Monster Read Online Free PDF Page A

b ack to Angela right then.
    “ Because he's not human.”
    “ Not human,” Angela whispered.
    Mary was instan tl y alert . “ What? ”
    “You said l ast night that Jim wasn't human.”
    “ No. I didn't.”
    “I heard you, Mary. I remember. Don't deny it. Why di d you say that?”
    Mary changed. No l onger was she bored, indifferent , or defiant. She was pale, and her check twitched. She was scared . This in itself frightened Angela more than anything the previous night had. Mary turned away an d pressed her hands to her face.
    “Because it's true,” she said.
    Angela reached across the table and touched Mary ’s arm. “What's true? What did he do?”
    Mary was having trouble breathing. “ Horrible things. ”
    “Tell me?”
    Mary slowly raised her he ad. “ You won't believe me, ” s he said for the third time.
    “Try me. Please? I’ll believe you.”
    Mary chewed on her lower lip. She was thinking, but not normal thoughts. There was a faraway look in her eyes , and where those eyes were focused was not a happy place.
    “Todd and Kathy,” she said finally, “ were not human beings anymore. That's why I killed them.”
    “ You mean they did somethi ng inhuman? They hurt somebody?”
    “ I mean they were no longer like you and me. ”
    Angela had no idea what she was talking abou t. “What were they, then?”
    Mary's lower lip trembled. “Monsters.”
    “Mary?”
    Mary smiled, a grotesque twisting of her face. “I told you.”
    “ No. Tell me more. I don't understand .”
    Mary sat back in h er chair and stared at Angela. “ You want me to start at the beginning? ”
    “Yes.”
    “It'll be a waste of time.”
    “I have plenty of time to waste.”
    Mary closed her eyes for a moment . When she opened them and began to speak, her tone had changed. She spoke softly and simply, as if she were recounting a great tragedy.
    “ You know how the cheerleaders and the football players practise before school starts at the beginning of September ,” Mary said. “ They meet and go through their routines and their plays. They do this every year. Well, this year you also know t hat I was seeing Jim . Sometimes I'd be bor ed and drive over to the school in the morning, just to watch the guys bang heads . I'd watch the girls on the squad work out, too.” Mary shrugged. “ That's when I began to get a clue.”
    “ A clue to what? ” Angela asked.
    M ary frowned, as if remembering her confusion at the time. “I’d watch the guys, and notice how Jim and Todd stood o ut. I don't mean in a normal way. They've always been excellent athletes . What got me was that all of a sudden the y were to o good . Todd was a linebacker, and J im the quarterback. Jim would hand the ball off to Todd, and no one could s top him. He wouldn't even bother dod ging. He simply mo w ed down anyone in his path. Guys would crum ble as if he were made of steel. When Jim wo uld pass, he'd throw tight, clean spirals that could barely be seen . When one of his passes hit a receiver, the guy wo uld double up as if he'd b een shot. Those passes hurt, and I mean hur t. The coaches thought it was great, bu t I saw guys staggering off the fi eld shaking their heads and clutch ing their s tomachs, refusing to come back.”
    “ That happens all the time in football practice ,” An gela said .
    Mar y ignor ed the remark. “ Then there were the girls. Kathy was head cheerleader. I'd watch the squad prac tice and they'd do some kind of pyramid thing, and Ka thy would come from out of left field and vault on to the of the other girls. She'd leap up ten feet easy. Right off the gro und.”
    “That's not possible.”
    Mary went on. “I began to watch those three. Jim , Todd, Kathy . You might think that's weird. After all, Jim was my boyfriend. Of course I didn't need to watch him – I saw him all the time. But the truth was that I wasn't going out with him much. He didn't ca ll me as he had, and when I was around him he was aloof. But that