Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest #9 Read online

  "N-n-no, my friend,” said Goran.

  The lonesome woodcutter inspected the tinker's wares, hoping to find a special treasure for Katarina. His eyes settled on a fabulous gold medallion etched with a wide-armed cross and trimmed with ruby and sapphire chips. Making up his mind, he went to his cart, where he had two stout axes, both of the finest manufacture. They had served him well. He gripped the wooden handle of his best one, lifted it from the cart, and stepped toward the tinker. “I can trade you this for the medallion. To give to Katarina. It's not gold, but made of sweat and wood and iron."

  The tinker smiled but shook his head. “N-n-not for s-s-sale. A special k-k-keepsake.” Goran explained with halting sentences that a kind priest had recently given him the jeweled cross as a reward for driving off a robber in the woods. The tinker could never part with his treasure.

  Downcast, the woodcutter returned his axe to the cart. He knew that the forest was not safe from highwaymen and assassins.

  While the wolf prowled around the campsite, the woodcutter slept, dreaming of Katarina. He wished he could find some way to show her how much he loved her. The quiet cottage life did not suit a fancy woman like her. While he was away, Katarina spent most of her time in Ingolstadt with her best friend Greta. He didn't begrudge her that. He wanted his wife to be happy...

  After he and Goran parted company, he spent two more weeks cutting and piling wood that he would sell throughout the winter. When he returned home at last, calling Katarina's name, the empty cottage only answered with silence. It took him only a moment to guess that she had gone to stay with Greta in town.

  Grinning, he decided to surprise her. His horse pulled the loaded cart down the rutted trail into Ingolstadt, where he sold his load of wood in the square. He ignored the jeers and catcalls from the gibbet, where a mad strangler was being hung. Earlier, there had been a beheading, but the woodcutter didn't care about such spectacles. He used the money to buy all the supplies they needed and found he had enough left over to purchase some sweet pastries he could share with Katarina.

  He tied the old horse and the now-empty cart in front of the half-timbered town home where Greta and her husband lived. With a spring in his step, he went to the door, surprised that the windows were shuttered even in the warm afternoon.

  As he approached the loose shutters, he heard laughter, muttered conversation, and the sounds of exertion, groans, a gasp. His brow furrowed as he identified Katarina's sweet-husky voice and Greta's musical timbre—and the thin nasal voice of Greta's husband. He heard rhythmic sounds, heavy breathing, a wooden bed frame creaking under strain.

  The woodcutter's blood ran cold as he peered through a crack. He saw a crowd of arms and legs on the bed, naked flesh, a patchwork of intertwined bodies. He recognized both Greta and Katarina cavorting with a lean man, Greta's husband. He had long dark hair, a wide face, feral eyes and a thin dueling scar that traced his left cheek. His lips were drawn back in a smile so deep it was almost a grimace. In the candlelight, all three were sweaty and panting, as if they'd been exerting themselves for some time. By the coordinated way they moved together, shifted positions and pleasured each other, they seemed quite well practiced at their ménage a trois.

  The woodcutter couldn't feel his arms or his hands, the muscles that had ached from swinging the axe and lifting heavy wood. He realized he wasn't breathing. Before he could tear his gaze away, he saw something else; next to the candle on the fine lacquered nightstand lay the beautiful cross medallion fringed with sparkling chips of sapphire and ruby. Two weeks ago, the tinker had refused to sell it to him, but somehow Greta's husband had gotten it.

  The woodcutter's heart dissolved, leaving only a cold vacuum in his chest. Conscious, rational thoughts vanished with an inaudible pop. He walked leadenly back to his cart, where he selected his sharpest and stoutest axe. He lifted it in one well-muscled arm; for good measure, he took the second axe in his left hand. Holding both, he strode back to the door.

  With a single blow, he smashed the latch and the crossbar. Sparks and splinters flew. He kicked the ruined door inward, then stepped inside, raising both axes.

  The two women scrambled backward on the crowded bed. With just a flicker of his conscious mind, the woodcutter realized how beautiful Katarina was; her pale skin flushed, her dark and sweaty hair thrown back behind her shoulders. Her lips—yes, as red and full as fresh berries—were now open in a faltering scream.

