ON THAT FRIDAY EVENING I waited eagerly for the arrival of the resurrection men. I stood outside upon the wharf, and watched the water as the tide came in; it was early autumn now and a mild breeze ruffled the surface. The declining sun lit up the banks of cloud moving from the west, and the radiance spread outwards like a halo. I went back inside, and busied myself about the final preparations of the electrical columns. I had placed them in the space between two low wooden tables lying side by side; there was a plentiful supply of voltaic batteries upon the floor, at the head and foot of each of the tables. I had calculated that the power would be enough to animate two corpses, and so I had devised an elaborate procedure of moving quickly from one subject to the other. I would in any case prepare them both at the same time, with the metal straps and coils attached to their anatomies. Of course I had no conception of what might occur in the course of the electrical charging: I had taken the precaution of having a blunderbuss, primed and loaded, in a corner of the workshop.
As night fell I took a lamp, and walked onto the landing stage. I could hear the lapping of the water against the wooden posts, and there was a splash somewhere in the middle of the river. A thin mist was creeping in from the east, and I prayed that it might deepen so that my visitors would be shrouded from the sight of anyone lingering upon the bank. I put the lamp up to my face. After a few moments I heard the sound of oars, and the steady progress of a boat low in the water; I held out the lamp, and moved it from side to side as a signal. The oars came closer, and in the dim fitful light I saw the dark outline of a boat coming towards the stage. Two men were rowing, and a third sat at the stern on watch.
They made no sound or gesture of recognition, but stayed fixed to their tasks. In less than a minute they had come up by the landing. I called out to them but they motioned me to stay silent. The man at the stern, whom I recognised to be Miller, threw me a rope; I tied the boat to a mooring post beside me. Miller then jumped out, and put his hand across my mouth. “Mum,” he whispered. I could smell the drink upon his breath. The two others clambered out from the side of the boat, and then began to unload two hempen sacks. They dragged them across the planking, and I followed them within.
I closed the door, and put the oil-lamp on the table. “I must see them before I pay you.”
“Don’t you trust us, Mr. Frankenstein?” Boothroyd took out a flask from the pocket of his coat, and swigged from it.
“A proper tradesman surveys his goods,” I said.
He laughed at that, but then in the glimmering light he noticed the electrical machines. “What infernal thing is this?”
“It is an engine. The engine of my work.”
“The devil’s work, is it?”
“It is nothing to do with the devil. I can assure you of that.”
“Well, it is all one to me.”
Then Miller took out a knife, and cut the cords that bound the tops of the sacks. An arm fell from one of them and, taking hold of it, he pulled out the rest. It was an adult male, as I had requested, but one who had suffered some injury to his chest. It had caved in, and the ribs were broken. “This one is damaged,” I said.
“Perfect specimens are hard to find. But look at this one.” Boothroyd then took the body from the second sack. It was of a young male in a very good state of repair and preservation; he looked as if he had died quite suddenly, and there was an expression of ghastly terror upon his face.
“This is good,” I said. “Excellent. Where did you find him?”
“We found him where he fell.”
I did not wish to know more. “Would you be so kind as to place one of them here. And one here.” I gestured towards the two long wooden tables. “Be careful with the frame of this one. His ribs are loose.”
“He is a genuine rattle-bag,” Miller said.
I paid them at once, eager to begin work, and arranged that they would return with a similar cargo one week later. They departed willingly enough, and I suspect that the terrible expression on the young man’s face had subdued even their spirits. “Will you be needing them sacks?” Boothroyd asked me.
“I have no further use for them. But you will be needing them again, I think.”
So they returned to their boat, and I waited on the landing stage until they had drifted out into the dark water. I noticed on my return that there was a curious smell in the room, similar to that of damp umbrellas or burned rags, and I was concerned lest a state of putrefaction would soon set in. I decided to begin work upon the damaged specimen, in case of some early blunder on my part. So I proceeded quickly to prepare it, washing it first with a solution of chloride of lime. It smelled fresher then. Then I took the precaution of fastening the subject to the table by means of a long leather strap. I had already decided to attach the metal clasps to the neck, the wrists, and the ankles, where the vital motions of the body are most exercised; the voltaic current was to be transmitted by means of thin metal wires that would not impede movement. The engines were ready, with their great strips of zinc and brass separated by pasteboard soaked in salt water. I had primed the batteries, and placed the conductor at both ends. All was in readiness for the creation of the spark that might light a new world.
The apparatus hummed with its own internal motion, and I noticed a slight quivering in the wires; it seemed to me then that the electrical machines had become living things. Their power increased, as each galvanic pile was affected, and I was aware of Hayman’s injunction not to test their power to excess. But I was exhilarated beyond measure at the spectacle of such energy unleashed before me. The body began to tremble violently. In the fitful light of the oil-lamp it cast a strange shadow upon the floor. I stepped over to it, and with a certain reluctance touched the arm. It seemed to be increasing in warmth. The head began to toss from side to side, as if the corpse were fighting to find its breath, but then the struggle subsided. The body relapsed into deathly stillness. It was once more quite cold.
I walked away for one moment, to examine the machines, when I heard a sudden movement behind me. My first thought was for the blunderbuss. I turned quickly, and let out an involuntary cry of surprise-the dead man’s hands had moved over the deep rift in his chest. By some strange instinct he had wished to touch the source of his extinction. This was a moment of revelation, suggesting to me that there was some power of will or instinct that could survive the death of the body. I had been touched by the lightning flash. I had triumphed. But even then I tried to restrain my overwhelming sense of excitement. Could it perhaps have been some involuntary motion of the muscles that the man had been prevented from performing at the time? Had this been the gesture he had been unable to make?
I was wary of approaching the body, in case of some new and unexpected motion, but I knew that my work depended upon expedition and iron will. I unstrapped the wires from the first subject, and applied them to the second. The discharge of electrical energy seemed to have done no injury to the frame, and I was quite sanguine about the effects on the second and more perfectly preserved corpse. I inwardly delighted, too, that no harm had come to the physical specimen, thus allowing me the opportunity for more experiment.
I charged up the batteries once more, and produced the spark with very little pressure upon the conductors. There was a jolt in the second body as if, so to speak, it had sprung to attention. Then again all was quiet. I attempted a second discharge, and the body stirred again-on this occasion with a more active and anxious motion. I detected some secondary movement in the fingers of his hands that seemed to tremble with the force of the excitation: I admit that my own hands were trembling, too. I charged the wires for a third time, but there was no consequent disturbance of the body. I was about to investigate further, and approached the specimen, when a most desolate and horrible shriek emerged from the mouth. It was the sound of some cursed demon, lost in the pit of hell, and I froze with the noise echoing around me. It was enough to wake the dead-except that the dead had already been awoken.