"Jack Dann - Voices" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dann Jack)

you ... Crock-a-shit."

"Shut up!" Crocker snapped. "Can't you hear him?"

"Hear what?"

"Just listen."

I listened, I really did, but I couldn't hear a damn thing. Crocker was probably
off his nut, plain and simple. But I wasn't much better, not after I had just
seen the corpse glowing like the hands on a watch.

Who knows, maybe the dead guy could talk. And maybe Crocker could hear him.

But I just wanted to get out of there.

I was already feeling like the walls and everything were going to close in on
me.

"He's leaving," Crocker said. "He's saying good-bye to everybody. Cool! "

"Okay, then let's go," I said, but I couldn't help looking at the spot where
Crocker seemed to be staring, and I got the strangest feeling. Then I saw it: a
pool of light like a cloud that seemed to be connected to the body that was now
glowing softly again.

And the light was bleeding out of the corpse like it was the guy's spirit or
something.

A few seconds later the light just blinked out, as if someone had thrown a
switch; and the body looked different, too, as if something vital had just
drained out of it. Now it was nothing more than a shell; it looked like it was
made of plastic. It was dull, lifeless.

We left then. Crocker and I just left at the same time, as if we both knew
something.

And I heard thunder and remembered my father talking in the language only he
could understand; and I felt as if I was drowning in something as deep and as
big as the ocean.

When we got out of the funeral home, and past all the men standing around and
smoking cigarettes, Crocker said, "You heard him, didn't you? I could tell."
"I didn't hear nothin'," I said, protecting my ass.

"Bullshit," Crocker said.

"Bullshit on you," I said.

"Well, you were acting ... different," Crocker said.