Monsters - Chapter 35 – Human Again – Part 2 of 2

 Monsters

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 35 – Human Again – Part 2 of 2

 Alfonso was nervous and afraid.  Naked.  His wrists were manacled behind his back and his manacled ankles were bent and chained to his hands.  The exact same position he had woken up in, in the back of a van.  At least he was no longer gaged as he had been for that long drive.  But any food and water he was given had to be eaten on his belly, without the use of his hands.  The bastards!

Chinese bastards!  Everyone he had seen since he had woken up in that van had been Chinese, and he didn’t understand a single word of anything that had been said.  From everything he could tell, he was now somewhere in China…as unlikely as that seemed, but that’s the impression he got.  The last non-Chinese person he could remember seeing, was that…woman!  Death!  She had ripped the gasmask from his face, and the gas had done the rest.  She was the last thing he could remember seeing…although he didn’t really see her.  Her entire head had been covered, including her eyes.  Was she Chinese too?  He wouldn’t doubt it for a moment.  

Lying on his side, he had done his best to survey his surroundings.  In truth, he couldn’t tell much at all.  It was a small place with a concrete floor.  Wooden walls and a door.  Very plain.  Secured and chained as he was, he didn’t stand much chance of breaking out.  Especially since he had discovered another chain running to a large beam in the wall.  Whatever this place was, it had been built sturdy.

The door opened.  He watched as a man entered.  No surprise, he was Chinese.  But this one seemed different.  He acted different too.  Was this the man that would kill him? 

Xiang looked down at the chained naked man.  He smiled.  His practiced eyes wandered over the man’s body.  A black man.  It had been a while now since he had done anything with a black man.  It would be such a pleasure.  But unfortunately, this one was not going to be a plaything for his amusement.

“You are the one they call…Alfonso.  Correct?”

It was the first English words that Alfonso had heard.  “What of it?”

“I am Doctor Xiang.  A…medical doctor.  There doesn’t appear to be any lingering effects from the gas.”

“What do you want?” Alfonso demanded.

“To talk.”

“I’m not saying anything!”

Xiang laughed.  “Trust me.  You will.”

Alfonso didn’t like the sound of that.  He knew from his studies in mental conditioning just what some prison techniques could do to a man.  And China was particularly bad.

“Unfortunately,” Xiang continued, “questioning you is not going to be my pleasure.  But Miss Janice has kindly allowed me the opportunity to speak with you before I must leave.”

“Miss Janice?”

“Perhaps the most remarkable woman I’ve ever met,” Xiang replied.  “But you will meet her later.  So tell me, those…cages.  Was it you that developed them?  They are…ingenious.  I do wish I had the opportunity to study a subject in them for a much longer period of time.  I’ve already seen what it can do to a body, but…what it must do to the mind!  So, was it you that developed them?”

Even though Alfonso was proud of developing those cages, he decided that he wasn’t going to admit to anything.  If his position wasn’t so dire, he would have laughed at this man’s clumsy attempts to question him.  He stared up at Xiang and said nothing.

“Ah,” Xiang said with a shake of his head.  “No trust.  It won’t matter.  In a little while, I can guarantee that you will be wishing that Miss Carol had killed you instead of simply capturing you.”

“Miss Carol?” Alfonso asked.

“A young woman I have been asked to train a number of times in the past.  An assassin now, and I understand she is quite accomplished.”

“Is she the one they call Death?”

“Death?  I do not know.  However, I will concede that Miss Carol is quite deadly.  She has developed two main loves.  Guns, and motorbikes.”

“But you’re a doctor, and yet you trained her to kill.”

“Of course.  But then…curing people and taking care of them are not my main areas of expertise.  I’m far more interested in…how shall we say…torture techniques.  Being a doctor and understanding the human body as I do helps me to know just what will inflict the maximum amount of pain without killing someone.”

Alfonso’s eyes had gone wide as soon as Xiang had mentioned the word torture.  “You’re going to torture me?”

“Ah…as I said, not me.  Miss Janice has claimed that responsibility.”

“So this…Janice is going to apply the thumb screws.”

Xiang chuckled.  “Nothing so archaic.  Her methods are truly revolutionary.  To my knowledge, no one has ever come close to duplicating what she is capable of.  To a small degree, I am actually jealous of what she can do.”

