"Card, Orson Scott - Lost Boys" - читать интересную книгу автора (Card Orson Scott)

LOST BOYS
Orson Scott Card
[21 may feb 2001 Ц scanned for #bookz, proofread and released Ц v1]
0: Boy
This is what his father always called him whenever he'd done something bad: "Where were you when this
happened, Boy? What did you think you were doing, Boy?"
He took that word inside himself and it became the name for all his bad desires. It was Boy who made him
play pranks that weren't funny to anybody Boy who made him cheat on tests when he felt like it in school, even
though he always knew the answers and didn't have to cheat. It was Boy who made him stand and watch from
the closet when his parents thought he was in bed and he saw them do the dog thing, Father's belly so loose and
jiggly, Mother so white and weak and dead while it happened, her breasts flopped out flat to either side like
fish. It was the worst thing Boy had ever made him do, to watch that, and to his sur prise Boy didn't like it, no,
Boy hated it even worse than he did, to see Father be so bad.
I will never do that, said Boy inside him. It's ugly to kill a woman like that and then make her still be alive
afterward so you can do it all again.
From then on when he looked at big women with their breasts and their secrets and their faces that could
turn dead looking at a man, Boy went away. Boy didn't want to be part of that game.
But that didn't mean that Boy was gone, no, nor silent neither. Boy was still there, and he got his way
sometimes, yes; and he found new things to want. Only Boy wasn't careful. Boy only wanted what he wanted
until he got it and then he went back into hiding and left him to take care of everything, to take all the blame for
what Boy had done even though he hadn't wanted to do it in the first place.
Now none of his people would let him near their children because of the things Boy had decided he had to
do. Damn you Boy! Die and damn you!
But they promised not to tell, says Boy. The children said they wouldn't tell but then they did.
What do you expect, you stupid ugly Boy? What do you expect, you evil Boy? Didn't you ever think maybe
there's another Boy inside them that makes them lie to you and promise not to tell but then they break their word
because their Boy made them? And now here you are, and that'll show you, Boy, because nobody will let you
near their children anymore so you'll just have to chew on yourself whe n you get hungry and drink yourself
when you get dry.
No I won't, says Boy. I'll make a place and I'll take them there and I won't ever believe them when they
promise not to tell. I'll take them there and nobody will know where they are and they'll never come back and so
they'll never tell.
You won't do anything like that, Boy, because I won't let you.
And Boy just laughed and laughed inside him, and he knew that he would do it all, he would prepare the
hiding place and then he would go and find them for Boy and bring them back, and Boy would do what he
wanted. Boy would not be afraid. Boy would do everything he thought of doing, because he knew that they
would never leave and they would never tell.
That was why those little boys in Steuben started disappearing, and why not one of them was found till
Christmas Eve in 1983.
1: Junk Man
This is the car they drove from Vigor, Indiana, to Steuben, North Carolina: a silvery-grey Renault 18i
deluxe wagon, an '81 model with about forty thousand miles on it, twenty- five thousand of which they had put
on it themselves. The paint was just beginning to get tiny rust-colored pockmarks in it, but the wiring had blown
about fifteen fuses and they'd had to put three new drive axles in it because it was designed so that when a ball
bearing wore out you had to replace the whole assembly. It couldn't climb a hill at fifty- five, but it could seat
two adults in the leather bucket seats and three kids across the back. Step Fletcher was driving, had been driving
since they finally got away from the house well after noon. Empty house. He was still hearing echoes all the
way to Indianapolis. Somewhere along the way he must have passed the moving van, but he didn't notice it or
didn't recognize it or maybe the driver had pulled into a McDonald's some where or a gas station as they drove
on by.