We're waiting with bated breath for the next part

As he moved forward it became obvious that some things were approaching from the opposite direction. A normal person would have fled in terror at the sounds and sensations he was receiving from that direction. Because his senses were so acute, he was able to distinguish the sounds much better then an average person and he was certain he knew how many creatures were approaching. There appeared to be at least eleven different tones to the gibbering.

He adjusted his flash so the light covered a wider angle and sped up to satisfy his curiousity. To his surprise it seemed to trigger a retreat from the sources of the sounds. He pressed forward and the retreat seemed to increase in speed. As he turned a corner he caught some glimpses of some things rushing back toward the darkness. His limited glimpse filled him with a revulsion he'd never experienced before.

For the first time in his experience, his scientific curiousity was challenged by primitive emotions he thought he'd mastered back when he was a 10 year old boy. The emotions weren't powerful enough to be a problem, but he found it disturbing that he felt them at all.

Irritated, he considered his next step. After an internal debate he decided to return to the entrance and set up a beacon he'd invented that would send a signal back to his skyscraper headquarters that would summon his cohorts. If all went well, they'd arrive as quickly as the next evening.

He turned to head back the way he came and he noticed that the mystery creatures began returning into the darkness as the light faded. He also noticed that the sounds seemed to increase to the point where even he couldn't distinguish the number of creatures making them. As time went by he realised that the sounds and smells he experienced were filling him with revulsion as well. He didn't like that. He took pride in his clinical mind and didn't care to have emotions clouding his judgement.

Unconsciously, he found himself retreating faster then he would like. Irritated again, he consciously slowed his pace. He was Doc Savage, the Man of Bronze! Nothing phased him! Whatever was out there was messing with him psychologically and he wasn't going to stand for that.
Finally he reached the point where the luminescent mushrooms were more numerous and the creatures ceased following.

He continued until he was near the entrance. He stopped in his tracks. At his feet were a pile of tendons and bones still with traces of flesh attached to them. The bones had been cracked and the marrow had clearly been sucked out of them. Examining the bones he concluded that at least two of his huskies had been savaged and eaten.

An involuntary chill crept up his spine.

To be continued.

He moved on through the entrance, discovering more dead huskies. None of these had been eaten though. Examining the bodies, he found that some had their backs broken, some died from broken necks, one had it's jaws stretched apart, and the rest from blunt force trauma. Something formidable indeed had destroyed his entire team of sled dogs.
Doc sighed at the loss of life. He wished he'd been more careful. The sanctity of life was of paramount importance to him and this time he'd failed to preserve it. He mentally berated himself for allowing his scientific curiousity to overwhelm him enough to allow this carnage.

He began assembling his beacon several yards away in a concealed area hoping to prevent the beacon's destruction by whatever slaughtered his sled team. He was reasonably certain that he wasn't being observed as he did this. His trust in his enhanced senses left him certain that he would hear or smell anything that might be near.

When he finished his task the weather began getting nasty. There was nothing for him to do but seek shelter back in the entrance to his discovery. As he reentered the cavern he saw that all the dead huskies had been dragged away. While he'd been working, something had cleared out all the dead bodies of the huskies. He felt a touch of dismay that he hadn't heard anything despite his excellent hearing. It looked like it would be a sleepless night ahead for him. Although he slept lighter then anybody he knew, he thought it would be expedient to stay fully alert in light of the clearly dangerous adversary(?) that seemed to lurk in there. Not withstanding the creatures he'd glimpsed, heard and smelled earlier. He was reasonably certain that whatever had destroyed his dog team was the same creature that had apparently battled the polar bears and wasn't one of those gibbering abominations he'd encountered before.

He settled in for what looked like was going to be a long night.

To be continued.

Doc pondered his situation. It would be quite a while before any response to his beacon would achieve results. In the meantime he was completely on his own. It was unlikely he would get any normal rest. He was adept at meditation techniques that would refresh him nearly as well as a normal nights sleep. He wasn't tired yet and thought he might get proactive and see if he could track down and determine the identity of the creature that had devastated his sled team.

He sniffed the air. It was possible he might be able to follow using his enhanced sense of smell. There was the odor of the dog carcasses to follow as well as a peculiar, slightly unpleasant odor independant of the wretched scents he'd detected from the gibbering abominations he'd encountered earlier.

