Frankenstein Has Risen From the Grave
By C. L. Werner
Prologue
The sleek steel-hued ship continued to slide through the icy water north of Japan. Owned by the powerful Shindo Group, the vessel was equipped for a variety of tasks. At present, however, it was being called upon to play the part of hunting hound.
'What I do not understand,' said the captain of the ship to one of the scientists manning the massive 'ultra-Geiger' apparatus housed deep in the bowels of the ship, 'if this anomaly was discovered back in 1991, why has it not been investigated until now?'
The scientist removed his glasses and regarded the captain. 'The events of 1991 were very chaotic. The rampage of the Ghidorah-creature, the demands of the Futurians, and the death of Mr. Shindo by Godzilla all helped to make this report fall in the cracks. We were desperate to stop the rampage of Wilson's Ghidorah, and satellites were trying to pick up any radioactivity in the Bering Sea that might indicate that Godzilla was indeed still beneath the ocean waters, despite Wilson's scheme.' The scientist smiled. 'The irregularity was discovered at that time, but the radiation was decided to be far too faint to be Godzilla. As it turned out, our own nuclear submarine found the monster instead.'
'What do you think it is?' the captain asked, peering into the murky image that was being transmitted to the ship by an unmanned robotic mini- sub.
'I think we shall find out very soon,' replied the scientist, following the captain's gaze. Both men watched as the lights of the sub suddenly began to shine from a corroded reef-like substance, only the lines were far too regular to be any natural formation. The scientist adjusted the sub's search pattern. The robot maneuvered around, sliding along the long, tube-like hull, catching the conical tower in its lamps, the rotted remains of a deck gun.
'A German U-boat!' exclaimed the captain.
'Yes,' agreed the scientist, equally astonished. 'But why is a sunken German submarine from WWII giving off radioactivity?'
The towering skyscrapers of Osaka rose all around the young couple. Hans and Miranda Kraus had never been to Japan before and the two tourists were determined to enjoy themselves. Indeed, Japan had again become a healthy tourism destination since the decrease in monster rampages. True, there had been the terrible shock of the renegade Dr. Mafune's creations a year previous, but that disaster had hardly been limited to Japan. Whatever the reasons, the two young Germans were enjoying themselves greatly. They had already seen the sites in Tokyo, the Imperial Garden and Tokyo Tower, and now had decided to see some of the ancient feudal castles left in Osaka to round out their tour.
The hour was late when the young couple began to make their way back to their hotel room. They made their way through the sparsely populated streets. It was with some surprise then that they found their path intercepted by a most curious figure. It was a Japanese man, shabbily dressed and somewhat dwarf-like; his back twisted and hunched over. The German couple stared with disgust at the man's malformed mouth, his broken display of jagged and blackened teeth. They began to circle around the man when the twisted creature surprised them yet again. He spoke to them, in German!
'Kann sie mir hilfen?' the hunchback asked in guttural, crude tones.
'How is that?' a puzzled Hans asked. The hunchback began to slink away, almost fearfully. His curiosity piqued, Hans pursued the dwarf, leaving his wife to watch him disappear around the corner of a fish monger's. It was the last she would ever see of her husband.
Hans was almost running after the strange Japanese dwarf now. He was completely focused upon the enigmatic freak, unaware that the chase was taking him into a lonely back alley. It was with a degree of alarm that Hans realized that he was now alone with the strange Japanese. As the German tourist entered the alley, the dwarf stopped trying to avoid him. Turning and facing Hans.
'You can help me,' the twisted creature said, his smile broadening. Hans did not have time to scream before the massive butcher's cleaver the dwarf pulled from its place of concealment behind a trashcan was swiping towards his neck.
'Astounding,' agreed the politician as he watched the submarine break the surface. The robot mini-sub had returned to the depths, had attached massive balloons to the hull of the long-lost warship. The task of salvaging the U-boat had been too much for even the Shindo Group, so it was that the corporation had enlisted the aid of the Japanese government through the newly formed Crisis Control Intelligence, the CCI.
