Read Online Running With The Horde (Book 2): Delusions of Monsters by Joseph K. Richard - Free Book Online Page B

“You need to use your speaking voice; Andrew hasn’t received his ESP chip yet.” The comment was enough to elicit a few nervous giggles from the room and break the tension.
    Andrew glanced from Dick to Todd to find the hateful look was gone, replaced by a startling full-mouthed grin. “Todd Coody, Virology, 2 months, I’m gonna be your lab tech,” Todd said and then he followed it with the most grating and juvenile sounding high-pitched laugh Andrew had ever heard.
    “Shut your goddamn mouth, Todd,” Dick shouted, “Your fucking big-ass teeth make you look like you belong in a cage.” Todd immediately shut his mouth and looked down. Dick turned to Andrew, “Sorry about that, Dr. Penrod, Todd considers himself to be higher than his actual station in life. I need to remind him sometimes that he washed out at MIT. Don’t let him get to you, okay?”
    “Sure,” Andrew said quietly but the truth was Todd gave him the willies big time. Andrew found that he was sweating profusely; he picked up a cloth napkin and dabbed his face, “So,” he asked, “what’s with all the years and months?”
    “That’s how long we’ve been down here working on the project,” Dr. Farnsworth said dryly. Andrew looked at the older man’s face, his skin was slack and the bags under eyes his spoke volumes about the quality of time he’d spent inside Area 51.
    “What is this project you are working on?” he asked. Nobody answered. Except for Todd, who was still smiling like a ghoul, they all just looked away. The mood in the room was so somber he decided it would be a good time to bring up the elephant in the room. “Dick, since I’m here do I get to see the UFOs?” he said with a smile hoping to delight his new colleagues with his wit. But the folks around the table all looked to Dick with odd expressions on their faces.
    Dick smiled and crumpled up the paper agenda in his hand. He said, “Hell, I don’t see why not. This meeting is for you anyway, Dr. Penrod.” He glanced around the room with a grin, “Well gang, what Andrew wants, Andrew gets. Today is his day. Let’s take him on a field trip.”
    …
    “You are looking at the most sophisticated weather balloon in the history of the world, Dr. Penrod.” Dick said leaning over the safety railing that surrounded the spherical room. His voice sounded muffled through his helmet. “At least that is one of the rumors we’ve spread over the years. We tried to keep the dig site private when we found it but people talk and we can’t go around kidnaping everyone,” he said with a hearty chuckle.
                  “It’s not a UFO?” Andrew asked, trying to ignore the sour smell he was producing in the uncomfortable bio suit. Nobody answered him. Powerful lights from the ceiling and walls around the large room illuminated the craft into surreal detail. Somehow it looked to be extra three dimensional.
                  “It’s the lights, Dr. Penrod, they are called high definition,” Dr. Sarah Silinski said. “We’ve got every kind of light you can imagine beaming down on the ship. They’ve been added over the years as we’ve tried different tests and experiments. Just ignore Dick, he is about as funny as Todd.”
                  Andrew didn’t need the clarification. The ship was the most incredible thing he had ever seen. He circled the elevated viewing platform to get a look at it from every angle. The rest of the team waited by the entrance to the cavernous room. Clearly they had already spent copious amounts of time with the craft. Its shape reminded him of Saturn with its rings, though more oval than circular. He could see no windows or entrance points. There appeared to be no metallic substance to the shell just a thick, algae-green fibrous skin that seemed to ripple in the light as the ship hovered a few feet off the ground.
                  “What is supporting it?” he shouted back to the other side of the