Chapter 5 3-2

"I put up the Christmas tree earlier that day," Angela said. "We made an appointment to have a candlelight dinner, cork a good bottle of wine and watch 'It' sa Wonderfulif', which we loved. Movies. We're also going to exchange presents, lots of little presents. Christmas is the happiest time of the year for us, and when it comes to presents, we are as excited as children..." She was silent for a while. I finally worked up the courage to look at her, but saw her eyes closed.Judging from her solemn expression, her mercury-colored memory must have slipped from Christmas Eve to the moment when her husband's body was found in the garage in June of the following year.

Candlelight flickered on her eyelids. She opened her eyes just in time, but for a moment her eyes remained fixed on the distance. She took a sip of the brandy. "I was so happy," she said, "the smell of biscuits, Christmas music, and a pot of Christmas reds just arrived from the florist, a gift from my sister Bonnie, sitting in the Over there at the end of the dressing table, the bright red flowers are full of joy. I'm in a good mood, really good. That's the last time I feel like that, and it will be the last time in my life. Anyway... I I was busy scooping the biscuit puree onto the baking paper when suddenly I heard a creaking sound, followed by another sound like a sigh, I turned around and saw a monkey Sit at this table."

"my God." "A rhesus monkey, it has a pair of scary dark yellow eyes, not like their normal eyes, very weird." "Rhesus monkey? Do you even know its species?" "To pay for nursing school, I worked as a lab assistant for a scientist at UCLA. Rhesus macaques are one of the most commonly used animals for experiments. I've seen quite a few of them." "So all of a sudden you see a rhesus monkey sitting right here." "There is a basket of fruit on the dining table—apples and oranges in it, and the monkey is peeling and eating the oranges. You say it likes to be neat, but the big monkey actually piled the peeled skins in a neat pile."

"Big monkey?" I asked. "What you're thinking of is probably the cute little monkey that performs on the street with an accordionist. Rhesus monkeys aren't like that." "How big is it?" "About two feet tall and weighed around twenty-five pounds." Such a monkey suddenly appearing in the middle of the dining table must have looked like a colossus. I said, "You must have been taken aback." "It's a shock, I feel a little scared. I know these big animals are very strong and powerful, and they are very gentle most of the time, but every now and then you have a temper or two.

Nasty, that monkey really isn't ordinary tough to deal with. " "Not the kind of monkey you want to keep as a pet." "God, no way, that's not a normal monkey - at least I don't look like it. Well, I have to admit that rhesus monkeys can be quite cute sometimes, with their little white faces and a ring of fur around their necks , but this one is not cute at all." Apparently, she could still see its appearance clearly in her mind. "No, this one is not cute at all." "So where did it come from?" Angela didn't answer. She froze on the chair, tilted her head, and listened carefully for any suspicious sounds around her.

I didn't hear any unusual noises. She obviously didn't hear anything, but she didn't relax when she spoke again, her thin hands clutching the glass like claws. "I can't figure out how it got in - it was sent inside, it wasn't particularly warm in December that year, and all the doors and windows were closed." "You didn't hear it come in?" "No. I was messing around with parchment paper and making a lot of noise from the biscuit mash, plus music on the radio. But the damn thing had been sitting on the table for at least a minute or two, because by the time I spotted it By then, it had eaten half an orange."

She scanned the kitchen with her eyes, as if out of the corner of her eye she caught suspicious movement in a dark corner. After using Brandy to stabilize her tense mood, she continued: "A disgusting monkey who doesn't go anywhere, just stays at this dining table." Her face twisted and she wiped the smooth surface with trembling hands, as if there might still be a few monkey hairs left on the table after all these years. "What about you?" "I walked around the edge of the kitchen to the back door and opened it, hoping the monkey would get out by itself."

"But he's enjoying his oranges, so he stays comfortably where he is," I guessed. "That's right. It looked at the open door, and then at me—and then it actually seemed to be laughing, a snickering sound." "I swear I've seen a dog laugh once in a while, maybe a monkey laughs too." Angela shook her head. "I have never heard them laugh in the laboratory. Of course, thinking about the kind of life they live...they really have no reason to be happy." She stared at the ceiling uncomfortably. The three interlaced halos on the ceiling kept flashing. The eyes that looked like ghosts were flaming, but they were just the projections of the three red glass candlesticks on the table.

