FrankenRat - A love story (standard:romance, 3594 words)
Author: hvysmker	Added: Dec 30 2004	Views/Reads: 3573/2421	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Even a mostly mechanical rat has a chance of finding love.

FrankenRat stood on the windowsill of his master's, now his, castle.  He
was a sad little creature, now on his own.  His master was dead or 
gone, nowhere to be found.  Frankie had been forced to watch his friend 
the humanlike monster destroyed by idiotic villagers. 

The frightened rat had waited until the villagers left, after stupidly
trying to burn down a stone castle.  After the fire burned itself out, 
Frankie ran through the still hot rubble, trying to find any sign of 
life in the debris. 

Finding none, not even the Doctor's body, Frankie knew he was on his
own.  It would take months to clean up the mess. 

“Well, might as well get started,” He wiped his eyes, squared his
mechanical shoulders, and started his tasks.  Doctor Frankenstein had 
programmed Frankie to clean up his own messes.  The mostly mechanical 
rat figured that meant the remains of his friend the monster too. 

Almost exactly a month later, Frankie had the place spotless.  He had
rebuilt the castle as much as he could for such a little critter.  
Although stronger that your average mostly mechanical Rat, he couldn't 
lift the bigger stones. 

Frankie had used his knowledge to place the Monster's head and torso in
a window of the highest tower to scare the occasional villager away.  
He would light candles at night to scare others. 

There was only one odd incident during FrankenRat's cleaning phase.  One
young villager, obviously much dumber than the norm, came up and 
knocked at the door.  Frankie dropped his trowel, interrupting the task 
of laying bricks on a ground floor wall, to answer the door. 

“Good morning, Sir...uh...Rat?”  The human asked Frankie, “Do you have
something I can eat?  I'd be glad to work for something to eat?” 

“Why don't you go home to the village, where you belong?”  An angry
FrankenRat jibed at the boy. 

“I got lost, and they don' like me much anyway,” the boy answered,
looking over his shoulder, “cause I din' wanna' raid this place before. 
 They says' I'm chicken, and call me Chickie-Chickie.” He looked so sad 
standing there that Frankie invited him inside.  Chickie stayed and 
helped Frankie fix the place up.  There was still plenty of human food 
lying around in secret rooms, along with a great deal of gold.  Being a 
mostly mechanical Rat, Frankie had no use for gold. 

Things went well for the first few months, winter coming in and then
running out, downhill, past the village, and away for another year.  
Chickie was happy to have a big expensive castle, with his own room.  
He had come from a large family of fifteen children in a two room 
shack.  Now he had a different room for every day of the week, each one 
bigger than his old shack. 

Frankie was getting restless though, with only one big stupid human
around.  One day he had Chickie make him a belt and small money pouch 
filled with chips of gold. 

“You take care of the castle, Chickie.”  He told the boy.  “I'm going
out to find myself a mate, another mostly mechanical Rat, much 
preferably a mostly mechanical female.” 

“Ok, Frankie,” Chickie told him, “I knows' how ta' light a candle,
wanna' see?” 

“No, that's ok Chickee, I trust you do,” FrankenRat shook his head,
“Just don't burn the place down again.” 

“Ok, Frankie, an' good luck, ya' hear?” 

FrankenRat plodded heavily down the long winding road to the village. 
The good Dr. had made him to look like a normal Rat, though bigger.  
Doctor Frankenstein loved to make his creations bigger than life in 
every respect.  The Doctor thought it would help protect them, but all 
it did was make them stand out.  To a human, Frankie looked like a 
normal large rodent. 


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