddy hasn’t been doing much with you, and that you haven’t gotten to play much with him, but he has some very important work. I have a surprise for you and your monster, and I think you’ll like it.”
Confused and baffled in her six year old brain, she asked, “Really, Dad? Will it make monster as happy as I am?”
“This may take a few years,however.” he muttered out loud, though soft enough to skip the girl’s mind. “I know you love your monster very much, but you two are so different! Maybe monster gets scared because you two are different?”
She gripped the toy harder, almost like she was stretching the stitches. She remained silent but her expression spoke sudden melancholy as she found out her childhood friend was frightened. If only she realized then that even a toy could fear a man driven out of insanity.
“Daddy has gotten some new things for his lab and now he can make you and the monster very happy. Why not make you both monsters? That way, neither of you will be lonely!”
A spontaneous reaction of jubilescence broke free from the girl as she jumped onto her father’s shoulders with the giddiest of smiles and laughs. She thanked him with words and kisses, holding him as hard as the monster she was soon destined to be like. And with one final kiss, the man left his daughter once more to the realm of her imagination, leaving her again without having even played with the girl.
His brain felt like it was swelling in his head as the ecstasy of finally obtaining what he needed to begin his work arrived. He returned hours later, a sense of glee and splendor emanating from his very being. A large metal cage being set down on top of the table to help the fake fruit bowl decorate the room. It reeked. Victoria entered with her nose plugged and gagged on the odour permeating from the cage. Her father closed the door, took off his boots, and picked up the cage, completely ignoring his daughter till he reached the door to his laboratory. With only a pause before entering, he spoke gravely, “Whatever you do, do not enter my lab.” He descended the steps and the door, slowly shut behind him, with only the squeaks of the wooden steps making a sound in his descent. Victoria sighed and returned to her room. She had school in the morning, and it seemed like she would be taking public transit instead of getting a ride once more.
Years began to pass – six to be exact – as the doctor spent night and day attempting to perfect his craft. He fell into multiple depressions, destroying his work in fits of melancholy and rage. Sometimes days were spent reading or staying in his room, alone. It was never spent with the ever-growing daughter. Each time he was close to achieving his goal, there were two setbacks to deter him; had it succeeded in doing so, perhaps Victoria would be living a different life. While his depression was on and off with each step he took, his insanity never stopped growing, like a festering infection that spread throughout the host’s body. With madness ensnaring him, the doctor refused to eat things anymore, as he saw them as distractions. Perhaps the worst part of his insanity was his delusions, as he became often frantic in nature, and despised being interrupted, even by the sound of a fly. He would scream and yell till he had squashed the bug, cursing its very existence with a blend of sporadic English and gibberish only he could make sense of. He thought the fly was going to eat “it.” Victoria heard him in these tantrums from her room upstairs; now as a sixteen year old girl, she had lost respect for the madman that was her father, and avoided prolonged interaction with him. In fact, he was never father anymore. She did not use that term fro his character any longer, as he had stopped using Victoria. In his madness, he now affectionately called her, “Monster.”
“Hello, Monster. How was school today?”
“Monster, close the window.”
“You are not leaving your father alone here, Monster!”
The cage was brought out multiple times as the doctor would leave to renew its contents, but more and more varying containers and bags were also brought, and new foul stenches along with them. It began to seep through the floorboards, and her classmates at school asked why she smelt like a corpse. A few days passed before her scented candles burnt out and the smell was back, so she decided to ask the distant shadow of a father about the odour. The only problem was that he was in his lab, and she had grown impatient. She paced to the door and gripped the handle, but paused before turning it. She had remembered the rule set for her those six years ago, and was frozen by the possible consequences in store… She dismissed these thoughts and turned the knob, only to be confronted with an odour of what smelt like iron and feces climb into her throat and make her gag. The smell could make a graveyard jealous.
After persevering back to her feet, the wooden steps creaked with each step down towards the inevitable meeting with the man. As she turned the corner, there before her laid meat; not just any meat. The carcasses of multiple animals laid sprawled on metal tables drenched in blood, each gutted and beyond death. Her father stood at a sink washing his slender pale fingers that could be mistaken for bone. He could die at any second, he was so malnourished, yet he hadn’t seen a mirror in months; maybe then he could have seen the blood soaked into his lab coat. He turned around to see his daughter, and with a startled flinch, he nervously smiled.
“Oh, hello Monster,” he stuttered, wiping his greasy, balding head with his left. Victoria noticed that as he wiped his head, he was missing a finger.
“What the actual hell do you think you’re doing down here?” she shouted at him, shocked at the scene displayed in front of her: a tomb full of dead animals and the dying man who used to be her father.
“It was only a matter of time before you came down here. Shall I show you my work?” He paced over to the cage he had brought home so many times, and removed the towel covering it. Inside, behind the locked bars was a large, black rat, running around like it had just been attacked. It wasn’t until she got closer that Victoria had noticed the rat was missing its front arm and paw; instead it was replaced with her father’s finger. It moved and bent with the rat.
His calm demeanor contrasted with the flabbergasted Victoria, as she held back the vomit she felt arise in her mouth. It had been a week or so since she had seen her father, and she last remembered him having all of his fingers. Her mind raced. Had this been was he was doing all this time? She was smelling corpses the entire time? She had been in the house with a psychopath all of these years? She held her head in pain, but before the man could console her and get close, she grabbed a scalpel from the table out of a squirrel’s body.