To encourage her to continue, I followed her earlier statement: "So it doesn't want to go out." She made no answer, but got up from her chair and went to the back door to check that the latch was still firmly locked. "Angela?" She motioned for me to keep quiet, and carefully opened a small inch of the curtains with trembling hands, peeking into the moonlit backyard, acting as if she was afraid that a ferocious face would suddenly stick out of the glass window and stare fiercely. she. My wine glass was empty, I picked up the bottle, hesitated for a moment, and put the bottle down again without filling.

As Angela turned from the door, she went on, "That was no ordinary laugh, Chris. It was a horrible sound, I'll never be able to describe it to you, It was an evil... evil hehe snicker mixed with a sinister taste. Sniff, yes, I know what you're thinking - it's just a brute. Just a monkey Keiko Well, there is no kindness or evil at all, at most it is stubbornness, not evil; as for animals, it is inevitable that they will have bad tempers, that is for sure, but it is impossible to intentionally have evil intentions. That is just your wishful thinking. Humph, let me tell you, this monkey is not just naughty and innocent, it's the coldest laugh I've ever heard in my life, the coldest, ugliest—and the most evil."

"I'm still listening." After speaking, instead of returning to her seat, she walked directly to the sink.Every inch of the window pane over the sink was airtightly covered by curtains, but she carefully drew the curtains to make sure no one could peep through the window. Her eyes turned back to the dining table, as if the monkey was sitting on the table in her eyes.Angela went on: "So I took the broom and thought I could get this guy on the floor first and then the door. Don't get me wrong, I didn't want to hit him with the broom or or something, just trying to rub it lightly until that's all." "I understand." "But it wasn't afraid at all," she said. "Instead, it flew into a rage. It threw half of the leftover orange on me, and reached out to grab the broom, trying to snatch it away from me. It couldn't let me go. , and began to crawl towards my hand along the pole of the broom. "It's more flexible than anything else. It's so fast. It bared its teeth and screamed, spit at me, and approached me. So I quickly threw the broom away, and the monkey fell to the ground with the broom, and I quickly backed away. Back up until it hits the fridge." As she spoke, she bumped into the refrigerator again.The bottles in the freezer vibrated, and there was a faint sound of collision. "He was standing on the floor, right at me, and he threw the broom off. Chris, you don't know, he was furious. It just doesn't make sense to throw a tantrum just because of that. I didn't hurt him. It hasn't even been swept by the broom yet, anyway, it just doesn't want to suffer any losses from me." "You said earlier that most rhesus monkeys are very gentle." "But it wasn't, it grinned its lips, bared its teeth, kept screaming, repeatedly rushed towards me and back, jumped up and down, bared its teeth and claws, glared at me with a hateful look, and kept using Fist hammering the floor..." Her sleeves, which had been rolled up, had slipped a little by this time, and she put her hands in the cuffs to hide them.The monkey in her memory was still vivid to her, as if at any moment it might pounce on her and bite off her fingertip. "It's like a linru," she said. "The storybook kind of evil pixie, with those deep yellow eyes." I felt as if I could see those eyes too, burning eyes. "Then all of a sudden, he jumped on the cupboard and sprinted to the dresser closest to me. There it was, "she showed me with her finger," just inches from me next to the refrigerator, and when I turned my head, it was sitting at eye level, looking at me Hissing, a treacherous hissing sound, and its breath smelled of oranges.You knew how close we were, when I knew--" She broke off mid-sentence, pausing to listen to voices in the room. She turned to look to the left, where the door to the dark dining room was just in front of her. wide open. Her nervousness was immediately contagious to me, which, combined with my experience since sunset today, made me especially susceptible.I sat nervously on the chair, tilting my head slightly, not letting any evil sounds escape my ears. Three rings of light cast by the candles flickered soundlessly on the ceiling, and the curtains hung peacefully on the windows. After a while, Angela said: "Its breath smelled like oranges, and it hissed and hissed at me. At that time, I knew that as long as it wanted to do it, it could kill me at any time. I don't know why, but I knew it was possible." Kill me, even if it's just a monkey that weighs less than a quarter of me. I might have been able to kick the little bastard out of the way when it was on the ground, but it's right next to my face. " I can easily imagine how panicked she was.If a seagull, in order to protect its nest on a seaside cliff, keeps swooping down on you from the night sky, pecking your head and tearing your hair