No Problem

DON D’AMMASSA

I swear I had good intentions. I know that sounds pretty weak, but it’s the truth. Look, I’ll tell it the way it happened and you can judge for yourself.

My name in Herbert Franken and I’ve been working toward a master’s degree in biochemistry at Brown University for the past year. My parents wanted me to go into the family business, but I don’t even like pizza and I wanted more for myself than a life sweating over pepperoni and tomato sauce. When the oven exploded and killed them both, as well as burning down the restaurant, I took it as a sign that I’d made the right choice.

Brown allocated space for its grad students in the laboratory building, but it was hard to concentrate there with people coming and going all the time. No problem. The insurance had left me pretty well-off, so I decided to clean out part of the basement and put together my own facility. I was working on monitoring rates of cell degeneration, so I didn’t really need a lot of room.

That meant going through all the boxes and crates and trunks of family memorabilia that my parents had stored there, most of which they hadn’t even looked at after shipping them all the way here from Europe. Some of it I threw out, and most of the rest went into a storage locker. The only thing I kept at the house in Managansett was a crate full of old journals that looked like family histories.

It cost more than I expected to outfit my laboratory, even with buying used equipment where possible, but it only took a few weeks to get everything delivered and installed to my liking. The only drawback was the ventilation. There were two tiny basement windows, but they didn’t provide much circulation. No problem. By opening the bulkhead door that led up into the backyard I even had a refreshing breeze.

So now I guess I should tell you about Mrs. Williams. Gretchen Williams was my neighbor, an elderly retired nurse who had lived in the small cottage next door for as long as I could remember. She had to be at least seventy, but she might have been a lot older than that. Her skin was dark and wrinkled like the dried fruit you find in trail mix. My dad used to call her the “neighborhood inspector” because she walked up and down the streets every once in a while with a pencil and pad, looking for code violations she could report to the town hall—broken windows, visible garbage cans, peeling paint, things like that. Once when I was a kid, she caught a whiff of some concoction I’d cooked up with my chemistry set and came over to complain, and on another occasion she walked right into our house, demanding to know when Dad was going

to trim the front hedge. She was an incredibly nosy woman, asked all sorts of personal questions, and either didn’t realize

how unpopular she was or just didn’t care.

My parents had never talked much about our family back in Germany and I always suspected that they were involved with the Nazis or worked in a concentration camp or something like that. I remember one time Dad let something slip about the family castle, but he insisted he was joking and got mad when I pushed, so I let it go. The journals were likely to answer at least some of my questions. Once my first experiments were under way, I had to spend a lot of time waiting for dead organic matter to get even deader, so I pulled one of the journals out and started reading. They were in German, naturally. No problem. I’d grown up speaking German at home and English everywhere else.

They were pretty dull, actually, at least until I found my multiply great-grandfather’s oversize, brass-bound account of his experiments. The name inscribed inside the cover was a bit of a shock: Viktor Frankenstein. I thought it must be some kind of elaborate joke, but there was no question about the age of the journals, and when I read through the first few pages, I felt a flicker of excitement. His observations were crude by contemporary standards, but there were hints of an acute intelligence and an almost supernatural insight into the processes of life. I was struck by some coincidental similarities with my own work, and read on far into the night.

The next morning, I threw out the cultures I’d started, ordered some new equipment, and began rearranging the lab.

Please don’t get the impression that I had suddenly turned into some kind of mad scientist. I had no intention of digging up dead bodies at midnight, erecting a lightning rod on my roof, or stealing brains from Brown University. Nor were there any hints of such madness in the journal. The experiments described there were limited to rats and other lab animals. Contrary to the story promulgated by Mary Shelley, who may have known my ancestor socially, there was no suggestion that Viktor ever experimented on human subjects. At least not in the journals in my possession, which ended abruptly in 1816.

With modern equipment, I was able to duplicate and improve on Viktor’s work in a matter of weeks. I quickly confirmed what the journals had already suggested. The process could indeed generate vitality from dead cells, but there was no possibility of restoring the higher functions except on the most rudimentary level. A dead mouse’s heart might resume its pumping, the tiny form might even stand and walk about and even go through the motions of eating or drinking, but it might just as easily begin gnawing on its own tail. Even among lower animals, the mind is more than just the physical structure of the brain.

