So I will tell you the story. Perhaps YOU will catch and kill the Monster for me!

Chapter 1

It all began when I was a young man in school. I wanted to know everything about everything. But most of all, I wanted to know about LIFE. What made things live? What made them able to grow and breathe and move? I wanted to know it. And I tried very hard to find out.

It took me almost six years. But then I learned. At last I knew the secret of life! I told no one about it. Not my father, or my brothers. Not even my sweet Elizabeth—the girl I was going to marry.

There was something I had to do first. I wanted to surprise the whole world. I wanted to make a living creature. A creature who could think and laugh and live! I wanted to do what God himself had done when he created people!

I knew how to put life into a lifeless thing. But I did not know how to make a body. How could I put together a body? I went to graveyards. There, I found the bones of dead men. And I took them home to my workroom. From others who had died, I took ears and feet and hands.

I did not like this part of it. At times it made me sick. And I had to keep away from people. I didn’t want them finding out. Not even my own family, who lived far away from me in the mountains.

I had to make other parts of the creature myself. He was going to be big. Eight feet tall! And stronger than any man or woman on earth.

At last the time came. I was ready. It was a cold and gloomy night in November. The room was dark when I went in. The creature lay on the table. It was a thing of death. But soon it would have life! Soon the world would say what a great man I was! So I thought.