"Sunglasses After Dark v1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Collins Nancy A)

The shadow thing scurried through his brain, digging with the frantic energy of a burrowing rodent. When it finished ransacking his mind, it became very still, as if sensing Hagerty's awareness for the first time. And then it would smile.
Claude always woke up at that point, his limbs tingling as if from a mild electric shock.
Maybe he was going insane. All those years being exposed to crazy people were bound to have an effect, like water dripping on a stone, gradually eroding it away. His brain probably looked like the Grand Canyon.
He didn't feel insane, but that's how it starts; you're perfectly normal except for one little obsession, then-whammo! you're wearing hats made out of aluminum foil so the men from Planet X can't see into your head and read your thoughts.
But he knew he wasn't crazy. There was something wrong with Blue, S. Something no one wanted to acknowledge, much less talk about. Kalish was proof of that.
Hagerty didn't like thinking about the last time he saw Kalish. And without meaning to, he began to doze.
He was at work. He wasn't supposed to be there. It was his night off. He'd been bowling with some friends. Out late. Left something at work. Couldn't remember what. Decided to stop by and check his locker. It was after midnight when he got to Elysian Fields.
Went to the locker room. Surprised to see Red Franklin going off-shift. Red was supposed to be filling in for him. Red said there'd been a change in the schedule. Archie Kalish ended up pulling Claude's shift.
The dream memory begins to speed up and slow down at the same time. Kalish. The damned fools put Kalish in charge! His heart began pumping faster. He didn't want to go to the Danger Ward. He knew what he'd find there. But his dream pulled him down the corridor of memory. Maybe if he was faster, this time things would be different. His movements were slow and clumsy, as if he were moving underwater. The elevator took an eternity to arrive, the doors opening in slow motion. Hagerty wanted to scream at it to hurry up.

He shoved his hand into his trouser pocket, searching for the key ring that would give him access to the Danger Ward. His arm went in up to the elbow. His pocket had been replaced by a black hole. He reached farther down until his shoulder was level with his hip. His fingertips brushed cold metal and he withdrew the keys. His fingers were numb from being in the black hole and he had to struggle to keep from dropping the keys. Fumbling, he finally located the circular key that fit into the recessed override lock that would take him to the Danger Ward.
The elevator groaned and began its sluggish movement upward. Hagerty cursed and pounded his fists against the walls, trying to hurry the damn thing along.
Kalish! The idiots left Kalish up there. Alone. Unsupervised. Hagerty had no love for the bastard. It was rumored he abused patients, like poor Mrs. Goldman. And the brain-dead teenager in Ward C. The one who'd smacked her head into a dashboard at 80 mph. The one who turned up pregnant.
The doors of the elevator opened like a wound. The Danger Ward was dark, the only light coming from the empty nursing station. Claude moved forward, his feet adhering to the floor with every step. His muscles strained until he thought they'd tear from their moorings. His clothes were plastered to his skin.
The gate was unlocked, but had somehow trebled its weight. Dozens of voices were raised in mindless sound. As he continued down the hall, he separated individual words and occasional sentences from the verbal chaos.
"Mamamamama. . ."
"Blood . . . see blood . . . on the walls . . . the halls full . . . flood of blood. . . "
"They're here! I can feel them! Make them stop, please . . .
"Go away, go away, I don't want you here, go away. . ."
"Get her out of me! Get her out!"
Time expanded. Every heartbeat was an hour. Every breath a week. He could see his arm stretching out, his hand reaching for the door handle of Room 7. It took a year for his fingers to lock around the knob. Two years for it to turn in his grip. It was unlocked. Of course.
The door swung open and Hagerty saw he was too late. He would always be too late.
It was dark in Room 7. Unfortunately, there was still enough light for him to see what was going on.
Kalish was sprawled on his back, arms and legs akimbo. His pants and underwear were snarled around his ankles. He still had his shoes on. His legs were pale and skinny. Kalish's penis lay cold and wet against his thigh like an albino slug. Hagerty couldn't see Kalish's face because the room's tenant was kneeling over the body, her head tucked between its right shoulder blade and neck.
Time snapped and Hagerty found himself speeding toward the woman in the straitjacket. Grabbing her by the shoulders, he pulled her off the corpse and held her at arm's length. He caught a glimpse of Kalish's face and the shredded mess where his throat should have been.
Claude pinned the struggling madwoman against a wall, making sure her feet cleared the floor. Her screams, twisted by memory and dreamtime, began to echo inside his head.
When he was a kid he used to spend his summers on his grandparents' farm in Mississippi. During one of his vacations a swamp cat went rogue and terrorized the community, killing chickens and neighborhood pets. When an itinerant field-worker was found badly mauled in a ditch outside of town, the farmers formed a hunting party and chased the panther into a canebrake. Rather than risk their prize coon dogs by sending them after the big cat, they decided to set the field ablaze. The panther was roasted alive, screaming its rage and pain like a demon in hell.
The crazy woman opened her mouth, and the burning panther's yell came out.
All he could see of her face, hidden by a filthy tangle of hair, were eyes that resembled twin bullet holes. His throat burned with bile, but he managed to keep his grip on her.
What now? He couldn't hold her until the day shift showed up. And if he let go, she'd be on him before he could make it to the door. His arms ached as if skewers pierced his biceps.