with angry screams and powerful flapping wings, That situation is certainly quite scary, but compared to the situation she described, I am afraid it is not a fraction of it. "I thought about running out the door," she said, "but I was afraid that it would only make him angrier, so I froze here. My back was pressed against the refrigerator door, staring at the nasty thing." Small eyes. After a while, when it was sure that I was overwhelmed by it, it suddenly jumped down from the comb, passed through the kitchen like lightning, closed the door forcefully, then quickly climbed onto the dining table, and went back to the kitchen. Pick up the oranges it hasn't finished eating. " I couldn't help pouring myself an extra glass of apricot brandy. "So I took the opportunity to reach out and grab the handle of this drawer next to the refrigerator." She went on to say, "There's a whole stack of knives in there." All her attention was on the dinner table, and just like that Christmas Eve that year, Angela rolled up her sleeves and reached out to the drawer without looking, to let me know which one she was referring to. She didn't take a step to the side, so she had to lean over and reach out to touch it. "I didn't intend to attack it with a knife, I just wanted to defend myself. But before I could touch anything, the monkey suddenly stood up from the dining table and screamed at me sharply. She continued to grope for the handle of the drawer. "It was too late to say it, and it grabbed an apple from the bowl and threw it at me." She said: "It hit me really hard, and it just hit my mouth, and my lips split on the spot." His arms were crossed to cover his face, as if he was being attacked. "I tried to protect myself. The monkey picked up another apple and threw it at me, and a third followed. If there were any crystal vessels nearby, its shriek would surely have been enough to shatter them all." "You mean it knows what's in the drawer?" She lowered her defensive hand, and then she replied, "It intuitively knows what's inside, yes." "After that you never dared to try to hold a knife again?" She shook her head helplessly. "That monkey moved like lightning. It felt like it could jump on me from the dining table as soon as I was about to open the drawer. I might have snapped my neck off before I could grab the handle of the drawer. gone." "Even if he didn't foam at the mouth, he could still have rabies," I agreed. "Worse than that," she said wryly, rolling up the sleeves of her sweater. "Worse than rabies?" "So I stood in front of the refrigerator, my lips were bleeding, I was terrified, and I was thinking about what to do next. At this time, Rhodes just came back from get off work. He came in through the back door, whistling, as soon as he entered the door. Seeing this strange scene. But his reaction was totally unexpected, he was surprised, but not totally surprised, he was surprised to see this monkey here, yes, but he was surprised The monkey itself was not surprised, what shocked him was to see it in this place. Do you see what I mean?" "I think I can understand." "Rod - damn him - he recognized the monkey, he didn't say 'why is there a monkey?' and he didn't ask 'where did the monkey come from?' he just said 'oh, old man God!' just like 'Oh, God!' It was a cold night, it looked like it was going to rain, he was wearing a windbreaker, and I saw him take a pistol out of the pocket of the windbreaker - as if he had prepared it for a long time Look. I mean, he just got off work, and he's still in uniform, but he never carries a gun with him in the office, and it's halcyon times, and he's not in a war zone, sneeze, man. His regiment is stationed Outside Moonlight Bay, he does clerical work, dealing with official documents and so on. He often says that work is boring, so he is getting fatter and fatter, and he just wants to wait for retirement. But at some point he actually started carrying a gun, and I didn't even know he had one until I saw it with my own eyes that day. " Rhodes.Colonel Freeman, an officer in the United States Army, was stationed at Fort Whitman, which had long been one of the main engines of the national economy.Eighteen months ago, the entire military base was closed, and now it is like ruins. After the Cold War, some military facilities that were considered redundant were disbanded one after another. This is just one of them. Although I knew Angela since I was a child, I didn't know her husband very well. I never knew what Colonel Freeman's job was in the army.Maybe even Angela didn't know all about it until he got home that Christmas Eve. "Rod, he is holding the gun in his right hand, his arm is straight and motionless, and the muzzle of the gun is aimed at the monkey. He looks more scared than I am. His expression is heavy, his lips are tightly closed, his face is pale, and his whole body is pale. , he looked as if he had only bones left. He glanced at me and saw my swollen lips and bloody jaw, but he didn't even ask, his eyes immediately turned back to the monkey, as if he was afraid that he would not Look out for the look of something