Frankenstein Return from the Wasteland

By Billie Sue Mosiman

A novelette based on Mary Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN, or, The Modern Prometheus from Edgar and Bram Stoker Nominated author Billie Sue Mosiman, author of more than 50 titles for sale worldwide.

"The strength of Mosiman's writing is on display here in Frankenstein:Return From The Wasteland. She has the same ability to use beautiful prose and paint a picture that is terrifying in that classic gothic horror style that does not rely on cheap tricks and gratuitous gore as if that were all it took to write true horror." T.W.Brown, Top 1000 Reviewer

"I consider this a "must read" for anyone who enjoys a good horror story, and certainly for anyone who has read Mary Shelly. You will not be disapointed." Karen Doering, Top 1000 Reviewer

Dr. Frankenstein's monster leaped from the ship where his maker lay dead and claimed he would do away with himself on a burning pyre. He drifted away on an ice floe in the frozen north region. The grief of losing his maker made him suicidal. That is where Mary Shelley left her famous monster.

In FRANKENSTEIN: RETURN FROM THE WASTELAND a new chapter is written to append to Shelley's ending. It's twenty years later and Robert Walton, captain of that fated ship, returns to the dangerous clime to see if the creature really carried through with his threat. Robert can't let the last years of his life run out without knowing the truth--did the monster live or had he really died? What he finds will change his life forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Billie Sue Mosiman
• Release date: Jun 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9781513005270

Billie Sue Mosiman

Billie Sue Mosiman published 13 novels with New York major publishers and recently published BANISHED, her latest novel. She was nominated for the Edgar Award and was a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award, both for her novels. Since 2011 she's had more than 50 e-books made available on online bookstores. She’s the author of at least 150 published short stories that were in various magazines and anthologies. Her latest stories will be in BETTER WEIRD edited by Paul F. Olson from Cemetery Dance, a tribute anthology to David Silva, a story in the anthology ALLEGORIES OF THE TAROT edited by Annetta Ribken, and another story in William Cook’s FRESH FEAR. She’s an active member of HWA and International Thriller Writers. Blog: http://www.peculiarwriter.blogspot.com Twitter: @billiemosiman Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/billie.s.mosiman Youtube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/texasdolly47 Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/Billie-Sue-Mosiman

Book preview

My Beloved Sister,

I write to you about a deadly serious and Olympian idea. It is of a monster. I know you recall the one I mean, the only one that has ever been allowed entry into the world since Neptune was purported to rise from the deep blue ocean waters.

But before I get to that, I also want to write of my misery at the news of your recent illness. I fear we both have reached beyond our prime years and are on the slow sad descent toward embrace with our creator. How many times this year alone has the archenemy pneumonia come to be your bedside companion? As for me, my cough has not abated nor, according to my good doctor, will it. It is the most bitter potion of later life to recognize the waning of the physical strength. The virility of my soul is as strong as ever (as is yours, I pray), but the body falters too long before the spirit. Did we ever once think that we would grow as old as our loving parents who watched so meticulously our little childhood games?

But I have more to tell you than this common haggling we all have with the dimming of the light. It is most important to me that I share my lifelong obsession with someone at last, and there is no better candidate nor understanding friend than you, dear Margaret.

Now let us speak of the monster—the creature who has obsessed me. I ask you to remember twenty years past my ordeal on the ship carrying Dr. Frankenstein into the northern regions where he searched for the great monstrous being whom he had created. I sent you letters, hoping to divest my mind of worry and woe on that perilous journey. No one has been able to forget the tragedy of Frankenstein's unfortunate passing, least of all me. That bone-cold fearful trip, the coming revolt of my crew, and then! Then the being himself appearing in the very room where his master had just momentarily given over his ghost to heaven's hands.

I cannot forget the story the monster told me, of his making, and his anguish at being made. I admit to dreams, incessant, unrelenting nightmares of that very day, and the look of him—the scent from his pale flesh, the agony roaring in his eyes like souls caught in withering fire, the pitilessness of him that was made from death to live again.

I admit another failure of heart. Until the being appeared standing at the side of his dead master, I really did not believe my good friend could be telling the entire truth. How could anyone, nay even a genius so great as our Dr. Frankenstein, actually create from human limbs a new personage to walk the earth? Only God could breathe life