A white-sleeved arm snaked around his left shoulder. Light glittered off glass and sterile steel as the syringe punctured the straitjacket and the flesh underneath. The woman shrieked, then went limp. Claude stepped away and allowed her to drop to the floor. She looked like a mistreated rag doll.
Dr. Wexler pushed Hagerty aside, kneeling beside the straitjacketed patient. Her head lolled back and for one brief moment Claude found himself looking into the eyes of an animal with its leg in a trap. Then he saw the blood on her mouth. As he watched, her tongue wriggled between her bloodied lips and licked them clean, like a cat grooming itself after the hunt.
Wexler glanced up at him. "Good job . . . Hagerty, isn't it? Good job." As he stood, Wexler wiped the palms of his hands against his pant legs. "Of course, none of this happened."
Wexler wasn't really looking at him. Claude turned to see two young men in dark suits and sunglasses dragging Kalish's body from the room by its ankles.
Wexler cursed out loud. He was staring at the drugged madwoman in undisguised disbelief. "She's coming to."
A high-pitched whine came from the woman in the straitjacket. Rocking from side to side, she rolled onto her stomach. Using her head for a prop, she inched her knees forward, looking like a Muslim at prayers. She turned her face toward Wexler and growled. Her upside-down grin was enough to make Claude back away.
The heavy door slammed behind Hagerty. He felt very cold, despite the sweat running down his back. Something thudded against the door from the other side.
Time melted and he was sitting in an all-hours joint near his house, trying to blot out sounds and sights. An old man hawking newspapers moved from table to table, selling the morning edition. Hagerty bought one and read about Kalish's second, official death.
Local Man Found Burned To Death In Car
I am drowning in the dreams of madmen.
I can feel them pressing against my brain, a dozen insistent ghosts with empty eyes and prying fingers. For the first time since I've reclaimed my flesh, I realize the extent of the Other's evolution. If I had remained doped any longer it would have been too late. I would never have found my way back and everything would be lost. Now I have the ability to shape nightmares. It is a power I do not want or relish, but the Other loves it.
I do not have the strength or the knowledge to block their dreams. The Other knows I can't-I won't-let it surface long enough to control the problem. I'm being pulled down by the undertow.
A smiling young man with the face of a bible student and the eyes of a reptile puts out a cigarette on the naked crotch of a four-year-old boy whose screams are warped and swallowed by the vacuum of dreamtime . . . I am surrounded by twisted mountains and weirdly sculpted buttes; the earth is a cracked spiderweb of baked red clay, where animals and people are staked out on the desert's floor. Horses, pregnant women, men in business suits, dogs, old ladies-they're all doused in kerosene; a man stands in the middle and laughs as he clicks his Zippo over and over and over . . . Walking through an empty house, where the doors are ajar I can see things crouching in the dimness, waiting for me to make the mistake of entering, but I'm afraid to stay in the corridors because I know something will jump out and grab me if I don't hide . . . Tied to an iron bedstead, hands manacled above my head, there is a figure made of leather standing at the foot of the bed; the leather demon is covered with zippers and spikes. As it lifts a hand to caress my face, I see the scalpels growing from its knuckles . . . and I start to laugh because I know I'm in a dream, but it's not me who is laughing; it's the Other. I try to run away because the Other is coming and I need to escape the dreamtime before it gains full control, but I get lost . . . Explosions of lava . . . animals that speak . . . letters in wax melt into walls of blood . . . the sound of the Second Angel crying like a hungry child . . . cadavers smeared with quicklime and cinders . . . burning dogs hanging from lamp posts . . . I'm standing in a barren room, staring at a tall, thin man dressed in institutional pajamas. He looks pissed.
"Get out of my head, bitch."
I've got to get out of here. The Other is free.
How pathetic. Minor-league monsters strutting and performing in their private Grand Guignols. How fucking lame. You want fear? You want terror? You want to see what it's really like?
You used to know, before they caught you and threw you in this playpen. Now you have to dream about blood and pain instead of living it out. You're no longer free to actualize the perfection of your private hells on the flesh of your victims. But that's the way life is. Once you're caught, assholes, you're at the mercy of others. Welcome to your nightmares.
The leather demon moved to strike the woman manacled to the bedframe. Laughing was not allowed. Screaming and begging for mercy, yes, but laughing was strictly forbidden. It raised its bristling fist in anticipation of slicing through unresisting flesh. The woman shrugged, indifferent to the threat, and the manacles fell away like cheap plastic toys. The leather demon faltered, realizing for the first time that the course of the dream had been altered. The woman was on her feet, and her hands attacked the demon's shiny black leather shell.
The face mask was a mass of fetish zippers. She ignored them, digging her fingers into the top of its skull and pulling downward with the ease of a woman peeling an orange. The leather demon started to struggle as its head split open, the husk parting to reveal empty air. There was no blood, no flesh. It raised a groping hand to where its head should have been. The scalpels and bits of jagged metal grafted to its knuckles began to rust away, turning into oxidized flakes of corrosion. Its body jerked crazily as the dream thing died, spurting invisible blood.
The Other strolled into the next dreamscape. At first there was only fire, then the inferno lessened and she could see the things that were burning.