going wrong. The monkey was holding the last piece in his hand Orange, but it has stopped eating.It stared at the gun very seriously.Rhodes said to me: "Angie, go to the phone, I'll give you a call right now." "Do you remember that phone number?" "That doesn't matter, that phone is out of service, and I recognize the switchboard number because it's the same first three digits as his office phone on base." "He wants you to call Castle Weaver?" "Yes, but the person who answered the phone—he didn't identify himself or give his unit, he just said hello, and then I told him that Colonel Freeman was looking for him. Rod took the phone with his left hand, his right hand still gripping the pistol, and he told the man 'I just found that rhesus monkey in my house, in the kitchen. ’ He listened, never taking his eyes off the monkey, and then he said, ‘Damn, how would I know, it’s here now anyway, well, I need help rounding it up. "'" Then the monkey just watched all this quietly? " "When Rhodes hung up, the monkey's ugly eyes turned its attention from the pistol to Rhodes. It stared at him with a defiant and angry look, and then let out that goddamn squeak." The sound, that ghostly yell that gives you goosebumps. Then it seemed to lose interest in Rod, me, and the pistol. After eating the last piece of the orange, he started peeling another." I held up the undrinked brandy I had just poured, and Angela went back to the table to pick up her half-empty glass.I was a little surprised that she hit mine with hers. "What are we honoring?" I asked. "To the end of the world." "Will it be destroyed by fire or ice?" "It's not that simple," she replied. She was as serious as a stone when she spoke.The color of her eyes is about the same as the polished stainless steel drawer surface in the mortuary of the Mercy Hospital, and her eyes are still too direct. She kindly shifted her eyes from me to the wine glass in her hand. "Rod hung up and asked me to tell him the whole story, so I did. He had hundreds of questions, and he kept asking me about the bloody lip, and he wanted to know about the monkey Did he touch me, or bite me, he couldn't believe it hit me with an apple. But he didn't answer my question at all, he just said 'Angie, you don't want to know.' Of course I want to know, but I see what he means." "Secret, military secret." "My husband has been involved with classified programs before, national security matters, but I thought that was a thing of the past. He said he couldn't talk about it, he couldn't talk about it, he couldn't talk to me, he couldn't talk to anyone outside the office. Talk, not a single word is allowed to leak." Angela continued to gaze at her brandy while I took a sip.The wine doesn't taste as good as it used to.This time, I noticed a bitter taste, and I remembered that apricot pits are one of the ingredients used to make cyanide. Driven by my deep-rooted optimism, I immediately take another swig, this time focusing only on the flavors that strike me as sweet. Angela said: "In less than fifteen minutes there came three burly men. They must have taken an ambulance or something from Fort Werwin for cover, but they didn't use sirens, and they didn't wear uniforms. Two of them went around to the back door, opened it without knocking, and stepped into the kitchen. The other must have picked the lock on the front door and came in from that direction without being noticed, because when he came from the dining room When we got to the entrance of the kitchen, the other two just came in through the back door. Rhodes' gun was still aimed at the monkey—his hand was shaking with soreness—and the other three were all equipped with tranquilizer guns." "I thought of the quiet street in front of our house, the charming architectural appearance of this house, the two symmetrical magnolia trees, and the aisle with jasmine hanging down. The passers-by who passed by my house that night would never have imagined In an ordinary family, there is such a strange drama going on." "The monkey seemed to have expected their arrival," Ambera said. "It wasn't worried, and it didn't try to escape. One of them shot it with a tranquilizer gun. It grinned and hissed." Hissing, and did not try to pull out the anesthesia needle.The second orange leftover in its hand fell on the table. It swallowed the piece in its mouth vigorously, then curled up, sighed, and lost consciousness.They left with the monkey, and Rhodes also left with them.I haven't seen that monkey since that time.Rhodes didn't get home until three o'clock in the morning the next day, and Christmas Eve was already over.We didn't exchange presents until very late on Christmas Day, but by then we'd been cast into hell and everything had changed overnight.We have no way out, I know it well. " Finally she drank the rest of the brandy in one gulp, and set the glass down on the table with a bang like a gunshot. So far, all she's shown is fear and grief, both of which cut to the bone like a cancer.Now a rage erupted from deeper within her. "I was forced to give them a blood test the day after Christmas." "Who are