Donald F. Glut - Frankenstein Lives Again (The New Adventures of Frankenstein)

To Boris Karloff

The greatest Frankenstein Monster of all

CHAPTER I:

Frozen Horror

Fairfax looked hysterically at the fuel gauge of his airplanes instrument panel. He could feel the craft tossed by the powerful Arctic wind and it took more than a second for his eyes to get a focus on the gauge. Perhaps he secretly hoped that he had been wrong when last he looked, that the gauge might have moved since then. But to his consternation, the gauge remained as frozen as the barren white wasteland that flashed by the windows of his cockpit.

Empty!

He wanted to shout, but even if there were someone else in the plane to hear him, his voice would not have carried over the roar of the rapidly descending craft. There wasnt another drop of fuel left in the tank, he told himself, after which he cursed himself for venturing out this far.

His strong hands clutched the cold stick, vainly trying to yank the whining ship out of its downward trajectory. The plane choked for fuel that was not there, or so it seemed to Fairfax who often thought of his ship as a living thing. His peripheral vision detected the blinding stretches of ice and snow that sped by the cockpit windows as the nose of his plane dipped even more severely.

Fairfax knew that crashing was inevitable. There was nothing he might hope to do to avert his fate. He was going to die; he knew that, but he refused to meet that death without a fight, without first exhausting himself in his struggle to survive. Had he been a religious man, he might have prayed, but he doubted there were any gods that might speed to his salvation out in these desolate ice fields. All he could do was maintain his useless grip on the ships guide stick.

Peaks of ice flew by his vision until all he could see was a blur of whiteness. The droning of the airplane made his ears hurt. He saw the earth shooting up faster. A terrible wall of frozen white seemed to appear before him, while his ship immediately attempted to break through the irresistible barrier.

Fairfax braced himself against the sudden impact as, absorbed by the mountain of packed snow, the plane arced, its tail section wavering for a few seconds in the screaming wind. Then the plane seemed to die.

Fairfax hurt for only a moment.

* * *

A small group of Eskimos huddled together in the snow as they saw the gleaming ship vanish with the crumbling white mountain.

It is an airplane, Norcha assured the others, struggling to make himself heard over the howl of the wind. A paleness seemed to sweep over his darkly withered face as he noted the direction in which the plane had dropped It has fallen near the sacred tomb ... of the Ice God!

Norchas face, worn hard and brown by a long life in this severely cold environment, looked sternly at the other Eskimos in his group. They had all seen the ship plunge earthward, but it was only their older leader who had stood beyond the white hill and actually pinpointed the crafts earthbound location.

You are certain? one of the others inquired, noticeably afraid. Remember, Norcha, the sacred ice tomb. Perhaps we have witnessed some omen. Perhaps the craft was a message ... a sign... that we have not been faithful protectors of our Ice God.

You speak nonsense,. Bruk, said Norcha. Airplanes are human-sent. They do not come from gods. Inside there is a man, like anyone of us. His fall from the sky was probably no more than an accident. And yet, even though unintentionally, he has invaded our holy grounds and profaned the land of the Ice God.

But Norcha, said a third member of the group, then the stranger from the sky has committed sacrilege. Sacrilege! If the Ice God should awaken, his vengeance would be upon us, our children, and their children.

Norcha thought for several moments. You are right, Norcha replied grimly stroking his jaw. He clenched a gloved fist and the shaggy hood of his parka shifted with the wrinkling of his brow. The outsider must be kept away from the sacred tomb!

The other Eskimos looked toward their leader for advice.

Show us where the stranger is, Norcha, pleaded Bruk. Let us deal with him so as not to fall into disfavor with our God.

For a few moments, Norcha paused in silent reflection, his body standing rigid to withstand the buffeting wind. From where his airplane fell, he can if he has survived the crash walk to the ice tomb within minutes so near is he to the holy place. We must hurry if we are to reach the tomb before he does.

There was no more delaying what they knew must be done. Norchas eyes scanned the miles of undiminishing whiteness, then stopped to focus upon the sleds and teams of huskies, which were barking as if anxious to get started.

The dogsleds will bring us there swiftly, said Norcha, leading the others to their only means of transportation across the white northern reaches. Seconds later, the Eskimos had boarded their sleds and were shouting commands at the dogs. The canines barked and howled as if in competition with the howling wind. Then, as they began to move across the ice, Norcha silently prayed to his deity that soon they would deal with this stranger who had profaned the Ice Gods hallowed ground.

* * *

It was miraculous, thought Fairfax, that not only had he survived the crash, but he had revived quite rapidly. By all odds, he should have been a corpse, and yet he could move. Somehow he had been saved by the cushioning wall of snow into which his plane had smashed.

His vision darted to the cockpit windshield, which was flush against a solid wall of tightly-packed snow. Surely, he thought, the temperature inside the plane must now be as low as that outside. For several minutes, Fairfax hardly moved. He shivered in the subzero environment, then tried to keep moving in order to speed up his circulation. At last he found the strength to rub his hands together, but hardly produced enough body heat to be even slightly beneficial. He wished he were wearing gloves.

Fairfax knew that he ought to be dead. Had he been a God-fearing man, he might have believed that he had been rescued from death for some as of yet unknown purpose.

Unfastening his seat belt, Fairfax struggled to pull himself out of the chair. He tried to ignore the cold, to move about like a machine, at least until he found that small metal box he had stashed behind the pilots seat.

Here it is, he said, his bare fingers touching something cold and smooth. Still here... still intact, I hope.

Slapping himself a few times to get his blood circulating, Fairfax picked up the metal box, placed it on the pilots chair, flicked the latches and opened it.

Good, he mumbled to himself, the cotton layers kept it from breaking.

He smiled for the first time since he had learned that his ship was in trouble. The whiskey flask was like an old friend to him. Quickly he removed the cap of the flask and began to guzzle down its golden contents. Almost immediately there was warmth surging through his veins.