“And yet you like to torture people.”

“Of course.  It’s just that my methods are more…physical than Miss Janice.  Her methods torture the mind and leave the body whole.”

That didn’t sound good at all to Alfonso.

I remember one case however, when I was called in to punish someone…after Miss Janice had done her work.  What she had accomplished was… truly awesome!  She had taken a healthy man and carefully constructed a completely new mind…a new brain as you will.  But not only did she do that, but she had put a type of switch in that brain so that with a simple phrase of words, you could go instantly back and forth from the old brain and person to the new brain she had created.  Quite remarkable.

“Sounds like hypnotism,” Alfonso said.

“Oh, I guess it is…of sorts, but believe me, it goes far beyond that.  Far, far beyond.”

“So if what she did to that person was so great, why did they call you in?”

Xiang chuckled again.  “What she did was so good, that the new mind she created in the subject, had no knowledge at all of his old life.  And unfortunately, her conditioning left him completely happy with what he was now.  That didn’t sit well with my employer.  She wanted the man to suffer.  So I was called in.”  He chuckled again.  “And what we did to that man…  He’s still suffering today.  And he will continue to suffer for the rest of his miserable life.”

Alfonso was growing nervous.  He already knew that the Chinese could be cruel, which didn’t bode well for him.  But something Xiang said gave him a hint of hope.  “So, this Miss Janice gave the man a new personality?  One where he was happy?”  As far as he was concerned now, if this Janice simply gave him a new personality, one that was happy, then that didn’t sound so bad.

“Oh no.  Not a new personality.  When she was finished with the man, he was no longer a man at all.  At least, not mentally.  No, she had removed every vestige of humanity from the man and carefully reconstructed his brain…into that of a dog.”

“A dog!”

“Yes.  It was really amazing.  Miss Janice hates men, you see.  But at the same time, she doesn’t like killing them.  So when she’s done with them, they aren’t men anymore.  Mentally, they aren’t human anymore.  And I understand she’s only gotten better at it since.  Unfortunately, that first time I saw her work, the subject was too happy in that new life for my employer’s taste.  She wanted him to suffer more.  So I was brought in.”

Afraid of what Janice might do again, Alfonso felt he had to ask.  “What did you do?”

“Oh,” Xiang said as he remembered it clearly.  “First we had his legs folded back permanently by having heavy steel bands welded onto them to make sure he would always stay on his hands and knees.  Then we covered his knees, his hands, and his genitals in very heavy rubber so he no longer had hands, there would be no way he could ever touch anything, or receive any sexual pleasure, and the rubber meant that the new permanent position of his legs would not deteriorate too much.  That thick rubber was like what they make automobile tires out of.  He has no trouble crossing a pavement highway now on a very hot day.  He can’t feel much of anything at all.  After that, we attached a ring from the rubber surrounding his genitals, and we ran cables from the rubber in his right hand, through the ring, and down to his left knee.  We did the same with his other hand and knee so that all his movements would be difficult and there was no way he could ever attack or try to fight back.”

Alfonso’s eyes were wide as he tried to imagine it. 

“And then, the brilliant part,” Xiang said as he remembered it all.  “A trainer was brought in and the…well, he really wasn’t a man anymore.  But a trainer was brought in and he was trained to behave as only an animal and nothing else…with the exception of one thing.  He was also trained to bring sexual pleasure.”

Alfonso remembered what he had done with the women under his care.  He too had trained them to become nothing but dogs that would also only provide sexual services.

“To this day,” Xiang continued, “if he doesn’t succeed in providing the necessary service, then he doesn’t get anything to eat at all, and I understand they are still giving him nothing but scraps and dogfood.  Of course, since they shipped him off to live in a brothel in China, he gets plenty of opportunity to provide that service.  Although in China, he also can’t understand what anyone around him is saying…much like any other animal.”  Xiang took in a happy breath as he thought about it.  “That has been his life for years now, and I see no reason why it won’t continue for the rest of his life.  But that was my first experience seeing Miss Janice’s work.  Remarkable.  Really.  And now lately, I’ve had the pleasure of working with her daughter as well, Miss Carol.”

“Her daughter?  Janice’s daughter, is Death?”