  * * * *

  * * * *

  Greta's husband sprang off the straw mattress and into a crouch, not caring that he was naked. He grabbed a long ivory-handled stiletto from the nightstand, knocking the medallion aside in his haste.

  Katarina and Greta continued to cry out as the woodcutter waded forward, one axe in each hand. As he swung them, their sharp silver smiles whistled through the air. Greta's husband danced with the knife, twirling the tip in the air as if performing some sort of embroidery. He seemed as familiar with his stiletto as he was in fornicating with Katarina. He didn't even seem afraid.

  But the woodcutter had no need for knife play. Without finesse, he swung his axe, and a single blow severed the man's forearm, which fell to the wooden floor, fingers still clutching the knife. A second broad sweep decapitated him more cleanly than he deserved. The head fell to the floor, eerily undamaged, and rolled so that the wide-open eyes could watch the rest of the spectacle.

  Then the woodcutter turned his axes upon the two women until they were no more than red kindling.

  Drenched in blood, he stood with both axes leaning against him. His muscles ached as they did after a day of hard work, and it was a good soreness.

  The screams had drawn a horrified crowd, many from the strangler's hanging. The woodcutter did not resist as the constable and the town guards came to arrest him. He did not explain his horrific actions, though the answer was obvious for anyone who could piece together the myriad of body parts.

  He did not speak a word in his own defense. In fact, he never uttered another sentence throughout his trial, sentencing, and swift execution.

  * * * *

  Bandages shroud the broad, firm face. Victor touches the creation's head like a lover's caress, placing both hands on the stranger's cheeks, one of which is marred by a thin scar from a knife fight.

  "Can you hear me? Are you there?” he says in a voice full of hope.

  * * * *

  His head hurt from sharing one-too-many bottles of wine the night before, and the thin scar on his cheek throbbed again, as it often did ... but if the wine and fine food kept Greta and her friend Katarina happy, he would gladly pay the price.

  The thrill of the crowd in the town square buoyed him up. Two executions in a single day! He was particularly interested in the beheading of the foolish stuttering tinker. He stood close to the block, one woman on each arm, all three of them watching with intent amusement.

  The mad strangler's hanging would take place later in the day, but by that time, he expected that the two lovely women would be entertaining him in bed, enjoying their good fortune. Life was fine.

  More than a simple cutpurse or highwayman, he took any job that paid well enough. He was known in local taverns as a man who could accomplish difficult tasks that must remain quiet, eliminating debtors, traitors, spies ... even rich old uncles who needed to die so families could have their inheritance. Recently, Victor Frankenstein had hired him to slit the throat of a servant who had stolen some family silver to pay off a gambling debt. In his work, he had been cut in knife fights, slashed in the face, even endured the pain of a lead musket ball in his ribs. Thus, the ache of a hangover was nothing.

  He had a fondness for good wine and brandy, dice and cards, stylish clothes, and especially women. Greta was as lusty as he was, and both of their appetites extended to her friend Katarina as well. For appearances, Greta's friend had married an unlettered and oafish woodcutter who was gone most of the time. Doting on Katarina, the oaf gave her trinkets that were small in comparison to what Greta's h
usband provided.

  A month ago, as a masked highwayman, he had waylaid a plump and red-faced priest who carried a jeweled medallion among his treasures as he traveled through the forest. The medallion would have fetched an excellent price, but before the highwayman could complete his robbery, a meddling tinker and his pet wolf had come upon them and driven the robber away. Some days later, dressed as a fine dandy, he encountered the tinker again and learned that the red-faced priest had given the stuttering foreigner his medallion out of gratitude!

  Incensed and wanting it for himself, the now-undisguised highwayman tried to buy the medallion for Katarina and Greta, who were both with him. They ogled the treasure on the tinker's cart, but the stuttering idiot wouldn't part with it. So, they had gone back to Ingolstadt with a concocted story. Weeping, Greta reported that the stranger had stolen her dear aunt's jeweled cross, and then raped her and her friend. The constable and town guard rushed out to arrest the tinker straightaway.

