Chapter 1 - Last of the Frankenstein

On November 6th, 1887, there was no doubt in any of the villagers’ minds that it was a night for murder. The sky had clouded over so that the moon was only visible at odd moments when there was a clearing that passed over it. There was promise of a storm in the lightening that flashed every so often, and the thunder that accompanied it. They were sick and tired of their little village being terrorized by the strange events that had occurred in the castle that overlooked it, Castle Frankenstein, so now they were out for revenge, the taste of blood on everyone’s lips.
They certainly were a fearsome sight. Several score strong, most of them were grown men and boys, however, there were a few women scattered amongst them. Many were carrying torches, and in the middle of the crowd, a battering ram made of a fallen tree trunk was pushed. They were led, yelling and screaming obscenities up the hill by a tall, thin man with filthy white hair, a scraggly beard and discolored teeth, dressed all in black.
A fearsome bolt of lightning flashed.
From inside Castle Frankenstein, a heart-wrenching moan issued from the monstrous form lying strapped to the table. The young man standing next to it pranced ecstatically.
“It’s alive. It’s alive! IT’S ALIIIIIIIIIVVE!”
Dr. Victor Frankenstein, in his vast laboratory, had discovered an alternate way to create life.
But noises from outside tore him away from his creation. He ran to the large window to view the scene below, one that chilled the blood in his veins.
The local peasants had finally cracked. They were at the door, trying to break it down with their battering ram. One of the men looked up as it began to rain, and saw Frankenstein’s terrified form silhouetted in the window above them.
“There he is!” he yelled. Turning back to his comrades he yelled, “Hit it again!”
Back in the castle, Frankenstein was slowly backing away from the window. He knew that soon, they would be inside, and if they caught him, they would certainly kill him, and his creation.
He had to get out of there, and fast, but as he turned around to begin to make his escape, he nearly ran into the tall, black-cloaked figure standing behind him.
“Success!” it bellowed, and Frankenstein stumbled off to the side to catch his breath.
“Count,” he gasped. “It’s just you.”
Count Dracula, Frankenstein’s employer, walked to the window. “I was beginning to lose faith, Victor.” His deep blue eyes took in the view below. “A pity your moment of triumph is being spoiled over a little thing like grave robbery.”
How the Count could refer to those murderers as grave robbers confused, even shocked Frankenstein a little, but he didn’t have time to argue. He needed to protect himself, his daughter, and his creation.
“Yes,” he agreed absent-mindedly, running from the window to the trunk where he kept his things. “I must escape this place!”
But the Count’s voice boomed out at him, seeming to come from everywhere.
“Where are you going to run, Victor? Your…peculiar experiments have made you unwelcome in most of the civilized world.”
“I will take them away!” said Frankenstein, hurriedly stuffing things into his trunk, a few books, a shirt. “Far away! Where no one will ever find them!”
“Oh no, Victor. The time has come for me to take command of them.”
The Count was pacing along the mantelpiece of the massive fireplace. The doctor stopped packing and turned around to look at his master. What was he talking about?
“What are you saying?” he implored uncertainly. With Dracula, you had to choose your words wisely. His temper was very hard to predict. Sometimes you would be lucky, and he would be in a good mood. Other times, the wrong move would be your last.
Tonight, Frankenstein was not so lucky. The Count vanished from his perch on the mantelpiece and slammed the lid of the trunk behind him, scaring the doctor out of his wits.
“Why do you think I brought you and your daughter here? Gave you both this castle? Equipped your laboratory?”
His voice was enough to frighten anyone to death, and his eyes were livid with rage. Frankenstein stumbled over his words, trying not to make him any angrier than he was already.
“You…you said…you said you believed in my work…” He stopped. What did he say now?
The other man smiled, his rage gone as suddenly as it had come.
“And I do. But,” he said as he turned away and ran his eyes over the complicated machinery before him, the machine that Frankenstein had used to give life to his creature, who was still lying strapped to his table, moaning softly every now and then. “Now that it is, as you yourself have said…a triumph of science over God!” Sparks flew from the machine as he roared the last word. He turned back to the doctor. “It must now serve my purpose.”
Frankenstein rose, a mixture of hatred and uncertainty on his face. His eyes glared at Dracula as he growled, “What purpose?”
Above the frightened doctor and his menacing employer, Frankenstein’s 10-year-old daughter, Natasha Amelia Frankenstein, used her ghost powers to fade through from her upstairs bedroom, down to her father’s laboratory, used her ghost powers once again to turn herself invisible, and hid under the table where her father’s creation was, could not help but listening in to their conversation.
“Good God!” gasped Frankenstein upon hearing Dracula’s plans for his creation and his daughter. “I would kill myself before helping in such a task!”
He backed into his creation, who growled at being jostled.
“Feel free, I don’t actually need you anymore, Victor,” said the Count, walking around to the other side of the creature. “I just need them. They are the Key.”
Tenderly, like a father to his son, Frankenstein put his hand on the creature’s forehead. “I could never allow them to be used for such evil.”
The Count smiled. “I could.” He walked around the creature’s head and towards Frankenstein. “In fact, my brides are insisting upon it.”
The doctor backed away from his employer, but the Count did not stop moving. He continued advancing upon the frightened man, and then the young doctor realized what was happening. His heart pounded in sheer horror, and his eye caught a movement in the shadows. For a moment, there was a small ray of hope.
“Igor!” he cried to the shadow. “Help me!”
“You have been so kind to me, Doctor,” the decrepit hunchback said in a voice like an old wooden board when pressure is put on it. “Caring, thoughtful, but he pays me.”