'It is the U-754,' marveled the wizened German veteran standing beside the politician. 'After all these years…'
'What specifically was the vessel's mission?' Katagiri asked the old German. The old Kriegsmarine officer's brow knitted as he considered the Japanese bureaucrat's question.
'As I can recall, she was dispatched to conduct sensitive materials from Germany to the safekeeping of Japan. This was in late 1944, when it was obvious to everyone what the outcome of the European theater would be.'
Katagiri stared again at the rotting vessel. What secrets were entrusted to you, he wondered? What did the Nazis consider so important that they risked a suicidal voyage beneath the Arctic ice?
Whatever answers it contained, U-754 remained silent.
The loathsome looking man crept down the deserted midnight streets. His strength was such that he barely felt the heavy burden slung over his twisted and bloated back. Wrapped in a heavy tarpaulin, any observer who happened to see the hunchback would hardly be able to tell the nature of his burden. They would not guess that it was the mortal remains of a German tourist, butchered with the sinister efficiency of an accomplished surgeon. Goke's master had taught his underling exactly what to do, and how to do it.
Goke separated his chapped lips to allow his jagged teeth to leer in a grotesque smile. Ahead was the deserted warehouse, declared unsafe after one of the monster Godzilla's attacks had partially collapsed it. For many long years, no one had shown enough interest to rebuild the ruin, nor enough initiative to demolish it. Now, the building was home only to the vermin of Osaka. Vermin and one other inhabitant.
Goke adjusted the weight carried on his shoulder and pulled open the heavy metal door. Chains and pulleys had once enabled men to open the door with ease, but such devices had rusted away over the years. It did not matter to the hunchback. To him, the heavy steel door, warped and blunted by the monster's wrath and the elements, was no more of a hindrance than a medicine ball should be to any athlete. Goke entered the darkness beyond the door and pushed the steel plate back into its place.
The hunchback sulked through the vast ruin, twisted girders and shafts of metal strewn all around him, broken machinery and shattered glass crackling beneath his every footstep. The beady eyes of rats watched the murderer from the darkness, rodent lips smacking greedily as they caught the scent of freshly spilt blood. Goke ignored the spectators and with a last, furtive look over his shoulder, lifted a heavy manhole cover and descended into an even greater darkness.
From the pit, the faint strains of an orchestral score drifted upwards, a selection from the work of Richard Wagner.
'What have you found?' Katagiri made no pretense of concealing his impatience from the men who stood before him. The head of the CCI had not even waited for the team that had entered the old Nazi submarine to remove their heavy radiation suits. The three men looked at one another. At last, one of them strode forward. Each man was pale, sweating. But it had not been the radiation that had so affected them.
'As near as we can tell, sir,' began the spokesman for the team, casting a nervous look at the huge rotting U-boat behind him. At considerable expense, the carcass of U-754 had been sent to a CCI facility in Fukuoka, cloaked in secrecy. Only the CCI and some of the higher members of Parliament knew what had become of the Shindo Group's find. 'It seems that the Germans were transporting all of their greatest scientific advances to Japan, trying to tip the scales in the Emperor's favor.'
'Why is it radioactive?' demanded Katagiri. Japan had great reason to fear any thing tainted by radioactivity. First there had been the WWII bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then there had been the advent of Godzilla and the other horrible spawn of the atom that had followed him.
'They were transporting a supply of heavy water, it appears. To try and help our own scientists along with our atomic weapons program. We did find some journals that may have been research along those lines. There are also disassembled V-2 and V-1 rockets inside the sub, as well as what appear to be the complete components of a ME-262 jet fighter. We have also found a number of blue-prints for even more ambitious weapons.'
'Can you tell what killed the crew?' asked Katagiri, still obsessed by the thought of the radioactivity.
'No, sir,' responded the spokesman. 'It may have been their filter system, an engine malfunction or perhaps the storage they used for their heavy water. I would lean towards the last, as the submarine is definitely showing signs of radiation throughout its decks.' The spokesman paused, licking his lips. 'We found the skeletons of the crew everywhere. They must have died horribly.'