  Once the medallion had been “returned” to them, and the tinker got the punishment he deserved, Greta and Katarina went back home with the handsome highwayman, where they all engaged in an afternoon of celebration. Everything was going so well.

  No one had expected Katarina's husband to find them, or his axes to be so swift.

  After his head fell to the floor, the highwayman's vision faded swiftly. He couldn't feel his body, which lay much too far away. Thoughts, and blood, drained out of him.

  * * * *

  Once the second heart begins to beat, the creation is close, very close to real life. Another jolt, and the muscle clenches, pumps, stutters to life. Stutters...

  The memories flow smoothly, without the logjam of words that had always caught in his throat.

  * * * *

  As a tinker, he loved to make pieces fit together, to fix things that were broken. He owned a wagon full of pots, pans, prisms, swatches of bright cloth, and assorted treasures from foreign lands. Though alone, he had animal friends to keep him company. He whistled to his caged doves and songbirds; his pet wolf followed the cart like a dog. None of them cared about his stutter.

  Once, he and his wolf had driven off an evil highwayman who was trying to rob a priest on the forest road. In gratitude, the kindly priest had given the tinker a jeweled cross medallion, one of the tinker's most prized possessions. Not long ago a muscular woodcutter wanted to buy it as a gift for his beloved wife. Another insistent would-be customer was a well-dressed man with a dueling scar; the man was accompanied by his wife and her friend (both of whom clung to him so adoringly it wasn't clear which was the wife and which was her friend). With halting, tangled words he tried to sell them something else, but the three had stalked angrily down the road.

  A day later, to his astonishment, the constable and a group of guards came to arrest him. Sensing danger, the pet wolf attacked, trying to defend his master—and the guards shot the beast dead. The tinker wailed in grief for Odin, unable to find words in any language.

  He was thrown into jail, appalled to learn that the scar-faced man and his two female companions had accused the tinker of stealing the medallion from them; both the wife and her friend wrung their hands and swore that the tinker had raped them. His denials were vehement, though inarticulate. With growing terror, his stutter became worse.

  Distraught parents, including the town's blacksmith, came forward to point fingers of blame, suggesting that the stranger must be responsible for Ingolstadt's missing children. A baby had vanished only the day before, and ten other young sons and daughters had disappeared in as many years. A mad strangler had also been recently accused of the crimes, though no one truly believed him to be the criminal. Now, despite the fact that the tinker could not possibly have been in the area for that amount of time, the poor man was a convenient scapegoat. Once someone in the crowd voiced the suspicion, many others took up the cry.

  Since he had been seen talking to birds and consorting with a wolf, the tinker was convicted as a warlock. He had stolen a holy artifact, no doubt to be used in some satanic ritual (which must involve the blood of the babies or innocent children). The townspeople demanded that he be burned at the stake. The loudest voice came from the blacksmith's young apprentice, whose family had perished in a forest fire years before. The boy seemed hungry to smell the smoke of burning flesh.

  Oddly enough, Victor Frankenstein begged for mercy. “Ingolstadt is a civilized town and should not bow to superstitions.” But the crowd wanted some medieval touch of justice for such heinous crimes, and they already had an upcoming hanging. Very reasonable and persuasive, the Baron's son suggested, “Perhaps the headsman's axe should be brought out of retirement? The chopping block could be set up in the town square, as in olden days."

  This sated the bloodlust of the people. And so the old executioner's axe was sharpened by the vengeful blacksmith, who fervently believed the tinker had stolen and killed his daughter Maria.

  Hands tied behind his back, the falsely accused tinker was brought out and forced to his knees. As his neck was stretched across the bloodstained block, his frantic gaze caught a last glimpse of one man in the crowd. Victor Frankenstein looked intensely interested, a scientist studying a specimen. The tinker felt the ripple of a completely different kind of fear. Why was the Baron's son looking at him so hungrily?

  Because the headsman's axe was razor sharp, and the cut exceedingly swift, the flash of pain seemed as gentle as a feather. The stutter of his heartbeat stopped.

