BEAST Read Online Free Page A

day. While dinner cooked he went into the spare bedroom and changed into athletic shorts and an old shirt. He hit the treadmill as he watched the news from the flat panel television that was mounted on the wall. After his workout he showered and by then dinner was ready.
     
    Christopher sat down at the table and ate his meal. His eyes drifted to the empty chair opposite him as he chewed.
     
    ~***~
     
    Christopher headed for the subbasement gym. No one ever came in at 5:00 am; no one. Most of the FOB employees didn’t begin straggling in until about 6:30 and he would be finished long before then. He liked the little gym because it was small. He would go in, slip in a mixed tape or CD ; usually something with guitars and more than likely some vintage rock. He was only 25 but liked Zeppelin, The Who, and Ozzy just as much as he liked the The Dave Matthews Band and Jason Mraz for their singing ability. Good music was good music no matter when it had been made.
     
    He cut on the lights and slipped in Neil Young’s; Cortez the Killer. As the mellow guitar rift drifted from the speakers Christopher stretched. It wouldn’t take much for him to lose the extra three or four pounds without sacrificing his daily Twinkie.
     
    Wearing workout pants and a hoodie which he kept over his head when in this portion of the subbasement, Christopher hit the treadmill. He loved to run. More than that, he liked the control he had when he exercised. There was nothing much else the loner could do as a teen but workout. He didn’t have any friends and he had learned that while it didn’t matter that beneath his shy shield he would have been a good friend to have , but most never tried to find out. You couldn’t really change what people thought even if you smiled your crooked smile or said thank you softly or even if you kept your head down and didn’t meet anyone’s eyes. But what you could do is run. And then when his body began to transform he lifted weights.
     
    His parent’s didn’t have much. There were four kids to feed on one income. B ut they lived in Corbin Kentucky where you didn’t need to try to scrape up the funds to play school sports when you could run through the mountains for free. And Dad had found him an entire weight set from his weekly visit to the Salvation Army. And then Christopher had found a way to spend his free time. It was a catch 22, though because as he got bigger he just became even scarier.
     
    Christopher hated thinking back on those days and put it out of his mind as he allowed the music to carry him away while his feet pounded along the treadmill. 
     
    …He came dancing across the water…
     
    The sweat rolled down the cut lines of his back and Christopher didn’t even notice. His black hoodie kept the heat inside. He ran fast imagining the mountains…
     
    …He came dancing across the water, Cortez Cortez …
     
    His mind played the guitar rifts as he silently sang and his feet pounded…pounded…Christopher ran and felt free in his little gym sanctuary.
     
    ~***~
     
    Ashleigh got d ressed in her ratty grey sweat pants and a pink shirt that had SUPERSTAR written out in rhinestones across the front. She’d been serious about working out when she had invested $90 in cross training shoes because the salesman had said it would maximize her workout.
     
    She had purposely arrived at 5:30 even though she didn’t have to be at work until 8:00. She figured she would work out for an hour to an hour and a half, take forty-five minutes to get showered and dressed, and another half hour to have breakfast in the cafeteria. She’d seen that they had egg white omelets and turkey sausage now.  She’d have time to kickback and recuperate before starting her day. But best of all, by coming so early she’d get to the gym before anyone else showed up.
     
    The Federal B uilding was quiet when she arrived. No one had yet arrived to visit the Social Security Office or to have their taxes prepared. None