'Have you found anything else?' the question brought a frightened look into the eyes of the team members.
'Yes, sir,' replied the spokesman. 'But you will have to send someone else in there to get it. None of us will touch the thing.'
The Japanese hunchback dropped the tarpaulin sack down on the floor. For a moment, he let his eyes linger on the walls of the hidden room. They were riddled with coffin-like freezers and standing refrigerators. Cables snaked across the floor to crawl into the walls, leeching power from the city's electrical system. In the center of the room were several tables, their surfaces covered by beakers, bubbling tanks of liquid and bottled jars of chemicals and solutions. Other, more solid objects floated within many of the substances. Goke began to remove the gory remains of Hans Kraus and set them down on the only table that was devoid of apparatus. As he did so, the soft strains of orchestral music died, an unseen hand killing the phonograph. Scuttling, shuffling steps sounded from within the shadows. Goke grinned nervously as his master stepped into the feeble light.
The man had been called a monster often enough in his life, but now he wore the shape of a gravesend horror. Charred blackened flesh clothed the man's body, as though lumps of charcoal had been blasted onto a naked skeleton. Grim eyes stared from a grinning skull, their lids burnt away. Clawed hands protruded from the man's heavy coat, as gaunt and withered as any cadaver's. When the man opened his mouth to speak, it was as if a wound opened in what passed for his face. Indeed, the lips had melted together in the same trauma that had reduced him to this sorry state. The man had been forced to use a scalpel to cut the melded flesh and allow his mouth to open once more. Still, the man realized that by all rights he should be dead. Any merely mortal being would have been. But Baron Heinrich von Frankenstein had not been mortal for quite some time.
'Good, my friend,' the Baron's raspy rattle wheezed from his dry, desiccated form. 'Very splendid. This one was definitely of the Master Race.' Frankenstein examined the arms of Hans Kraus, his eyes staring at the thin delicate fingers with envy. 'A musician, or perhaps even a surgeon,' he considered. 'Yes, I shall have need of these.' Frankenstein nodded his head to the twisted creature lurking at his feet. Goke raised the whirring bone-saw and began to remove the hands from the arms of Hans Kraus.
Later, the unwanted remains were removed to the warehouse above. The rats had proven very efficient garbage collectors.
The young, blonde-haired man leaned over in his seat. The flight from Berlin to Tokyo was a long one and the young German was in need of conversation. The man in the seat next to him was much older, aged enough to be the grandfather of the blonde man.
'You are Dr. Erich Reisendorf?' the younger man asked. The older man did not look up from the in-flight magazine he had been perusing since take- off.
'Yes, and you are Dr. Johann Gildor,' commented the old scientist.
'You know me?' the younger scientist said, startled.
'I may be old, but I do keep in touch with things,' Dr. Reisendorf answered. 'Your field of study is one that interests me greatly. I make it my business to keep informed of who is doing what with it these days.'
'It is a great honor to speak with you,' admitted Dr. Gildor. 'Why, you worked with him, during the war. I am shocked that a man of your standing should even know my name.'
'Why should I not. You desecrated the graveyard at Aushwitz looking for traces of his work. Such notorious goings on are not exactly low-key.'
Dr. Gildor looked downwards, ashamed. 'I thought that some good might come of it, some benefit to mankind.' Dr. Reisendorf looked up. The old scientist folded his magazine and turned in his seat to face his companion.
'No good will ever come from his works,' Dr. Reisendorf stated. 'Evil begets evil. I worked with the man for two years at Aushwitz. Or, to put it more frankly, I spied upon him. The Nazis never trusted Heinrich von Frankenstein. With good reason as it turns out. He was not interested in their vision of a Master Race. True, he was intending to place rulers over the common, but the Master Race Frankenstein envisioned would be one of his own creation.'
'If they knew this,' gasped Dr. Gildor, 'why was he allowed to continue his work?'
