Aftershock & Others Read Free Page B

it off.
    This is a dream. A dream! It isn’t real. I can do anything in this nightmare body and it doesn’t matter. Because it’s only happening in my sleeping mind.
    The realization is a dazzling white light in my brain. I can do anything I wish in my dream-life. Anything! I can vent any emotion, give in to any whim, any desire or impulse, no matter how violent or outrageous.
    And I will do just that. No restraint while I’m dreaming. Unlike my waking life, I will act without hesitation on whatever occurs to me. I’ll lead a dream-life untempered by sympathy, empathy, or any other sane consideration.
    Why not? It’s only a dream.
    I look down and see the note I wrote Karl. It lies crumpled on the floor. I look at Maria, hanging limp from my hand. I remember her derisive laughter at how I’d donated my body for the furtherance of science, her glee at the thought of my being dissected into a thousand pieces.
    And suddenly I have an idea. If I could laugh, I would.
    After I’m finished with her, I set the door back on its hinges and wait beside it. I do not have to wait long.
    Karl arrives and knocks. When no one answers, he pushes on the door. It falls inward and he sees his lover, Maria…all over the room…in a thousand pieces. He cries out and turns to flee. But I am there, blocking the way.
    Karl staggers back when he sees me, his face working in horror. He tries to run but I grab him by the arm and hold him.
    “You! Good Lord, they said you’d burned up in the mill fire! Please don’t hurt me! I never harmed you!”
    What a wonder it is to have physical power over a man. I never realized until this instant how fear has influenced my day-to-day dealings with men. True, they run the world, they have the power of influence—but they have physical power as well. Somewhere in the depths of my mind, running as a steady undercurrent, has been the realization that almost any man could physically overpower me at will. Although I never before recognized its existence, I see now how it has colored my waking life.
    But in my dream I am no longer the weaker sex.
    I do not hurt Karl. I merely want him to know who I am. I hold up the note from last night and press it against my heart.
    “What?” he cries hoarsely. “What do you want of me?”
    I show him the note again, and again I press it to my heart.
    “What are you saying? That you’re Eva? That’s impossible. Eva’s dead! You’re Henry Frankenstein’s creature.”
    Henry Frankenstein? The baron’s son? I’ve heard of him—one of Dr. Waldman’s former students, supposedly brilliant but highly unorthodox. What has he to do with any of this?
    I growl and shake my head as I rattle the paper and tighten my grip on his arm.
    He winces. “Look at you! How could you be Eva? You’re fashioned out of different parts from different bodies! You’re—” Karl’s eyes widen, his face slackens. “The brain! Sweet lord, Eva’s brain! It was stolen shortly before you appeared!”
    I am amazed at the logical consistency of my nightmare. In real life I donated my body to the medical college, and here in my dream my brain has been placed in another body, a patchwork fashioned by Baron Frankenstein’s son from discarded bits and pieces. How inventive I am!
    I smile.
    “Oh, my God! ” Karl wails. His words begin to trip over each other in their hurry to escape. “It can’t be! Oh, Eva, Eva, Eva, I’m so sorry! I didn’t want to do it but Maria put me up to it. I didn’t want to kill my uncle but she kept pushing me. It was her idea to have you blamed, not mine!”
    As I stare at him in horror, I feel the rage burst in my heart like a rocket. So! He did conspire to hang me! A crimson haze blossoms about me as I take his head between my hands. I squeeze with all the strength I possess and don’t stop until I hear a wet crunching noise, feel hot liquid running between my fingers.
    And then I’m sobbing, huge alien sounds rumbling from my chest as I clutch Karl’s