The Postmortal Read Online Free PDF

my mind of him jumping into his closet and coming back out carrying a cattle prod and wearing a gimp mask. Instead, he wheeled a small cart toward the chair and uncovered the tray on top. There were three huge needles. Hell, they weren’t even needles. They looked like railroad spikes. Katy thought you got sixty shots in your armpit. My dad heard a rumor that it was administered via a balloon enema. I would have preferred either option. I handle normal shots just fine. These were elephant shots.
    “I do this fast. You’ll feel pressure, and it’ll sting. Badly. Here, hold this.”
    He handed me a stress doll, one of those rubber ones with eyes and ears that bulge out if you squeeze it. “I don’t think I—”
    “Trust me. You’ll want it.”
    I held on. He plunged the needles into me in rapid succession and in increasing order of excruciating pain: first my shoulder (not bad), then my neck (agony), then my thigh (like reverse childbirth). I squeezed the stupid doll until its ears could practically touch opposite sides of the room. It was horrible, but it was over quickly. He bandaged me up, undid the restraints, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
    “That it?”
    “That’s it,” he said. “We’re all done. Enjoy the rest of your life.”
    “Thank you.”
    He gripped my shoulder and looked me in the eye.
    “No, I mean it. Enjoy it. You still never know how much of it you have left.”
    He patted me on the back and escorted me out. I pushed the elevator button. Again it stalled at the fifth floor. I couldn’t have cared less this time. Down to the lobby I went. I stepped out into the flawless morning. I made it a point to find that blonde girl again one day. I now have all the time in the world to do it.
    DATE MODIFIED:
6/20/2019, 2:06 P.M.

“You realize you can never retire now, right?”
    Even if the cure is a complete hoax (and now that I’ve gotten it, that outcome is a virtual certainty), I still recommend you get it. The placebo effect is marvelous. I’m not supposed to feel supercharged from getting it, but I do. And if I find out ten years from now that it was all a lie, that’s still ten years of tricking myself into feeling downright ebullient. I’ll have to get it again after that.
    I felt like I could run a marathon when I got out onto the street yesterday. But because I am far too lazy, I instead opted for a leisurely walk back downtown. I also stopped for a donut, because it felt like the right thing to do. As I walked down into the Forties, I could hear the growing sound of a crowd in the distance. After a few more blocks, everything came into relief. I was close to the UN. The pro-cure protesters were standing outside. And if there is a group of people out there even more fanatical than the pro-death supporters, it’s the pro-cure supporters. They looked angry. One woman appeared to be shaking with rage as she walked around with a sign that said, LEGALIZE IT. YOU ARE LETTING US DIE. She paced in front of the building, stomping her feet like a T. rex.
    I made a turn to go across to Second Avenue, but police had already put up a barricade. Helicopters flew over the scene. My only way out was back up First. I quickly turned around to get away. A small flock of new protesters was coming my way. One of them jammed a flyer into my hand.
    “Don’t take this shit lying down,” he said. On top of the flyer was the headline THE CONSERVATIVE CASE FOR LEGALIZING THE CURE, BY ALLAN ATKINS. I didn’t know you could now get Allan Atkins rants in flyer form. I turned to the crowd in front of the headquarters. Normally, you see protesters demonstrating peacefully, walking in circles and whatnot. But these people were in rows, facing a single direction, pressed as close to the building as the cops would allow them to be. They didn’t look content to simply voice their disapproval. They looked like they wanted in. I got back up into the Fifties and went across town and back down as fast as I could.
    Once