Abduction by Rodman Philbrick

Author:Rodman Philbrick
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781497685345
Publisher: Open Road Media Teen & Tween

Chapter Twenty-one

Luke lay perfectly still. He kept his eyes shut, but strained his ears for some sign of what was happening. All he could hear was the hum of machinery. And an odd sucking sound.

Phwup. Phphwuup!

Cautiously, Luke opened his eyes. He didn’t expect to be able to see. He was still cocooned in the alien carapace.

But light shone into his eyes. Too bright. Then a shadow passed over his face and he could focus.

It took him a second to realize what was happening. A giant disk was descending right over his face. It grew larger, filling his vision.

It was right on top of him. About to crush his head.

Without thinking, Luke flinched away.

His head turned. His body followed. He was rolling.

Panic gripped Luke like a vise. He braced himself to fall, tensed for the shout of discovery that would come any second.

But there was no shout. He came to rest in weightlessness. There was nothing under him. Luke twisted to look. His whole body turned.

The floor was there. Below him. About four feet. There was nothing between it and his floating body.

Phwup. Phphwuup!

Luke’s pulse jumped. He jerked to look for the noise and tumbled wildly in midair. The room whirled. What little he could see as he spun filled him with increasing horror.

The spinning slowed, stopped. Carefully, Luke turned his head toward the sucking noise. He saw himself. Luke. Lying motionless on a gurney.

A large machine was suctioning the transport carapace off him. Large transparent sheets disappeared into a thick hose. It was the same substance as the piece he had found in the woods.

Slowly Luke looked down to see the lower half of his floating, conscious self. Arms, legs, torso, all there. But transparent, like a ghost.

He felt queasy, but no longer panicked. Frightened, maybe, but not terrified. It was a bit like it had been in the vision this morning when he saw himself and then Mandy.

Mandy. Slowly getting the feel of his non-body, Luke turned, looking for her. She was on another gurney a few feet away. A second machine was sucking the carapace off her. Her eyes were closed.

There was no one else around. Tentatively, Luke tried a small kick, figuring that floating would be a lot like swimming. Slowly, he moved toward Mandy. Stopping was more of a problem. But he was able pretty much to use the air in here like he would water.

He floated close to her ear. “Mandy. Can you hear me? Mandy?”

There was no response. He hadn’t expected any.

He looked around more closely. He and Mandy were in a room that looked like an operating theater. Unknown equipment surrounded both gurneys. All of it looked clean, polished, and clinical.

There weren’t any windows. One wall curved outward. The floor was level, the other three walls vertical. The surfaces were a luminous gray, almost silver. Metallic-looking.

Against one wall was a bank of strange-looking computers, like nothing ever seen on Earth. Their screens were blank.

There was a noise somewhere outside the room. It was a low, buzzy, chuffing sound.

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