One Saturday morning, I found Mrs. Williams’s cat in my yard, chewing on a dead sparrow. After chasing the cat back over the fence, I examined the tiny corpse, which appeared completely undamaged, other than the missing head. I couldn’t resist the temptation, injected some of my serum into the cooling body, and was immediately rewarded by a slight fluttering of the wings. I hadn’t anticipated the possible consequences, however, and I wasn’t quick enough when it suddenly rose into the air and began flying around the basement. Its movements were random and had I thought to close the bulkhead door, I could have captured it in short order. Unfortunately, it blundered through the opening and quickly vanished. The stimulating effects of the treatment would wear off after a few hours, so presumably no harm was done.

A few days later I was preparing a new experiment when Mrs. Williams came boldly down the cement steps, demanding to know what I was doing. “I open the kitchen window this morning and what a stink! I thought something must have died over here.” Her appearance was so unexpected that I didn’t react until she was halfway across the basement. “What’s this stuff, then? Are you making drugs down here?” She looked at the lab equipment suspiciously. “I’ll bet the police would be interested to know about this, young man.”

I stood up and advanced on her immediately, angry at the intrusion and concerned that she might damage something. “This is private property, Mrs. Williams. You have no right to come in here.”

“Got something to hide then, do you?” She reached out toward my spectrometer and I caught her wrist reflexively. “How dare you!” Her face twisted in outrage. “How dare you lay hands on me!”

“Please get out of my house or I will call the police.” My voice trembled. I felt like a child again, terrified of adult authority. I had never had the courage to so much as set foot on Mrs. Williams’s property. For years I had been convinced that she was a witch, and that irrational fear quickened my pulse.

“Call them then! I’d like to see you explain all of this!”

And she reached toward the bubbling vials where I was brewing a fresh batch of the revitalization serum.

I only meant to push her away, but she was a tiny woman and I’m not a small man.

She lost her balance and fell over so quickly that she never even cried out.

I heard the solid thud as her head struck the cement wall and I knew she was dead at that instant.

No, I didn’t think that I could bring her back to life and send her home. Not exactly anyway. What I did next was a product of panic and guilt. It had been an accident, certainly, and she had been trespassing, as well. But I’m six feet tall, two hundred pounds, and here I was contemplating explaining to the police how an elderly one-hundred-pound woman received a fatal head wound in my basement. It would be inconvenient and embarrassing at best, possibly much worse. So I considered my options and came up with a plan.

No problem. I had plenty of serum. I lifted her onto the bench and half emptied a freshly filled hypodermic into her body. The results, if any, would be apparent within minutes. I have to confess that, despite everything, I was curious to see what would happen.

There was no thunderstorm, the lights didn’t flicker, and I neither cackled nor rubbed my hands together in a sinister fashion. I simply waited until the serum had had time to be infused into the tissues. Although I tried to remain calm and collected, I have to admit that it gave me rather a start when she abruptly sat up on the bench.

To outward appearances, she appeared completely normal. Even the soft spot on the side of her head was hidden

by her hair, and the small trickle of blood had completely dried. I couldn’t help apologizing as I took her by the elbows and lifted her down from the table. She was a bit unsteady at first, but she followed docilely as I led her up the steps and out into the open. Her eyes were focused but I sensed no intelligence behind them. My earlier experiments had suggested that certain behavioral patterns remained intact, but no more. The sparrow had sought to escape into the open, crickets scurried toward dark corners, and one of the white rats had even remembered how to operate the feeding lever, then ignored the food pellet that dropped into the dish.

My plan was simple. I planned to take her back to her house and close her up inside, then call the police and tell them that I’d found her lying in her backyard, had assisted her into the house, but was concerned that she’d suffered a concussion. Which, of course, she had. No problem.

I even had a stroke of luck. Gus Robinson was watering his grass across the street. I waved when he glanced in our direction, and he nodded casually. I led Mrs. Williams, or her body anyway, up the porch steps, opened the screen door, and gently pushed her through. She advanced a few steps, then stopped. I waited, but she didn’t move, so I let the door close and turned away.

Gus was coiling up the hose when I reached him. “Morning, Gus.”

He raised his eyebrows. I guess I’m not the sociable type and it kind of surprised him that I’d initiated a conversation. “Morning, Herbert. What’s the old biddy up to today?” He glanced at Mrs. Williams’s house. He hadn’t spoken to her since the day she reported him for putting up a flagpole that violated a town ordinance.

“She tripped over something and hit her head. I saw her lying in the garden and helped her inside. I’m wondering if I should call an ambulance or something, She might have a concussion.”

“Her head’s too hard for that.”

I tried to smile, but it felt wrong. “Even so, I feel funny about not calling someone. I don’t think she has any family in the area.”

“Drove them all to suicide, most likely.” Gus finished with the hose and took a tentative step toward his front door, as though he wasn’t sure the conversation was over.