'Can you not guess? The Fuehrer wanted to be a god, and Frankenstein could have provided him with the secret of immortality. Did you know that they found the remains of the original monster? It was discovered in a block of ice in Norway during the war. It was cut apart and shipped in secret back to Germany. I was reassigned after Aushwitz to study the monster's heart. Even a century later, it was still beating, even with three bullets inside of it!'
'God in Heaven!' exclaimed Dr. Gildor. 'I have never heard this, nor read of it in any book.'
'They kept it top secret, especially from him,' replied Dr. Reisendorf. 'Hitler wanted the secret of immortality, but not at the expense of placing Heinrich von Frankenstein in his place. Still, had it not been for my study of the monster's heart, I should never have been excluded from the Nuremberg trials. It seemed my head was wanted more for its information than its ability to fit a noose.' Dr. Reisendorf tapped a withered finger against his forehead.
'What became of the heart?' asked Dr. Gildor.
'It was taken away. SS men arrived one day in 1944 and took it away. I suspect now that it was shipped to Japan, like so many other secrets the Fuehrer did not want falling into Soviet hands.'
'What makes you say that?'
Dr. Reisendorf stared out the window of the plane. 'Why do you think the Japanese would send for the top Frankenstein researcher in Germany and the last-living man who worked with Heinrich von Frankenstein? All men long for the secret of immortality. The heart of the monster has been found. And it has been found in Japan.'
In the darkness, something stirred. The comforting warmth had departed some time ago, but it had taken long days for its absence to be detected by the creature. Now its eyes snapped open, its limbs stirred. It had not moved in such a very long time, but it had not needed to. The warmth had fed it, had pulsed through its body. Now the warmth was gone. Once more the beast was called upon to leave its lair. To swim through the waters. To hunt.
In the darkness, something emerged from the ocean floor. For an instant, the huge shape lingered over the depression that marked the former resting-place of U-754. Then, the shape withdrew into itself, as though pressing its body together. There was an instant of motion, then the shape was gone, just another ghost passing unseen through the darkness.
By C. L. Werner
Prologue
The sleek steel-hued ship continued to slide through the icy water north of Japan. Owned by the powerful Shindo Group, the vessel was equipped for a variety of tasks. At present, however, it was being called upon to play the part of hunting hound.
'What I do not understand,' said the captain of the ship to one of the scientists manning the massive 'ultra-Geiger' apparatus housed deep in the bowels of the ship, 'if this anomaly was discovered back in 1991, why has it not been investigated until now?'
The scientist removed his glasses and regarded the captain. 'The events of 1991 were very chaotic. The rampage of the Ghidorah-creature, the demands of the Futurians, and the death of Mr. Shindo by Godzilla all helped to make this report fall in the cracks. We were desperate to stop the rampage of Wilson's Ghidorah, and satellites were trying to pick up any radioactivity in the Bering Sea that might indicate that Godzilla was indeed still beneath the ocean waters, despite Wilson's scheme.' The scientist smiled. 'The irregularity was discovered at that time, but the radiation was decided to be far too faint to be Godzilla. As it turned out, our own nuclear submarine found the monster instead.'
'What do you think it is?' the captain asked, peering into the murky image that was being transmitted to the ship by an unmanned robotic mini- sub.
'I think we shall find out very soon,' replied the scientist, following the captain's gaze. Both men watched as the lights of the sub suddenly began to shine from a corroded reef-like substance, only the lines were far too regular to be any natural formation. The scientist adjusted the sub's search pattern. The robot maneuvered around, sliding along the long, tube-like hull, catching the conical tower in its lamps, the rotted remains of a deck gun.
'A German U-boat!' exclaimed the captain.
'Yes,' agreed the scientist, equally astonished. 'But why is a sunken German submarine from WWII giving off radioactivity?'