“Don’t you dare come near me!” she shouted, her voice loud and trembling, almost a cry. “Don’t try me! I’m going to call the police!”
She backed her way up the steps with the sharp blade. Carefully watching her father step closer to her. He reassured her he wasn’t going to hurt her, repeating to her, “It’s okay, Monster, I won’t hurt you.”
“Stop calling me that!” she cried out, waving the scalpel in her hand as she made it upstairs. Before her father could follow, she slammed the door to the laboratory and blocked it with a chair, picked up the phone and ran into her room. There she hid under her bed, dialling 911, and waiting for the tone to stop ringing. What was only a few seconds felt like an hour to her, as she was running out of time before her father would escape. Then the operator picked up:
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“My father has gone insane and he’s trying to kill me! You have to send help, they’re dead animals and knives and he’s going to hurt me! P-Please send help!”
“Slow down now, ma’am. What is your address?”
Before she could reply with their house number, she saw boots stride across her door and through the hallway. She froze and set the phone down, too afraid to breathe; she covered her mouth with her hands and waited. The 911 operator kept trying to ask her questions, but he was only a small echo now that could get her killed. She hung up the phone. The feet returned and entered her room, slowly creaking on the floor around her room. The man sat down on the bed right b wove her, and pushing the mattress down onto her. There he began to weep, and quietly spoke the name, “Victoria.” Something about the way he spoke it made it seem like an apology to her. Was he sorry for his deeds, and did she over react? She thought so. Her arms stretched from underneath the bed, and pulled herself up to turn and face her father. Maybe she would accept his apology if he promised to get his act together. But the bed was no longer occupied by the doctor, and the girl turned too late to find him, start from behind the door and grapple her hair, pushing a rag of chloroform onto her mouth and watching her lose consciousness.
“I do not know a Victoria. There is only my Monster.” he spoke into her ear, seconds before her world became dark.
Brightness peaked through her eyelids as Victoria awoke in the basement of her house. A light had been shone into her face, and blinded her from seeing all of her surroundings. She tried to move but she was bound to the tale that was now tilted upright.
“Good morning, Monster. How are you feeling?” asked a familiar voice, as the light as pulled away to reveal the doctor, dressed in bloody scrubs and smiling at the being that was strapped into the table. Still dazed from the anesthetic, she could only retort with mumbles of profanity and disgust.
“Do you know who I am? I am your father. I made you.”
Made? This word grew louder in Victoria’s head, as it posed so many unanswered questions. He must have been able to see the confusion in her, as he brought forward a mirror to show her the work he had down. In the mirror was a demon.
Victoria could see that her new form was no longer human. Her arms were exchanged for those of other humans, much more muscular than her own, and portions of her skin had been transplanted with the fur of an animal. On her head, she saw where the doctor had given her horns from a goat and around her forehead was a line of stitches keeping her skull from falling open. She felt light headed. She felt disgusted. All around her body were lines of stitches, and the areas felt heavier, like something had been added to her body, internally. Until this awakening from despair, she had not noticed a muzzled has been placed on her. She felt around in her mouth with her tongue, but found that her teeth had been grinded to points, bloody and sharp. Around her back she felt a sharp pain, and realized she had the a tail nailed into her back.
She had become a monster.
“Let me remove the bindings, my child.” spoke the madman, as he undid the leather cuffs. She fell to the floor in pain, and realized her feet were taken and replaced for hooves. On the table above her were her feet, ghostly white and already dead. She sobbed out an inhuman noise, deeper yet more gutteral. The childish voice of the demon surgeon in front of her annoyed her, as he treated her like the child he wish he had. That he did have.
“Come and stand, Monster,” he laughed, as he held the new sewn on arms of his creation, pulling her up to her hooves.
“Do not cry! I am here. You can call me, Da-” The muscular arm shot out and grasped around the throat of the doctor, lifting him off of the ground. Her new body was difficult to get used to, as she inadvertently crushed his windpipe in her clutch. In a raspy, cold voice, barely reminiscent of her old one, spoke on last thing to the man who used to be called her father:
“My name is Victoria, and you are no father of mine.”
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The police did not find the house until hours after the surgery. The body of the doctor was found with a snapped neck, dead on the floor of his basement lab. After combing the laboratory, cleaning up the animal carcasses and the bloody tools, a stuffed monster toy was found in one of the cupboards, behind bottles of chemicals. It was old and falling apart at the seems, perhaps from being squeezed too many times.
Victoria was nowhere to be found, as if she had vanished into the odour of the dead animals, and left along with it. Rumours say that a creature was spotted behind the doctor’s house on nights where the smell of barbeque is in the air during a party at their neighbors. The neighbor’s son, no older than 7, once left his stuffed animal in their backyard at the edge of the woods when he was playing. When he came back minutes later, the toy was gone, taken by the wind seemingly. It would be months before it would return, and when it did, there were parts of woodland creatures sewn onto its body, and made into a monster. Just like she was.
Just like we all are.
Unknown. “Monster Doll.” Photo. etsy Unknown. Jan 12, 2016. <https://www.etsy.com/listing/81251046/monster-doll-pdf-sewing-pattern>