The Montauk Monster by Hunter Shea

Author:Hunter Shea
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp.
Published: 2014-04-06T21:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 23

The walk to Lab 101 was quick, but not without its share of surprises. From his vantage point, Dalton felt like he’d entered a wildlife sanctuary, not a government facility. The vegetation had been left to grow lush and dense. The humid air was heavy with the smells of damp earth and greenery. It called to mind days spent on his grandmother’s back porch, the acre of tilled land spread before them, snapping green beans and tossing them in a brown paper bag. A pair of feral cats, all dirty fur and tattered ears, skittered to his right, disappearing within the tall, dark grass.

The lab itself was a study in governmental architectural blandness, an unimpressive series of whitewashed connected concrete blocks, fronted by a grassy quadrangle. It had the look and feel of a ghost town. Dalton wouldn’t have been surprised to see a tumbleweed blow past. Cold, empty windows stared down at them, indifferent to their presence.

“I can’t believe I’m actually here,” Meredith said, her voice dripping with awe.

“On an island full of labs?” Dalton asked.

“You don’t understand.”

Meredith stopped and pointed with her crutch to a grassy area on their left. “What is that?”

Robert shaded his eyes and scanned the foliage off the paved walkway. “Hopefully not what I think it is.”

He cautiously stepped over the steel handrail, dropping onto the grass. Dalton touched Meredith’s shoulder and said, “I’ll go with him. Wait here.”

She followed his gaze to her crutch. He immediately felt like a creep, pointing out her disability like that. Yes, he wasn’t sure how she’d fare on the uneven terrain, but that was her decision to make, not his. It was too late to take it back and he felt saying he was sorry would only make things worse. He avoided her eyes and ran after Robert.

The man stood over a crumpled pile of stained clothes. There were rents in the fabric of the dark blue shirt and tan Dockers. One brown loafer lay on its side, just a few feet from the pile. A dried, unidentifiable substance flowed from the shoe to the clothes. When Robert bent down to get a closer look, Dalton warned him, “Don’t touch it!”

“Thanks for the warning. Trust me, I’m not going to touch anything on this island if I don’t have to. I just wanted to see if there were—”

He craned his neck, scanning the bundle. “Glasses. Blue Gucci frames. Only Dr. Stanley wore those.”

“I saw something like this a couple of nights ago. A couple on the beach was torn to pieces. They were scattered all around a dune. The chunks of their bodies were smoking, like they were dissolving in acid. I heard that everything completely melted in the morgue. If this is anything like that, Dr. Stanley is right here with his clothes.”

Robert straightened and took a few steps back. “What the hell were they messing with?”

Dalton looked up at the stark white structures that made up Lab 101. “Something they shouldn’t have. And if we don’t find any answers in there, a whole lot more people are going to end up like this guy.

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