The towering skyscrapers of Osaka rose all around the young couple. Hans and Miranda Kraus had never been to Japan before and the two tourists were determined to enjoy themselves. Indeed, Japan had again become a healthy tourism destination since the decrease in monster rampages. True, there had been the terrible shock of the renegade Dr. Mafune's creations a year previous, but that disaster had hardly been limited to Japan. Whatever the reasons, the two young Germans were enjoying themselves greatly. They had already seen the sites in Tokyo, the Imperial Garden and Tokyo Tower, and now had decided to see some of the ancient feudal castles left in Osaka to round out their tour.
The hour was late when the young couple began to make their way back to their hotel room. They made their way through the sparsely populated streets. It was with some surprise then that they found their path intercepted by a most curious figure. It was a Japanese man, shabbily dressed and somewhat dwarf-like; his back twisted and hunched over. The German couple stared with disgust at the man's malformed mouth, his broken display of jagged and blackened teeth. They began to circle around the man when the twisted creature surprised them yet again. He spoke to them, in German!
'Kann sie mir hilfen?' the hunchback asked in guttural, crude tones.
'How is that?' a puzzled Hans asked. The hunchback began to slink away, almost fearfully. His curiosity piqued, Hans pursued the dwarf, leaving his wife to watch him disappear around the corner of a fish monger's. It was the last she would ever see of her husband.
Hans was almost running after the strange Japanese dwarf now. He was completely focused upon the enigmatic freak, unaware that the chase was taking him into a lonely back alley. It was with a degree of alarm that Hans realized that he was now alone with the strange Japanese. As the German tourist entered the alley, the dwarf stopped trying to avoid him. Turning and facing Hans.
'You can help me,' the twisted creature said, his smile broadening. Hans did not have time to scream before the massive butcher's cleaver the dwarf pulled from its place of concealment behind a trashcan was swiping towards his neck.
'Astounding,' agreed the politician as he watched the submarine break the surface. The robot mini-sub had returned to the depths, had attached massive balloons to the hull of the long-lost warship. The task of salvaging the U-boat had been too much for even the Shindo Group, so it was that the corporation had enlisted the aid of the Japanese government through the newly formed Crisis Control Intelligence, the CCI.
'It is the U-754,' marveled the wizened German veteran standing beside the politician. 'After all these years…'
'What specifically was the vessel's mission?' Katagiri asked the old German. The old Kriegsmarine officer's brow knitted as he considered the Japanese bureaucrat's question.
'As I can recall, she was dispatched to conduct sensitive materials from Germany to the safekeeping of Japan. This was in late 1944, when it was obvious to everyone what the outcome of the European theater would be.'
Katagiri stared again at the rotting vessel. What secrets were entrusted to you, he wondered? What did the Nazis consider so important that they risked a suicidal voyage beneath the Arctic ice?
Whatever answers it contained, U-754 remained silent.
The loathsome looking man crept down the deserted midnight streets. His strength was such that he barely felt the heavy burden slung over his twisted and bloated back. Wrapped in a heavy tarpaulin, any observer who happened to see the hunchback would hardly be able to tell the nature of his burden. They would not guess that it was the mortal remains of a German tourist, butchered with the sinister efficiency of an accomplished surgeon. Goke's master had taught his underling exactly what to do, and how to do it.
Goke separated his chapped lips to allow his jagged teeth to leer in a grotesque smile. Ahead was the deserted warehouse, declared unsafe after one of the monster Godzilla's attacks had partially collapsed it. For many long years, no one had shown enough interest to rebuild the ruin, nor enough initiative to demolish it. Now, the building was home only to the vermin of Osaka. Vermin and one other inhabitant.
Goke adjusted the weight carried on his shoulder and pulled open the heavy metal door. Chains and pulleys had once enabled men to open the door with ease, but such devices had rusted away over the years. It did not matter to the hunchback. To him, the heavy steel door, warped and blunted by the monster's wrath and the elements, was no more of a hindrance than a medicine ball should be to any athlete. Goke entered the darkness beyond the door and pushed the steel plate back into its place.