I decided not to push too far. “Maybe I’ll just check on her later.”

I waited for an hour, then went through the motions. I looked in through the screen door, but she was nowhere in sight. I rang the bell and then called her name, hoping one of the neighbors would hear me, then went back to my house and called the police, told them my version of the situation somewhat apologetically. A cruiser showed up ten minutes later and a uniformed officer rang the bell, rapped on the door, walked around peering in through the windows. I waited until he’d been at it for a few minutes, then went out and introduced myself.

“Is there anyone else living here?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Just Mrs. Williams. That’s why I was so concerned.” Something moved in the air at the periphery of my vision, a small dark blur. I glanced up to see a bird, or at least most of one, flutter past and slam into the trunk of Mrs. Williams’s birch tree. “She didn’t look good,” I said hastily as Officer Tremblay’s head began to turn. The bird, still twitching, fell out of sight.

He tried calling again, then opened the screen door. “Please wait out here, sir,” he said firmly. I stood on the porch, shifting my weight nervously from foot to foot, rehearsing my lines over and over again. He seemed to take an awfully long time, but eventually he came back outside and shut the door.

“There’s no one home.”

Well, you can imagine how startled I was. “She has to be there,” I insisted, perhaps a bit too strongly. “Maybe she wandered into a closet or something.”

He shook his head. “It’s a very small house, Mr. Franken, and I looked everywhere. She’s not home. Maybe she took herself off to see a doctor, or felt well enough to go shopping. I don’t see a car.” He glanced toward the driveway.

“She doesn’t drive.”

“Then maybe she asked someone to drive her or called a taxi.”

I knew how impossible that was, but I couldn’t very well say anything. “I guess you’re right, officer. I’m sorry if I wasted your time.”

“That’s all right, sir. Better safe than sorry.”

I probably should have left it at that. Mrs. Williams, or her body at least, would turn up eventually. But I had to know what had happened to her. Somewhere, deep in the recesses of my mind, was the sudden fear that she hadn’t been dead after all, that she’d recovered her wits and would tell someone what I’d done to her. The blow to the head I could explain, but how could I justify injecting strange substances into her body? No, I couldn’t rest until I knew what had happened.

She couldn’t have gotten far, not without help, so I set out to find her, methodically working my way around each separate block. I saw a few people outside, and I even ventured to ask some of them whether they’d seen an elderly woman wandering about, but no one was helpful. I was almost ready to give up and go home when I turned onto Burkett Street and heard the hammering.

I need to tell you about Bert Sanderson. Bert was Mrs. Williams’s nemesis. She’d complained so many times that his dog was barking, the animal control officer finally threatened legal action. Bert had been so enraged that he’d assaulted the officer, and was lucky to have gotten a suspended sentence and a hefty fine A week later he had been caught throwing eggs at Mrs. Williams’s windows one night after a few too many beers, and she’d pressed charges, which had been added to resisting arrest and another assault charge. Bert spent six months in prison and lost his job. There had been a few more incidents of vandalism since his release—someone had twice sprayed her garden with weed killer—but Bert had not been proven responsible, and the truth was, Mrs. Williams had made a lot of enemies.

Although I only knew Bert casually, I’d heard that their latest run-in had involved the utility shed he’d built in his backyard. Apparently it was three inches taller than allowed by town ordinances, and Mrs. Williams had objected when he’d applied for a variance. The last I’d heard, he had removed the roof and was remodeling. I had almost passed his property when the hammering stopped and I heard him shouting angrily.

“Get out of here, you senile bitch, or I swear I’ll use the hose on you!”

I knew who it had to be and started in that direction. As I passed the corner of the house, I saw Mrs. Williams standing near the unfinished shed while Bert stalked toward the garden hose that lay in the grass near his stockade fence. I hesitated, trying to decide how to proceed, never guessing that I’d just lost my chance to prevent a tragedy.

Mrs. Williams stooped to the bright red toolbox at her feet and picked up a claw hammer. I was momentarily paralyzed with astonishment because it seemed such a purposeful act that my earlier fear, that she wasn’t dead after all, came back full force. Then she was moving and her arm was going up and I realized what she intended and started after her, but of course it was too late. She hit him from behind and I didn’t think she could have exerted enough force to do much damage, but Bert slumped forward on his face with a grunt. He wasn’t moving.

When I reached his side a second later, he wasn’t breathing, either.

Mrs. Williams was just standing there, her face neutral, and she didn’t resist when I took the hammer from her hand. Then I realized my mistake, took out my handkerchief, and wiped the handle to remove my fingerprints. “Mrs. Williams?” I asked, barely above a whisper. She didn’t answer, didn’t even seem to hear me.