With no help from any outside source, Frankenstein panicked, and began to back up faster, even though he knew it was hopeless. Eventually, he would run into a wall, and then nothing could save him.
Except…
When he finally did run into a wall, he was relieved to find that he’d backed into the side of the mantelpiece, where a sword was kept on display. Though he had no idea how to use it, he pulled it from its niche in the wall and held it out in front of him, its point right against the Count’s heart.
“Stay back!” he yelled, trying to make his voice sound as fierce as possible, though he knew his eyes betrayed him.
Dracula, however, was not fazed in the slightest.
“You can’t kill me, Victor,” he warned, and then impaled himself, burying the sword to its hilt.
“I’m already dead.”
Frankenstein stared in horror at the hilt of the sword, cold, black blood pouring over his hands. He would have screamed, but his throat was too tight to make a sound.
In short, he was terrified.
He knew he was dead even before the Count grabbed him by the front of his lab coat and pulled him away from the wall. His jaws opened inhumanely wide, and his teeth, which normally looked like the set one would find on a normal human being, grew long and vicious, and horribly, terrifyingly, sharp.
Though Frankenstein had known what the Count was, he’d never had the displeasure of actually having to see exactly how much of a monster he was, until now.
He screamed.
He had always been a quiet, introverted sort of man, and didn’t like exposing himself in any way, either in anger or fear, or even love, but none of that mattered now. There were no barriers in his mind to protect him now, and he filled his lungs with air, and let out a scream that should have only been uttered by the souls of the damned in Hell.
The Count paused for a moment, as if relishing the sound of that scream, and then plunged his fangs into the helpless doctor’s neck. Frankenstein’s scream died to a gurgle, and he pulled the sword from his adversary’s chest. He held it over his head, as though he planned to chop Dracula’s head off, but he was beginning to weaken, and the sword slipped from his sweaty fingers. Gradually, his whole body went limp as his life drained away. Finally, Dracula threw his victim’s corpse from him into a heap on the floor. With that out of the way, he advanced to the bed where the creature lay, frowning.
There was nothing there. The thick leather belts that had strapped him down were broken and the bed was empty. The vampire’s eyes flicked quickly back and forth across the laboratory, looking for where the creature might have gone, but he didn’t see much, because one of the machines was hefted into the air and thrown at him, knocking him backwards into the fire. While he was enveloped in flames, the creature that had thrown the machine bent down and lifted Dr. Frankenstein’s lifeless body in its arms, following the retreating shadow of the Count’s servant, Igor.
Just as soon as Natasha spotted the sword that laid on the floor, she ran toward it. However, as soon as she was about an inch away, Dracula emerged from the massive fireplace that he had been knocked into, badly burned but alive, causing Natasha to stop from fear what she was doing. With a flap of his coat, he put out the flames that were engulfing his body. Flesh began to repair itself, and his hair grew back exactly the way hit had been before he had been set on fire. But his eyes burned with the same intensity as flames that had been ravaging him moments before. He was not going to let the prize get away, not now that they had come so close.
He transformed to his Hell-beast form, then back to his human form as he sensed Natasha's presence, causing an amused grin to form. When there were no options left, Natasha quickly grabbed the sword and stormed it at Dracula.
As soon as he turned around, he saw her, holding the sword in her hands and saw her serious look on her face as tears trickled down her cheeks. She wailed while the tears still flowed down her cheeks, “You lied to me, Count.” He laughed, “Natasha, I--” His sentence was cut short when she interrupted as she lowered the sword at her side, “You lied to my mother, you lied to my father, and you lied to me. Sometimes, I don’t know who or what to trust anymore because of you, Count.”
“You are still too young to understand.”
“Therefore, you keep it as a secret from me. What else are you hiding from me, Count?”
He walked to her, kneeled down to her level, grabbed her wrist where she wield the sword, and smiled, “You don’t know everything about your past, do you, Natasha?”
“What are you implying, Count?”
“The only past you remember was when you were born. The rest of your memories are nothing but bitter ashes.”
She looked at him with a surprised, puzzled look on her face and implored, “How do you know me?”
“I’ve known you for a long time.” He replied.
“What are you?” she whispered in awe.
He chuckled inwardly, came behind her still holding her wrist, and whispered in her ear while a smile formed on his face, “Vampire.” That word sent chills up her spine and her blood running cold. She became so paralyzed, yet she started to tremble in fear. Then, minutes later, the sword was soon sliding slightly in her hand as her grip loosened. Soon, the sword fell out of her hand and Dracula chuckled inwardly once more as he saw Natasha’s dumbfounded face. He, soon, came from behind her, and said as he was, soon, in front of her, “Your father already knew what I was.”
“Then why didn’t he tell me?” she implored him curiously and furiously, recovering from her shock.
He chuckled and smiled, “Like I said before, you are still too young to understand.”
She, then, struggled violently and said as she was trying to break free from his grip, “Let go of me! Let g--”
Her sentence was cut short when Dracula grasped her neck, causing her to choke. “I waited 400 years just to kill you, you little, smart-mouthed brat!” he said, pulling her up as he was still grasping her neck and then kicked the sword away from them as a smile formed on his face.
She formed dragon claws from her free hand and slashed his face, causing him to let go of Natasha, transformed back into “The Demon”, and flew out of the castle.
Later, she soon discovered that the windmill was burnt down along with her father and his creation. As soon as she discovered this, she put her hand over her mouth, had her back against the wall, slid down to the floor, and then wailed as tears streamed down her face, “No.” With this, she punched the wall behind her. After she had calmed down, she went to her room, climbed into her bed, and then quickly fell asleep until the next day.

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