The Mammoth Book of Frankenstein (Mammoth Books) by Jones Stephen

Author:Jones, Stephen [Jones, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9781472113658
Publisher: Robinson
Published: 2014-01-30T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER VII

The moon was lighting the landscape with an eerie luminescence when Brian Shaw made his way along the cliff path that led to the grim blackness of the forest which surrounded Tymernans. Storm clouds, low and heavy with rain, were scudding across the blackness of the sky, sometimes scraping across the face of the moon and hiding the myriad of stars that hung like silver pinpoints in the black void. A slight wind made the tall grasses rustle and the leaves on the evergreens blow this way and that. Its breath through the tall trees made an almost human moaning which rose and fell, fell and rose with monotonous persistence. Several times, as the light was blacked out by the clouds, Brian stumbled and cursed in the darkness.

As he drew near the wrought-iron gates, and began to climb over, the rain began to splatter down and he was thankful for his heavy travelling cloak.

An instinct drew him along the overgrown path and this time he kept all his senses atune to any threatened danger. He stopped several times and listened attentively, wondering whether the unseen eyes of Hugo were upon him.

Slowly he moved on until he stood on the edge of the grass lawn before that once splendid mansion.

The rain was blowing in torrents now, mingling with the salt spray whipped up from the sea. He could feel the nearness of the sea, hear the angry crash of its breakers on the rocks somewhere below the cliffs, feel its menace in the air. The trees afforded him some shelter, and he stood irresolutely under their protection, trying to find courage to sprint across to the house.

A blinding light suddenly caused thousands of shadows to be thrown this way and that and lit up the house like some bizarre nightmare scene, painting it in vivid blacks and whites.

There was but the merest second before the heavy crash of thunder followed the lightning stroke.

Then the lightning struck again. This time Brian, his heart pounding, was prepared for the blinding flash.

What made him start, however, was the fact that the lightning seemed to fork straight into the old mansion before him and the noise of its impact seemed like a thousand wailing banshees.

He raised a hand to shade his eyes from the rain and waited until a third and a fourth stroke caught at the roof of the house.

No, he was not mistaken. There, on the roof of a tower, the tallest part of the old building, was a weird contraption – a sort of disc-like affair made of some gleaming metal. It was to this that the lightning seemed attracted, striking again and again, and causing the metal to turn yellow, red, blue and then white. It was a strange contraption, and after the lightning and thunder had passed echoing out to sea, the weird disc continued to glow and continued to hum with strange noises.

What did it mean? It seemed as if the baron was trying to tame the very elements to whatever experiments he was conducting.

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