I thought about taking her away and returning to my original plan. I could tell the police I’d spotted her while out for a, walk. But Bert complicated things. His death was obviously no accident. I didn’t think anyone had seen me there, but I couldn’t be certain. For a minute or two I stood, unable to think clearly, and then the sound of chil—

dren shouting somewhere close by made me panic. The back door to Bert’s house was unlocked. I took Mrs. Williams by the elbow and brought her inside, shut her in the bathroom. Then I carried Bert in through the kitchen to the garage. His station wagon was there and a few minutes of searching turned up his keys. I bundled his inert body into the back and covered it with a blanket.

I wasn’t thinking clearly, obviously, but I wanted to buy some time. Bert’s wife would be home from work in another hour or two and I didn’t want her, or anyone else, to find the body until I had a plan. I collected Mrs. Williams, who was perfectly docile now, and put her in the backseat. It was taking a chance to drive Bert’s car but I hoped to have it out of sight before anyone took particular notice. Five minutes later it was inside my garage, and I had closed the curtains on the windows so that no one could look in and see it. No problem.

I went inside to look for some clothesline, intending to restrain Mrs. Williams, but before I could find any, the doorbell rang. It was Gus Robinson, who wanted to tell me that a squad car had stopped by looking for me.

“Why are they looking for me?” My voice trembled.

Gus shrugged. “He didn’t say, just asked me to tell you that he’d stop back later.” Gus seemed to want to talk, maybe hoping I was privy to some delicious secret, and I didn’t want to make him suspicious by being too anxious to have him leave, so it took another couple of minutes to get rid of him. Even so, I was forced to be rather abrupt, and there was an odd look on his face when he left. I found the clothesline and went out to the garage.

Mrs. Williams was gone.

I ran quickly from room to room and noticed that the patio doors were open. I was sure I had closed them so I went outside, resisting the temptation to call her name. She wasn’t likely to respond to it anyway, and someone might hear me. I ran around to the side yard, slowed when I saw Gus across the street. I didn’t think he’d seen me, so I retreated around the corner of the house quickly. Then I went next door, climbing the fence so I couldn’t be spotted, and searched the cottage. There was no sign of Mrs. Willliams.

I went back inside, telling myself that it wasn’t a problem. If she was gone, I could just revert to my original plan. She’d collapse in a few hours anyway and there was nothing to connect me with her death. Bert was a separate problem. As soon as it was dark, I could drive the car to Breakneck Hill, prop him behind the wheel, and send him over one of the drop-offs, then set fire to the wreck. It would be a long walk back, but I could stay in the woods for most of that distance. No one would be likely to see me there. No problem.

Once I’d decided on a plan, I felt better, but then I started to worry again. What about rigor mortis? What if the body was so stiff that I couldn’t get it into position? Maybe I should prop it up in the passenger seat now. I started for the garage.

And heard something move.

Was it possible that Bert hadn’t been killed after all? I opened the door to the garage with my heart in my throat, then felt a mixture of relief and shock. It wasn’t Bert who was moving; it was Mrs. Williams. Somehow I’d missed her and she’d come back. She was standing at the rear of the station wagon, staring down through the open rear window at Bert’s inert body. I walked around to stand beside her, already working on a new scenario.

Something glittered in her right hand. It was a hypodermic needle. One of mine. In fact, it was the same one I’d used to inject her with serum. I’d only used half but it was almost empty now.

Bert rolled over and sat up.

My chest began to hurt and I realized that I was laughing, great gasping sobs of laughter. I forced myself to calm down. Bert’s body seemed content to remain where it was, so I turned to Mrs. Williams, relieved her of the hypodermic, and led her away. She didn’t struggle while I tied her to the tool bench. I would have to find some way of restraining Bert next, but I’d barely begun to consider that problem when the doorbell rang again. I went into the house, closing the garage door behind me.

It was Officer Tremblay again. “Would you mind if I came in a moment, sir?”

I offered him a seat, which he politely refused. “I’m following up on your neighbor, Mrs. Williams. You haven’t seen her since your first report, have you?”

“No,” I lied.

“Well, we’ve had a call from a Mrs. Pereira a couple of blocks from here. She said an elderly woman who fits the description walked past her house about two hours ago. She said the woman had blood on her face and seemed dazed. If she’d called in at the time, we might have been able to find her, but she kept quiet until her conscience started to bother her. We just wanted to make sure that we’re not looking for two separate women.” He read a

description of Mrs. Williams’s clothing from his notebook and I confirmed that she’d been dressed identically when I’d last seen her.

