Frankenstein Special Edition: Prodigal Son and City of Night
The stunning first two instalments of Dean Koontz’s re-imagining of Frankenstein – including an extract from the final book, The Dead Town.Prodigal SonHis name is Deucalion – created centuries ago by a madman, who blessed and cursed him with supernatural powers. Deucalion arrives in New Orleans on the hunt for his evil creator as a murderer preys on innocent victims. Detective Carson O’Connor and her partner track the serial killer, but instead they find the next generation of Dr. Frankenstein’s monsters. They are much more, and less, than human – and about to be unleashed on an unsuspecting city…City of NightThey are much stronger, heal faster and think faster than any human – and they must be destroyed. But not even Victor Helios – once Dr. Frankenstein – can stop his engineered killers from their reign of terror. The only hope rests with Victor’s original ‘monster’ Deucalion and his all-too-human partners, Detectives Carson O’Connor and Michael Maddison.The Dead TownAs the war against humanity rages on, scattered survivors come together in a small Montana town to weather the onslaught. As they make their last stand, humanity’s fate hangs in the balance. And Deucalion finally faces his deranged maker in a climax that will shatter every expectation…
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Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein
Prodigal Son
City of Night
The Dead Town
Dean Koontz
Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein
1
Prodigal Son
Dean Koontz
For the power of man to make himself what hepleases means, as we have seen, the power of somemen to make other men what they please.
—C. S. LEWIS, The Abolition of Man
Although I’m a chatty kind of guy, never before have I found it necessary to explain up front how a book came to be written. In the case of the series to be known as Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein, a few words of explanation seem necessary.
I wrote a script for a sixty-minute television-series pilot with this title. A producer and I made a deal for the pilot plus episodes to be broadcast on USA Network. Because he liked my script, Martin Scorsese—the legendary director—signed on as executive producer. A hot young director, also enamored of the script, signed on as well. At the request of USA Network, I wrote a two-hour version. On the basis of this script, a wonderful cast was assembled.
Then USA Network and the producer decided that major changes must be made. I had no interest in the show in its new form, and I withdrew from association with it. I wished them well—and turned to the task of realizing the original concept in book form. I hoped both versions would succeed in their different media.
Subsequently, Marty Scorsese also expressed the desire to exit the series. I am grateful to Marty for being so enthusiastic and insightful about the show we wanted to make. For a man of his accomplishments, he is refreshingly humble, the very definition of grace, and anchored to real-world values in a business where many are not.
I would also like to thank the late Philip K. Dick, great writer and nice man, who twenty-three years ago shared with me the story of asking for “something too exotic for the menu” in his favorite Chinese restaurant. I’ve finally found a novel in which the anecdote fits. The entree that sent Phil fleeing makes Victor Frankenstein lick his lips.
Contents
ROMBUK MONASTERY TIBET
DEUCALION SELDOM SLEPT, but when he did, he dreamed. Every dream was a nightmare. None frightened him. He was the spawn of nightmares, after all; and he had been toughened by a life of terror.
During the afternoon, napping in his simple cell, he dreamed that a surgeon opened his abdomen to insert a mysterious, squirming mass. Awake but manacled to the surgical table, Deucalion could only endure the procedure.
After he had been sewn shut, he felt something crawling inside his body cavity, as though curious, exploring.
From behind his mask, the surgeon said, “A messenger approaches. Life changes with a letter.”
He woke from the dream and knew that it had been prophetic. He possessed no psychic power of a classic nature, but sometimes omens came in his sleep.
IN THESE MOUNTAINS OF TIBET, a fiery sunset conjured a mirage of molten gold from the glaciers and the snowfields. A serrated blade of Himalayan peaks, with Everest at its hilt, cut the sky
Far from civilization, this vast panorama soothed Deucalion. For several years, he had preferred to avoid people, except for Buddhist monks in this windswept rooftop of the world.
Although he had not killed for a long time, he still harbored the capacity for homicidal fury Here he strove always to suppress his darker urges, sought calm, and hoped to find true peace.
From an open stone balcony of the whitewashed monastery, as he gazed at the sun-splashed ice pack, he considered, not for the first time, that these two elements, fire and ice, defined his life.
At his side, an elderly monk, Nebo, asked, “Are you looking at the mountains—or beyond them, to what you left behind?”
Although Deucalion had learned to speak several Tibetan dialects during his lengthy sojourn here, he and the old monk often spoke English, for it afforded them privacy.
“I don’t miss much of that world. The sea. The sound of shore birds. A few friends. Cheez-Its.”
“Cheeses? We have cheese here.”