The hunchback sulked through the vast ruin, twisted girders and shafts of metal strewn all around him, broken machinery and shattered glass crackling beneath his every footstep. The beady eyes of rats watched the murderer from the darkness, rodent lips smacking greedily as they caught the scent of freshly spilt blood. Goke ignored the spectators and with a last, furtive look over his shoulder, lifted a heavy manhole cover and descended into an even greater darkness.
From the pit, the faint strains of an orchestral score drifted upwards, a selection from the work of Richard Wagner.
'What have you found?' Katagiri made no pretense of concealing his impatience from the men who stood before him. The head of the CCI had not even waited for the team that had entered the old Nazi submarine to remove their heavy radiation suits. The three men looked at one another. At last, one of them strode forward. Each man was pale, sweating. But it had not been the radiation that had so affected them.
'As near as we can tell, sir,' began the spokesman for the team, casting a nervous look at the huge rotting U-boat behind him. At considerable expense, the carcass of U-754 had been sent to a CCI facility in Fukuoka, cloaked in secrecy. Only the CCI and some of the higher members of Parliament knew what had become of the Shindo Group's find. 'It seems that the Germans were transporting all of their greatest scientific advances to Japan, trying to tip the scales in the Emperor's favor.'
'Why is it radioactive?' demanded Katagiri. Japan had great reason to fear any thing tainted by radioactivity. First there had been the WWII bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then there had been the advent of Godzilla and the other horrible spawn of the atom that had followed him.
'They were transporting a supply of heavy water, it appears. To try and help our own scientists along with our atomic weapons program. We did find some journals that may have been research along those lines. There are also disassembled V-2 and V-1 rockets inside the sub, as well as what appear to be the complete components of a ME-262 jet fighter. We have also found a number of blue-prints for even more ambitious weapons.'
'Can you tell what killed the crew?' asked Katagiri, still obsessed by the thought of the radioactivity.
'No, sir,' responded the spokesman. 'It may have been their filter system, an engine malfunction or perhaps the storage they used for their heavy water. I would lean towards the last, as the submarine is definitely showing signs of radiation throughout its decks.' The spokesman paused, licking his lips. 'We found the skeletons of the crew everywhere. They must have died horribly.'
'Have you found anything else?' the question brought a frightened look into the eyes of the team members.
'Yes, sir,' replied the spokesman. 'But you will have to send someone else in there to get it. None of us will touch the thing.'
The Japanese hunchback dropped the tarpaulin sack down on the floor. For a moment, he let his eyes linger on the walls of the hidden room. They were riddled with coffin-like freezers and standing refrigerators. Cables snaked across the floor to crawl into the walls, leeching power from the city's electrical system. In the center of the room were several tables, their surfaces covered by beakers, bubbling tanks of liquid and bottled jars of chemicals and solutions. Other, more solid objects floated within many of the substances. Goke began to remove the gory remains of Hans Kraus and set them down on the only table that was devoid of apparatus. As he did so, the soft strains of orchestral music died, an unseen hand killing the phonograph. Scuttling, shuffling steps sounded from within the shadows. Goke grinned nervously as his master stepped into the feeble light.
The man had been called a monster often enough in his life, but now he wore the shape of a gravesend horror. Charred blackened flesh clothed the man's body, as though lumps of charcoal had been blasted onto a naked skeleton. Grim eyes stared from a grinning skull, their lids burnt away. Clawed hands protruded from the man's heavy coat, as gaunt and withered as any cadaver's. When the man opened his mouth to speak, it was as if a wound opened in what passed for his face. Indeed, the lips had melted together in the same trauma that had reduced him to this sorry state. The man had been forced to use a scalpel to cut the melded flesh and allow his mouth to open once more. Still, the man realized that by all rights he should be dead. Any merely mortal being would have been. But Baron Heinrich von Frankenstein had not been mortal for quite some time.
'Good, my friend,' the Baron's raspy rattle wheezed from his dry, desiccated form. 'Very splendid. This one was definitely of the Master Race.' Frankenstein examined the arms of Hans Kraus, his eyes staring at the thin delicate fingers with envy. 'A musician, or perhaps even a surgeon,' he considered. 'Yes, I shall have need of these.' Frankenstein nodded his head to the twisted creature lurking at his feet. Goke raised the whirring bone-saw and began to remove the hands from the arms of Hans Kraus.