“I don’t know about this Death.  As I said, I only know that she is an accomplished assassin.”  He smiled.  “She has been interesting to teach.  Since she has an interest as well in…shall we say, cruelty…the two of us have had some interesting conversations.”

Alfonso’s imagination had no trouble picturing what kind of people had he fallen victim to.

“Are you sure you won’t speak to me about your remarkable cages and what else you’ve done?”

Alfonso tried to picture that scenario, and couldn’t.  What kind of people had he fallen victim to?

“Are you sure you won’t speak to me about your remarkable cages and what else you’ve done?”

Alfonso only stared at him, the shock of the things he had been told was too clear in his mind.  He couldn’t have spoken if he wanted to.

Xiang sighed.  “Too bad.  I’m sure we could have had a most enjoyable conversation.”  He nodded.  “I will leave you now to Miss Janice’s tender loving care.”

As Alfonso watched the man walking out, his mind was filled with nothing but horror at the things he had just heard.  What were they going to do to him?  And now this Miss Janice was going to take his mind and….  A small bit of something he had read in his studies fought to become clear.  There was very little evidence and the knowledge had come through several sources to get to him.  But the FBI and other authorities were looking for someone…a woman…who was a mind control expert.  And that woman left her victims as things that weren’t human.  Early subjects that were known could be brought out of it briefly with strong electrical shock, but they always reverted back to what she had done with them shortly after.  But nothing had been found at all that could bring back the few later victims they had found.  As far as medical science could tell, her later subjects were that way even more permanently than the earlier ones.

Could this Miss Janice the doctor had spoken about be that woman?  He very much feared he had fallen somehow into her clutches.  What would happen?  What would become of him?  And a large part of his academic brain couldn’t help but wonder, how did she do it?

 

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Slow and easy.  Brandy’s entire crotch didn’t just ache, it hurt.  There were stitches now in each of the places where she had been pierced, and all of the anesthetic had worn off.  Now Carol was “forcing” her to take a walk.  Something she knew would be very good for her stiff body, but also something that was now more painful than it would have been before the doctor had removed the cable holding her vagina closed.  But the doctor’s prognosis was that she would be left with no other impairment than a few small scars.  That was good…if it would ever stop hurting.

Her vagina hurt!  Her breasts hurt and flopped back and forth under her shirt.  She still couldn’t wear a bra, and had no interest in wearing one.  According to the doctor, if her breasts didn’t go back into shape by themselves, then she might require surgery.  He had suggested a good supporting bra.  But right now, she had enough discomfort, she didn’t need a bra to make matters worse.

“It’s beautiful today,” Carol said from her side as they walked out the back door, intent on simply walking around the grounds so Brandy could get some fresh air and exercise.

“You have no idea,” Brandy replied, completely enjoying the feeling of walking freely, even painfully, in the open air.  A blinding snowstorm would have been enjoyable weather to Brandy after what she had been through.

“What the heck?” Brandy said as she caught sight of the odd men squatting and moving around in the fenced in paddock next to the barn.

“Oh, they’re some of Mom’s work,” Carol told her.  My mother never did chickens before.  She wants to create a whole flock of them before we release them.”

“Release them?”

“Back in Las Vegas.  Mom is sure they’re going to be quite a sensation.”

“I have no doubt,” Brandy agreed.  The strange men that Janice had worked on didn’t seem to bother her at all.  Not like she had discovered just the presence of other men did.

They found Janice just inside the barn, talking with Mr. Wu.  “Hi Mom,” Carol greeted her mother.

Janice smiled at the sight of Brandy and Carol together.  “Out for a walk?”

“Yeah,” Carol replied.  “Just a short one.  Brandy is still hurting quite a bit from having that cable removed.”

“I have no doubt!” Janice agreed.

“What are you up to?” Carol asked.

“I was just about to go in and meet our new guest.  I’m actually looking forward to it.  I have no doubt that he and I are going to have a number of very interesting conversations…before I do something else with him.”

“Guest?” Brandy asked.

“Alfonso,” Carol told her.

Just hearing the name sent a major wave of fear through Brandy.  She turned around.  “Let’s go back to the house, okay?”  She started walking immediately. 

Carol turned and looked at her mother.  Both of them had worried expressions on their faces.