they?" "The secret planning team of Fort Werwin." "Secret plan?" "Once a month since then - they forced me to do a blood test. As if my body didn't belong to me, as if I had to pay the rent with my blood before they would let me live." "Fort Whitman has been closed for a year and a half." "Not quite, some things never die and can't, no matter how much we want them to die." Although she is a little haggard, Angela always has her unique beauty.Fair skin, elegant eyebrows, protruding cheekbones, a pointed nose, wide lips balance the slenderness of the cheeks, and a bright smile. These qualities, coupled with her selfless heart, show her cuteness , although her otherworldly appearance couldn't hide her skinny body at all.But at this moment, her face looked stern, cold, and ugly, and every angle was sharpened by the angry stone wheel. "If I dare refuse the monthly blood test, they will kill me. I'm sure. Or they will lock me up in some secret hospital, where it's easier for them to observe me." "What is the purpose of the blood test? What are they afraid of?" She seemed to be about to open her mouth to tell me, but then she closed her lips tightly again. "Angela?" I get blood tests every month myself, Dr. Cleveland orders me to do it, and it's usually Angie who does it for me.In my case, the blood draw was intended to be used as an experimental laboratory procedure to aid in the early detection of skin and eye cancers through subtle changes in the blood.Although the blood draw was not painful at all, I hated the feeling of being punctured, and I can imagine her disgust at being forced to draw blood instead of voluntarily. She said: "Maybe I shouldn't tell you these things. Although you have to know to ... to protect yourself. Telling you these things is like lighting a detonator. Sooner or later, your whole world will explode." "Is that monkey infected with some disease?" "I'd rather it be just a disease. Wouldn't that be nice? Maybe I'm cured by now, or I'm dead. Death is better than what comes next." She grabbed her wine glass and clenched her hands around it into a fist. At the time, I thought she was going to slam the glass into another corner of the kitchen. "That monkey never bit me," she said firmly, "never scratched me, never touched me, God knows. But they don't believe me, and I'm not even sure Rod Believe me, they didn't want to take any chances, they forced me... Rhodes forced me to have a vasectomy." Tears welled up in her eyes but didn't flow, flickering like fire in a red glass candlestick. "I was forty-five," she said. "I was never going to be able to have children because I had a circumcision. We tried everything to try to have a baby—visited infertility doctors, Hormone treatments, tried every single one - and nothing worked effect. " After listening to Angie's tortured complaints, I could barely sit still in my seat. I had an urge to get up, throw my arms around her, and let me play the nurse. She said in a voice trembling with anger, "Still, those bastards forced me to undergo surgery, permanent surgery, not only to ligate my fallopian tubes, but to remove the whole ovary, and they cut me and cut me All hope." Her throat nearly broke, but she was strong. "I was forty-five anyway, and I should have given up any hope, or pretended to. But let them cut me off...the humiliation and despair, and they wouldn't even tell me why. Christmas The day after that, Rhodes took me to the base. I thought I was going to interview about the monkey, its behavior, etc. He didn't want to tell me in detail, and he looked very mysterious. He took me into a Place... the vast majority of people in the base didn't even know that place existed. They anesthetized me despite my objections, and performed surgery without my permission. Why don't you tell me why you did that." I pushed back my chair and stood up abruptly.I feel sore in my shoulders and weak in my legs. I didn't expect to hear such a heavy story. Although I really want to comfort her, I don't intend to get close to Angela.The wine glass was still tightly held in her palm, and her rage sharpened her originally beautiful face into sharp knives. I don't think she wanted anyone to touch her at the time.I stood at the table bewildered for a while, not knowing what to do, and finally went to the back door and rechecked the latch to make sure it was locked. "I know Rhodes loves me dearly," she said, though her tone didn't soften. "He broke his heart to do what he was ordered to do, he broke his whole being, he took it with his broken heart and they worked inside and outside to trick me into having surgery. He's been a whole different person since then." When I turned around, I saw her clenched her fists, and the sharp knife on her face was sharpened by the candlelight. "If his officers know that Rhodes has always been so close to me, they should know that it is impossible for him to keep hiding secrets from me, especially after I have suffered so much for them." "In the end he told you the whole thing," I guessed. "Yes, and I forgive him, truly forgive what he did to me, but he still can't forgive