“It is alive! It is alive! God help me, it is alive! Ah, ha, ha, ha.”

“Uh, pardon me doc but a moment of your time please.”

Victor Von Frankenstein, infamous doctor and locally known mad scientist; having been in the midst of a moment of self triumph quickly looked down at the creature laying upon the steel table before him. It was a masterly stitched together flea market of human parts, obtained here and there in all manner of legal and not so legal ways. It was also supposed to be dead. With over forty years of mocking research, and utter ridicule from former colleagues, this experiment was to be his ticket to fame and fortune. Barring that, at least some badly needed cash to live on.

“Did you just speak to me?” He asked in astonishment.

Just moments ago he had been shocked and amazed when the index finger on the carcass before him had raised up before his very eyes. It was, although hoped for, not all together expected. At least any more than the other three hundred failed attempts. What he hadn't expected was for said carcass to start speaking.

“Is there anyone else in this dump,” the creature responded in a sarcastically snotty voice. Its two differently colored eyes scanned the room, taking in all the second hand equipment surrounding the two. “Where’d you get all this junk?” It asked. "In a garage sale or the junkyard down the street."

“Hey!” Victor retaliated lamely and stepped back. “Who are you to be mocking my equipment,” he said, gathering what little self respect he still had. After all he was a scientist and hadn't this so-called junk brought this pile of flesh to life in the first place.

“Look,” it replied, “If you want to discuss this subject with any credibility you're going to have to at least let me sit up. This metal slab you got me laying on is damn cold.”

Victor mulled over the creature's request. Seeing no harm he popped the restraining straps which held the cadaver in place. The pale white form slowly rose up into a sitting position, swinging its massive legs to the side and gazed at the little man before it.

“How about some clothing,” it asked, looking its body over. “I seem to have some exposed anatomical parts that probably should be covered up, don’t you think.”

“Oh, yes,” Victor replied, his face turning red. “I suppose that would be a good idea. You know,” he went on, looking around the cluttered lab,” I really never expected you to actually gain consciousness. Frankly, I was overjoyed just to get your finger to move. Having clothing on hand was not really on my to-do list.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the creature answered a bit annoyed. “The clothes please.”

“OK, OK, don’t have a coronary,” Victor said. Spotting a white lab coat over by his desk he strolled over, snatched it up and tossed it to the bulky Goliath. “You know,” he went on, “for a recently dead man you sure have an attitude problem.”

The pale face looked up after buttoning the garment. “Seeing that your body parts haven’t been buried in the ground then thawed out and tossed about on a freezing table, I’d say you haven’t the vaguest idea why I’m in a bad mood. I assure you it’s not a pleasant experience.”

“Well yes, I suppose you have a good point at that.” Victor Von Frankenstein was a bit confused on what to do next. He had done the impossible and brought a dead corpse back to life. OK, so what was he to do know. In reality he never really expected to truly reanimate a fully living being at all. At best he had envisioned muscular movement, maybe even cellular regeneration, but this… What exactly was the next step?

“You got anything to drink?” his bulky companion asked looking the room over yet again, his expression still a bit petulant.

“Drink?” Victor hastily responded. “Oh, yes, I probably have some water around here somewhere.”

“You're kidding,” the creature responded in utter shock. “I mean a real drink doc, as in a cold beer or maybe some good old whiskey.”

“You mean alcohol?” the scrawny scientist gasped in shock. Victor had always been a light weight twig of a man and was never able to handle drink harder than apple cider and even that was pushing it. To have on hand whiskey was not even a possibility. "Alcohol is the last thing you should be putting into your body at the moment,” he explained. “Why, who knows what that vile stuff would do to you at this point. Heck I don’t even know how you're alive as it is.” Whoops. He hadn’t meant to admit that. All his original theories and hypotheses had failed and these last attempts had been ones of desperation. At this point he wasn’t even sure what he had done to make this time work. Could he even duplicate this procedure, he wondered?

“What are you telling me doc? That you don’t know what you did.”

“No, of course not,” Victor hedged. "Well, maybe not exactly everything. I mean, well things were a bit… Oh hell,” he cried. “Yes, I admit it. I haven’t the foggiest idea why you're alive, there, you satisfied.” Victor threw himself onto his chair and tossed his head back in defeat. He was a failure. Always was, always will be. “Damn it,” he groaned miserably. “Why do things always go wrong for me?” He took a deep breath and sighed.

“What do you mean failure?” the monstrous man asked. “Looks to me like you're doing OK. Heck all of this stuff had to have cost you something. Even if it does look like a bunch of junk to me, what do I know.”

The little man gazed up at his creation. “I’m broke.” He confessed. "100%, not a schilling to my name, broke. Even this junk as you put it is mostly stolen, and we wont even go into how I got your parts.”

“Hmm,” the monstrosity replied thoughtfully. "Flat broke, Aye?" The oddly stitched face grinned and jumped unsteadily to its feet. “What say we go into whatever town is nearby and have a good time? It’ll be on me,” he chuckled.

“On you!” Victor laughed. “You’re a dead man. You don’t have any more money than I have.”

“Actually, my good doctor,” the giant said with a grin, “that isn’t entirely true. You don’t know who I am do you?”

“Was,” Victor corrected, "and you're not exactly one person but several. Seven to be exact.”

“I’m referring to what’s up here.” The monster said tapped his sausage of an index finger to the side of his temple”

“Well not off hand, I don’t. Actually my former assistant procured your head and never got around to telling me where. He was kind of a numskull sort, a hunched back man actually. He, as I may have mentioned had left sometime ago. I believe he was getting tired of not getting paid.”

“Well then Doc, have I got a story for you.”