Club Monstrosity Read Online Free Page A

so interesting,” Grimes said.
    She walked over to one of the refrigerated drawers that held the bodies and opened it. As she slid the sheet-covered body out, she said, “The cops have several eyewitness statements that say our victim was invisible before the mob attacked him. That he only became visible after he was killed.”
    Natalie’s ears began to ring and her vision blurred for just the slightest second. She fought to keep her face calm and nonreactive.
    “Invisible?” she repeated. Her voice seemed pretty calm to her own ears, though a little shrill. “Wh-what does that mean exactly?”
    Grimes shrugged. “According to the report, the guy was just clothes draped over nothingness. He had no hands, no face, just . . . nothing.”
    Natalie clenched her hands into and out of fists at her sides. “That’s crazy talk. The cops have to be wrong about the lack of drug involvement. Sounds like the witnesses were on something.”
    “Nope,” Grimes said. “None of the witnesses appeared to have any kind of impairment, beyond being freaked out about the whole mob-beats-guy-to-death thing. Oh, and the invisible-guy thing.”
    Natalie nodded because it was expected, but inside her head, her mind was screaming about Ellis. He had been missing at the meeting. Her brain spun around on invisible dead men and mobs and news coverage and about twenty other thoughts that crowded and echoed in her head, none of them good.
    “So, do you want to see what the Invisible Man looks like?” Grimes asked with glee.
    Natalie hesitated. She sort of knew what Ellis looked like. Sure, he was invisible, but like in his old movies and book, he could cover up that fact through all kinds of creative means. He always said a modern world made being invisible less . . . see-through.
    In the early spring, fall, and winter, he used scarves, hats, and sunglasses to disguise his monstrous qualities. When sunglasses drew too much attention, like at night, he had a large collection of full-coverage eye contacts to choose from.
    But in the summer, when it was boiling hot and sweaty, he couldn’t get away with wearing his usual disguises. Not only would he have been uncomfortable, but a man in a calf-length trench coat, hat, and sunglasses, swathed in a scarf, would have probably alerted Homeland Security.
    Instead, he used his training as an actor and covered his invisible skin with makeup to create whatever appearance he wanted. Once he’d even been black, despite being told how truly inappropriate that little stunt was . . .
    But there was one “face” he wore often enough that Natalie had always thought it might just be his own.
    “Okay,” she whispered.
    “Then do the honors,” Grimes said. “And get the gurney while I scrub up.”
    Her boss turned away to prepare herself for the actual autopsy, which was just as well. If the guy under this sheet really was Ellis, Natalie was going to have a hard time covering her reaction.
    There was a container of gloves attached to the wall and she grabbed a pair and tugged them on before she slowly grabbed the edge of the sheet. Taking a deep breath, she yanked it back.
    The white fabric pulled away, revealing a face swollen by the beating. Even under the massive bruising, though, she could see it was a face she both knew and didn’t know.
    “Oh no,” she whispered. Tears stung her eyes and forced her to blink to keep them at bay. “Oh, Ellis.”
    She stared down at him, finally fully revealed in death in a way he could never manage in life. One of his eyes had been swollen shut, but the other was open and blank, staring at nothingness.
    “His eyes were green,” she said with another sad sigh. “I always wondered what color they really were.”
    “Did you say something?” Grimes asked, suddenly at her elbow like she was a medical-examining ninja or something.
    Natalie started. She could not let her boss know she knew their “patient.” That would only lead to questions. And it would