"Boyett-EpiphanyBeach" - читать интересную книгу автора (Boyett Stephen R)

STEVEN R. BOYETT

EPIPHANY BEACH

THE CREATURE FROM THE Black Lagoon lies in his grotto reading a Jackie Collins
novel. His dorsal ridge is comfortably folded along the rough length of his
back. His head's propped on a smooth rock and he's smoking a Camel Light. The
cigarettes are a recent acquisition, a fringe benefit from putting the
heebie-jeebie into a smoker on the shore. They often leave a pack behind in
their sand-kicking haste to get the hell away.

The Collins novel, however, is not new. The Creature has read it three times
now. Or is it four? The thing is, his last novel was an old paperback copy of
Harold Robbins' The Betsy, which got soaked on the way to the grotto when the
baggie he'd placed it in somehow sprang a leak. The book never dried out
properly in the moist air, and before long it fell to pieces. The Creature had
threaded string through the separate pages and hung them in zigzags across the
grotto. He would walk in the dark from page to page, reading. The Creature can
see in the dark. Those huge, light-gathering eyes have seen fish that themselves
have never seen light.

That Harold Robbins sure could write.

Now, though, all people ever bring to read on the beach are Stephen King and
Danielle Steel and Jackie Collins. If anyone else out there is writing novels,
the Creature hasn't read them. Oh, sometimes there are ads for other novels, in
back of the books he scavenges, and he bubbles with curiosity about what they
must be like. Sidney Sheldon, for instance. He sure has written a lot of books.
He must be really good.

The tip of the Camel brightens as the Creature inhales. Blue smoke vents from
his gills to curl out of the faint orange light in the still air of the grotto.
The Creature turns a page and sees that this chapter ends on the page facing.
Ought to time out with the end of the cigarette. How about that.

In the book, a man and a woman are in bed with their clothes off. They do that a
lot in books, especially the Jackie Collins ones. It puzzles him. Oh, he knows
what sex is: it's how people make eggs. But he isn't too clear what a bed is.

The Creature has learned a lot about people from Jackie Collins. Also from
Stephen King, though those books scare the hell out of him. The monster usually
gets it at the end. Sometimes it doesn't, and the Creature feels a little
better, but mostly Stephen King writes tragedies.

The Jackie Collins people finish making eggs and light cigarettes. The Creature
takes a last long drag from his nonfictional unfiltered one, blows smoke from
his neck, and stubs the butt out against his plated thigh.