Preys and Predator Part II; the monster and witches' Chapter 11

 

11.

Victor went back to work. He began his work on the blood. It was the missing factor in his creation.

Blood was the body fluid that carries oxygen and nutrients to the body's cells and removes waste products.  It is made up of red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, and plasma. After death, blood settles in the lowest parts of the body due to gravity.  This is called livor mortis, or post-mortem lividity. The person dies, the circulation comes to a halt, and the blood starts moving towards the dependent regions of the body due to gravity.

Pallor mortis occurs because blood stops moving through the capillaries, the smallest of the body’s blood vessels. Among the living things in the human body are bacteria. While the body is alive, the bacteria are concentrated in the gut but are mostly kept out of other internal organs by the immune system. It was an effective wall that stood the ages.

After death, though, these bacteria were able to invade the whole body. The first attack was on the intestines and nearby tissue. It soon spread, entering the capillaries and making its way into the heart and brain to feast. Those two organs were dead and were due to die. The breakdown of carbohydrates, proteins, and other compounds in the body, caused largely by bacteria and by insect larvae, produces gases that swell the abdomen and eventually break the skin, which draws other insects to the feast.

The alternative was to do the process of embalming. A wide variety of substances, including vinegar, wine, brandy, and honey, have been used to “pickle” corpses and thus delay putrefaction. In the modern procedure of embalming, blood is drained from the veins, and another fluid, usually based on a solution of formaldehyde in water, is injected into a major artery.

Cavity fluid is also removed and replaced with a preservative. Though this version of embalming is not permanent, it serves its purpose—giving the body a lifelike appearance in the days after death when it will be viewed by mourners.

It does not replace life. It was what baffled Victor. The living tissue relied on blood to survive, and yet when it was introduced back, the tissue rejected it.

“What did I not see?” Victor was pressured to find the cause. He was obsessed with the blood as the final catalyst to the restoration. He looked at the cold chamber. He had looked at it many times, but never once had he studied it. It was designed by an engineer who was creating then cold chambers. He wanted his huge with the racks and the temperature colder. It was done to specifications, but it required a generator there.

“How cold? Victor was asked.

“Like ice all year round.” It was done.

But it did not work. He slapped his hands against the cold chamber wall. The impact caused his hand to bleed, and he stood there watching it.

It was fresh blood.

It was his blood.

The elixir of my life.

Victor opened the chamber door and approached his creation. He looked at it and then reached for the mouth.

“Drink it up, you monster.” Victor squeezed his palms. The blood seeped out and dripped into the mouth. “Feed on me.”

It could not. The blood seeped out at the side of the mouth.

“Bastard!” Victor picked up the scalpel at the table and slashed at the face and then its torso. He slashed the cold cadaver, but no blood was seen. He fell forth onto the dead cadaver with grief.

“It may be over.” Victor sighed. “I have failed.”

“Master Victor, what did you do?” It was Henry who rushed in. “You are bleeding.”

“I have failed, Henry. The … creation will not come alive.” Victor bemoaned his pain. “I have failed. Toss it away. Feed the wolves or what is out there.”

Henry took to his task while Victor retired to the other section of the lab. He heard the heaving of the parts and the chops. Henry was walking out with the parts on the table. He pushed the table to the nearby furnace and set the parts there.

“Master Victor, look.” Henry called out. “There is blood.”

Victor rushed over towards Henry. It was the female head brought in by Silvus. There was blood congealed there at the neck. He then asked Henry for the torso. The body part was shown to him. He made an incision at the left ribs, and there were traces of blood.

“It may work.” Victor pushed the table back into the cold chamber. “Bring me the head and torso. Place them here.” ‘ That was done, and Victor went to work on exchanging the parts. It was another painstaking work, but he managed it.

“Now we …. Study it. Warm up the body.” Victor thought hard. He grabbed the electrical nodes and attached them to the body. He turned the dial on the power to the lowest and watched the currents flow through.

“Master, may it work?” Henry asked.

“I am not sure, but in the Uni, we once made a mouse come alive when we let electricity flow through it for one day. It may work here.”

“But Master. Are you sure you want to create a woman? They are a pest among the living.”

“Henry, this is science. We cannot be ... selective in our making.”

Selection of the survival was determined by the will to survive. The selected will then thrive, but it was still a decision to consider on the final ones.

Carmilla takes the walk at dusk, when the sunlight does not hurt her skin. She does not join the host at dinner, and the meals were brought to her chamber there daily. She wore the overcoat when she left the mansion but will discard it when she is a distance from the view of the mansion. She will make her walk to the creek and then back to the grounds of the estate. Along her walk, she will see the lab that Victor built. She was drawn to it and will stare at it. That evening, she saw Victor and Henry were seen leaving the lab. She stood there in the dark dress, with the overcoat on her arms. Once the two had walked past the corner. Carmilla approached the lab.

The lock was not a hindrance to her. She had it unlocked with a touch of her hands.

It was her second visit there.