Frankenstein Page #20

Victor falls SCREAMING, arms and legs windmilling through a

30-foot drop ... and slams bodily into a snowdrift. He looks

up. The Creature is peering down ... and leaps over The edge

to follow, sailing through the air to land before him in a

cat-like crouch. He pulls Victor from the snow and sends him

sliding across the ice with a mighty heave ...

INT - ICE CAVE - DAY

... right into the mouth of an ice- cave, Victor comes

tumbling and sliding down the entrance, spinning and

careening to sprawl heavily to the cave floor.

Winded. Battered. Barely able to move. He glances up to see

the cave filled with possessions. Books. Provisions. Extra

clothing. The embers of a fire burn low. There is even a

rough attempt at furnishings in the form of a few crates.

(CONTINUED)

89

A huge shadow fills the cave entrance. The storybook ogre is

coming home to his cave, breath huffing like a steam engine.

Victor scrambles back terrified, pressing into a corner as

the Creature enters ...

... but the Creature merely crosses to the fire and hunkers

down. He tosses a few more sticks on the flames. Pause.

CREATURE:

Come warm yourself if you like.

VICTOR:

You speak.

CREATURE:

Yes, I speak. And read. And think ... and know

the ways of Man

(pause)

I've been waiting for you. Two months now.

VICTOR:

How did you find me?

The Creature grabs Victor's journal off the "shelf." He

unwinds the thong, the letters spill out.

CREATURE:

The letters in your journal. That and a geography

book.

(picks up a letter)

Your Elizabeth sounds lovely.

VICTOR:

Kill me and have done with it

CREATURE:

Kill you? Hardly that.

VICTOR:

Then why am I here? What did you want with me?

CREATURE:

More to the point, why am I here? What did you

want with Me?

(off Victor's look)

What does one say to one's Maker, having finally

met Him face to face? Milton gave it voice.

(grabs a book, thumbs to a certain

page)

Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay to mould

me Man? Did I solicit thee from Darkness to

promote me?

(CONTINUED)

90

VICTOR:

Fine words from a child killer. You who murdered

my brother.

CREATURE:

Your crime ... as well as mine.

VICTOR:

How dare you. You're disgusting and evil.

CREATURE:

Evil?

(scurries closer)

Do you believe in evil?

VICTOR:

I see it before me.

CREATURE:

I'm not sure I believe. But then I had no one to

instruct me. I had no mother ... and my father

abandoned me at birth.

He draws closer still. Intimate. Turning his head this way

and that. Puzzling at Victor's face. Softly:

CREATURE:

Were the dying cries of your brother music in my

ears?

He raises his hand before Victor's eyes, bony fingers

curling to clutch an invisible throat. Victor is petrified

CREATURE:

I took him by the throat with one hand... lifted

him off the ground. and slowly crushed his neck.

(emotion growing)

That poor, innocent child died in my grip ...

because all I could see was your face ... and all

I could feel was my rage. And when I let him go,

he fluttered to the grass like a sparrow...

FLASHBACK INSERT: FIELD

The Creature gazes down at Willie's body. He stares at the

hand that committed the crime as if waking from a dream.

Tears welling. overcome with shame and horror.

He falls to knees in the middle of the vast field, his wail

echoing across the countryside as he weeps over the boy.

(CONTINUED)

91

RESUME ICE CAVE:

Victor stares in horror as the Creature relates his story

with tears shining in his monstrous eyes.

CREATURE:

Later, when they were searching, I followed the

pretty lady who got lost in the woods...

FLASHBACK INSERT: - BARN

Justine is asleep in the hay. Haggard, wet, exhausted. The

Creature looms over her, a monstrous shape backlit by the

lightning, gazing on her beauty. His hand reaches down,

hovering reverently, wishing to caress the swell of her

breasts at the neckline of her bodice ...

CREATURE (V.O.)

She was so lovely. I longed to touch her ... and

seek her sympathy ...

The locket drops from his hand to dangle in his fingers. He

lowers it, tucking it gently away in her pocket

CREATURE (V.O.)

... but I simply returned the object which had

triggered my crime, hoping in some small way to

atone ...

RESUME ICE CAVE:

Now tears are shining in victor's eyes as well.

CREATURE:

You gave me these emotions, but you didn't tell

me how to use them. Now two people are dead.

Because of us.

Victor is crushed by remorse. A sob escapes him.

CREATURE:

Why, Victor? Why? What were you thinking?

VICTOR:

There was something at work in my soul which I do

not understand.

CREATURE:

What of my soul? Do I have one? or was that a

part you left out?

(spreads his hands)

Who were these people of which I am comprised?

Good people? Bad people?

(CONTINUED)

92

VICTOR:

Materials. Nothing more.

CREATURE:

You're wrong. Do you know I knew how to play

this?

He grabs up the recorder, plays a brief snatch of melody.

CREATURE:

In which part of me did this knowledge reside? In

these hands? in this mind? In this heart?

(beat)

And reading and speaking. Not things learned ...

so much as things remembered.

VICTOR:

Trace memories in the brain, perhaps.

CREATURE:

Stolen memories. Stolen and hazy. They taunt me

in my dreams. live seen a beautiful woman lying

back and beckoning for me to love her. Whose woman

was this? I've seen boys playing, splashing about

in a stream. Whose childhood friends were these?

(soft, intense)

Who am I?

VICTOR:

(hollow)

I don't know.

CREATURE:

Then perhaps I believe in evil after all.

The Creature moves off. Victor is emotionally exhausted

VICTOR:

What can I do?

CREATURE:

There is something I want.

(pause)

A friend.

VICTOR:

Friend?

(CONTINUED)

93

CREATURE:

A companion. A female. Like me, so she won't hate

me.

VICTOR:

Like you? Oh, God, you don't know what you're

asking.

CREATURE:

I do know that for the sympathy of one living

being, I would make peace with all.

(beat)

I have love in me the likes of which you can

scarcely imagine. And rage the likes of which you

would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I

will demonically indulge the other. That choice is

yours.

(off his look)

You're the one who set this in motion,

Frankenstein.

VICTOR:

And if I consent?

CREATURE:

We'd travel north, my bride and I. To the

furthest reaches of the Pole, where no man has

ever set foot. There we would live out our lives.

Together.

(beat)

No human eye would ever see us again. This I vow.

PUSHING SLOWLY IN on Victor. Considering it. Beaten.

EXT - MONT BLANC GLACIER - NEXT MORNING

Victor is calming his skittish horse as the Creature looms

into view. Victor turns. The Creature tosses Victor his

journal. Victor hesitates, jams it into his saddlebag.

CREATURE:

Soon?

VICTOR:

Yes. I want this over and done with.

CREATURE:

I'll be waiting. And watching.

(CONTINUED)

94

And with that, the Creature turns and scrambles back down

the nearly-vertical cliff face, leaping from crags and

boulders with superhuman agility. Victor watches him vanish

from sight.

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