"Thomas M. Disch - The Shadow" - читать интересную книгу автора (Disch Thomas M)

couldnтАЩt explain. Children who were missing. Pets dying
mysteriously. On and on. Finally Angie had to claim a headache
and ask Lucille to leave without doing her nails.
When Lucille was gone, Angie went on sitting in the middle
of the kitchen with the queerest feeling inside her. She looked
down at her hands, where they were resting on her knees, and they
looked wrong, all wrinkled and knobby and discolored. Roy used to
joke that her name was really Angina at times like that when sheтАЩd
sit off by herself, not saying anything, claiming a headache. Which
wasnтАЩt true, the name on her birth certificate was Angelica, but no
one had ever called her by that name in her entire adult life. Roy
said it made her sound like a Catholic.
While she sat there, with the peculiar feeling, her shadow was
breaking loose. Shadows usually canтАЩt do that. Most of them always
stay fastened to the people theyтАЩre born with. Only if the person
gets very weak and the shadow gets strong at the same time can the
shadow break loose, and then the person usually dies soon after.
You can see them like that in hospitals sometimes, though it
mostly goes unnoticed, or misunderstood. People sitting by the bed
may think a light comes into the personтАЩs eyes just before they die,
but itтАЩs actually the reverse. Their shadows have left them, so their
eyes look brighter for a little while before they finally go cloudy
and dull at the very end.
AngieтАЩs shadow had been gaining strength all the while Lucille
had been reading from The Throne of Darkness. When Lucille had
taken her leave, sheтАЩd left the book behind, thinking Angie might
look at it while she was by herself. Angie hadnтАЩt even noticed the
book sitting there on the kitchen counter, but her shadow had.
Her shadow wanted to know more about Rosamond and
Ariston, but from where Angie was sitting only the spine was
visible, not the picture on the cover. So there was a kind of tug of
war between AngieтАЩs feeling of queerness and her shadowтАЩs feeling,
which was simpler and stronger, and finally it was her shadow who
won. It broke loose, and now it was Angie who was helpless and
her shadow who could move around and do things.
The shadow went over to the kitchen counter and looked at
the cover of The Throne of Darkness. There was Ariston, his face all
red but with deep shadows, as though he were standing above a
bonfire, and there was Rosamond in a red silk gown that matched
AristonтАЩs face. Yes, the shadow thought. IтАЩm so hungry. I wantтАж
But that was as far as it could get. It couldnтАЩt think what it
was it wanted. It opened the book and turned some pages, but that
didnтАЩt help. Shadows canтАЩt read. Once they tear loose from people,
shadows can get pretty stupid. They are like cockroaches, hungry
and restless.
The shadow remembered the Buick sitting in the garage. Tom
had tried to get his mother to sell the car to a dealer he knew, but
when sheтАЩd proved stubborn about that, Tom didnтАЩt insist. He
respected her feelings, and besides he figured the car would be his
soon enoughтАФa vintage 1976 Buick with low mileage and not a