Frankenstein: Dead and Alive by Dean Koontz

Janet’s performance lasted significantly less than a minute, there was much for Bucky to see, an education in ferocity and cruelty that the torture specialists of the Third Reich could not have provided to anyone who devoted a year of study to them. He stood in awe of her inventiveness.
    Considering the mess in the family room whenJanet was done, Bucky was amazed that she had made so little noise, certainly not enough to wake anyone who might be sleeping elsewhere in the house.
    On the plasma-screen television, the chain-saw guy in the orange wig and the clown makeup did something to the girl chained to the statue of George S. Patton, something the moviemakers had thought was so unspeakable that audiences would shriek with horror and delight in order to repress the urge to vomit. But by comparison with Janet, the moviemakers were no more imaginative than any child sociopath tearing the wings off flies.
    “I was so right,” Janet said. “Killing in the nude is the best thing ever.”
    “You think it’s definitely one of your personal core values?”
    “Oh, yes. It’s totally PCV.”
    Although they did not know the Arceneauxs as well as they had known the Bennets, Janet and Bucky knew that in addition to Charles, four other people lived in this house: sixteen-year-old Preston, who was the neighborhood bully, Antoine and Evangeline, and Evangeline’s mother, Marcella. The grandmother had a downstairs bedroom, and the others were on the second floor.
    “I’m ready to do one just as complete as you did Charlie,” Bucky said.
    “Do Marcella.”
    “Yes. Then we’ll go upstairs.”
    “Take off your clothes. Feel the power.”
    “I want to do one with my clothes on first,” saidBucky. “So when I do one in the nude, then I’ll have something to compare it to.”
    “That’s a good idea.”
    Janet strode out of the family room with the power, the grace, and the stealth of a panther, and Bucky followed in high spirits, leaving the door to the veranda open to the night.

CHAPTER 17
    Because a woman capable of humility, shame, and tenderness presented a more satisfactory punching bag than a woman who could only hate and fear and stew in anger, Victor designed his Erikas to have a wider range of emotions than others of the New Race.
    As they drank together on the porch, Erika Five found that her sympathy for the troll quickly ripened into compassion.
    Something about him made her want to take him under her wing. Because he was the size of a child, perhaps he strummed a maternal chord in her—though she was barren, as were all New Race women. They did not re produce; they were produced in a factory, as were sofas and sump pumps, so she most likely had no maternal instinct.
    Perhaps his poverty affected her. Once he had burst out of his original Alpha body, the troll possessedno clothes to fit him, no shoes. He had no money for food or shelter, and he was too small and disturbing in appearance to return to work as a homicide detective.
    If you were given to literary allusions, you might say he was a Quasimodo for his time—or more poignantly, an Elephant Man, a victim of prejudice against ugliness in a society that worshipped beauty.
    Whatever the reason for her compassion, Erika said, “I can make a life for you here. But you must be discreet. It will be a secret life. Only I must know. Would you like to live here free from need?”
    His smile would have stampeded horses. “Jocko would like that.” Seeing her bafflement, he said, “Jocko seems to suit me.”
    “Swear you’ll conspire with me to keep your presence secret. Swear, Jocko, that you come here with only innocent intentions.”
    “Sworn! He who became me was violent. I who was him want peace.”
    “Your kind have a reputation for saying one thing and meaning another,” Erika observed, “but if you cause the slightest trouble, please know that I will deal with you severely.”
    Puzzled, he said, “Others like me exist?”
    “In fairy tales, there