Silent Screams - C. E. Lawrence [96]
Lee wondered if Mary Shelley realized what she had stumbled onto that night she set her troubled dreams down on paper—the creation of life from death, inert matter transformed into a living, sentient being. Did she know that she, too, had created a “monster” when she wrote Frankenstein, and that 150 years later the story would spawn endless imitators and retellings?
“And now, behold!” the professor cried, whipping the sheet from the body with a single sweeping motion. The lights shuddered and went black for an instant, then came back on to a blue background with a single scarlet spotlight on the monster, who sat up stiffly, arms outstretched. The children at the next table watched, their eyes fixed on the monster—the child abandoned by the parent who gave him life.
Lee was sorry Kylie was missing this part. Come to think of it, hadn’t she been gone too long now? A thin river of panic welled up inside him.
He got to his feet and walked to the ladies’ room, trying to control the panic that seared the lining of his stomach like vinegar. He knocked on the door and, receiving no answer, opened it and called inside.
“Kylie! Kylie! Are you in there? Kylie!”
There was no answer. He turned and headed for the restaurant’s front entrance. Adrenaline raced up his spinal cord, filling his head. He felt as if he were drowning. Oh, no—first Laura, now her! This can’t be happening!
He lost the ability to think clearly. He forced himself to breathe as he rounded the corner into the hallway. There, inspecting the various mugs and T-shirts for sale, was Kylie. Relief flooded Lee’s bloodstream and made his knees soften and go weak. He stumbled and almost toppled over.
He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her.
“What is it?” she whimpered, frightened. He wanted to slap her, to scream at her, to hug her, all at the same time.
“Kylie, never go off without telling me!”
“But I was only looking at the T-shirts.”
He didn’t want to frighten her, but the words came out harshly.
“Never! Do you understand?”
Kylie’s lower lip quivered, and tears gathered at the corners of her eyes.
“I won’t run off—I was right here,” she said as a tear slid down one cheek.
“Do you understand?”
Kylie let loose the righteous tears of one wrongly accused.
“I wasn’t running away!” she wailed, choking on the words as her throat thickened with tears.
“I couldn’t stand to lose you too!” he said, hugging her to him. “Can’t you understand that?”
She greeted his words with a long, loud wail that caught the attention of a couple of women as they came out of the ladies’ room. One of them wrenched Lee away from Kylie and planted a well-aimed slap across his face. The other one hoisted Kylie into her arms.
“Is he hurting you, poor thing?” she said, wiping the girl’s tears with a red polka-dotted handkerchief. Lee stared at the red dots, imagining them to be drops of blood. Circular blood spatter patterns indicate dripping as opposed to flung splatter.
The other woman looked as if she was about to hit Lee again. She was tall and hefty, with shoulders like a linebacker and a helmet of thick, gray-streaked hair. Lee backed away from her, bumping his ribs painfully against a pay phone on the wall.
“I’m her uncle,” he said to the woman holding Kylie. She was shorter than her friend, but also thickly built, with fat wrists and ankles, and a plump, dimpled double chin. Both women were wearing the kind of polyester pantsuits only seen on out-of-towners. The shorter one’s was geranium red. The linebacker’s was marigold orange.
“You may be her uncle, but that doesn’t give you the right to engage in child abuse!” the taller one