Read Online Chimera by David Wellington - Free Book Online Page A

old lady was not going to survive his wrath.
    â€œYou shouldn’t be here,” she said. “How did you get
out?”
    â€œI’ll ask the fucking questions!” Brody shouted. He
grabbed the metal bed frame underneath her and yanked hard, throwing the
mattress, the box spring, and Dr. Bryant to the floor. She struggled with the
sheets wrapped around her neck and arms and tried to scuttle away as he reached
down with inhuman speed and grabbed her by the shoulder.
    â€œNo,” she screamed, as his fingers closed around
her clavicle and crushed it into powder. Pain ran screaming up and down her body
as her arm twitched wildly against the floorboards. “Please—please just—tell me
what you want to know! I’ll tell you anything!”
    Brody let her go. “That’s better.” He walked over
to the door and shut it carefully. For a while he didn’t look at her. He stared
down at his hands, at the floor. “That’s . . . better. Just everybody
relax.” Was he talking to himself, as much as to her?
    He sat down in the chair by her dressing table. He
dropped into it hard enough to make it creak, as if he wasn’t used to fragile
furniture. She supposed he wouldn’t be. “You left us there. You just left
us.”
    Dr. Bryant was in horrible pain, but she knew she
had to do something. The telephone on the bedside table was useless. There was
no way help could reach her in time. There was a pen, there, however, perched on
top of the crossword puzzle she’d been working on before she fell asleep. She
grasped it with her weak left hand and fumbled the cap off.
    â€œYou—you didn’t want us anymore,” Brody said, his
anger back to a low simmer. Dr. Bryant knew that the comparative calm wouldn’t
last. He rubbed at his hair and face with both hands. “I guess we didn’t work
out, huh?” A nasty grin crossed his face. “I guess we just weren’t good
enough.”
    Dr. Bryant dropped the pen. She’d managed to scrawl
a message on the wall next to the bed frame. Nothing complex, but enough that
the right people would understand what it meant. Assuming the right people ever
saw it.
    â€œBrody,” she said, “It wasn’t like that. It
wasn’t—”
    â€œYou said you were our mother! You stood up on the
platform, and you shouted it through a loudspeaker. You were our mother, and you
were going to take care of us! Make sure we were okay!”
    â€œWe did what we could,” she pleaded. “It wasn’t
safe to—to get any closer. We sent you food, and clothes. Toys—”
    â€œYou’re pretty stupid for a doctor, huh?” Brody
asked. He dropped to his knees next to her and smashed her across the face with
a hand like a lion’s paw. “Stupid! Stupid! I know how to read, you stupid bitch!
You gave us books . You gave us books so we could
read. Did you think we wouldn’t figure out what a mother was supposed to be?” He
struck her again and again. “In the books, the mothers hugged their children.
They loved them! You never loved us,” he said, and his voice was a roar.
    â€œIt wasn’t safe,” she begged, in between blows. “It
wasn’t safe—we couldn’t—we couldn’t—please stop! Please!”
    Brody stopped hitting her across the face. For a
moment he glared at her, his nostrils flaring. “This isn’t going right.”
    She could only stare up at him. Blood ran down her
face in streams.
    â€œThis isn’t what I expected. I thought I was going
to come and talk to you, just talk. That I could learn something here. But I
just keep getting frustrated.” He shook his head from side to side.
    â€œBrody,” she managed to squeak out, “Brody, I’m
hurt. I’ll . . . I’ll tell you anything. I’ll . . . I’ll be
your mother if you want, just—”
    â€œYou