He prepared his weapons, adjusted his flash and moved on into the deeper caverns in the direction of the odors he needed to follow.

As he followed the passageways he knew soon that he was on the right track when he began discovering a macabre trail of discarded dog carcasses. It appeared that whatever had gathered the bodies began dropping carcasses haphazardly, apparently finding it difficult to manage carrying off several dead animal carcasses at one time. It was also possible he was deliberately being led into a trap.

He considered his options. Whatever he was following certainly seemed to be cunning, undeniably powerful, likely even more powerful then Doc himself. It wasn't Doc's intention to engage in combat with this creature. He simply wanted to determine it's nature. In his entire career, every outlandish seeming adventure always had a plausible explanation. Although he hadn't determined an explanation for this yet, he was convinced he'd ferret out the truth.

There were cases of humans who suffered from Acromegaly who grew unnaturally large. He thought maybe someone who suffered that condition had somehow found his way here. Perhaps fleeing due to feeling outcast from society. A strange place to flee to. He wondered how this individual managed to coexist with those unpleasant creatures he was tracking earlier.

To be continued.

Doc advanced, senses on alert. moving through the caverns, he marvelled that each passageway was wide enough and high enough that a man of his size could comfortably move through it. Most caverns had many areas where you had to crawl or even squirm your way through to get anywhere. He strongly suspected that the caverns had been excavated a long time ago to allow passage. But if that was the case, whatever needed passage would have been unusually large.

Relying on his sense of smell to guide him, he moved carefully through the caverns. His hope was to catch his quarry unobserved so he could determine it's nature discreetly. He felt a confrontation would not be beneficial to either party. It bothered him to know that his quarry likely knew about him but had evaded any opportunity for Doc to understand what he might be up against.

As he'd moved along he'd encountered three dog carcasses. He saw that he was about to enter a large cavernous area the size of a ballroom. Moving into the room he heard snuffling noises and the sounds of feasting and bones cracking. The smells of the deformed creatures he'd glimpsed before were more prominent and overwhelmed the scent of his quarry.

As he moved in he focused his flash in the direction of the sounds and discovered several mishapen vaguely humanlike creatures feasting greedily on a pair of dog carcasses. They flinched initially from the light source but the creatures hunger overpowered their fear.

Their bodies were chalk white and unclothed. Their facial configuration was a mockery of human features. The ears were nubs and the nose was nonexistant save for two nostrils that had loose skin flaps that allowed them to open and close as they breathed. Their eyes were black bulbs that dominated their face.
Their gaping mouths contained rows of ferocious looking teeth designed to tear gobs of flesh. Their hands and feet each had vicious looking claws.

Several males and a few females made up the group that he could see, but his hearing and smell told him their were many more beyond the light.

It became apparent that the advantage of numbers was about to give them the courage to swarm him. Doc gripped his weapons tightly and considered his options.

To be continued.

Doc abhorred the idea of taking someone's life, even creatures as loathsome as these. Loathsome was the best way to describe them. The emotion was a new one for Doc. He'd never before encountered anything that filled him with a sense of revulsion the way these creatures did.

In the back of his mind; something was nudging at him, trying to get him to abandon his principles, trying to get him to deal out lethal force this one time. Just this one time, forget that he held all life sacred and destroy the abominations that were advancing on him.

He ignored it and began firing mercy bullets at the creatures. To his amazement, the bullets didn't even seem to slow them down! He started backing out. He reached into a bag and pulled out a gas grenade. He pulled the pin and hurled it into the thick of the creatures. The gas wafted out but the creatures didn't seem to be affected by the gas either.

They kept advancing. One of them rushed close to him. He caught it by the throat and lifted it up. He was astonished at how light the creature felt compared to it's relative size. He was repelled by the spongy feeling of it's flesh. There was a clamminess to the skin that also disturbed him. He hurled the creature across the chamber in a Herculean effort fueled as much by his revulsion as it was by his sense of self preservation.

The creature was hurled against a far wall and though it was stunned for a few seconds seemed to recover quickly and rose to advance on Doc again.