  * * * *

  Victor checks the machines, adjusts the electrical flow, then hurries back. He presses down on the cloth windings of the sturdy chest. “Live!” he shouts, as if the dead parts will hear him and obey his command.

  "Live!"

  Victor hammers his fist down on the sternum. The torso is thick, muscular, like a suit of armor around the two implanted hearts ... a blacksmith's chest.

  * * * *

  His broad chest was always smeared with soot and smoke from the forge, his hair singed from sparks and cinders. His arms were strong from pounding on an anvil, pumping the bellows.

  He had a good wife and fine children, whom he loved more than anything else. But his oldest daughter, Maria, had disappeared a year ago while picking mushrooms in the woods. Many boys and girls had vanished around Ingolstadt—yesterday, even a baby had gone missing! When Maria had been lost, the blacksmith and his wife spent agonized days combing the hills, calling the girl's name, praying for her safety ... and then, resigned, weeping for her soul.

  To fill the emptiness, the blacksmith adopted a new apprentice, an orphan boy whose parents were killed in a forest fire. Though the boy worked hard in the smithy, no one else's son could make up for the lost Maria.

  A traveling tinker had been arrested and charged with the crimes. The blacksmith and his wife were both convinced he had abducted their little girl. Even next to the blistering heat of the forge, the blacksmith shuddered to imagine the things the stuttering foreigner must have done to Maria...

  Sparks flew from the grinding wheel as he sharpened the headsman's axe. The monstrous criminal would pay the price the following day. The bitter but unsatisfying taste of vengeance bubbled like bile in the blacksmith's throat.

  He closed his eyes, quoted scripture to himself, and prayed for forgiveness. His wife often came to sit with him in the smithy, to comfort him by reading aloud from the Bible while the apprentice boy continued the daily work, hovering close to the blazing fire.

  Lately, instead of words of consolation, he was more interested in stories of demons, how the darkness of Satan was a shadow over the land—such as the rituals the guilty tinker no doubt performed with the blood of children while his wolf, his demon familiar, watched.

  The blacksmith could not get Maria's musical laughter out of his head. She had loved to ride on her father's broad shoulders as he walked down the streets. She had played with other children, plucking flowers from the meadows, even running up to Castle Frankenstein where the old Baron showed
them the exotic animals in his menagerie.

  Now she was gone. The damned tinker had done terrible things to her!

  When the blacksmith saw the fiery forge and the sparks flying from the grinding wheel, he thought of Hell's inferno where this razor-sharp axe would send the evil tinker. He intended to stand so close to the chopping block that the hot and satisfying blood would splash onto his face.

  Finished, he lifted the sharpened axe from the wheel, but it seemed very heavy all of a sudden. The blacksmith tried to stand. His apprentice came closer, looking worried.

  Though his chest and arms were strong, the blacksmith's heart was weak. The thudding sounded hollow in his chest, the slowing blood flow faded to a faint roar in his ears. He found himself falling. As the executioner's axe dropped to the ground, his last thoughts were of his wife, his daughters. How would they survive without him?

  Then he clung to the vision of lost Maria, her large blue eyes, her laughter. He collapsed dead to the smithy floor, unable to watch the execution after all.

  * * * *

  At last, with the bandages removed, the dull yellow eyes open. The lids flutter, the transplanted eyes flick from side to side, seeing the grandeur of the lightning storm outside, the frenzied apparatus in the laboratory. Flashes, sparks, little fires.

  * * * *

  He liked to stare into the flickering flames and watch the hungry elemental spirit devour wood. His eyes had an unhealthy yellow tinge, as if part of the fire's glow hovered there.

  He had lived with his family in a cottage near old Baron Frankenstein's hunting preserve. The summer was dry, and a lightning strike started a nearby fire, which raged in the night. He awoke, smelling bitter greenwood smoke in the air, then crept outside to watch the swift fire come like a marching army. He went far from his house, to a high rock outcropping where he could sit and watch. The hypnotic flames enraptured him so that he did not even think about his family trapped inside the cottage as the fire engulfed it. He had never seen the house look so beautiful, so bright and cheery and ablaze.