“Thank you for your assistance, Mr. Franken.”

“I just hope it helps,” I said with mock sincerity. Officer Tremblay turned toward the door and I started forward to open it.

There was a loud thump from the garage. We both heard it, but I pretended not to. “Are you alone here, Mr. Franken?”

“Yes, I am, officer. Something must have fallen over. It’s nothing to worry about.”

“I’m sure that’s the case, but I was wondering if it might be the missing lady wandering again.”

“The garage door is locked.” Something in my manner must have betrayed me because he was immediately suspicious.

“Would you mind if I had a look, sir?”

I searched for a rational reason to object, but Tremblay didn’t wait for one. He started toward the kitchen and I was forced to trail along in his wake. My heart sank and I knew this was the end. He’d see Mrs. Williams as soon as he stepped into the garage.

He wasted no time and I saw the way his head snapped up as the door opened. His hand was dropping to his weapon as he spun around to face me. “Please raise your hands, Mr. Franken.”

I slowly began to do as I was told, but I never completed the movement. A crowbar flashed through the air, bouncing off his skull, and Officer Tremblay dropped like a stone. It was Bert, of course. Even dead, he hated the

police with a passion. The crowbar rose and fell twice more before I ran forward and took it away from Bert. By then Mrs. Williams had untied herself, and she was staggering around the garage, apparently trying to stab Bert with the hypodermic, which she’d retrieved from the shelf where I’d put it.

So there I was with three dead bodies, two of them still moving around, and two cars to dispose of, one a police cruiser. I sat down for a while to think things through and decided that the first priority was to get rid of the cruiser. I couldn’t carry Officer Tremblay’s body down to it in the daylight, so I’d have to dispose of that separately. No problem. Bert was still wandering around, so I found some more clothesline and tied him to one end of the bench. He didn’t seem to mind. By then Mrs. Williams was stabbing the dead policeman over and over with the empty hypodermic. I took it out of her hand and she sat down heavily. The serum was obviously starting to wear off.

I was just catching my breath when the doorbell rang. It was Gus from across the street.

“Hi. I saw the cop car out front and wondered if there’d been any news about Mrs. Williams.”

I didn’t invite him in. The noises from the garage had stopped, but I had a dead policeman and two reanimated corpses to deal with. It wasn’t an appropriate time for

entertaining.

I opened my mouth, intending to tell him that there’d been no news, that Tremblay was using the bathroom and it wasn’t a good time, but before I could say anything, his eyes widened and he looked past me. “Mrs. Williams! We were all worried about you.”

Somehow she’d found the strength to come into the house. I was paralyzed with indecision, and of course Gus decided to brush past me.

She didn’t like Gus particularly, either, so she stabbed him with the hypodermic. He gave a surprised little cry, dropped to his knees, and fell headlong. There was no more serum, so at least he wasn’t likely to get up anytime soon. I decided to consider that my luck had finally changed for the better.

Mrs. Williams had collapsed by the time I had finished dragging Gus into the garage. Officer Tremblay was moving around a little; apparently there’d been enough of the serum left to cause some reaction, but he couldn’t stand up. He was pawing at his weapon and I took it away from him just to be safe. I carried Mrs. Williams out next. She barely moved, so that was no problem.

It was later than I had realized. The day had gotten ” away from me. As soon as it was fully dark, I was going to carry the bodies next door, then move Bert’s car out onto the street. I’d set fire to the house, wait until it was going pretty well, then call in the alarm. Let the police interpret the four bodies however they wanted after that.

By the time I was willing to risk it, Mrs. Williams was completely still, and the other two were obviously winding down. Tremblay was still pawing at his holster but he couldn’t stand up, so I ended up carrying all four of them, one at a time. Then I went down to the basement and arranged some rags and other combustibles near the oil tank. It was harder to get the fire going than I expected, but eventually I was satisfied.

I decided to have one last look around upstairs before leaving and that was my last mistake. When I stepped through the doorway into the kitchen, I felt something brush against my leg.

There was a click and I looked down just in time to see Officer Tremblay fasten the free end of a pair of handcuffs to the foot of Mrs. Williams’s antique cast-iron stove.

The other cuff was around my ankle.

I stood there, astonished that he’d been able to crawl all the way from the opposite end of the kitchen, and by the time I understood what had just happened, he’d moved beyond my reach, finally slumping inertly against a row of cabinets.

He and the handcuff key are out of my reach. The stove is too heavy for me to lift or move. There are wisps of smoke drifting up from the basement and I can hear the flames licking at the steps.

I think I have a problem.

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