This wouldn't do. As powerful as he was, many of these creatures swarming him might overwhelm him as a pack of hyenas might bring down a lion. He unleashed a flame thrower. As the creatures moved toward him he fanned the flames in a four foot arc. The creatures retreated from this. It seemed that they respected fire and weren't anxious to brave the flames to reach the quarry. The flames couldn't last forever though. He needed to retreat to a less open area where he could keep the creatures at bay.

Unfortunately, his keen senses told him that he'd been flanked and more of the creatures were approaching from the passage he'd entered the cavern from.

He was going to have to come up with a plan to extricate himself from this.

To be continued.

I apologize if anybody was waiting for a new installment for this. I had it, I wrote it and the computer dumped it when I hit submit reply because it couldn't link to this site. Now I'm too aggravated to try again. So it'll have to wait til next week.

Hopefully the hiatus will bring you a better product then what was lost.

Surrounded now, it appeared the flame thrower was his best chance out. He would need to cut a path of retreat with it before it ran out of fuel.

He fired an arc designed to force the creatures behind him to retreat.

He began edging his way back out of thee chamber when a creature that escaped the arc of the flames chanced a leap at him from behind. As he swatted the creature away more creatures chanced a shot and tried to pounce on him. In his efforts to beat them away one of the creatures managed to get a grip on the flame thrower and dislodged some feeder hoses spilling what was left of the fuel.

Knowing instinctively that he did not want to be the recipient of any bites or scratches from the creature, his reflexes were tested while he batted more and more creatures of of him. Luckily, most of the creatures had been cowed by the flame thrower and didn't know it had been rendered inoperable.

He was in a jam. It looked increasingly like he might be forced to resort to lethal force to extricate himself. He knew if Monk Mayfair were in his place, Monk wouldn't hesitate to kill to avoid being killed. The unusual loathing he was feeling was making it extremely difficult for him to live up to his principles. He knew as well, that as good as he was, eventually one of these creatures would likely get a shot in and slash or bite him.

More creatures began to lunge at him. He hurled several a great distance across the chamber. Despite impacts that should have injured them enough to cause them to cease being a threat, they showed a remarkable resiliency and rose to continue the assault.

Suddenly a large shape filled the entranceway to the chamber that he'd entered from. The figure appeared to be 8 feet tall and began grabbing the creatures and literally tearing them apart, limb from limb. The head of one creature rolled practically to Doc's feet.

As Doc fought his own battle he caught some glimpses of his strange ally. He saw a pasty white countenance clad in a fur vest and trousers that were ill fitting. The newcomer seemed to not notice
or care about any scratches or bites he was recieving from the creatures.

Obviously this was the thing that had decimated his dogsled team.

To be continued.

The hulking monster was astonishing. He waded through the creatures like a weasel through ducklings. Doc was holding his own but he had to be careful that the creatures neither bit nor scratched him so he wasn't able to extricate himself as easily. The huge monster had no such compunctions, completely ignoring bites and scratches unphased.

Despite this, the bizarre pair found themselves being herded deeper into the chamber as more creatures flooded in. The newcomer thinned the ranks of the creatures more thoroughly then Doc did mainly because he didn't have any problem with killing the creatures. The brute was literally ripping the creatures apart as he battled them.

They'd managed to work their way through the chamber to the opposite end. At that moment Doc was further stunned when the great brute said "follow me" in impeccable German.

They fled down another hall like cave passage. Doc's mind was spinning with all the bizarre things that were happening.

To be continued.

Racing down the corridors of the cave, Doc found that keeping up with towering monster was a challenge. It was clear that this being was familiar and comfortable maneuvering in these surroundings. Doc had to slow for unexpected obstacles that the huge brute effortlessly bypassed or even scrambled over.

Eventually they began to slow and they approached a huge door made of the same type of metal as the entrance was. The monstrous being pried the heavy door open as effortlessly as if it was a screen door and beckoned Doc to follow.

After Doc entered, he had a quick look around. He saw several things cluttering the chamber that looked like they had been scavenged from one or more shipwrecks, including a huge anchor that looked like it weighed at least 200 lbs. A figurehead of a half naked woman was also prominently displayed.

Off to a corner were stacked several canine corpses proving that his bizarre ally was also the same creature that had decimated his dog team.

