The Frankenstein Testament
Chapter 1

Belfast, North Ireland, December 1839

The dog looked like it was dead. It did this when there wasnothing around it to stimulate what remained of its decayed senses. It just laythere inside its cage, inanimate. Its milky white eyes, cloudy with corruption,were open but unseeing. A slight reflexive movement of the chest imitatedbreathing but the guttural rasping that accompanied it spoke of lungs ruinedand rotten.

The dog had been his first experiment and he sometimeschided himself for keeping it. It stank. It was dangerous and it had no realuse. Sometimes he told himself it was to study the long term effects of hiswork but inside he knew that the real reason he kept it was sentimentality.

The dog had once been Bobby, a faithful old Irish terrierthat had belonged to his father. At thirteen years old and riddled witharthritis, Bobby had come to the end of his useful life. Despite that, the dogwas not ready to die. It had struggled like a demon as he had drowned it in atin bath full of water.

The scientist looked down at the pair of ragged scars on theback of his left hand and gave a wry smile. Bobby had got his own back. At theconclusion of the reanimation process the dog had started back to life andstaggered across the table. He had reached out his arm to stroke the beast andquick as a flash it sank its teeth into his hand, pulling and tearing the fleshand opening twin wounds that had required thirteen stitches.

At first he took this as a sign of success- he assumed thatthe dog had remembered the last few moments of its life and was trying tocontinue the struggle- but that conclusion had proved wrong. It soon became clearthat the dog's previous pleasant nature was gone and all that remained was baseinstinct. Worse, its viciousness had increased and all intelligence beyond basecunning erased.

All his subsequent experiments had resulted in the samedisappointment. What he had achieved so far was reanimation rather thanresurrection and it galled him. He had performed a miracle yet he was no closerto his actual goal. What he so longed for was still as far away as ever. Thecreatures he created were driven by vicious, feral instincts that were moresavage than anything they had possessed in life. They appeared to have nomemories of their previous life. All personality was gone. Their eyes wereempty, pitiless and without recognition. Had he been a religious man he would havesaid they were soulless. To make things worse the decomposition processcontinued, albeit at a slower pace.

His eyes flicked towards the large wooden barrel that sat inthe corner of the room. For several seconds he gazed at it, his eyes filledwith a desolate look. A single tear sprang from the corner of his right eye andtrickled down his cheek.

With a sudden surge of frustration and anger he banged hisfist on the wooden table beside him, sending a tinkling rattle through theglass apparatus on it. Arrangements and stacks of glass vials, flasks and tubescovered the table, each vessel filled with a luridly coloured chemical liquidand heated from below by oil lamps that made them bubble and fizz. Inside thetubes a chemical reaction was brewing that would reverse the miraculous processthat he had invoked to bring his creations back to life from death.

The dog had to go.

He had no choice now. Even keeping it here in hislaboratory, caged and under lock and key on the top story of his fashionabletown house had been a tremendous risk. Now that his latest experiment hadescaped it was completely out of the question. The barrel would have to bemoved as well. He could no longer take such risks.

With a sigh he turned away from the dog and the boiling chemicalsand poured a measure of port into a Penrose glass from Waterford. The rubyliquid and the exquisitely cut glass glittered and sparkled in the light of thefire and the oil burners beneath the chemicals. He took his drink and went tothe window.

Pulling aside the heavy velvet curtain, he gazed out intothe night. From the towering heights of the fourth floor of his townhouse hecould see right out across the town of Belfast. Gas street lamps illuminatedthe square below but much of the town was in darkness. The occasional light ofa window or a pub dotted the night and over to the west the lights of a vastmill blazed as even now, well after midnight, it continued to churn outunending reams of cotton or linen cloth.

Somewhere out there, in the darkness between the lights, thecreature he had created was loose.

God help whoever ran into it.