Later, the unwanted remains were removed to the warehouse above. The rats had proven very efficient garbage collectors.
The young, blonde-haired man leaned over in his seat. The flight from Berlin to Tokyo was a long one and the young German was in need of conversation. The man in the seat next to him was much older, aged enough to be the grandfather of the blonde man.
'You are Dr. Erich Reisendorf?' the younger man asked. The older man did not look up from the in-flight magazine he had been perusing since take- off.
'Yes, and you are Dr. Johann Gildor,' commented the old scientist.
'You know me?' the younger scientist said, startled.
'I may be old, but I do keep in touch with things,' Dr. Reisendorf answered. 'Your field of study is one that interests me greatly. I make it my business to keep informed of who is doing what with it these days.'
'It is a great honor to speak with you,' admitted Dr. Gildor. 'Why, you worked with him, during the war. I am shocked that a man of your standing should even know my name.'
'Why should I not. You desecrated the graveyard at Aushwitz looking for traces of his work. Such notorious goings on are not exactly low-key.'
Dr. Gildor looked downwards, ashamed. 'I thought that some good might come of it, some benefit to mankind.' Dr. Reisendorf looked up. The old scientist folded his magazine and turned in his seat to face his companion.
'No good will ever come from his works,' Dr. Reisendorf stated. 'Evil begets evil. I worked with the man for two years at Aushwitz. Or, to put it more frankly, I spied upon him. The Nazis never trusted Heinrich von Frankenstein. With good reason as it turns out. He was not interested in their vision of a Master Race. True, he was intending to place rulers over the common, but the Master Race Frankenstein envisioned would be one of his own creation.'
'If they knew this,' gasped Dr. Gildor, 'why was he allowed to continue his work?'
'Can you not guess? The Fuehrer wanted to be a god, and Frankenstein could have provided him with the secret of immortality. Did you know that they found the remains of the original monster? It was discovered in a block of ice in Norway during the war. It was cut apart and shipped in secret back to Germany. I was reassigned after Aushwitz to study the monster's heart. Even a century later, it was still beating, even with three bullets inside of it!'
'God in Heaven!' exclaimed Dr. Gildor. 'I have never heard this, nor read of it in any book.'
'They kept it top secret, especially from him,' replied Dr. Reisendorf. 'Hitler wanted the secret of immortality, but not at the expense of placing Heinrich von Frankenstein in his place. Still, had it not been for my study of the monster's heart, I should never have been excluded from the Nuremberg trials. It seemed my head was wanted more for its information than its ability to fit a noose.' Dr. Reisendorf tapped a withered finger against his forehead.
'What became of the heart?' asked Dr. Gildor.
'It was taken away. SS men arrived one day in 1944 and took it away. I suspect now that it was shipped to Japan, like so many other secrets the Fuehrer did not want falling into Soviet hands.'
'What makes you say that?'
Dr. Reisendorf stared out the window of the plane. 'Why do you think the Japanese would send for the top Frankenstein researcher in Germany and the last-living man who worked with Heinrich von Frankenstein? All men long for the secret of immortality. The heart of the monster has been found. And it has been found in Japan.'
In the darkness, something stirred. The comforting warmth had departed some time ago, but it had taken long days for its absence to be detected by the creature. Now its eyes snapped open, its limbs stirred. It had not moved in such a very long time, but it had not needed to. The warmth had fed it, had pulsed through its body. Now the warmth was gone. Once more the beast was called upon to leave its lair. To swim through the waters. To hunt.
In the darkness, something emerged from the ocean floor. For an instant, the huge shape lingered over the depression that marked the former resting-place of U-754. Then, the shape withdrew into itself, as though pressing its body together. There was an instant of motion, then the shape was gone, just another ghost passing unseen through the darkness.