The monster turned toward Doc and grimaced. Doc deduced that the being was attempting to smile awkwardly.

In fluent German the creature said "Welcome to my abode." After a short pause, he repeated the phrase in flawless French then Italian.

Rarely was Doc at a loss for words but the fact that this huge brute was so erudite took him completely by surprise. Misinterpreting Doc's hesitation to respond, the creature continued, "Perhaps the English would be better. I am still struggling with that language so maybe I'm not so good to communicate, no?

Doc spluttered "No, it's fine. I'm just astonished to hear you speak those languages so well. Whatever language you care to converse in is fine with me. If you don't mind my asking though, who are you?"

Next - the brute explains himself to Doc.

enjoying this R E

After Doc assures the being that he understood each language that was spoken, the monster begins telling Doc his story in fluent French. As Doc listens he realizes that this is the end result of the forbidden experiments performed by Victor Frankenstein several years ago. The story was nearly identical with the one Mary Shelley had passed off as a fiction to the general public, although certain members of the scientific community knew it was anything but. Doc's own father taught him some of Victor Frankenstein experiments which he applied to his own surgical procedures that he used to rehabilitate the worst criminals.

It was well known that the creation had fled to the Northern hemisphere; at least among scientific circles, but no one had ever discovered what the creature's final fate had been. Now Clark Savage Jr. was being told first hand what had been the monster's fate by the monster himself.

"I had fled here in shame; hoping to destroy myself completely and erase myself from the history of mankind, but I found that my own will to live was greater then I thought. When I was savagely attacked by a starving polar bear and I had to fight for my survival. After a great struggle, I defeated the polar bear and the flesh and bones of the animal fed my own hunger. Eventually I learned from watching other polar bears how to ambush seals for sustenance. I even learned how to tackle Beluga whales and Narwhals when they surfaced for air at holes in the ice."

"I lived that way for many years until I discovered these caverns and forced my way in to use this for shelter from the elements. Those creatures we encountered didn't care for my presence but they soon learned that they can't harm me and until you came here they've mostly avoided any further encounters with me."

"As you can see, I've scavenged from the few shipwrecks I've found to decorate my home."

"I have chosen to call myself Frankenstein in honor of my creator."

To be continued.

Nive good job.

Stunned that this being seems to nearly be Doc's intellectual equal, Doc tells his new acquaintance about himself. The monster is fascinated by Doc's story interrupting only once near the begining of the tale to ask if doc would tell it in the English language so that the monster can learn how to improve his own skills in the language.

Doc; seeking brevity, tries to tell only the most important points of his life story, promising to embellish it later. Doc suggests they wend their way to the entrance, informing the creature that he has summoned his associates and that they may be arriving at any moment.

He suggests the monster join him. He has more comfortable accomodations at his fortress of solitude several miles away and that he would like the monster to join him there so he could run some tests and perform some experiments with the monster at the fortress. He believes he can help the monster control his occasional urges to kill. He also believes he can help him be accepted by the public.

Delighted at the prospect of escaping his lonely existence, the monster agrees to guide Doc back to the entrance.

The unlikely duo began their trek back to the outside world, warily watching for their abominable assailants.

To be continued.

As they headed for the entrance of the caverns they heard a tremendous crashing noise in the direction they were headed. Rushing to see what caused they came upon a cavein that blocked their exit. Even with their combined prodigious strength, it would take them days to dig themselves out. The Frankenstein Monster looked at Doc and shrugged. There was another passage to the entrance but it would take them a great deal of time to wend their way around. All Doc had to do was follow him.

They moved for hours with no sign of the creatures that they'd battled but the passages they followed seemed to lead deeper underground, farther then Doc had yet been. Doc asked the monster about the creatures as they moved along.

The monster said he'd only had a few previous encounters with them and they'd quickly learned to leave him alone which was probably why they weren't being harrassed now. They only had a short ways to go and they should soon be working there way back up towards the surface.

After a few more minutes they heard a strange shuffling sound coming just ahead. It was much louder then the sounds the creatures make. Doc detected a deeply unpleasant odor that was very different then the smells he'd encountered before. They warily investigated.

Both of them gasped. They were confronted with the most grotesque abomination they'd ever seen. Their wildest nightmares had never prepared them for this.

To be continued.