"Barker, Clive - Books of Blood 02" - читать интересную книгу автора (Barker Clive)

Eight: she sleeps.
Nine: she pisses. Steve felt uncomfortable, watching the girl squatting on the bucket, knickers round her ankles. Tearstains on her face.
Ten: she drinks water from the jug.
Eleven: she sleeps again, back to the room, curled up like a foetus.
СHow long has she been in the room?Т
СThis was only fourteen hours in. She lost orientation as to time very quickly. No light change, you see. Her body-clock was fucked up pretty soon.Т
СHow long was she in here?Т
СTill the point was proved.Т
Twelve: Awake, she cruises the meat on the table, caught surreptitiously glancing down at it.
СThis was taken the following morning. I was asleep: the camera just took pictures every quarter hour. Look at her eyes...Т
Steve peered more closely at the photograph. There was a certain desperation on CherylТs face: a haggard, wild look. The way she stared at the beef she could have been trying to hypnotize it.
СShe looks sick.Т
СSheТs tired, thatТs all. She slept a lot, as it happened, but it seemed just to make her more exhausted than ever. She doesnТt know now if itТs day or night. And sheТs hungry of course. ItТs been a day and a half. SheТs more than a little peckish.Т

Thirteen: she sleeps again, curled into an even tighter ball, as though she wanted to swallow herself.
Fourteen: she drinks more water.
СI replaced the jug when she was asleep. She slept deeply:
I could have done a jig in there and it wouldnТt have woken her. Lost to the world.Т
He grinned. Mad, thought Steve, the manТs mad.
СGod, it stank in there. You know how women smell sometimes: itТs not sweat, itТs something else. Heavy odour: meaty. Bloody. She came on towards the end of her time. HadnТt planned it that way.Т
Fifteen: she touches the meat.
СThis is where the cracks begin to show,Т said Quaid, with quiet triumph in his voice. СThis is where the dread begins.Т
Steve studied the photograph closely. The grain of the print blurred the detail, but the cool mama was in pain, that was for sure. Her face was knotted up, half in desire, half in repulsion, as she touched the food.
Sixteen: she was at the door again, throwing herself at it, every part of her body flailing. Her mouth a black blur of angst, screaming at the blank door.
СShe always ended up haranguing me, whenever sheТd had a confrontation with the meat.Т
СHow long is this?Т
СComing up for three days. YouТre looking at a hungry woman.Т
It wasnТt difficult to see that. The next photo she stood still in the middle of the room, averting her eyes from the temptation of the food, her entire body tensed with the dilemma.
СYouТre starving her.Т

СShe can go ten days without eating quite easily. Fasts are common in any civilized country, Steve. Sixty per cent of the British population is clinically obese at any one time. She was too fat anyhow.Т
Eighteen: she sits, the fat girl, in her corner of the room, weeping.
СAbout now she began to hallucinate. Just little mental ticks. She thought she felt something in her hair, or on the back of her hand. IТd see her staring into mid-air sometimes watching nothing.Т
Nineteen: she washes herself. She is stripped to the waist, her breasts are heavy, her face is drained of expression. The meat is a darker tone than in the previous photographs.
СShe washed herself regularly. Never let twelve hours go by without washing from head to toe.Т
СThe meat looks. . .С
СRipe?Т
СDark.Т
СItТs quite warm in her little room; and thereТs a few flies in there with her. TheyТve found the meat: laid their eggs. Yes, itТs ripening up quite nicely.Т
СIs that part of the plan?Т
СSure. If the meat revolted when it was fresh, what about her disgust at rotted meat? ThatТs the crux of her dilemma, isnТt it? The longer she waits to eat, the more disgusted she becomes with what sheТs been given to feed on. SheТs trapped with her own horror of meat on the one hand, and her dread of dying on the other. Which is going to give first?Т
Steve was no less trapped now.
On the one hand this joke had already gone too far, and QuaidТs experiment had become an exercise in sadism.

On the other hand he wanted to know how far this story ended. There was an undeniable fascination in watching the woman suffer.
The next seven photographs - twenty, twenty-one, two, three, four, five and six pictured the same circular routine. Sleeping, washing, pissing, meat-watching. Sleeping, washing, pissing -Then twenty-seven.
СSee?Т
She picks up the meat.
Yes, she picks it up, her face full of horror. The haunch of the beef looks well-ripened now, speckled with fliesТ eggs. Gross.
СShe bites it.Т