Women and Other Monsters Read Online Free PDF Page A

Scott squint.  They led him through the facility, taking him past a room with a chair that had heavy leather straps bolted to it, like something from an insane asylum.  “What’s that for?” Scott said.  They did not answer.
     
    They passed a thick steel door, the size and shape of a bank vault, built into a wall of stone that was reinforced with concrete.  “What’s that for?” Scott said. 
     
    The guards shoved him forward.  One of them said, “Just take off your clothes and go into the shower.  Everything will be explained to you after you are decontaminated.”  
     
    Scott scrubbed the holes in his chest, looking down to watch soap bubbles form from inside the wounds.  Water went into the hole in his right shoulder and spilled out of the other side.  He was amazed at first, but soon, the sensation left him feeling too queasy to stand.  
     
    His clothing was gone when he came out of the showers, replaced by light cotton shorts and a tee-shirt.  His boots were gone.  Now he had a cheap pair of slippers to wear, the kind prisoners were issued in a jail.   
     
    The only person waiting for him when he left the shower was an unmasked military guard, who stood by the door.  “Where’s your mask?” Scott said. 
     
    “My pay grade’s not high enough to justify being protected from whatever kind of disgusting poison you got inside you, boy.  Don’t touch me, don’t breath on me, and don’t make me break my nightstick across your head.” 
     
    “Okay,” Scott said.  He followed the guard to the bank vault door and stood back as the guard spun the lock and pulled it open to reveal a small room of concrete walls and floor with only a thin mattress laying on the floor.  Scott stopped at the doorway and looked in. 
     
    “Go on now,” the guard said. 
     
    “I’m not a prisoner. Why are you treating me like this?  I didn’t do anything wrong.”
     
    “Seen any decent people raising up from the dead lately, boy?  Me neither. Get your ass inside.” 
     
    ***
     
    They made him do tests designed to measure the limits of his strength.  For short periods of time he could lift the rear end of a car into the air by just the back bumper, but after that he would be too weak to move. 
     
    The men in the masks drew vials of his blood for testing.  They measured him for radioactivity, electricity, and atomic energy but found nothing.  What seemed to truly annoy the researchers was that Scott refused to recreate the act of teleportation.  “I don’t know how I did it,” he insisted.  “I can’t do what you want me to do.”
     
    Statements were read from eyewitnesses at Bellicourt.   The event was broken down moment by moment until someone finally said, “It was the sight of the morphine needle.  Perhaps he only vanishes when he is afraid.” 
     
    The next morning, the guard tapped the outside of Scott’s door with his nightstick and said, “Time for your exercises, Subject 129.”
     
    “What the hell are you talking about?”
     
    The guard flipped the meal slot’s lid and said, “That’s all you are anymore.  A goddamn science project.  Now get up.”
     
    Scott did not move from his cot.  “I’m finished.  You people aren’t telling me anything, and I need to figure out who I am.  I must have family somewhere and I want to be taken to them.”
     
    The guard smiled, “Actually, I have a military jacket sitting on my desk right now.  It arrived in the mail yesterday.  There’s all sorts of good information in there for some dead man named James Scott.  Would you be interested in seeing it?”
     
    “You’re lying,” Scott said. 
     
    “You willing to risk that?”
     
    “Show me the file.”
     
    “Not unless you behave today.  Got something special for you.  If you want that file, you need to do as you’re told.”
     
    Scott sighed and got up.  “Lead the way.”  
     
    They walked down the hall toward the room with the lunatic chair