himself. No matter what I do, he can't heal. He's so deeply hopeless... so fear." Now her anger was infused with pity and sorrow. "He was so terrified, so terrified that he couldn't have fun doing anything. In the end he decided to kill himself... When he died, there was nothing left of me to cut." She lowers her fist, releases her hand, gazes at the glass—and gently sets it down on the table. "Angela, what's wrong with that monkey?" I couldn't help asking. She didn't answer.The shadow of the candle flame danced in her eyes.Her solemn face was like a stone shrine to some dead goddess. I repeated the question again: "What's wrong with that monkey?" At last Angela spoke, and her voice was as weak as a whisper: "It's not a monkey." I know I heard right, but what she said didn't make sense at all. "Not a monkey? But didn't you say—" "It looks like a monkey." "Looks like it?" "And it's a monkey, of course." I was so bewildered that I couldn't say anything. "Yes and no," she murmured. "That's the problem." She doesn't seem very sane.I began to wonder if her fanciful statements were true or false, if she could even tell. Her eyes turned away from the candlelight to look into mine.She wasn't ugly anymore, but she wasn't beautiful either, her face now covered with ashes and shadows. "Perhaps I shouldn't tell you that your father's death made me emotional for a while, and I couldn't think clearly." "You said I needed to know the truth in order to... protect myself." She nodded, "You do need to know, yes, you need to know. Your life is hanging on a thin rope, and you need to know who those people hate you to the bone." I held out my hand to her, but she didn't accept it. "Angela," I begged, "I want to know what happened to my parents." "They're dead, they're gone, I love them, Chris, I love them as friends, but they're gone." "I still want to know." "If you're thinking in your heart that someone is going to pay for their death...then you should also know that no one will ever do that, not in your life, never will. No matter how much you know the truth, no one can Pay the price, no matter what you do." I drew my hand back and clenched it into a fist against the table.After a moment of silence, I said, "We'll see." "I resigned from the Ren'ai Hospital this evening." When she revealed the sad news, her whole body seemed to have shrunk, completely like a child in adult clothes, and she became that Duan Bing once again. Tea, medicine, and a pillow for a little girl with a disabled mother. "I'm no longer a protector." "So what are you going to do next?" She didn't answer. "That was your dream growing up." I reminded her. "It's meaningless now. It's the earth protector who wraps people up on the battlefield, and it's a fool to wrap people up on the battlefield of the end of the world. Besides, I'm about to change, change soon Now, can't you see it?" Honestly, I can't see anything. "I'm about to change, another me, another Angela, someone I don't want to be, and now I can't even think about it." I still can't figure out what the revelation of her words is, is this her rational reaction to the secret plan of Werwen Castle?Or her overly emotional remarks about the loss of her husband? "If you insist on knowing the truth, once you know, the only thing you can do is sit back in your chair, drink your favorite drink, and watch it all end," she said. "I still insist on knowing everything." "Then I guess it's time to show you." Angela said in a embarrassed tone. "But... oh Chris, it will break your heart." Her features were elongated by grief. "I think you need to know...but it's going to break your heart." When she turned to walk out of the kitchen, I naturally followed. She stops me. "I have to turn on the lights to get some things I need, you'd better wait here and I'll get everything." I watched her walk through the dark dining room.She turned on a light in the living room, and from there she disappeared from my sight. I was stuck in the kitchen squirming around, my mind was full of wandering, "a monkey that is a monkey and a monkey that is not a monkey" is the key to the whole thing, the problem with it is that it is and it is not at the same time.This kind of thing seems to be only in Louis.It can only happen in the fairy tale world of LE Wis Carroll, like the situation that Alice in Wonderland will encounter. I went to the back door and tried the latch again, and it was secure.I opened the curtains to visit, and Orson had disappeared. The leaves are whirling and the wind is blowing again.The moonlight was also moving, and it was obvious that the wind was blowing from the Pacific Ocean.When the evening wind brushed the face of the moon with torn clouds, the earth seemed to have waves of silver ripples.In fact, it is the streaks of cloud shadow that are really moving, and the movement of moonlight is just an illusion.However, it turns the backyard into a long river in winter, and the floating moonlight is like flowing water under the surface of the ice layer. At this moment, there was a short scream in the room, and that voice sounded as thin and desolate as Angela's.