They came angry and ignorant, all of them out for blood, to the mansion on Salem Hill. They arrived after the fires and came with it too. Surely, their torches were lit from the same exact fire that blazed in the background as they approached. Electric fury jumped from one to the next, tending each flame, making sure that none burned too low.
The mob marched up, hundreds deep. They were mostly men, but there were smaller figures in the crowd that could have been women, probably even children. They would have looked like ants if it weren’t for the chaotic jostling and amalgamous movement. There was no order within their ranks, except for that made by fear and furry, fusing them all together with the driving purpose of destruction. It could have been the whole of Thompson Town coming to burn the mansion. More truly, they came to burn what they believed lie in wait behind it’s walls.
Lightning leaped across the sky and thunder roared behind it. The towns people roared back and seemed to pick up speed. Scared by the electric storm, they raced to Salem Hill, where they believed the trouble had started and where they would end it.
###
Doctor Van Quinton Franks remembers watching all this from the high windows of the mansion. He recalls his feeling of helplessness. He can see himself, as if the event has been astral projected through time, running from window to window with no plan of escape. He had no way out. What’s worst, he knows that if there was only more time he wouldn’t’ve needed a way out.
###
Underneath the washed out stones of his mansion, machinery shuttered with life. He felt the groans underneath as well as heard the grinding of cogwheel on cogwheel. He also could hear the villagers shouts and shrieks carry up the hill. He wondered if their march up contributed to the vibrations he felt travelling up from his toes to the crown of his head. His sense of hopelessness deepened. His machine only just now started churning. It wasn’t ready yet and probably wouldn’t be for a long time. Certainly, nothing would be accomplished by the time they marched up to the castle door.
He moved away from the windows. Watching them would do nothing to speed up the process. It would do nothing to protect him, or his life’s work from the flame. He descended into his lower chambers. There was nothing left for him above ground.
###
There’s only ruins now, but he can see his descent as if the walls stood around him. He follows himself down. He’s surprised that the stairs to below still stand, but only mildly. His mind is preoccupied with the past. Memories suck him in as he sinks down into the dark.
###
The lab was in what was once a wine cellar. Usually, it stretches far away from the entrance, but rotating sprockets, kissing cogs, churning joints and wheels took up all that space now. The whole room felt alive with movement. To him it seemed as if the energy was frantic, like the device knew time was of the essence.
He walked over to a control station. Checked gauges, pulled a lever. His heart banged at its cage. Everything was working fine. His creation would be coming about nicely if it were not of the mob racing for its destruction outside.
Lightning struck again. He couldn’t see it way down in the cellar, but the machine rumbled with it’s energy every time it flashed. The thunder answered his brother.
The machine, he called a soul engine. He designed it to replicate the human soul using electric energy. At the center of the spirit engine’s outer workings was a jar. Protruding from that jar were two golden prongs. He filled the jar with a special compound. After the chemicals energize, they would combine to create a pure soul without the corruption of flesh.
In his excitement he told the people of Thomas Town his plans. They didn’t understand and they shunned him. He worked, still, without losing enthusiasm. He made the mistake of trying again. He wanted to include the town’s people in his discovery. They would have none of it and further they were enraged by it this time. They blamed him for the town’s hardships. Failing crops, dying livestock, all caused by his meddling on Salem Hill. The fire was the last straw.
Earlier in the day, the day he decided he would test his soul engine, dark clouds gathered around the town. The people began to talk. They didn’t trust the eccentric living outside of Thompson Town, away from all it’s people. They didn’t understand him, therefore he was questionable.
When lightning struck without rain, the people stirred. When it struck and started a fire that raged, consuming everything in sight, they came to him. It didn’t take much.
Now he heard them outside, despite his being below ground. He wished the soul engine would finish before they arrived to dismantle it. No doubt they were riled enough to destroy his whole castle and the engine along with it.
###
He thinks back to the engine and the container at its center as his eyes adjust to the dark of the cellar. He can barely recognize his creation in the ruins. Cracked and scorched stones are every where. He crunches on broken glass and bits of wood.
It saddens him to think about his loss. He wishes he had had more time. He wishes they had given him a chance to explain. But that is all past. There is no way to recapture what is no more.
He remembers the powerful rumble of the machine and the bubbling of the life juice in the jar. His grief starts to morph, change into something hotter. His fire is lit and he enjoys the warm feeling in his gut like bar mead. Thompson Town wronged him.
He holds on to that feeling because later he would show them. Tonight he would sleep in his mansion and tomorrow he’ll rebuild.
###
As they beat at his door, Doctor Franks saw the jar fill with white light. A humming grew in his ears and all other sound faded. The crash of lightning and growl of thunder grew distant. He didn’t even hear when they finally broke down the doors to the mansion.
The glass of the jar shattered right before the light became blinding. The light stretched on to fill the room and it touched him. It surround him then entered him. Everything else around him disappeared. He knew nothing, was nothing. There was only light, glorious and pure.
Then the sun was shining in his eyes. Instead of the down of his mattress, he felt the rough earth underneath him. The air blew on his face fresh, unhindered by stone walls. He was lying outside as the other night’s events came rushing back to him.
He had done it! He created a soul, but something wasn’t right. How did he get outside? He turned in a circle and didn’t get all the way around before he saw the ruin of his mansion. The mansion had burned to the ground and Thompson Town had decided to go back to live their lives as if nothing had happened. His mansion was gone, the lab destroyed. His soul engine completely crushed.
He felt crushed and destroyed. He thought he had nothing left. But that feeling didn’t last long. He felt fire fill his belly, hot and white as the light that filled him the night before. He started to feel a kind of peace too. He knew what he had to do. What was once built could be rebuilt and that’s what he intended to do. First though, he would have to go into town for some supplies.