“What was that?” whispered Harriet.
We heard it again before I could
answer. A deep, retching sort of
growl. The sound made by an angry jungle
animal as it’s awakening. Or hungry.
We looked at each other. Then heard movement scratching against the
stone floor above us. Something moving
toward the stairs. Down the stairs. We inched
back into the shadows, too frightened to run, to cry out. Shivering—now with fear as well as cold.
The form moved about halfway down
the stairs. Stopped as a bright shaft of sun sliced through the window and
illuminated the stairway.
Harriet and I, recognizing the
form, were far too shocked to scream. It
was Blue Boyle. Or something like Blue Boyle. This version of him had to be seven or eight
feet tall, with a massive upper body.[i] Over his face, long stringy black hair fell
like seaweed.
I heard Harriet’s sharp intake of
breath—as if she were going to speak. I
stepped behind her, covered her mouth with my hand, made a sssshhhing sound in her ear.
The creature whirled our way. His
eyes gleamed yellow. His upper lip
seemed permanently lifted in some sort of sneer. His teeth were green.
He turned his head and snarled up
the stairs, making some sounds that seemed a blend of creature and human. But I somehow understood it as clearly as if
I’d said the words myself: Someone is
here!
I heard more movement upstairs,
another set of feet moving toward this.
I had no doubt who this would be, and when Dr. Eastbrook stepped into
the light beside the Blue Boyle creature, Harriet could no longer restrain
herself. She shrieked with a sound I was
certain would topple the stones of the tower.
Upstairs, my wrists tightly bound, I
looked around the laboratory that Dr. Eastbrook had created there in the
renovated tower of the old Green Island lighthouse. It was greenhouse hot. All around we saw equipment you would expect
to see in a laboratory—beakers and Bunsen burners and refrigerated storage and
tables and microscopes and other devices I wasn’t sure I recognized. Many of these things, of course, I had back
at home in my own basement.
But there were also things I would never have at home. Bodies of dead animals—all sorts of
them. Pieces of them, too, distributed about on the various tables. And some of those pieces, I was positive, had once been attached to
living human beings. I felt acid rising
from my stomach, filling my mouth.
“I don’t understand it,” Dr. Eastbrook was saying. “Twice
now you children have stumbled into my world, caused me to abandon months of careful work.”
His look communicated a mixture of
wonder and anger.
“Daddy—” whimpered Harriet.
“Shut up!” he snarled. “Now I’ve got to think what to do with you two.”
The Blue Boyle creature beside him
was emitting a low, humming growl. He
hadn’t stopped since he’d easily caught us earlier while we were trying to run
away. He’d grabbed us firmly, his fierce
grip making movement—and escape—impossible.
And now his yellow eyes were fixed on us. He seemed eager to do something. I didn’t want to think what that might be.
“Who knows you’re here?” Dr.
Eastbrook snapped.
Harriet started to say “No one”
when I interrupted her. “Just about
everyone,” I lied. “My dad. Harriet’s mom. A bunch of people on Put-in-Bay.”
“You’re a liar!” he barked. He walked
over to me and slapped me across the face—hard.
I had never in my life been hit, by anyone, and the sensation was such a
shock that I didn’t even cry, even though the pain was intense. It was as if my brain were desperately trying
to figure out what had just happened and didn’t know how to tell the rest of me
to react.
“Do you think I’m stupid!” he went on. He raised his arm as if to strike again. I just stared at him. He looked at me, surprise in his eyes. “You’re not afraid of being hit?” he
asked. I said nothing. He looked at me. “I always thought you were a creepy kid,” he
said. I smiled at him, trying to send a
silent message: You think I’m
creepy?
But he ignored me. Went on talking. “You can’t expect me to believe that your father”—he shifted his look to
Harriet—“and your mother would
approve of a trip, alone, to Green
Island, which, as I’m sure you know is not open to the public.”
“Then what are you doing here?” I asked mildly.
And he hit me again. I tasted salty blood.
“If you open your mouth again,” he
said, “I’m going to let Blue do what he does best.” I glanced over at him. His eyes, if anything, gleamed even more
fiercely, his eagerness even more ugly—and frightening—to see.
[i] Ed.
note: And in Frankenstein, Chapter 4,
Victor Frankenstein talks about his plans for the creature he will assemble and
bring to life: “I resolved, contrary
to my first intention, to make the being of a gigantic stature; that is to say,
about eight feet in height, and proportionally large. After having formed this
determination, and having spent some months in successfully collecting and
arranging my materials, I began.”
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